Open, Closed or Just a Dream? Controversial Pop Culture Finales

When a pop culture franchise comes to a close, its creators face a conundrum: Tie up the story with a nice little bow to meet the fans’ expectations or do something unexpected. Most books, movies and TV shows go the former route (Aw, Ross and Rachel got back together!), but the road less taken can yield bigger drama. Right now, Harry Potter fans are nervous as to the fate of the young wizard when J.K. Rowling’s final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” comes out on July 21. To help distract you nervous muggles, we thought we’d take a look at some other controversial closings.

Thomas Harris’ final Hannibal Lecter book, “Hannibal” (1999) ends with the cannibalistic serial killer and FBI Agent Clarice Starling becoming a couple and jetting off to Argentina together, a highly contentious conclusion that was rumored to be one reason why Jodie Foster refused to reprise the “Silence of the Lambs” role on film. As it turned out, replacement Clarice, Julianne Moore didn’t have to bat eyes at Anthony Hopkins, as the 2001 film adaptation ditches that ending.

Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” setology had a curious conclusion that put off some fans. After taking gunslinger Roland Deschain through seven books on the quest for the titular Tower, fabled to be the nexus of every universe, King finally gets there, only to tell the reader to stop reading and consider the story finished. Those who disobey the writer’s wishes discover that Roland goes through a door with his name on it and ends up back at the beginning of the first book, and the cycle continues.

Movie franchises are more likely to just fade away due to diminishing returns than end with a bang. Studios are hesitant to kill a cow while it’s still giving milk, so to speak. So terrorists will continue to have awful aim when shooting automatic weapons at John McClane, Arkham Asylum escapees will always be captured by the Batman, Starfleet will always build a new Enterpirse, et al, ad infinitum. When film series are designed to be finite, it’s usually because they’re based on some external property such as “the Lord of the Rings.”

“The Pink Panther” became an accidental franchise in the ‘60s when an ostensible cameo by Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau proved so popular that more movies were built around him. But a problem arose when it came time to make 1982’s “Trail of the Pink Panther:” Sellers had died in 1980. Undeterred, the filmmakers (taking a page from the Ed Wood school of filmmaking) used deleted scenes and other footage of Sellers from old PP films to create a movie that (shock!) wasn’t that good. But they weren’t done yet! The next year “Curse of the Pink Panther” centered around a bumbling American detective attempting to locate the “missing” Clouseau, essentially trampling over Sellers’ grave. Critics cried foul and the series limped to an end, at least for a while.

1990’s “The Godfather, Part III” was a scandalous closer to the Michael Corleone saga not so much for its plot (about the Don trying in vain to go fully legitimate and paying the ultimate price for his sins) but for its casting. When Winona Ryder dropped out of playing Mary Corleone, director Francis Ford Coppola replaced her with his daughter, Sofia, a young girl with no acting experience (or, many argued, talent). Cries of nepotism had a vindictive, ultimately pointless tone that overshadowed anything else about the movie (which isn’t that bad).

We’re not sure whether it’s fair to call the final chapter in “The Matrix” trilogy controversial, unless muddled incomprehensibility begets controversy. 2003’s “The Matrix Revolutions” failed to resolve many of the issues (both of logic and philosophy) raised by the first two films, but it’s safe to say that more fans were peeved at the deaths of Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Neo (Keanu Reeves), even if their sacrifices were two of the only things in that film that made sense.

Of course, no medium lends itself to The Big Finale better than television. Successful TV series have the luxury of being able to develop characters and a narrative thread over years and hundreds of hours. This can create a relationship with the audience that, when it comes to an end, can feel like a real-life breakup.

Again, most TV finales go the predictable, easy route. Estranged couples reunite (“Gilmore Girls”), the series’ raison d’etre ends (“The West Wing”), people get married, pregnant and new jobs (“Cheers”) and there are big sloppy declarations of love and friendship all around (“M*A*S*H”). But not every show follows convention.

