The twists, time loops, and surreal head trips which left viewers wondering "What the..."
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00:00Some sci-fi movies are almost impossible to understand.
00:03Sure, there are plenty of Star Wars and Star Treks to go around, but outside of the genre's
00:07more approachable side, there are always more strange, thoughtful, and downright surreal
00:11offerings which defy all explanation.
00:14With that in mind then, despite the fact that we don't know what's going on, spoiler
00:17warnings are in full effect, because I'm SciForWhatCulture.com, and these are 10 Sci-Fi
00:22Movie Endings No One Understands.
00:2510.
00:2612 Monkeys
00:27What was the point of time travelling?
00:29Released in 1995, Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys may be one of the perpetually studio-stifled
00:34former Pythons' most beloved films.
00:36However, like his equally acclaimed earlier effort Brazil, it's also one of the filmmakers'
00:40bleakest hours.
00:41The film follows our potentially insane hero, Cole, after an epidemic wipes out much of
00:46the world.
00:47Sent too far back in time and ending up in an asylum, he attempts to inform himself of
00:51the danger in order to stop the tragedy ever occurring.
00:54However, Cole is soon stuck, being bounced back and forth between intersecting timelines
00:58in a story which becomes more bizarre and Byzantian the further it progresses.
01:02By the end of the film, our nominal hero is dying in front of his younger self, embodying
01:06a nightmare he's had throughout the whole movie.
01:08But why?
01:10Why send him back if he was doomed to repeat this fate?
01:13What would have happened if he hadn't gone back?
01:14What was the whole point?
01:15This complex film posits that you can change what you take from the past, even if you can't
01:19alter what happened back then through an uncompromisingly bleak and convoluted plot.
01:249.
01:25Coherence
01:26What will M do next?
01:27Coherence's story can technically be followed on first viewing, but requires numerous spreadsheets
01:32to successfully untie every knot.
01:35This underrated 2013 sci-fi follows a group of friends at a dinner party who are besieged
01:39by odd occurrences, only to discover that they are accidentally able to walk into an
01:42alternate, simultaneously occurring reality alongside their own.
01:47By the time the film's surreal ending rolls around, you may well be lost, as the friends
01:50have encountered and clashed with so many versions of themselves that it's impossible
01:54to remember which reality the film has settled in.
01:57Not only is the cause of this temporal anomaly never explained beyond one mention of a passing
02:01comet, our heroine is now stuck with a group of people who have no idea about the emerging
02:05multiverse realities.
02:07So good luck explaining whatever the mind-eff that was that viewers just witnessed to these
02:11versions of your friends, M.
02:138.
02:14The Quiet Earth
02:15Where is the beach?
02:17Released in 1985, this New Zealand sci-fi film is still an underrated slice of post-apocalyptic
02:22action.
02:23The Quiet Earth follows the fate of three survivors after the end of the world, a scientist,
02:26an aboriginal man, and the love interest who the pair are soon competing for the affections
02:30of in a love triangle that turns metaphysical fast.
02:34At first, the film's tense and interesting action is fairly easy to follow, with the
02:37unlikely trio attempting to survive as well as trying to understand what happened to their
02:41devastated planet.
02:43Then comes the film's infamously strange ending wherein our hero crashes a truck rigged
02:47with explosives and wakes up on a dark beach, watching cloud formations as they emerge from
02:51the ocean in front of him.
02:53The imagery in this one may feel impossible to decipher, but the director insists it's
02:57a pretty easy-to-uncover metaphor for purgatory.
02:59Maybe it helps if you share his lapped Catholicism, but luckily said director also conceded that
03:04enigmatic is good.
03:06Just as well he'd think so, given the fact that almost no viewers understand what's
03:09happening here the first time they see it.
03:127.
03:13Stalker
03:14Was the wish granted?
03:15Released in 1979, the deeply confusing and complex Stalker is often singled out as the
03:20finest film from Solaris director Andrei Tarkovsky.
03:23The body of the film's action sees the titular guy bring a heartbroken writer and their disagreeable
03:28professor companion through The Zone, a space which is said to contain a room that grants
03:32the wishes of its visitors.
