Challengers Proves That The Best Movies Have The 'Worst 'Endings

how is it that some of the most critically acclaimed movies and TV shows of all time seem to also have the worst and most unsatisfying endings well let's talk about it hey guys what's up it's emergency and welcome back to my Channel today we are here and we're talking about Cinema now this video is inspired by a lot of the discourse that was going on online a couple of weeks ago with the release of the movie Challengers namely because the movie had been gassed up to be this Amazing Project everyone seemed to love it it got a lot of critical Acclaim but a common theme that a lot of people felt about the movie's ending was that it was either unsatisfying unclear or just a bad ending for the buildup of the movie and as someone who's seen the film twice I can attest that on my first watch I can understand where that sentiment comes from it really got me thinking going down this Rabbit Hole over what do we mean when we say that a movie or a TV show has a good ending and what about a certain ending makes it satisfying I feel like this is going to be an interesting video and conversation because we're going to delve into things like what I like to call the art of giving us nothing how this all plays in the media literacy and whether or not media needs to give us a structured ending or a satisfying ending so if you like content like this and are new around here then definitely subscribe to join the roommates also leave a like on this video because it helps out of time with the YouTube algorithm also follow me on my socials here at emergency on Instagram Tik Tok and Twitter and consider clicking the join button to become a channel member today to get two exclusive Channel member videos a month as well as Early Access to every single one of these videos but let's get into this video shall we now the past couple of videos I've been trying to cosplay I've been trying to dress up and be in theme for what whatever I'm talking about today I don't know if you could tell since we're talking about like film and movies this might be actually UNC of me I don't know but I tried to give like stereotypical film nerd like the beanie like the the casual but also maybe kind of like intellectual Vibe I'm giving that one guy from Bojack Heman I'm forgetting his name but he has a similar color beanie and like I you get it you get it I don't know this is just not my normal Vibe and I'm kind of shocked looking at the viewfinder and seeing this but that this is all besides the point let's talk about endings so I guess the first thing to unpack is what is a satisfying ending what do we mean when we say that a movie or TV show's ending was satisfying according to an article a satisfying story ending should be able to bring a solid close to your protagonist development meaning that they have learned valuable lessons during the story and the ending should clearly show their transformation basically that things should come to a natural close characters should learn stuff and there should be a relatively clear character Arc that comes to a relatively clear conclusion speaking from the heart I feel like a satisfying ending is just when things tie up nicely like you have the characters that you initially start out with go through their different character arcs learn grow find a love interest and at the very end there's this feeling of resolution this feeling that like yes theyve done what this movie or TV show has set out to have them do they've grown in a certain way they've made connections in a certain way whether they be through friends or love interests and they've solved the problem that they've been tasked with whether they be saving the world saving their marriage or just learning about the true meaning of friendship just having a story that has a set beginning and an end now that sounds all fine in Dand no but it also does sound a little predictable which brings me to my next question of if it is so predictable and it is the case of what we expect for all these stories why do we have this urge to want one and to look for a satisfying ending well to start off with another quote it inspires the viewer to reminisce fondly over the things that they loved and to ponder what may lie next life is so full of unanswered questions and Imperfections that the relative safety of a SA Ying ending can provide a comfort not always afforded by other aspects of existence now I feel like that's a bit of a dramatic take real but a little dramatic but I think it speaks to the need for something satisfying something that we can see compartmentalize and then move on or learn from satisfying ending at the end of the day makes us feel good makes us feel like we've completed the watch we've completed our time in this world in this story and can then move on with our lives leaving that source of media in the past to be thought of later or not and I feel like as the quote mentions that's a form of Comfort that's a form of safety I feel like that's the reason why people love rewatching TV shows or like sitcom so much because it gives that comfort and that safety of knowing that this is when it starts and this is when it ends and having that routine knowing what to expect and feeling satisfied when the expected comes to fruition but with that said what happens when we don't get that satisfying ending when things don't come to a nice close and this is where we get into the part that I like to call the art of giving us nothing with the name coin from the iconic comment left on one of the videos of dualipa AKA D laep in which a video of her dancing inspired a commenter to comment go girl give us nothing now go- girl give us nothing and the Art of giving us nothing aren't really similar all that much outside of the name but yall know I love a good bit of unserious Pop Culture history have a whole video ranking a bunch of Pop moments if you want to go