10 Movie Messages Completely Undermined By Their Ending
Anyone can be a Jedi - especially if you're a Palpatine, right?
Even the least preachy and message-y of movies will ultimately be about something, no matter how much of an escapist thrill-ride they might otherwise be.
The vast majority of films make their central themes incredibly obvious, such that audiences can easily appreciate the point-of-view and connect emotionally with it.
But sometimes films don't quite get the balance right, and what might seem like an acceptable enough message ends up getting jumbled, mangled, and straight-up contradicted by the end.
Inspired by this fantastic recent Reddit thread, these 10 movies all touted fairly obvious, simple messages for general audiences, but totally betrayed this in the film's climax.
While it's fair to say that everyone has opinions and is very vocal about them in our social media age, these 10 films stick out as especially uneven where their messaging is concerned.
These ending left many viewers considering whether they were supposed to disregard the very ideas each movie seemed to be raising up to that point.
Given the importance of a strong ending that ties the plot, characters, and themes together, some of these endings might've even ruined these films outright...
10. It's Important To Trust People - Raya & The Last Dragon
Raya and the Last Dragon's central thematic is about trust, that the world will only get better if you're able to co-operate with the people around you.
Sisu (Awkwafina) straight-up tells the cynical protagonist Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) that she can't expect others to trust her if she herself cannot trust others.
And yet, Raya's open distrust is completely understandable given that her friend from another tribe, Namaari (Gemma Chan), literally betrays her in an attempt to help her own clan steal the focal magical gem.
More to the point, Namaari betrays Raya a second time later in the film, resulting in Sisu's death, so to say that the world is a mess because of mutual distrust doesn't quite wash considering what Raya has experienced with her "friend."
The ending even straight-up criticises Raya for her distrust apparently playing a part in Sisu's death, before she and Namaari finally make peace with one another.
Yeah, sometimes it's completely reasonable to not trust somebody, and in the case of Namaari nobody could be blamed for giving her the side-eye.
Inadvertently, the message some kids might take away from this movie is "let people walk all over you time and time again."