Maybe the first controversial TV finale was of the 1967-68 British sci-fi series, “The Prisoner.” Patrick McGoohan plays “Number Six,” a former government agent being held for “information” by unidentified captors (Numbers Two and One) in a high-tech “Village.” For 17 episodes, Number Six resisted the brainwashing efforts of his captors while trying to discover their identity and escape the village. The show’s allegorical surrealism came to a head in the final episode, in which Number One is revealed to be Number Six himself wearing a gorilla mask and then there are some missiles fired and everyone flees the Village and Number Six ends up back in his apartment… oh, forget it. The confusing anti-climax left the BBC inundated with frustrated phone calls from viewers and writer / star McGoohan reportedly had to go into hiding.

After six seasons of medical and personal drama, “St. Elsewhere” threw fans for a loop when the 1988 finale revealed the entire series to be the figment of an autistic boy’s imagination (as opposed to being “real?”). Far better received was the surprising 1990 conclusion of Bob Newhart’s second sitcom, “Newhart,” in which the wacky adventures of the Vermont innkeeper turned out to be nothing but a dream of the lead character from “The Bob Newhart Show” of the 1970s.

David Lynch’s surreal mystery soap, “Twin Peaks” was groundbreaking in terms of style, pacing, characterization and storytelling, so its stunning 1991 conclusion was no surprise to the faithful. After being forced by ABC to resolve the murder of Laura Palmer (a macguffin to begin with), the show meandered in its second season, struggling to come up with reasons for FBI agent Dale Cooper (Kyle McLaughlin) to linger in the quirky Pacific Northwest town. A cat and mouse game with his now-deranged former partner culminates with a final shot of Cooper being possessed by the demon Killer Bob, the hero turned into a villain, the story unresolved.

“Roseanne” ended its 9 years with a long monologue from its star stating that the final 1997 season (in which the working class Conners won the lottery and became wealthy) was in fact a fictional story written by her character. The self-congratulatory, indulgent twist was met with a mere shrug by viewers who, by that point, had pretty much stopped caring.

Apathy was NOT the case the following year when Jerry Seinfeld used the final episode of his eponymous sitcom to remind people that, despite the show’s wild success, its central characters were not nice people. The finale found Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine on trial for violating a Good Samaritan Law after idly watching a man being carjacked in a small New England town. Previous shows’ victims of the foursome’s sometimes destructive narcissism testified for the prosecution, ending in conviction and jail. Critics and fans howled, but at least the show remained true to its mantra of “no hugging, no learning!”

And then, of course, there’s perhaps the most controversial TV finale of all time, last month’s climax of “The Sopranos.” Few things this side of politics and religion have spawned such heated debate. Our take on the matter is that the abrupt 11 seconds of black followed by a lack of music over the end credits does signify that someone got whacked. Only it wasn’t Tony Soprano… it was you. And me. All of us, as in, the audience. We were so distracted by trying to figure out the whos and whys in that final scene at Weston’s that, like Bobby Bacala predicted, we never saw it coming. “The Sopranos” turned the tables on expectations by killing off the viewer rather than its lead character. And really, anyone who wanted tidy closure from “The Sopranos” wasn’t truly paying attention to the show.

So, whither Harry Potter? Graduation? Victory over Valdemort? Death? Regardless of how popular or unpopular the end of the story is, the inevitable movie version will likely remain faithful to J.K. Rowling’s vision.

Besides, it’s unlikely that Harry, Hermione and Ron will go out for onion rings.
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ORIGINALLY POSTED in REWIND on MTV.COM, July 2007

Truth, Justice and the Fanatical Way part 5: More Powerful than a Crappy Adaptation

After almost twenty years, the last son of Krypton finally returns to the big screen this week in Superman Returns. After all the excitement, planning, collecting and waiting, one fanboy fear remains: What if the movie stinks?

Comic book fans are often skeptical of a superhero movie while it’s in development, defensively fearful of an adaptation that doesn’t respect the source material. But ironically, fanboys can be far more forgiving than the general public of a lackluster comic book film once it’s released. In 1989, fans rushed to defend Tim Burton’s Batman, claiming that critics didn’t GET its darker tone, ignoring the fact that the movie’s pace, story and dialogue were all pretty bad.