check that out Shameless plug but let's get into the art of giving us nothing I feel like one of the makers of movies and TV shows decide that they aren't going to give a very cut and dry satisfying ending they have to be very intentional and careful with how it's done because there are a lot of movies and a lot of TV shows that try and give like that open-ended ending that in some cases are actually profound and in other cases are faking deepness and there's a real gradient between the two when it is done right and when it is not and that in between space is what we call the art of giving us nothing like this is the ability to give us a ending that is so obscure and thought-provoking that it causes the viewer to then think about the movie after they' finished watching it to draw their own conclusion to put on their own metaphorical thinking caps to either give meaning or Find the meaning behind the context of that said media in a way that it's intentional and shows that the makers of the film or the makers of the TV show wanted you to come to that sort of conclusion and not just left it open for the viewer to come to any conclusion if that makes sense like the art of it all is to leave it open with a purpose as opposed to just leaving it open because you couldn't think of an ending you know like I feel like the ladder is giving very much like and then they woke up energy like the sense of fake deepness without any real sub substance and it's just really unfortunate that when it comes to a lot of the movies that do this well they're tagged as being terrible or having Bad Endings because in some cases the open-ended or not clearly defined ending can make a movie or TV show even better and more culturally relevant than one that just has a Flatout ending and I have some examples say using Challengers as a case study for this right a movie that on paper has a great story characters cinematography Etc But ultimately upsets and confuses a lot of fans because of its satisfying ending or unclear ending when now the story take a quick little tangent to actually talk about the movie because I feel like this was a really great movie and I haven't yet given my thoughts on what I thought about it Challengers as a movie is simply fascinating like it has an amazing story in my opinion where it felt like everybody was acting down and it just really shocked me because like I said I've seen the movie twice and I didn't even think I was going to see it once because I saw a sports movie and I tuned out because I typically am not into sports movies but you know what I am into zanda I love her down and anything she's in I'm going to watch so went in with the expectations that I wasn't going to be a big fan of Louis I'd just be there for zindaa and I was left gag like I said I came to support Zena and to see Zena but left the movie theater a fan of all three leads and and of the story and possibly even tennis like I might just pick up a wet and if you haven't seen the movie and want a quick synopsis of it and if you don't want spoilers then go to this time stamp right here but the movie revolves around three characters tshi who's the dayas character art and Patrick and the movie revolves around the pseudo love triangle where all three of them are involved in tennis and play tennis Patrick and R are childhood friends and eventually come across tshi Duncan at a tennis match or tennis tournament both end up being enamored by her although it's important to note that Patrick was interested in tshi first they meet up have a spicy scene together that's gone viral online and eventually come to the deal of whichever of the two boys wins the next tennis match gets a chance to date Tashi and Patrick ends up being the one that wins but a couple of years later because art is a sneaky and conniving friend that really wants tshi I I guess he does everything in his power to break up tshi and Patrick by planting seeds in their ears and eventually ends up swooping up tshi after she has a career- ending injury and they eventually get married have kids and work together for the rest of their lives up until the main event of this movie which is a tennis Challenger where art and Patrick have to face off against each other for their own sets of stakes now that's a very brief and quick synopsis of the movie you should definitely go check it out yourself but the way that people have tended to summarize this movie having the story be about Patrick being in love with art art being in love with tshi and tshi being in love with tennis which brings us to the unsatisfying ending of this movie where there are previously established Stakes for winning or losing this competition for art tshi is threatened to leave him if he doesn't win this Challenger and if he doesn't continue to have his tennis career Patrick being asked by tshi to lose to Art in exchange for coaching and hookups and Patrick eventually tells art through tennis and through like lore that she get from watching the movie that he Kashi have been seeing each other behind Art's back and at the very end they're at this scene where they're at match point and right as the match is about to end I forget which one of them but one of them misses the ball and it cuts them hugging each other and tshi screaming out of joy and excitement which then ends the movie giving no explicit ending to any of their characters on the surface level we don't know the Fallout of Patrick telling Art that Toshi's cheated we don't know the results of the match who ended up winning the match and we don't exactly know spelled out why tshi screamed at the end and why the two boys were hugging the ending is essentially left very open in terms of the end result and the three's relationship with each other and this is what frustrated a lot of people like the stakes were really built up for most of this movie only for it to end semi obscurely and not getting that satisfying ending