10 Most Disappointing Endings In Movie History
1. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
The crowning jewel of disappointment. The Indiana Jones films were one of those series that came as close to a perfect trilogy as you could get, alongside the Star Wars Originals and Lord of the Rings. But with Hollywood comes rehashed ideas, and just like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, Indy’s amazing originals were followed up with an awful, rushed-out attempt to recapture the pop culture zeitgeist that made those films so great.
Crystal Skull has a number of problems attached to it. The nuclear fridge was one thing, Tarzan LaBeouf was another, but there was still a chance that it could end in a satisfying, classic Indiana Jones way. The Indy films had always had some measure of the supernatural, be it face-melting gas, invisible walkways or still-beating hearts after being ripped out of the chest. But these moments were part of the intrigue, and the unexplained was simply a part of Indy’s vocabulary and why the films were so mysterious.
Who, then, decided that Crystal Skull should end with aliens? Literal aliens! There’s no mystery to be left to the viewers’ imagination; there’s no intrigue in the history of the ruins, it’s all just explained away by “aliens”. Even worse, it then demystifies all the other Indy films, by suggesting all that paranormal stuff could just have been ancient alien technology. Maybe this wouldn’t have been so bad if the film hadn’t abused CGI for almost every scene, which had made the aliens look uncanny and fake.
The same thing happened with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, too - the Prequel Trilogy and The Hobbit series were similarly criticised for their overuse of CGI. Maybe there’s a lesson or two to be learned here, huh?