The very first time you went "this is bullsh*t!" after an ending of something.

[The Madman]

I can't remember the first and I'm not going to try, but I will say I agree with those mentioning both Mass Effect 3 and God of War 3.

What is it about the third game in a trilogy having a shitty ending? Actually, third anything in general is often disappointing, see Spiderman 3, X-Men 3, Godfather 3, Rocky 3, multiple Batman franchise, etc. Huh.

Alternatively, you kill your girlfriend, the main villain laughs, then a succubus dry humps your leg.

...You say that like it's a bad thing. There's also the ending where you kill your girlfriend, screw over the main villain, then a succubus dry humps your leg. That one's my favourite.

 

[KissingSunlight]

The earliest I can remember is the movie version of Stephen King's The Mist. At the end of the film, the main character and a few others--including his own son--are trapped in the middle of the monster-ridden mist after their car runs out of gas, so they decide to kill themselves. The main character does the deed, shooting them all--which again, includes his own kid--with the last of their bullets before wandering out into the mist to be killed by the monsters...

....at which point, the army shows up, kills all the monsters, and the mist instantly clears up. It's a literal last minute gut punch. I spent the car ride home from the movie alternating between being at angry it and laughing at it over how heavy handed it was.

The only ending that I recall that pissed me off to no end was the ending to HIMYM. Season 9 was a complete train wreck to begin with due to setting the entire season at the wedding among other things like making Marshall out to be the asshole after he took the Judge's job and called Lily out for being selfish for leaving him before their wedding to go to art school, after she called him selfish and that she never did anything that selfish. But the ending was a special kind of "fuck you" to the fans, for after all that build up and focus on Robin and Barney's wedding, we find out 10 mins later into the episode that they divorced, all that focus for nothing. And it gets worse, we finally get to know the Mother from the episode "How Your Mother Met Me", which was probably one of the best episodes in the series, mainly for the episode's ending which was pretty romantic. But once the finale comes on we find that the Mother got sick and died off screen, no build up or pacing whatsoever, I just found it disrespectful to the character, especially since it ends with Ted and Robin getting together.

One of the biggest problems I have with the series is the Ted x Robin relationship, they go on with the will they, won't they crap, despite them even admitting to themselves that it won't work out between them, so to end the series with the Mother dying in a disrespectful way and Ted wanting to go out with Robin, with him shrugging off his dead wife just made me call bullshit. It pissed me off so much that I just can't watch the older episodes anymore, knowing that this was the ending that it would lead to.

Don't hate me. I loved how The Mist and How I Met Your Mother ended.

The Mist was a surprise twist that no one saw coming. Usually horror movies come up with some lame happy endings. It was a pleasant surprise that it didn't go that route.

HIMYM ending justified why Ted kept detailing his relationship with Robin to his kids.

Maybe it's just me, I appreciate stories that don't have tidy happy endings more than the ones that do.

 

[The Wykydtron]

The ending to The World God Only Knows... oh wait, first time, shit. Then Mystic Gohan so much time developing how awesome he will be and he gets fucking tricked to give the spotlight to Goku.

It's been quite awhile since I last read the manga but was TWGOK's ending bad? I thought it was alright, at least at the time. Didn't Keima get together with... whatshername, Chigara? The one with the guitar? It's been AGES but I wasn't unhappy with how it ended. It could have been a trainwreck the way the last arc was going, too.

OT: Uhhhhh, Evangelion is the easy one seeing as the last 3 episodes were Gainex running out of money and had to put 3 episodes together with paste and string. Oh, speaking of Gainex, how about the ending to Panty & Stocking. Literally a big fuck you to the audience with no season 2 airing ever. Amazing.

 

[the December King]

The earliest I can remember is the movie version of Stephen King's The Mist. At the end of the film, the main character and a few others--including his own son--are trapped in the middle of the monster-ridden mist after their car runs out of gas, so they decide to kill themselves. The main character does the deed, shooting them all--which again, includes his own kid--with the last of their bullets before wandering out into the mist to be killed by the monsters...

....at which point, the army shows up, kills all the monsters, and the mist instantly clears up. It's a literal last minute gut punch. I spent the car ride home from the movie alternating between being at angry it and laughing at it over how heavy handed it was.

