"The End" ?
Why did movies use to flash "The End" at the end of a film? If I had just seen the heroine agree to marry the hero, kiss him and then the music swelled and the newsreel started up again, I think I'd have been able to figure out that was the end of the film.
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Maybe.
When your mom told you to "get out more" I don't think that's what she meant.
...
What finally made you realize it was over, anyway?
the ushers wrote the end on A4 paper and i apluded and left
Is it super-geeky that the title of this thread immediately made me think of the very first Red Dwarf episode?
Anyway, first thing I was thinking when reading this thread was a short-story we had to write in second or third grade… I wrote a cool time-travel-adventure with two guys and a professor in the stone-age… anyway, I proudly wrote »THE END« at the end, because it sounded so cool, like I made an epic story (that was only one page long).
Then my teacher striked »The End« out, with her horrible red pencil.
Oh, the story was brilliant, these two guys activate that time machine by accident, then a bunch of prehistoric men attack them, so they return home.
…
I think she hated fun.
I don't know. I like your time machine story better than H. G. Wells'; at least your guys were smart enough to keep away from the danger. Could use a little more Professor, though. And ray guns.
and animation! XD
I'm a girl... can I be a queen amongst women instead?
O_O
That sounds... kinky...
I'll begin the hiring process immediately! Heads up, it uh, might take awhile ...
What do you expect from S&M fans? (Ha ha! That joke never gets old!)
But seriously, nobody knows about "The End" thing? I'd have thought there were more films study majors on this board.
*grumble grumble*
Then the credits were switched to the end and that's how people know it's over.
Except they realised people didn't watch the credits so now they put something afterwards, too...
I think it's because movies used to be shown continuously. You'd have one movie in the theatre all day, repeated over and over and over again (and you paid only once). I've heard stories about how you'd get in, and if you missed the beginning you just stayed afterwards and watched it the second time. Or how, when a movie was great, you'd just stay to watch it a second time.
I think it said "The End" to be clear that it was over. I can't be sure of course but that's what I'd say.
I would say it's because movies might have been trying to imitate books when movies were still a recent thing, but putting the words "the end" in the end of a book is ridiculous for the same reasons, plus the fact that you can physically see there aren't any pages left (while with a movie you can't know for sure there is nothing afterwards).
Maybe someone wrote that in the end of his script, and they put it in the movie as a mistake/joke, and it caught on.
EDIT: here, when looking for an answer to this question I found this series of "the end" pictures on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/djll/sets/72157608369709836/
re-EDIT: I found an interesting article. It didn't say why there used to be "the end" in the end of movies, but explained why it was removed... Apparently to blur the separation between movies and reality, so that when you left the theatre, you were still inside the movie, living it, thinking about it, while reading "The End" was a way to break the fourth wall and bring you back to reality, and right away you were out of it, and back to your normal life.
That was interesting.
And unlike ShaggE, I think "Of Death, Of Blood!!" is a great horror movie title
According to my dictionary, finis IS an English word... Comes from latin, sure, but so do lots of words. Maybe it was used more often at the time.
Might not be an English word but that doesn't mean people would be all confused and wonder what it means. Just like if you talk about soufflé while holding one in your hand I'm sure people will understand you.
But it leads me to another theory. Maybe people wrote "the end" to be snobbish. That would fit with using latin for no particular reason.
To be honest, whenever I see "the end", I always just think of it as the people who made the movie/book/whatever are making fun of us and our ability (or lack thereof) to know when the end of the movie is.
Definitely a trope that could use a little more parodying than it's gotten. I'd love to see a movie end with a long diatribe about how it is indeed the end of the film.
"It's over, people. Just get out. Stop looking at the screen. Stand up, take your popcorn bags and cups, and move toward the exits in an orderly fashion. Seriously, get out. Snape kills Dumbledore. See what you made me do? I told you to get out. You people really have nothing better to do with your lives? ... We're just going to sit here and play this game, are we? So be it. *cue five minutes of loud, obnoxious electric guitar squealing*"
Nah, only Looney Tunes got it right.
"That's all, folks!"
Th-thuh-the-the-thuh-th-the-that's all, folks!
...
"God, fine." Cut to lemur attacking the camera.
.... Now for those who, like me, actually waited or had to be told that it WAS the ending, some form of visual conclusion--which usually comes in the form of the credits or "The End"--is appreciative even though the credits method can be iffy when it comes to those secret scenes and sometimes, I'll admit, provides little closure
That reminds me of the end of Return of the King, the first time I saw it I got about five times thinking "Oh it's ending, oh wait there's more".
You should be glad they cut the Scouring of the Shire.
Or has that been mentioned already?
Yeah I know, but the most anoying part about the ending of the film was they took almost half of the book after they destroy the ring and compact it into a fifteen minute sequence.
Yeah, another Red Dwarf fan!
That means "The End" in French. Either it was a French movie, or they took it from French movies for some reason (the cinema was invented by the Lumière brothers, who were French, so the first movies were French.)
EDIT: by "invented the cinema" I meant "invented the cinematographe" (cinema is short for cinematographe).
It's possible THEY put "fin" in the end of their movies and are to blame for that silly idea.