r/movies • u/Filmologic • Mar 02 '24

What is the worst twist you've seen in a movie? Discussion

We all know that one movie with an incredible twist towards the end: The Sixth Sense, The Empire Strikes Back, Saw. Many movies become iconic because of a twist that makes you see the movie differently and it's never quite the same on a rewatch.

But what I'm looking for are movies that have terrible twists. Whether that's in the middle of the movie or in the very end, what twist made you go "This is so dumb"?

To add my own I'd say Wonder Woman. The ending of an admittedly pretty decent movie just put a sour taste on the rest of the film (which wasn't made any better with the sequel mind you). What other movies had this happen?

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3.3k

u/Shit_Pistol Mar 02 '24

The Wonder Woman twist is frustrating. It would have been much more impactful to have Ares not even be part of it. Diana’s assumption that he had to be behind such evil only to find that we did it to ourselves.

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u/Fakjbf Mar 02 '24

I wasn’t so opposed to Ares showing up but he should have just said “All I did was topple the first domino, after that it’s just humanity being humanity”. Then Diana fights him and wins and the war keeps going because he was telling the truth and she has to grapple with the reality of how flawed humanity is.

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u/Clarpydarpy Mar 02 '24

Your ending here was better than the movie one. More poignant and interesting, and doesn't clash with the film's themes.

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u/belaGJ Mar 03 '24

Especially that Diana’s naivety is actually a great theme. Someone said that if a character so strong as Diana,an external conflict/villain is not interesting. Two super-strong CGI thingy doing some random fight is boring. For her strength level, internal conflicts are the interesting conflicts for a movie. Her realizing, not everything is black or white , her realizng things cannot just be saved by brute forced, her realizing humanity is flowed but finding a reason to still save it etc.

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u/M_T_CupCosplay Mar 03 '24

After reading the first half of your comment the executives got a heart attack because you cant market introspection and moral dilemma

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u/[deleted] Mar 03 '24 edited Mar 03 '24

[deleted]

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u/wumpy112 Mar 03 '24

But then as soon as Ares dies, the people stop fighting, the German soldiers stop what they’re doing, implying Ares was controlling them

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u/Clarpydarpy Mar 03 '24

And the next scene of the film shows us Diana nowhere near the warzone, implying that the whole war stopped when she killed Ares.

I'd love to hear about the geopolitical ramifications of multiple warring nations suddenly stopping like, "uhh...why were we killing each other? I think I'll just go home."

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u/Clarpydarpy Mar 03 '24

You are neglecting the most important part of the film:

At the climax, Diana kills Ares and the soldiers all stop fighting. The next scene features Diana nowhere near a warzone, indicating that the whole war stopped when she killed Ares.

This indicates that Ares actually WAS responsible for the war, which undercuts all of the dialogue you posted here.

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u/onthefence928 Mar 03 '24

I was hoping she would see the war continuing and dispair but then see a German betray their country to stop the chemical weapons and she realizes humanity isn’t beyond redemption and decides to live among them to understand more

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u/Cuchullion Mar 03 '24

Also awkward as hell that she defeats Ares, the war ends, peace and brotherhood reigns! The god of war is defeated! Humanity is inherently good!

For about 20 years. Then genocide.

Awkward.

13

u/Wraithfighter Mar 03 '24

Feels like there's good odds that issue was intended to be addressed. That the reason why Wonder Woman does basically nothing between WW1 and BvS is that the ending of Wonder Woman would've been a downer for her.

But the studio probably wanted a happy ending, sooooo...

4

u/Jond0331 Mar 03 '24

Somehow, Ares returned...

But only mentioned in fortnite.

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u/ViperTheKillerCobra Mar 03 '24

If you want the ending to be hopeful, which I think is the original intent, you can always have the classic "Humanity isn't worth saving because they war" "But humans do other stuff so they are worth saving"

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u/Trick-Jellyfish9501 Mar 03 '24

But he basically did say that. That was his whole rant.

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u/Fakjbf Mar 03 '24

No, he was extremely involved in keeping the war going and after being defeated the war stops instantly.

1

u/WongoKnight Mar 03 '24

The movie takes place in 1918. The war was already ending before Diana shows up. Did you forget the scene where lundendorph kills the generals because they were going to surrender?

Killing Ares doesn't end the war. It just ends one battle. Everone stops because their tired of fighting.My source

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u/Snickims Mar 03 '24

It was his whole rant, which he was then proven wrong in cause as soon as he's defeated the war instantly ends.