I hear you. I felt the same way about this one for a while... I finally decided that it was, indeed, a good ending for a true horror movie- that all of the decisions made by the hero were bad ones, and that the horror of this realization at the end was shared with the audience (at least that's my way of rationalizing it!).

For me it would be Roseanne. The first three seasons were some of the best TV of the age, in my opinion. But by the end, it was bat shit insane and pointless- everyone was gay and rich, all of the male characters were either stupid, whipped, or psychotic. And then it turned into a story in Roseanne's head.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Impossible to remember. One of the earlier ones was Evangelion, but I rewatched it when I was older and enjoyed the ending. I didn't like the alternate, darker theatrical ending that I watched after my third viewing of the show, but that was like seven years ago and I've never rewatched it.

Have you read the Manga? (Which is a finshed series as of now mind you)

I can't remember the first and I'm not going to try, but I will say I agree with those mentioning both Mass Effect 3 and God of War 3.

What is it about the third game in a trilogy having a shitty ending? Actually, third anything in general is often disappointing, see Spiderman 3, X-Men 3, Godfather 3, Rocky 3, multiple Batman franchise, etc. Huh.

Alternatively, you kill your girlfriend, the main villain laughs, then a succubus dry humps your leg.

...You say that like it's a bad thing. There's also the ending where you kill your girlfriend, screw over the main villain, then a succubus dry humps your leg. That one's my favourite.

Personally I found God of War 3 ending even Worse than Mass Effect 3's and mind you I have played all 3 games with all the crucicial Story DLC and beaten all the those games to as close to 100% completetion as possible and I still found the ending to God of War 3 much more nonsensical and dissipointing and infuriating than Mass Effect 3's and I thought it was eh I had a good time with all 3 games in the end.

 

[Hawki]

I can't remember the first, so I'll just call out some:

-Andromeda, Season 4 (yes, it's not the series ending, but we go from a strong penultimate episode to a lacklustre two parter, and the whole paradine 'thing'...gah!)

-The Legend of Korra, Season 1 (Korra gets her powers back through DEM, after using them through DEM, and then we get a lacklustre second season)

-The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle (maybe not "bullshit" per se, but this is easily my least favorite Narnia book, and how it ends is part of the reason why)

-Arrow, Season 3 (yes Ollie, forgive Merlyn for killing Sarah and starting this whole mess, just drive off with Felicity because...gah!)

-Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (because cliffhangers with no guarantee of a sequel are a great idea)

-Mass Effect 3 (you know why, though caveat that I only watched ME3, so this really shouldn't be listed by me)

-Merlin (the series finale...oh god, the season finale...hey, let's make the entire series A WASTE OF TIME!)

-Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (or, BioWare getting in some practice for ME3, where we get a cliffhanger that's never resolved, and Sonic & Tails discussing how great BioWare is during the credits)

-Terminator 3 (this might be the first time, but, yeah. Let's have an ending that undermines the entire series in terms of plot and theme to tap off a movie that's a poor man's version of T2)

-Wing Commander: Prophecy (only watched, never played, but the way Blair is so unceremoniosuly killed off...I mean, why? WHY?!)

-Rams (I get what the ending is trying to do, and did for some people, but it just didn't work for me)

Sure there's others, but these come off the top of my head.

Edit: Also:

-Star Trek: Nemesis (never mind that this is the second worst Star Trek film I've seen, the way the ending shot just sort of peters out, leaving the Enterprise in dry dock...I mean, compare that to Undiscovered Country, with the Enterprise sailing off, and you see why one ending works, and one doesn't)

-Diamonds Are Forever (lacklustre ending to my least favorite Bond film...also a lame one-liner to top it off. Rarely say this, but bring on Roger Moore)

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Hmm.

First one would probably be Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I say that only because I watched it very young (I think I was about eight or nine years old when it was airing on SBS). I just had no goddamn idea what I was watching; I thought it was a cool robot show, and then someone's getting mind-raped and someone else gets tentacle-exploded and then everything is drawn in crayon. My parents really shouldn't have been letting me stay up that late.

