13 Small Changes That Would Make Terrible Movies Awesome

3. Everyone Dies At The End - Knowing

Speaking of a potentially terrific film that was ruined by a terrible ending, Nicolas Cage's 2009 sci-fi thriller was also derailed by its absolute head-scratcher of a finale.

After Professor John Koestler (Cage) and Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) spend the entire movie trying to figure out how a series of numbers will predict the impending end of the world, the ending reveals that a solar flare is set to imminently destroy Earth. So far so good, right?

Well, in a moment of totally absurd deus ex machina, John and Diana's kids and countless others are rescued by otherworldly alien entities and whisked away from Earth in spaceships, shortly before the solar flare arrives and annihilates all life on the planet.

There's so much brilliantly haunting imagery in this movie, especially in its final moments as John embraces his family while Earth is wiped out, that it's a shame the weird alien rescue plot had to be thrown in there for no good reason.

Wouldn't it have been so much more impactful if there was no lucky escape for the kids, and all human life was swiftly destroyed by a random catastrophe?

Cut the alien nonsense out and this is an unexpectedly strong effort.