and have it spelled out like this is how these characters played out this is how the match played out and this is an example of a movie that uses the art of giving us nothing because they quite literally gave us nothing to really close out the story outside of what you can use with your own interpretation in my opinion how I saw the ending was The Reunion of these two essentially brothers that have been separated by so much time and drama and how a game of tennis had been able to reunite them in a way that initially United them they'd been honest with each other on the court and as tshi had said in the beginning of the movie playing tennis and being in tennis match is like a relationship and you share and exchange that energy and love with your opponent and that's exactly what happened and then on tashi's part I think that tshi screamed because she saw that tenis she saw that energy and that essentially electrified her because we hadn't seen her scream in that movie since the first time that she was introduced when she was on the field playing so as someone that had been taken out of the game and taken out of the playing part of the industry that was the first time that she felt something in the same way that she did back when she played which can speak for many other things but again those are just my theories and interpretations and there could be many of different theories and interpretations and that's sort of the beauty of the art of giving us nothing you can have so many different endings so many different possibilities and so many different interpretations that can all be true which makes so it doesn't really matter what the ending is truly because you can come up with your own theories you can come up with your own analyses of these characters and of the story and them all be right because they were written in a way that was intentional and take that away with you and think about it even after the movie has ended and that's the importance of undefined story endings like I said before in the video when you have a satisfying and complete story you think of it as yeah that was a good story but then you kind of leave the movie there of course bringing it up whenever you want to talk about your favorite movie or like a satisfying Movie ending but it doesn't really stick with you the same way a obscure or un satisfying ending Wilk because you're going to want to constantly wonder about what the actual ending and what the meaning of the movie was which allows you to if you decide to look that deep really find some deeper interpretations of the film and then also kind of of yourself and why you're making those interpretations another example of a movie that came out semi recently that had a unsatisfying ending that people hated was the movie nope by Jordan Pew people were pissed at nope and didn't really like the movie because it seemed like the ending didn't give us much of anything and felt like it wasted the viewers Time by quite literally giving us nothing no explanations no satisfying ending outside of ending jean jacket and brought up so many questions that were left unanswered now I previously made a review on NOP if you want to go check that out but like I said this is another example of an open-ended ending where it relies on the viewer to make those assumptions and come to those conclusions for themselves well I will say that this was one of my more least favorite unsatisfying endings just because it left a lot to interpretation it does still ran true that unsatisfying ending will stick in your memory for a while because here I am years later still talking about it still thinking about it and I've had conversations with friends pretty recently where they too are remembering movies with unsatisfying endings and their top being nope and now I kind of want to bring this conversation out into talking about how this all plays into the concept of media literacy as a whole because media literacy is something that is nothing new to this Shadow specifically we talk about it all the time when it comes to Media consumption and the way that we interact with movies TV and entertainment and I've been saying this literally any CH I get but media literacy across the board is had an alltime low and it's only getting lower I fear if we think back to it a lot of movies actually used to be very open-ended in fact a lot of media tended to be that way too giving us undefined or sort of obscure endings that leave you thinking like I remember distinctly growing up in high school having to read and analyze books in other forms of media like TV shows and like documentaries or whatever that explicitly gave us unsatisfying or open-ended endings and the exercise was for us to come to our own conclusion and hypothesize make inferences educated guesses critically think and analyze these forms of media to draw conclusions out of them like the whole point of those critical thinking lessons was to make the viewer take time and analyze the media for themselves and come to those conclusions and not to say that doesn't happen across the board now but we've been seeing less and less of that sort of content really resonate with people especially as we're now in an attention economy where attention time and retention is currency and we live in this age of Rapid consumption of media the very nature of open-ended media requires a level of thought and time for the viewer to take after they watch a form of media to think about process and draw conclusions from the content and information that they just got and let's just start contrast from the nature of how content is consumed nowadays and I don't mean to sound like all woo woo like technology is here to end us because I honestly don't believe that like I'm a content creator myself of course to see value in the way that content is made in the way that it's consumed but I also want to remain critical of it because it's very much the