Currently, the internet is abuzz with debate as to whether or not Superman Returns will do justice to both the comic book character and the late (much beloved) Christopher Reeve. Over the past year, many skeptical fanboys (myself included) have come to embrace this newest Man of Steel, grudgingly accepting the dark costume and Lois’ offspring. But we’ve been burned too much in the past (Daredevil, anyone?) to approach any comic book film with unguarded enthusiasm.

Still, Superfans should be counting their blessings. In regards a new big screen Superman movie, things could have been... and almost were.... so much worse.

When Batman producer Jon Peters acquired the rights to Superman in the early 1990s, his take on the character was less than reverent. With marketing dollar signs in his eyes, Peters showed outright hostility towards the character, demanding a Superman movie with no flying and no “gay” costume. Peters was thinking more Star Wars than superhero, wanting Kal-El to fight using Kryptonian weapons, including a silver “S” shield that came off an all-black outfit and transformed into daggers (to battle, no lie, a giant spider).

Over the next decade, numerous directors and writers struggled with a handful of concepts, none of which clicked. In one version, Superman dies fighting über-monster Doomsday and his “life essence” leaps into Lois Lane, immaculately impregnating her. Days later, she gives birth to a super-baby who grows to adulthood in a matter of weeks (adding a real Oedipus complex to the lore). One-time director Tim Burton wanted to play up Superman’s “darker, more murderous side” (uh, Tim, he doesn’t HAVE one). In another script by J.J. (Alias) Abrams, Krypton doesn’t explode (?) and Kal-El is sent to Earth to prepare for a Kryptonian invasion (?!?) being set up by a Kryptonian Lex Luthor (?!??!). For a while, director McG was tapped to do a campy Superman in the vein of his Charlie’s Angels adaptation. Around that same time, Wolfgang Peterson was slated to direct an epic battle between DC Comics’ biggest icons, Superman vs. Batman.

As for rumored casting, ignoring Richard Donner’s masterstroke of hiring the unknown Christopher Reeve to star in 1978’s Superman, producers considered actors such as Nicolas Cage, Ashton Kutcher, Jude Law, Brendan Fraser and even Justin Timberlake (!) for the lead. Forgetting that the stunt casting of Richard Pryor doomed Superman III, Chris Rock was slated to portray Jimmy Olsen and both Tim Allen and Jim Carrey were mentioned for the part of the alien / android Brainiac.

Thankfully, none of these ill-advised features made it past pre-production, leaving the dormant franchise available for avowed Superman acolyte Bryan Singer to approach the material with a reverence missing from the aborted versions.

But will that reverence translate into a Superman that satisfies both fanboys and the general public? Actually, Superman’s wide and varied track record on both big and small screens places the odds WITH Singer.

Consider that right now, there are FOUR different versions of Superman in the popular culture: The comic book Superman, the Kal-El of Superman Returns, the young Clark Kent of Smallville and the animated hero of the new Brainiac Attacks direct to DVD movie and the recently canceled Justice League Unlimited. All of those Supermen differ from each other (and in fact, DC publishes more than one version of Superman, further complicating the matter). So why isn’t anyone confused? It’s because Superman is so ingrained in our collective consciousness that everyone already has a slightly different idea of who Superman is... and they’re all right.

A friend of mine was very upset when she discovered that Lois Lane is a mom in Superman Returns. I pointed out to her that if she doesn’t want Lois Lane to be a mother, then, outside of the context of the new movie, Lois isn’t a mother. I’m not nuts about the idea of Clark and Lois being married (as they are in the comics), so to my mind, not only are they unwed, but Lois still doesn’t know that Clark Kent is actually Superman.

All of these different takes on the Superman story can coexist because the character has become so iconic that he’s far bigger than any single version. The nutshell is solid and perfect: The sole survivor of an advanced alien civilization, raised in bucolic small town America with ironclad values, decides to use his incredible super powers to help mankind rather than rule it while masquerading as a powerless everyman. It’s a story that’s endlessly adaptable to changing times.

