"IsaacKuo" <mechdan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:d217239e-9c2c-44f6-86d3-5ebf2360e39c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
for The Mist movie
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On Mar 29, 2:37 pm, "Franklin Hummel" <hum...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> I was somewhat disappointed with the ending, which was very
> different
> from the ending of the novella.
What was the ending of the novella?
They stopped at a Howard Johnson's near the New Hampshire
border, David left his story (i.e. the novella there, hoping someone
might find it someday) and they drove off into the Mist, heading
toward Hartford, CT, which David believed he had heard mentioned on a
short-way radio he found at the Howard Johnson's.
By the way, I lived in Maine for over 20 years, including
during 1980 when "The Mist" was written, and had been to all the real
places mention in the story, including that Howard Johnson's.
> What I did not like it the fact that the Mist was suddenly
> dissolving
> for no apparent reason. The director went further than King did in
> his writing in giving the exact reason the Mist had appeared.
> But then, to have an ending that gives no reason why it is going
> away? Was the Army suppose to be doing it? That seems silly, as
> nothing was shown about how this was happening.
I was guessing that it had something to do with the flame
throwers or something, and the effect was temporary.
Especially after you corrected me on which direction they
were going (see below), I don't think this was temporary. That
implies they were coming *from* the Arrowhead Project and it seems
very likely then they managed to shut-down wherever was there the
Mist was entering from.
If you look at the flame-thrower, you will see it is being
used on a "spider"-webbed tree. Also, at the long shot at the end,
which looks quite aways back from where they came from, it is clear
of Mist for a long, long way.
Given this, I would say the source of the Mist had been
stopped by the military and it was now falling apart.
> So what bothered me about this is that it totally took away
> The-End-Of-The-World aspect (and even likelihood) that existed in
> Stephen King's story. That made it very *less* Lovecraftian for me
> and I had high hopes that THE MIST would remain as Lovecraftian as
> the novella was.
See above.
> Also, why is the military bring back in *civilians* at the same
> time
> they are still destroying the Mist's monsters? That is just absurd.
The direction the military was moving in was the same as the
main character's SUV. In other words, they were travelling
away from the town. Obviously, the military was evacuating
those civilians. But the mist was disappearing behind the
lead vehicles. That makes sense if they were doing something
that temporarily cleared out the mist--something good enough
to clear a path for the convoy.
You are right about the direction they were headed. And I
think it was way, way too far back for the Mist just to be going
temporary. And also, if you looked a very, very wide area as well,
far out of reach of the road and the flame-thrower. No, I don't see
the flame-throwers as destroying the Mist. I don't see how some
flame-throwers could get rid of so much *fog*.
Now I will state as I right this, I did not put my DVD in
again to check all the exact details, but I just don't see all these
events as being a temporary solution to the Mist, but a complete one.
In fact, given the truly horrible irony of the ending, not
having only the Mist disappear BUT there is also the strong
implication that David and the others had STAYED at the grocery
market, they would have survived. This makes the ending even
crueler.
> Also one of the woman on the carriers was the woman who first
> walked
> out into the Mist to get home to her two young children. The fact
> she
> survived I found stupid. Anyone who was going out into the Mist was
> being killed within minutes if not seconds.
> I can come up with some side-story of her and her children's
> survival, but it would be fairly illogical, because of not only
> their
> survival but *how* did she manage to get SO far South.
I don't see it as being such a stretch. On the first day, there may
not have been as many monsters about, and those monsters may
have been feasting on a "target rich environment". It's plausible
for someone to travel a short distance and survive out of luck.
Once at her nearby house, the house would have provided
protection as long as the windows weren't broken by the storm.
Well, as soon as the Mist came, the man who was going to his
car scream in terror and the implication was that he was killed and
eaten by the Mist monsters. Also, there is the man who comes running
into the story that something grabbed "John Lee" and he was running
just barely ahead of the Mist.
No, I have to say, there were monsters right at the edge of
the Mist. This would actually make sense for creatures to do, since
they would likely quickly realize that food (people, etc.) were
coming into the Mist at the very edges of it, they would be hanging
out there to get the fresh meals.
The big problem for the people trapped in the supermarket was
that there were just too many of them! It took them only a couple
days to decide to start killing each other. A house with just a
mom and her young kids wouldn't have that problem.
There was the "earthquake". That likely would have had a
worse effect on houses or apartment building then it did on a
supermarket.
The non-story reason why the woman was added into the end was
that the actors and crewmembers were very impressed by her "Won't
someone walk a lady home" (direct from the novella) speech and
someone suggested to the director that she ought to appear at the end
of the film. So the director went with that.
The rescue convoy couldn't have arrived in town more than a day
after the SUV set out, for them to catch up so quickly. That
means that the mom and her family only had to stay huddled
in their house for less than a week before rescue.
I still find it unreasonable she could have just happened to
get home alive. Given how quickly the other people were killed at
the very edges of the Mist.
Now, I think once the idea of having her at the end was
suggested to the director, he added it because it was an even further
*twist of the knife* to David after all that had happened to him and
what he had done.
And, as I said above, it would therefore be likely whoever
stayed at the Supermarket was also saved.
This was a deliberately *cruel* ending. The director talks
about it in a way as if he believed it was unavoidable. (He compared
it to events in THE GREEN MILE, which he also directed.) He is right
that the mercy killing was strongly implied in King's story (and the
likely outcome of the events after the novella -- I just do not think
they would have had the gas they needed to get to Hartford -- and
that is assuming somehow that Hartford was clear of the Mist and that
the Mist would not have reached it and past it by the time they got
there.
The mercy killings were, for me, a reasonable, logical, and
emotionally-hard ending. The rest of it was just to make it
purposely *cruel*. I think in addition to taking away the
Lovecraftian End-of-the-World ending, the other events seemed to be
nasty just to be *nasty*.
-- Franklin Hummel in Boston, Massachusetts
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