norm to consume content back to back to back through scrolling without really thinking about the content that youve just seen before a lot of content is very self-contained and the strategy that they give us as creators is to make it that way you want to have a leading hook be quick and to the point and then have a satisfying payoff or ending so that the viewer can get the full experience from your content feel satisfied and either choose to like for more or just scroll on but regardless the objective is to make the viewer or the consumer feel satisfied so they can continue on with their scroll making sure that each thing has that concise beginning and end which is a whole other thing of like why a lot of content is either forgettable or not really noticeable because you're scrolling through so much feeling all these different emotions from these different pieces of content laughing at one video getting mad at another and feeling sad at the one after that without really having the time or giving yourself time to really interrogate or think about what you just watched which is why it's the reason that a lot of people say that when it comes to short form you can go a full day scrolling on your priew page and not really having recollection of one the majority of what you watch outside of things that are exceptionally funny or exceptionally emotionally mov moving and two you couldn't really name or identify five of the creators of the videos you just watched because they were only in your world for 30 to 90 seconds and you just moved on afterwards and this is all to say that it's not just the fact that we're now used to and more comfortable with having an ending that's pre-prescribed or given to us a lot of times the information that is given just goes over people's heads as it's not as common or really favored to take the time or energy to really deep information or to process or analyze the information for ourselves so for example and I don't mean to call you out I'm sorry if I'm about to clock you instead of taking the time to really come to your own conclusion about the ending of Challengers or the ending of a movie or show of that sort you may run to an ending explained YouTube video or a Tik Tok breakdown to give you that ending for yourself so that you can feel that satisfying feeling of knowing the full story on someone else's term so that you can then feel like okay I don't know the ending of Challengers and I can tell other people about it again sorry if that was you and your purpose of coming to this video I am fully guilty of that too and definitely ran to some ending explains myself to get a a fer scope of the ending and other perspective so that I could know if I was thinking similar things or was completely off base but it's just become uncomfortable and sort of uncommon to fully analyze and contextualize the media that we consume and is one of the main contributing factors for why I feel like a lot of unsatisfying endings frustrate people so much and why people hate them as much as they do but on the flip side trying to bring an answer to this video's question if that's the case then why are these movies that give us these frustrating and complex endings always the ones that end up with the most critical Acclaim and I like the reasoning behind that is one film reviewers tend to be paid to actually critically think like it's their job to look deeper and come to those conclusions and context and have those thoughts so of course when it's actually a good obscure satisfying ending they're going to give it a higher rating but for the general public these sort of endings cause the most conversation while not everyone is coming to those conclusions and putting in that critical thought everyone's talking about it whether or not you're walking out of that theater coming to your own conclusion and figuring out what the ending of the movie means to you or the person that walks out of the theater and hops online to see other people's breakdowns ending explains and get that conclusion or whether you're just someone that hops online or talks to your group of friends about how much you disliked having that ending in that way or not in that way it's causing conversation it's starting a discourse and at the end of the day people like having that conversation people enjoy the moment in the discourse of it all whether or not it's more work or more frustrating to breing break it down or not it creates a conversation it makes these movies go viral and cements them in the pop culture Zeitgeist as a moment in time where everyone was talking about and trying to break down Challengers nope insert whatever unsatisfyingly ending movie here yeah that's all I got on this topic y'all I feel like I've yed enough now I want to turn the mic over to you are you a person that appreciates an unsatisfying ending or do you think they're overrated did you enjoy challenges or understand the ending of Challengers do you like my oversized beanie there there's a lot to talk about down in the comments below so definitely do that but I want to thank you so much for watching I really appreciate it again if you're new to the channel then definitely subscribe leave a like on this video and follow me on my socials at emergency on Instagram Tik Tok and Twitter but other than that y'all I have emergency and I will see you in the next video peace

Channel: imuRgency

Views: 24,048

Keywords: Imurgency, rumi, gen Z, gen z shows, commentary, gen z vs millennials, boomer, gen alpha, generation alpha, millenials, gen z aging, gen z aging faster, ariana grande, beyonce, influencer, act ii, taylor swift, music release, scarlet, kacey musgraves, gen z is dumb, challengers, challengers movie, challengers ending explained, zendaya, civil war movie, nope, young royals, best movies, media literacy, challengers review, jordan peele

Id: CGjtflSvTL4

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2024