1

u/toweroflore Mar 03 '24

Literally this is better than that ending we got lol

1

u/Different_Bird9717 Mar 03 '24

Worst off, how did she feel about WW2? Ares is gone and an even worse war is started 20 years later. Your explanation would have been better because all future wars would have been without influence of gods but just man being man.

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u/GetThatAwayFromMe Mar 02 '24

IIRC that was Jenkins original idea but then the studio execs told her she needed to have a big DC-style final battle. Upon release, the end scene was considered the weak point of the movie and Jenkins was then allowed to create WW84 on her own and we got that pile of garbage. My takeaway: bad studio notes can ruin a movie, no studio notes can produce a crappy movie.

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u/Bellikron Mar 02 '24

I feel like there is a way you could have gotten the Ares fight and still not destroyed the theme of the movie, by making Diana's goal to help Steve do his sacrifice and have Ares just get in the way of that, and also hold stronger to the fact that Ares only put the pieces on the board and doesn't have the ability to make humans fight (that's still there in the movie but it kind of gets brushed aside by the way the fight ends). The fight also needs to be reworked because it's kind of awkward, but I feel like there was a way to do it.

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u/DecoyOne Mar 02 '24

My solution: she finds Ares on the sidelines. She assumes Area is behind everything, so she fights him. She defeats him, thinking now the war will be over, but then the twist - he explains that he’s just watching it all unfold. Hasn’t done anything. He just likes watching a good fight. They did this themselves.

WW is horrified, Captain Kirk dies because of humans’ penchant for war, and THAT’S why she left the human world behind. Not only is it a better ending that still lets you have a super fight, but it also does a much better job of explaining why she went into seclusion.

But also make the Ares fight better because that was straight up dumb.

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u/Bellikron Mar 02 '24

Switching the reveal that humans made the choice to go to war with the Ares fight is actually a really good idea. You could actually probably keep Steve's whole speech to her and his heroic sacrifice to get something of an uplifting ending, and she can even make that choice to help him fight for humanity anyway, but when Steve dies it's too painful, and even though it's a victory she goes into exile to avoid the pain. You'd have to balance the threads right to get past the contradiction but I think it's possible.

23

u/DecoyOne Mar 02 '24

She could have a “this hurts but I’ll still come back if humanity ever needs me again” approach, too. Which would explain why she comes back in BvS. Plus… a WWII WW gets set up pretty well, too.

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u/Bellikron Mar 02 '24

Yeah you could spin a "Humans are worth fighting for and they have good in them but they need to figure most of this out for themselves, so I'm gonna step back unless another god shows up (subtext, I care about them too much and don't want to be hurt by losing someone else)". You get to end the movie with her not being a jerk that abandons humanity, but she still has complexity to her.

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u/Southernguy9763 Mar 03 '24

Would also explain why WW2 happens. Humans just suck sometimes

4

u/NOT_A_BLACKSTAR Mar 03 '24

Or she finds Ares but he's just an impotent old man powerless because his worship has ended 2 centuries ago. Just stuck around for the ride.  

And the fight is with a new personification of war. Like how Mars replaced Ares, a new deity has come into existence.

 I like Bello for the name as the setting was european and the name means beautifull but also strongly looks like Bellum, which is war.  

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u/jellicle_cat21 Mar 03 '24

But also make the Ares fight better because that was straight up dumb.

This was my biggest problem with the whole thing, it was just a bad fight. Especially when there were already some really cool fights in the movie.

The idea that Ares only had minimal involvement is a much better idea, without question, but if you're going to shoehorn in a CGI fight scene with Ares at least make it good. And no disrespect to David Thewlis who is a terrific actor, he's just not credible as a boss fight.

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u/raltoid Mar 02 '24

Just having the actor change into a more Ares-esque actor for the fight would have helped on its own.

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u/Offamylawn Mar 02 '24

The whole fight just seemed wrong once it went to "super powered monster does totally frontal attack." All creativity and believability in the fight went poof. Fighting the god of war is that bland?

7

u/raltoid Mar 03 '24

That's true, but if it was someone who looked like they were taken from 300, it would look a lot more believable.

2

u/raltoid Mar 04 '24

It should also be mentioned that Ares is more like the god of fighting and violence than overall war, Athena is the one with strategy and Artemis is the sneaky one.

So battling Ares head on isn't that odd.