A few years later I rewatched the series and saw End of Evangelion, and it still puzzled the bejesus out of me, but it didn't prompt that "this is bullshit!" reaction. A lot of the pseudo-philosophical complexity has lost its luster as I got older, but I watched it again a few years ago and it's still a great show. It gets a lot of hype backlash, I think.

Oh! I have another example. The end of the Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft 3. It just kind of stopped with Arthas mind-melding with the Lich King. I was watching that cinematic and thinking "he's going to throw it off, kill the Lich King or himself or whatever" and then it's just "nope, he's an evil necrogod now." That was the first time I remember going "Oh dang, the bad guys won. Oh dang, I am the bad guys!"

 

[Glongpre]

I'm not sure about the first time, but the Prestige got a fairly loud bullshit reaction from me. After expecting some kind of fiendishly clever explanation for how Hugh Jackman's teleportation trick worked, the film just resorts to an actual teleportation machine.

???
It is a cloning machine, not a teleportation machine. He had been literally killing himself by drowning (pure agony), just to one-up Bale, and become famous. It doesn't teleport him at all.

 

[Hawki]

Probably Monty Python and the Holy Grail. My dad loves that movie, so I saw it at a really young age, and still remember being really put off by how it ended.

Bloody hell, how did I forget this?

Ditto. Definately ditto.

 

[hermes]

The only ending that I recall that pissed me off to no end was the ending to HIMYM. Season 9 was a complete train wreck to begin with due to setting the entire season at the wedding among other things like making Marshall out to be the asshole after he took the Judge's job and called Lily out for being selfish for leaving him before their wedding to go to art school, after she called him selfish and that she never did anything that selfish. But the ending was a special kind of "fuck you" to the fans, for after all that build up and focus on Robin and Barney's wedding, we find out 10 mins later into the episode that they divorced, all that focus for nothing. And it gets worse, we finally get to know the Mother from the episode "How Your Mother Met Me", which was probably one of the best episodes in the series, mainly for the episode's ending which was pretty romantic. But once the finale comes on we find that the Mother got sick and died off screen, no build up or pacing whatsoever, I just found it disrespectful to the character, especially since it ends with Ted and Robin getting together.

One of the biggest problems I have with the series is the Ted x Robin relationship, they go on with the will they, won't they crap, despite them even admitting to themselves that it won't work out between them, so to end the series with the Mother dying in a disrespectful way and Ted wanting to go out with Robin, with him shrugging off his dead wife just made me call bullshit. It pissed me off so much that I just can't watch the older episodes anymore, knowing that this was the ending that it would lead to.

Yeah, that ending was pretty rough. I wasn't sold with "the mother" character, mostly because we never actually meet her. All the season was a continuous play in the "you nearly missed her" cliche, were every character except him have interacted with her, but she has to leave the room just when he is about to enter. I don't remember much of the details, but I think we only see them interact (outside of flashbacks) for a couple episodes before the end of the series. There was a lot more in the relationship with Stella or Victoria. The relationship with the mother could have been a "meet cute" scene at the end of any of the seasons, for all I care about...

But then they backtrack even that, by spending the very last episode going "remember all that plot line we build around Ted's love of his life? The one we named the series about and spend the last season building? It doesn't really matter, because she died of something, I guess. We are not really going to show you, we are just going to skip forward and stop showing her, because what really matters is how the core 5 characters lived their lives from that moment forward. We are also going to make it about Ted asking Robin out, because that was the couple we have been trying to ship since episode 1." It felt like the beginning of Up, but Pixar sold me on the Carl/Ellie relationship in 10 minutes better than HIMYM sold me on Ted/Whatshername in 9 years.

I was never a fan of Robin/Barney, because it felt like sitcoms shipping their most popular characters together just because they are popular (see Rachel/Joey for one with even less chemistry) and it make the characters hit the reset button every so often, but at least they gave that one some time to grow and show it, not just Ted talking about how much they loved each other, and how perfect they were for each other, without some scenes showing something more organic that script lines about how "we like the same bands, my obscure favorite movie is the same as your obscure favorite movie, we are both quirky but we like each other quirkiness, and all my friends think you are the coolest".

