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Endings that could have made this one a classic (imho):
posted by Master_YODASTAFFMOD on February 19, 2017 at 7:46 AM
I really liked the first 2/3 of the movie. I wasn´t expecting the whole moral dilemma of Jim´s and Auroras relationship. That was great!
But then came the perfect Hollywood Ending. He saves everybody and she chooses by free will to stay with him - pretty lame.
What I would have preferred:
1) (small change) As mentioned in the movie, putting somebody to hibernation requires a complicated medical procedure. So the pod seemed like a deus-ex-machina.
They should have left that option out and give the end a dark shadow.
Jim and her saved everybody - but she had no option to go back to sleep. She HAS to stay.
It would be a morally more ambiguous ending.
2) (big change) (read something similar in a thread)
Jim dies saving everybody. Aurora is all alone. We get a sequence with Aurora mirroring Jim´s phases of being alone. Film ends with her waking somebody up. End.
Still a 7 out of 10 for me.
Reply by jeebs
on March 22, 2017 at 3:47 PM
I vote for ending number two. Good post Master_YODA.
Reply by lantzn
on March 23, 2017 at 3:12 AM
Plus Jim didn't just walk around thinking I should wake someone up and then walk to the nearest pretty girl and wake her. He was about to commit suicide, saw her, spent a long time studying her videos and writing, fell in love, then woke her.
Reply by Renovatio
on March 23, 2017 at 3:58 AM
exactly.... he saw a hot girl and that kicked his survival/procreation instincts into gear... he's only human... all of studying her videos and writing is either stalker 101, or just curiosity triggered by attraction...
this is why i think he was miscast or misdirected. he's too desexualised and semi-virginal... that's one thing that is really missing from this movie and would have made a more open-ended, ambiguous ending more powerful and thought provoking. Think of Master_Yoda's option 2 in the original post by where the director cuts while she is contemplating the decision to wake someone up. Without the context of sexual attraction and the will to procreate it becomes a question of "do i wake someone up because I'm bored and lonely" as opposed to acknowledging the reality of sexual motives and the urge to reproduce to survive to the next generation "do i wake up a mate that will fulfil my sexual needs and allow my genes to continue to the next generation"
That would add a layer of depth that is missing from this movie. Our species didn't make it this far by resigning ourselves to circumstance.
Reply by Verfed
on March 23, 2017 at 12:43 PM
That's too much biological determinism; no life, just chance and instincts like animals. No free will, no love nor loneliness, just biology, genes. No story, no humanity. It'd be boring.
Reply by Renovatio
on March 23, 2017 at 8:24 PM
that's not my point. not biological determinism, rather not to ignore the very real instincts at play... I mean, the guy is basically in a "last man in the universe" scenario from his genes point of view...
the struggle between the moral, instinct, societal values, etc... that's interesting
i just feel he was very desexualised.. she wasn't... she seemed sensual and adult while being sophisticated and aware of what's going on... he was a caricature, she was a real person... very imbalanced film that had a potential to be the subject of discussion weeks or months after release...
Reply by domremy
on March 24, 2017 at 8:57 PM
This really sounds like absolute hell to me. The exact same routine every day until dying.
Maybe Jim was the perfect match for her to be stranded on a ship with absolutely no life until the day she dies but she would have met less of a loser on the destination planet and lived a full life and had children.
This movie is not at all romantic.
Reply by domremy
on March 24, 2017 at 9:24 PM
I like your second idea but I don't think any ending could made this movie a classic.
The sequence to repair the fusion drive or whatever it was stops the movie from being a classic. Engineer turned super human with super hero powers ruined the movie more than the ending.
Reply by lantzn
on March 25, 2017 at 2:41 AM
Walking out onto a deck, holding a wrench, being blown out into space, and dying doing it, is your idea of a super human with powers???
Reply by domremy
on March 25, 2017 at 5:16 AM
He wouldn't have beem blown in to outer space in one piece, he would have been incinerated. He is flame retardent which is a super hero power. He also died. So he is Jesus with the ability to b resurrected.
If you think that sequence was realistic then I need to lol.
Reply by Verfed
on March 27, 2017 at 4:17 AM
The space suits are flame retardent, the same thing would have happened to anyone wearing them. And anyone can be resuscitated, even you or I. That's why we should all know CPR, because it works. So certainly a highly advanced medical pod in the future could resuscitate someone who's not too far gone.
Reply by domremy
on March 27, 2017 at 9:04 AM
Flame retardent material doesn't give protection from high temperatures, it will still burn and He would have melted along with his flame retardent suit.
Also, what was left of him would have frozen in the extreme cold temperatures.
Passengers is a fun Will Smith-style sci-fi movie, it is no closer to a classic than MIB.
Reply by Costumers
on March 27, 2017 at 11:22 PM
This wasn't possible. It is directly addressed. Slowly the ship down and going back to Earth would have taken just as long as continuing to Homestead. The officer (He wasn't the Captain) would have still died before the problems of the ship could be corrected. Without Aurora, he couldn't have repaired the ship and everyone would have died.
Reply by bb-15
on April 1, 2017 at 12:08 AM
I know I'm in a small minority but I prefer the "Passengers" happy ending (which saves everyone) to the "Interstellar" happy ending. "Passengers" is more straightforward (instead of being overly inconsistent/convoluted).
SPOILERS
"Passengers" reminded me of the kind of dramatized science fiction that was done in the 60s and 70s. The slow pace, focus on characters with little action, had a definite retro feel. It begins with a Twilight Zone kind of story of the isolated man. Then the solution for the main character is to find someone he can love. It seems to be working but then turns into a nightmare. The woman of his dreams hates him.
The story then moves into Star Trek territory about the problems with generation ships. How they often break down and can kill the passengers.
What is left is simply, can the ship be fixed? This is also a standard Star Trek original series trope.
The result is that the ship (the Enterprise) is always fixed in the end.
Imo at least, BB ;-)
Reply by catmydogs
on April 11, 2017 at 4:35 PM
I am wondering...the people who object to the premise of this story (lonely man awakens woman against her will), what are their thoughts about a film like Vertigo? Or a recent film like V for Vendetta?
Reply by tom99
on April 25, 2017 at 1:24 PM
those spacesuits are from 500 years in the future.......they will give protection from high temperatures,