While many fanboys detest the TV show Smallville for taking more liberties with the Superman canon than any other adaptation, their myopic hard-lining misses the big picture. Smallville is a faithful version of Superman because it remains true to the heart of the story. Resisting the urge to make young Clark Kent (Tom Welling) cool or edgy, Smallville shows the selflessness of the character, the struggle between desires and obligation better than perhaps ANY adaptation. If the show has any drawback it’s that by now, the extrapolation of the inevitable makes it impossible to believe that ANYONE in Smallville won’t know who Superman is when he finally puts on the costume (especially Lex Luthor).

To my mind, the worst version of Superman wasn’t either of Christopher Reeve’s last two movies, the ill advised campy 60s broadway show, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman! nor when he temporarily became an energy being in the comics in the mid 1990s. Rather, it was the 1993 TV series, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Lois and Clark reimagined the tale as a romantic comedy, a radical concept that might’ve worked had the show’s creators had any kind of grip on the characters themselves. Sadly, they didn’t, as evidenced by their reversal of the myth’s key tenet: They made Superman the disguise and Clark Kent the real persona. A horribly cast Dean Cain played Clark exactly the same as Superman, with the glasses and (really atrocious) costume being the only difference. Audiences couldn’t relate to either side of Kal-El (Ironically, comic creator John Byrne made this same mistake when he revamped Superman for the comics in 1988).

Likewise saddled with bad special effects, a pathetic Luthor (John Shea), and awkward attempts at making the show hip (Clark gets tickets to a Pearl Jam concert!), Lois and Clark never found a comfortable balance between the conflicting genres of romantic comedy and action / adventure. The series is widely (and vociferously) dismissed by most Superman fanboys.

I’m fairly confident that Superman Returns will be much better than Lois and Clark, but either way, it won’t matter. The bottom line is, regardless of whether Superman Returns is a smash or a dud (both creatively and commercially), it won’t replace anyone’s idea of who Superman is; It will only add to a long, rich, complex legacy.

But the question remains, in a world where an angst-ridden Spider-Man just wants to be loved, an angry Batman is obsessed with vengeance and feared mutant X-Men just wanna be left alone... does Superman fit in?

In a 2002 Vanity Fair article, writer James Wolcott commented that “pop myth adapts, rewrites its own history, reflects contemporary values in an enlarging mirror, and, like Greek myth, cloaks human fears and desires as godly forces and supernatural feats.”

Superman represents our greatest desires in their most noble terms. Yes, it’s a fantasy about absolute power. But moreso, it’s about using that power for the greater good. In fact, in times as trying and cynical as we live now, maybe Superman means more than he has since he fought for the repressed during the great Depression. As 9/11 so painfully reminded us, the concepts of sacrifice and heroism will never become obsolete, and Superman remains, after almost 70 years, the quintessential pop culture embodiment of those virtues. After all, they don’t call it the “never ending battle” for nothing.
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ORIGINALLY POSTED as THE FANBOY DILEMMA PART 5 on MTV.COM, June 2006

The uneven acting legacy of the Man in Black

In “Walk the Line,” Joaquin Phoenix has the unenviable job of recreating one of the most distinctive personae in the history of pop culture. There are very few figures more iconic and instantly recognizable than Johnny Cash.

The real Johnny Cash appeared as himself in dozens of movies and TV shows, and his music has appeared in every kind of film from western to comedy to crime drama and horror (the use of “The Man Comes Around” over the main titles of 2004’s “Dawn of the Dead” was nothing short of genius).

But Cash only ventured into acting a handful of times, and while it’s certainly a mixed legacy, it’s worth taking a look at.

Cash first leapt onto the screen in the 1961 cult thriller, “Five Minutes to Live,” (aka “Door to Door Maniac”) playing Johnny Cabot, a pompadoured troubadour turned killer. In the film, Johnny teams with a con man played by Vic Tayback to kidnap a bank president’s wife for a $70,000 ransom. Problem is, the bank president is leaving his harping wife for another woman and has no interest in seeing her safely returned. Cash is competent, if campy, and has some swell lines like “This suburb life ain’t for me.”