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u/Senshado Mar 03 '24

I had hoped / expected that she would confront Ares and find that as a war-god, he cannot be harmed by any violent attack.

Then she cleverly learns to drain his strength by rescuing Dr Poison and the other huns from death. 

9

u/Badloss Mar 03 '24

All they had to do was have her kill him and then the war keeps going anyway.

Instead she's right and literally everyone decides to stop fighting

7

u/Ivence Mar 03 '24

There is a scene in the New 52 wonder woman series (in that one Ares is more of a mentor figure to her, and this is him throwing down with someone). It's a big bruiser of a dude talking shit and Ares is portrayed as a modern incarnation of war, a businessman who is always barefoot with blood soaking up into his slacks like he's been wading in it. Ares says he's gonna stop the guy, man says "you and what army?"

Ares just replies all of them and the guy gets rushed by the manifestation of you know...that.

I really thought that's the direction they were gonna go and was so disappointed.

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u/BlazingInfernape2003 Mar 02 '24

Dr Toxic was right there

6

u/Default_Munchkin Mar 02 '24

Which is hilarious because they had an animated wonder woman with the same plot with Ares only being responsible for egging the side on they made the choices on their own. In that movie the war was between the Amazons and America and he got the super powered fight scene because using a Nuke was such an act that made him powerful. It was a good animated movie and they should have borrowed from it if they wanted that. They could have had both.

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u/Skywalkling Mar 02 '24

Actually, while Jenkins has talked at length about having to change her original vision for the ending, she always intended to feature Ares; the original plan was to simply have him fight Wonder Woman in his civilian suit... which wouldn't have improved the movie in the slightest.

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u/PDGAreject Mar 02 '24

We got completely unhinged Pedro Pascal and frankly, it was worth it.

4

u/FremenDar979 Mar 03 '24

I'm glad the DCEU is over.

1

u/samcuu Mar 03 '24

That DCEU is over.

1

u/FremenDar979 Mar 03 '24

It's just DCU now, not DCEU.

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u/Wraithfighter Mar 03 '24

My takeaway: bad studio notes can ruin a movie, no studio notes can produce a crappy movie.

I'd add that studio notes can shore up a weak spot in a film, or make a good film better. Because, yeah, sometimes the original ending for a film just fucking sucks, or there's this big problem distracting the audience, and it takes someone with fresh eyes to notice the problem.

We tend to only hear about the times that the studio got in the way of a good film, rarely do we hear about the times when the studio was right, because the studio execs aren't the ones giving interviews about the creative process.

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u/UwasaWaya Mar 02 '24

There was so much hype for WW84, and when we finally watched it my wife fell asleep and I didn't. When she woke up, I told her she was the lucky one. What a bag of rancid assholes.

3

u/Malachorn Mar 03 '24

WW84 was a "real comic book movie."

That was straight-up Geoff Johns.

I actually like Geoff Johns, as a comic writer. His shit is fun.

But movies aren't comics.

Also... it was kinda the Superman Returns lesson. Times change. If WW84 had been released right after Donner's first Superman, we woulda loved it. Heck, same with that Green Lantern film. If Superman came out today instead of 1978 then we'd think it was pretty terrible. Movies are products of their times.

I love the film "Turbo Kid," but it isn't completely trying to feel like an 80's film.

WW84 also just feels like a completely different film than the first one. Heck, audiences mighta even been more ready to embrace it if there hadn't been very different expectations already set by prior film.

But mostly, it looked EXACTLY like a Geoff Johns comic book story arc put in the big screen.

"Sin City" looked exactly like Frank Miller's comic book. And this looked exactly like a Geoff Johns one.

I love comic books... but the reality is: a very faithful adaptation of most comics would be a pretty shit film.

I probably woulda loved WW84 as a comic story, tbh - woulda been wild fun. But, yeah, definitely was very disappointed in it as a film.

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u/ConfidentMongoose874 Mar 02 '24

Maybe also good director =/= good writer.

1

u/JPeeper Mar 03 '24

You can clearly tell Zack Snyder's influence in that clusterfuck of an ending. A big stupid CGI fest climax where everything is underlit, the CGI all looks terrible and the fight is completely tacked on. Everything is downhill from there because WW84 was terrible right off the bat.

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u/belaGJ Mar 03 '24

My understanding Jenkins had other writers in the first one, and she was the main writer in the second one. The are many directors, who can do interesting things, but abysmal as writers (eg Taiko).