03:33All manner of metaphysical arguments proceed from here, as well as plenty of stunning scenery
03:37and strange surreal imagery, and of course an enigmatic ending.
03:41It's impossible to decide for certain whether our young heroine monkey is moving glasses
03:45with her mind, or the passing trains soon seen by the viewer are causing them to shake
03:49along with the rest of the house.
03:51Thus the viewer is left to decide for themselves whose desire was granted, and how real or
03:55imaginary The Zone's supposed power was after all.
03:58Thus Stalker leaves viewers no clearer than they were at the beginning.
04:026.
04:03A Scanner Darkly
04:04What's the motive?
04:05Who would you trust more, a pharmaceutical company or the feds?
04:08No matter your answer, the ending of this Philip K. Dick adaptation is likely to leave
04:12you heartbroken.
04:13A Scanner Darkly is likely the most personal of the many stories mined from the prolific
04:17sci-fi writer's back catalogue.
04:19Its tale of an undercover cop who falls in with a crowd of drug users and grows to care
04:22for them more than his shadowy superiors was based on Dick's own experience with drugs
04:26and the gradual dissolution of his friend group through the tragedy of addiction.
04:30So appropriately enough, the end of this dark 2006 adaptation sees Keanu Reeves' paranoid
04:35anti-hero become addicted to Substance D. He appears to be blissfully ignorant of the
04:39fact that he's farming the flowers used to synthesise the drug for the mysterious
04:42and dangerous company who produce it.
04:44But then he steals a sample to… provide his superiors, meaning he's still undercover?
04:49Provide for himself, since he's still addicted?
04:51Or provide to his friends, who the viewer is pretty sure are dead and gone?
04:55It's hard to tell, but whatever the answer, it's probably better than being stuck farming
04:58drugs for your enemies.
05:005.
05:01Life Force
05:02What's going on with the space vampires?
05:04Poor Tobey Hooper.
05:05The horror genius behind the Texas Chainsaw Massacre created what is undoubtedly one
05:09of the most intense horror films in cinema history with his 1974 mega hit.
05:13However, in the decades since, he never really reached the same staggering heights artistically
05:17with a string of interesting but flawed films following his initial blockbuster success.
05:22Case in point, 1985 sci-fi vampire horror Life Force has a killer premise which soon
05:27becomes drowned in overly complex plotting.
05:29The movie follows a set of scientists as they attempt to study a trio of astronauts who
05:32appear to have transformed into space vampires, a conceit with plenty of potential provided
05:37it doesn't become needlessly convoluted.
05:39The film's problem is epitomised by its bizarre ending, one of which remains a point
05:43of contention for sci-fi and horror fans alike.
05:46So one of our heroes was a space vampire the whole time, unbeknownst to himself due to
05:49a hitherto unmentioned psychic bond, and said space vampires arrive and leave Earth based
05:54on the passing of Haley's Comet, and they simply transform our hero included into a
05:58vanishing column of energy to disappear at the end.
06:01Of course, what could have been clearer?
06:03And here this one seemed confusing for a minute.
06:054.
06:06Planet of the Apes 2001
06:08How did the Apes change reality?
06:10It's pretty much impossible to overstate the influence of the ending featured in 60s
06:14sci-fi classic Planet of the Apes.
06:16The otherwise solid Charlton Heston vehicle became instantly iconic and spawned an entire
06:20franchise thanks to its killer twist.
06:23The reveal that, as Troy McClure would put it, it was Earth all along, was an unheralded
06:28and dazzling ending which would still make the likes of Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan
06:32proud.
06:33So the oddly chosen director Tim Burton's 2001 remake of the classic had pretty sizeable
06:37shoes to fill in this regard.
06:39The film attempted to outdo the original bombshell twist, but instead left viewers
06:43with a brain-melting, time-twisting paradox of alternate histories to untangle.
06:47By the time this version reaches its close, our hero has returned to his own time, but
06:51the Apes have gotten there first somehow.
06:53Not only that, they've gone and replaced the statue of Abraham Lincoln with a villainous
06:56future ape.