Cash’s next big screen role found him facing off against Kirk Douglas in “A Gunfight,” (1971) a cynical postmodern western (produced by an Apache tribe) in which two jaded, aging gunfighters decide to sell tickets to one last showdown (what kind of service charge is there on that?).

Yet despite a powerful presence, Cash never quite mustered the acting chops necessary to fill the big screen. He was far more suited to acting for television. In 1962, he played Johnny Laredo in a western pilot called “Night Rider” (not to be confused with Hasselhoff’s talking car opus). 1978’s “Thaddeus Rose and Eddie” is notable in that it was the first time Johnny co-starred dramatically with his wife June Carter Cash (who played his girlfriend). Probably encouraged by her on-set support, Johnny would subsequently bring June along for the dramatic ride many times.

More TV movies followed, including “The Pride of Jesse Hallam” (1981), starring Cash as an illiterate Kentucky miner who has to learn to read when he moves to the sprawling metropolis of, uh, Cincinnati. In 1983’s “Murder in Coweta County,” Cash is a sheriff who brings to justice an amoral killer played by... Andy Griffith!! In “The Baron and the Kid,” (1984), he’s a pool hustler who reunites with his long lost son to try to cash in on Kenny Rogers’ success with “The Gambler.” Sorry, that wasn’t the plot of the film, that was the genesis of the movie.

In the late 80’s, Cash returned to TV movie westerns. He strapped on the gunbelt as an aging Frank in “The Last Days of Frank and Jesse James” (with Kris Kristofferson as his outlaw brother), “Stagecoach” (both 1986), “Davy Crockett: Rainbow in the Thunder” (1988) and 1998’s “All My Friends are Cowboys.” Cash also had a small part as John Brown in the 1985 Civil War mini-series, “North and South.”

But Johnny Cash the actor seemed far more relaxed and comfortable when he wasn’t carrying the dramatic weight himself, as his most enjoyable acting jobs were the handful of times he guest starred on series television.

In “Swan Song,” a 1974 episode of “Columbo,” Johnny plays ex-convict / country gospel singer Tommy Brown, who, while fronting a Christian act, doesn’t practice what he preaches. Tommy drinks, cheats on his harping wife Edna (Ida Lupino) and longs to play more secular arenas. So he drugs Edna and his mistress (a young backup singer) during a small craft flight, then parachutes out of the plane as it crashes, killing the women and seemingly solving his problems. As always, the disheveled LA detective (Peter Falk) isn’t fooled for a second, and goes about cracking Cash’s alibi. As Brown, Cash gets to draw on the gamut of his experiences, saint and sinner, idol and adulterer, a man truly in black. It’s a total hoot, and arguably stands as Johnny Cash’s finest moment as an actor.

In a 1976 episode of “LIttle House on the Prairie,” Cash plays Caleb Hodgekiss, a man who assumes the guise of a reverend gathering money and supplies in Walnut Grove ostensibly to help the victims of a fire in a neighboring town. In fact, Caleb plans on keeping the booty for himself and his wife Mattie (June again), but all those hearts o’ gold teach him the error of his ways (who’da thought?).

One of Cash’s final acting roles was in the form of a short but sweet voice-over. In a 1997 “The Simpsons” episode, “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Homer,” Homer has a hallucinatory experience after eating Guatemalan Insanity Peppers and is visited by a coyote spirit guide, voiced by Cash. The coyote, when not chewing on Homer’s pant leg, instructs him to seek his true soul mate, intimating that it may not be Marge. It’s a tiny part, but hearing that aged, distinctive baritone emanating from a mystical beast borne out of delirium seems somehow fitting.

Also in the late ‘90s, Cash had a recurring role as Kid Cole on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and made an appearance on the Lorenzo Lamas biker-fugitive show, “Renegade.”

But unlike, say, Frank Sinatra or Will Smith, Johnny was never fully believable as an actor. Maybe his instrument, his unique voice was only truly suited for telling stories through music. In that role, nobody could argue, Johnny Cash was as riveting a performer as anyone who’s ever lived. We wish Joaquin luck.
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ORIGINALLY POSTED in REWIND on MTV.COM, November 2005