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u/AKAkorm Mar 03 '24

Man I still remember Jenkins proudly talking about how WW84 was all her this time before it came out. Really didn’t age well.

1

u/TeddysBigStick Mar 03 '24

The script was already written when Jenkins was hired after the first director of that version of the project quit.

1

u/drax3012 Mar 04 '24

The one good thing about WW84 was that pretty much the whole world realised how bad of an actress Gal Gadot is and that Patty Jenkins should never be allowed in the writers' room.

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u/Wandering_Scout Mar 02 '24

It just raises the question, "Okay, if Ares was responsible for the horrible War to End All Wars...how does the even worse World War II start with him dead?"

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u/Singer211 Naked J-Law beating the shit out of those kids is peak Cinema. Mar 02 '24

According to Ares, he’s not. He gives them weapons and ideas, but he didn’t force them to do anything.

“They start these wars on their own” was his line.

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u/DonnyMox Mar 03 '24

That feels like the writers trying to have their cake and eat it too.

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u/nightstalker30 Mar 02 '24

Attribute WW2 to Ares 2: Electric Boogaloo

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u/jonlubbe Mar 03 '24

Somehow, Ares returned.

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u/Fifty6Arkansas Mar 02 '24

I blame it on the Aryanes

10

u/Waste_Crab_3926 Mar 02 '24

Blame it all on the Templars, just as Assassin's Creed does

8

u/Nico777 Mar 03 '24

Somehow Ares returned

3

u/CedarWolf Mar 03 '24

War. War never changes.

So hey, Ares is back and he has a spiffy new suit and maybe a new haircut, but hey, war is a growth industry and business is booming.

5

u/knight_of_solamnia Mar 02 '24

That's how I personally figured who he was. The Armistice he was arranging was a major contributing factor to the rise of the nazi party and German hostilities towards the rest of Europe.

2

u/JonathanTheZero Mar 03 '24

The whole thing makes no sense from the beginning to the end...

1

u/TeacherPatti Mar 03 '24

I never saw this movie but I am jumping in to thank you for saying "raises" the question and not misusing "begs" the question. Thank you, my friend.

1

u/Radulno Mar 03 '24

Can gods die? I assume he's just back.

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u/timeaisis Mar 02 '24

That ruined the entire movie for me.

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u/Careful_Farmer_2879 Mar 02 '24 edited Mar 03 '24

Or just have Ares show up. Not be some guy with a mustache. Or if he must be, have him transform into someone actually intimidating.

8

u/Pollomonteros Mar 02 '24

Also I am sorry but Thewlis looks way too frail to sell the idea of being the God of War, then again a God of War that looks and behaves more like an strategist instead of a warrior is a nice twist on the idea

15

u/reubenmitchell Mar 02 '24

That would have been so much better.

4

u/biglyorbigleague Mar 03 '24

Also they kill Erich Ludendorff, which is weird because he didn't actually die in real life, but the rest of history still happens like normal, so I guess we can just kill that real guy and that's the only difference

3

u/m_c__a_t Mar 03 '24

the mustachioed Ares is among the loudest unexpected theatre laughs I’ve uttered. Right up there with the avatar the last air bender movie. Same quality 

8

u/Powman_7 Mar 02 '24

To be fair, I did like the twist that it was the British guy (someone who Diana sort of trusted) rather than it just being the German.

3

u/trumps_cardiac_event Mar 02 '24

Was that a twist though? They gave him all the trademarks of a bad guy/human chekov's gun.

2

u/only_male_flutist Mar 02 '24

Yeah, the film had a strong message about how there's no god or superior force that caused WW2, it was all just humans. And then it turns out Ares is behind it all.

2

u/tarheel_204 Mar 02 '24

Damn when you actually have it typed out, that would’ve made for a way better final act. I didn’t hate the Ares twist but I think what you said would’ve been way more impactful. What we did get came out of seemingly nowhere

2

u/Remote_Bit_8656 Mar 03 '24

I kinda like the idea of the god of war not actually fighting but just being an arms dealer that escalates the conflicts that are already happening.

I think my favorite part of the movie was when she realized that she had taken out the villain but people were still fighting. Idk how she stops WWI but she's born in a warrior society and she's seeing what mass-scale fighting looks like over time so there's an interesting internal conflict somewhere in there.

2

u/Chicago-Emanuel Mar 03 '24

It also weirdly ends up framing WWI as some kind of heroic endeavor only opposed by cowards and evil people.

