Solid Snake

I've never seen TFC2 but...from what I've read that ending makes no sense if both characters are in TFC2. Which only leads to tFC2 making no sense as a sequel to TFC.

TheySentYou

The Sound of My Voice

Shannon Nutt

Actually it's the last shot after the credits that makes it ambiguous. You can CLEARLY come to two different conclusions with that shot:

JANK

I second that. To follow the girl with the pickup truck or ...?

Shannon Nutt

I think some people in this thread are confusing ambigious with open-ended. An ambigious ending is one where you can deduce multiple interpretations from what happened on screen. Open-ended is just where there is no resolution. Many of these movies mentioned are just open-ended and not ambigious.

conscience

But aren't ambiguous endings open-ended anyway? That's a pretty fine line to cross isn't it?

coli

Not sure if anyone mentioned this: Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise. I haven't seen it in about 10 years, so I forgot much of the movie, but I remember the ending being a bit confusing.

hasslein

Solid Snake

yeah but he had nothing to do w/ TFC2.

hasslein

RichC2

Maybe it's because I saw Abres Los Ojos first, but I never could figure out what people found confusing about Vanilla Sky.

whoopdido

I didn't find Vanilla Sky confusing at all. Maybe I would have if that tech support dude didn't make a 5 minute speech that explained the entire movie like we were 5 year olds. I'm not saying the explanation was bad or wasn't needed, but I thought it explained everything very clearly and very matter of factly.

RichC2

As did I, it actually explained more than Abres Los Ojos did, excessively so.

Solid Snake

yeah, TFC would've done better w/o it. Still a great movie just..kind of pointless. Cuz the shot is very impactful and leaves you wondering.

Jules Winfield

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ends very ambiguously. We never find out what happens to the ring at the end of the movie. Sam doesn't leave Frodo's side...are they gay? There's all kinds of unanswered questions by the end of this movie. Very brave.

Shannon Nutt

All ambigous endings are open-ended. Not all open-ended endings are ambigious.

Movies that just have unanswered questions are not (necessarily) ambigious. Movies which have scenes in which two (or more) interpretations can be made are ambigious.

Example 1: The spinning top in Inception is an example of an ambigious movie ending.

Example 2: Han Solo frozen in carbonite is an example of an open-ended movie ending.

Thank you for playing.

JANK

Interesting argument and a you draw a fine line that I can appreciate. But I could go either way with your definition. To me, ambiguous IS open-endedn the end.

whoopdido

I think open ended is when the viewer is pretty much free to make up whatever ending he or she wants. The Sopranos is a good example of an open ended ending. Sure, people have their opinions about what happened and some people are adamant that their ending is correct, but really ANYTHING could have happened at the end of the Sopranos. The viewer can make up pretty much anything.

Ambiguous is when the filmmaker more or less presents 2 or more different options as to how the movie ends and the viewer is free to choose one of the options that were presented. The viewer can't make up anything he or she wants, but can only choose one of the options that the movie presents.

I know I had a bit of a disagreement with a couple posters regarding Shutter Island, but in my opinion there are 2 possibilites for the ending of that movie. There are only 2 ways the movie could have ended and the viewer has to choose one of them, therefore the ending of that movie is ambiguous. There are many, many different ways that the Sopranos could have ended...basically it could have ended any way YOU wanted it to end, therefore that ending was open ended.

Why So Blu?

Layer Cake