06:57Well, presumably they've done more than that whilst rewriting history, but good luck
07:01working out how they managed it on first viewing.
07:043.
07:05The Black Hole
07:06What's in the Black Hole?
07:08Most of the entries on this list do have explanations which can untangle their initially impossible
07:12to decipher meanings, but your guess is as good as ours on 1979's The Black Hole and
07:17its strange, surreal closing coda.
07:19Your interpretation is also as good as the director's too, as the film's creators
07:22admitted they never had an ending in mind when working on this Disney flop.
07:26All that can be said for sure is that yes, our heroic captain finds her father's long-lost
07:30spaceship near a black hole and decides to board the vessel in order to solve the mystery
07:34behind his disappearance.
07:36But from there on out, trippy 70's sci-fi psychedelia takes over proceedings and maintains
07:41a stranglehold on the plot until the infamous ending.
07:44No matter the elasticity of your interpretation, all that appears to be clear is that yes,
07:48the characters enter and later leave what looks like hell through the titular black
07:52hole at the film's close.
07:54The film then sees its characters plunging towards a faraway star that… might be heaven?
07:59Might be the way back home to Earth?
08:00It might just be a star.
08:02Who knows?
08:032.
08:04Vanilla Sky
08:05And that is tech support.
08:06Released in 2001, Vanilla Sky is one of director Cameron Crowe's most underrated cinematic
08:11offerings, as well as being a major tonal departure for the almost-famous filmmaker.
08:16This Tom Cruise vehicle is a surprisingly cerebral and dark thriller which sees our
08:19hero thrust into a world of mystery and intrigue.
08:22It all starts in the iconic sequence wherein he awakens to an empty New York City, a surreal
08:27sight, which serves as a warning that all is not as it seems.
08:31And indeed, the viewer eventually learns that this isn't New York at all.
08:34The protagonist has been in an induced coma this entire time, and the glimpses of his
08:38real life have been glitches in the system.
08:40Well, don't expect any answers from the film's ambiguous ending anyway.
08:44So-called tech support offers the above explanation, but there's no way of knowing if they're
08:47telling the truth, if this is all a dream, or if it's a dying hallucination in the
08:51moments since his car crash.
08:53In the end, the viewer knows our hero is choosing to wake up, but whether he's dead, alive,
08:57in heaven, in purgatory, in a coma, or anywhere else is very unclear.
09:021.
09:03Beyond the Black Rainbow
09:04Everything about it.
09:06Released in 2010, Panos Cosmitos' Beyond the Black Rainbow signalled the arrival of
09:10a singular new talent in the world of psychedelic sci-fi.
09:13Garnering understandable comparisons to the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky, the film saw
09:17the visionary director turn the story of a telekinetic girl and the shadowy doctor experimenting
09:21on her into a total brain-melter.
09:24How much so?
09:25Well, the movie manages to make a shot of some carpet into a trippy, nightmarish, prolonged
09:29sequence.
09:30Kubrick's take on telekinesis, mind-melding, and new-age transcendence are understandably
09:34pretty insane too.
09:35But as confusing as the bulk of this film's action is, the ending truly takes the biscuit,
09:40with a wild and impossible-to-decipher psychedelic odyssey which makes Kubrick's 2001 look
09:44easy to follow in comparison.
09:46Suffice it to say that the viewer never learns the mysterious origins or intentions of the
09:50Arborea Institute outside of the eponymous doctor's attempts to achieve transcendence,
09:55a goal which ends with him maybe succeeding?
09:58As for our heroine, she may be free to roam the earth, but the viewer still has no idea
10:05where she came from, how she acquired her powers, or what's next for her.
10:09And that's the list!
10:10Let us know what you thought of this video down in the comments below, which of these
10:13sci-fi movie endings blew your mind the most, and of course, let us know of any others that
10:17we missed.
10:18Make sure you like this video, share it with your friends, subscribe and hit that notification
10:21bell, head over to whatculture.com for more content every day, I've been Sy for WhatCulture,
10:26and have a good week!