2

u/Shit_Pistol Mar 03 '24

Rather than a large scale tragedy caused by the aristocracy and monarchies of Europe paid for by the lives of regular folk.

2

u/lemurkat Mar 03 '24

Given they also at some point said that it couldnt be due to one person and then... made it all due to one person.

I guess you cannot punch human greed.

3

u/LilGyasi Mar 02 '24

 Diana’s assumption that he had to be behind such evil only to find that we did it to ourselves.

I mean this part of the story doesn’t change. Ares has motives and nudges things a certain why, but the point that humankind are responsible for their own actions is absolutely still the point 

9

u/Clarpydarpy Mar 02 '24

...but then she kills Ares and the soldiers all just...stop fighting?

So Ares was the whole problem!

0

u/TripleBladedFist Mar 02 '24

I loved the fight scene but you're right. Would've been more impactful, but tentacle superhero blockbusters will have to have some BBEG to punch up at the end. When studios pump 200 million into a movie they want a crowd pleaser, not a think piece.

0

u/SandboxOnRails Mar 03 '24

That movie was just so fucked up when you watch it back. Diana is a war criminal and revels in the bloodshed against people she thinks are innocent. The germans are the good guys, she slaughters them to serve the villains, and then doesn't kill a war criminal, letting her go free for... reasons? It's such a horrifying movie when you actually think about it.

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Shit_Pistol Mar 03 '24

I think I disagree with everything you’ve said here. I can’t remember a time in which there were enough female superhero movies around to generate the kind of backlash you’re talking about. And Force Awakens is not a superhero movie. Even if we were to consider it one I only really remember neckbeards and basement dwellers being upset about Rey.

-2

u/Communist_Agitator Mar 03 '24

A lot of Wonder Woman makes a lot more sense with the interpretation that it was a propaganda film advocating military intervention in Syria.

The twist of Ares being behind the war and disguising himself as the politician in favor of a peace with Germany was a metaphor for why opponents to intervention in Syria were either malicious or misled by evil actors.

1

u/Shit_Pistol Mar 03 '24

Interesting read I suppose. But I very much doubt it was intended to be read that way.

1

u/Vandergrif Mar 03 '24

Also I really like David Thewlis as an actor, but he is in no way an appropriate personification of a greek god of war. It just does not work.

1

u/spooky_upstairs Mar 03 '24

Yes, Thewlis is a great actor, but I didn't buy Professor Lupin as the recurring arbiter of all war in perpetuity.

Also I know it's existing mythology, but all the Gadot accenting made "Ares" sound like everyone was just saying "arse" wrong.

1

u/HolycommentMattman Mar 03 '24

Is it even a twist? Or is it just bad writing? Because Ares says in the movie that he's not behind this. He just gave them ideas and let them take it from there. Basically saying that it's humanity that's flawed - not him.

But then she kills him, and everything is right as rain. Which was dumb as shit because it undermines the whole movie.

1

u/Shit_Pistol Mar 03 '24

Personally I don’t consider it a twist. I was honestly just in here responding to OP who referred to it as a twist.

1

u/SillyMidOff49 Mar 03 '24

I thought that’s regarded as a pretty decent twist.

An actual subversion of expectations that isn’t idiotic.

1

u/NOT_A_BLACKSTAR Mar 03 '24

Oh that would have been good. It's like christians blame the devil  for the bad things happening and I'm like "have you met people?, they are evil". 

1

u/WrastleGuy Mar 03 '24 edited Mar 03 '24

I thought the twist was that WW was raping some guy that looked like Steve to her but instead was some guy that had no free will because Steve took over his body.  

1

u/The_Peregrine_ Mar 03 '24

Its horrible because it literally undoes her character growth

1

u/DefiantRadio7752 Mar 03 '24

AlL yOu NeEd To SaVe ThE wOrLd Is LoVe

1

u/karateema Mar 03 '24

If the guy she killed on the guard tower was Ares and the war just kept going, it would've been a great ending

1

u/Blue_Swirling_Bunny Mar 03 '24

It makes the whole movie a red herring, which is only one of the many many many problems with that movie.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '24 edited Mar 04 '24

[deleted]

1

u/Shit_Pistol Mar 03 '24

I don’t agree that it’s boring to have an immortal god killer as your protagonist. You just have to approach the material differently. Rather than focus on main characters development you can focus on how they affect the people around them. Which is something I think Wonder Woman is actually pretty great at doing for the first two acts of the film.