On Mar 31, 3:18 pm, "Franklin Hummel" <hum...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "IsaacKuo" <mech...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
news:d217239e-9c2c-44f6-86d3-5ebf2360e39c@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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spoilers for The Mist movie
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> On Mar 29, 2:37 pm, "Franklin Hummel" <hum...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> 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.
That's what it looks like, I agree, but then it doesn't make any
sense for the lead vehicles to be travelling ahead of the "front",
and it makes even less sense for them to be evacuating the
people away from the clear area into the mist...
....oh.
I just realized a bizarre possibility. Mist wouldn't clear away
like that unless it was being pushed away by something else.
So, what if the Arrowhead project doorway to the mist world
were closed, but the doorway were redirected to an even nastier
world? This even more horrific dimension is now spilling into
the world, pushing away the mist (possibly including airborne
toxins and/or disease, based on the equipment of the
soldiers).
Okay, okay, let's put aside that idle speculation. It does make
for an interesting excuse for evacuating the civilians away from
the town, though.
> 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.
Right. Ultimately, the only reason for so many deaths was
the fact that the people stuck in the supermarket literally
couldn't live with each other--not even for a couple days.
> >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.
Yes, and for all we know they got unlucky. The people in the
pharmacy left the door propped open, which doomed them.
The main character's wife was stuck in a house with damaged
windows, which doomed her. We don't know how well others
fared.
> 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.
Okay, but by the time the mom left the supermarket, the mist
edge had already passed by. The monsters could have been
concentrated near the edges. In particular, there could have
been one monster that was specifically chasing that first guy.
Thus, when the other guy ran for his car, the monster was
right there to nab him. Since the monster was chasing one
human, and he managed to catch one human, he may have
assumed that was the only one around and continued to
follow the edge of the mist looking for its next victim.
This assumes, of course, that the monsters can't see through
glass. This seems to be consistent with what we see in the
movie. My guess while watching the movie was that the
monsters see thermal wavelengths or something like that--they
can see through the mist that obscures visible wavelengths in
their world, but can't see through glass.
> >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 small windows of a typical house would likely fare better
than the huge plate glass panels of that supermarket front.
The main damage mechanism we see in the movie is from
fallen trees.
> > 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.
Yes, of course.
> > And, as I said above, it would therefore be likely whoever
> >stayed at the Supermarket was also saved.
Very likely. Having been deprived of their insane leader, they
wouldn't have been sacrificing each other any more. And
they certainly didn't need any more evidence that heading
out of the supermarket wasn't a good idea.
> 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*.
I don't know exactly how I feel about the ending, but I did see it
coming a mile away. Bear in mind, I did not know how the novella
ended. I just thought of what could be the worst possible irony.
Because up until that point, the general pattern was that everything
the "good guys" do that makes logical sense backfires and turns
into a death laden disaster.
I thought it impossibly "happy" for the survivors to be rescued,
and so my mind thought of what would be the worst way for it
to backfire.
Ultimately, I thought it was interesting to shockingly transform
a global horror into a particularly personal horror. What's worse,
a horror that involves the death and suffering of everybody, or
one that only one man can suffer?
Isaac Kuo
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