 

[hermes]

Impossible to remember. One of the earlier ones was Evangelion, but I rewatched it when I was older and enjoyed the ending. I didn't like the alternate, darker theatrical ending that I watched after my third viewing of the show, but that was like seven years ago and I've never rewatched it.

Have you read the Manga? (Which is a finshed series as of now mind you)

I can't remember the first and I'm not going to try, but I will say I agree with those mentioning both Mass Effect 3 and God of War 3.

What is it about the third game in a trilogy having a shitty ending? Actually, third anything in general is often disappointing, see Spiderman 3, X-Men 3, Godfather 3, Rocky 3, multiple Batman franchise, etc. Huh.

Alternatively, you kill your girlfriend, the main villain laughs, then a succubus dry humps your leg.

...You say that like it's a bad thing. There's also the ending where you kill your girlfriend, screw over the main villain, then a succubus dry humps your leg. That one's my favourite.

Personally I found God of War 3 ending even Worse than Mass Effect 3's and mind you I have played all 3 games with all the crucicial Story DLC and beaten all the those games to as close to 100% completetion as possible and I still found the ending to God of War 3 much more nonsensical and dissipointing and infuriating than Mass Effect 3's and I thought it was eh I had a good time with all 3 games in the end.

I think people disliked the ending of Mass Effect 3 because it failed on the promise of taking people choices into account, being pretty much exactly the same wheter you were a saint or a bastard in the previous games (and because it needed some DLC to make more sense), not because it was badly written. If anything, I agree with you that there are game endings that are vastly worst in terms of bad writing or disappointing gameplay, like God of War 3, Half Life 2 or Borderlands.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Hmm.

First one would probably be Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I say that only because I watched it very young (I think I was about eight or nine years old when it was airing on SBS). I just had no goddamn idea what I was watching; I thought it was a cool robot show, and then someone's getting mind-raped and someone else gets tentacle-exploded and then everything is drawn in crayon. My parents really shouldn't have been letting me stay up that late.

A few years later I rewatched the series and saw End of Evangelion, and it still puzzled the bejesus out of me, but it didn't prompt that "this is bullshit!" reaction. A lot of the pseudo-philosophical complexity has lost its luster as I got older, but I watched it again a few years ago and it's still a great show. It gets a lot of hype backlash, I think.

Oh! I have another example. The end of the Frozen Throne expansion for Warcraft 3. It just kind of stopped with Arthas mind-melding with the Lich King. I was watching that cinematic and thinking "he's going to throw it off, kill the Lich King or himself or whatever" and then it's just "nope, he's an evil necrogod now." That was the first time I remember going "Oh dang, the bad guys won. Oh dang, I am the bad guys!"

And I loved that ending for it, and it made killing him in Wrath of the Lich King all the more satisfying, its like "I am finallying putting down the monster I created"

 

[Ayame Murasaki]

The end of American Horror Story: Coven. Cordelia is the new Supreme...wait, what?! No, no, no. Your generation's chance at this has passed, Cordelia. Let it be Zoe--the season started off with her. Let it be Queenie--Queenie is awesome. Let it be Nan--wait, she's dead. Shit, I was rooting for Nan. Although I am glad it wasn't Madison. She was an unrepentant hosebeast.
...I'm going to shut up before I start babbling too much.

 

[Recusant]

The first one that I can remember (and date; it probably wasn't actually the first), is, as it apparently was for others, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's one of those that continued to annoy me even later, as it sent the message that a bullshit unhappy ending is somehow better than a bullshit happy one.

Wait, no, now that I think of it, I remember an earlier one: Quantum Leap. While I could accept the premise of Sam sticking around and gaining further control of his movements, ultimately improving the world around him through life-long self-sacrifice, that's only a loose implication- and the final screen, a cut-out card that doesn't even spell the main character's name right was a total kick in the teeth.

And I'm a little surprised no one's mentioned The Prisoner yet; maybe no one's old enough, or maybe I'm not the only one whose reaction was less "That's bullshit!" and more a cosmic-scale "Huh?".

-Wing Commander: Prophecy (only watched, never played, but the way Blair is so unceremoniosuly killed off...I mean, why? WHY?!)

Well, he wasn't killed off; he was missing in action- and then EA killed the series. Do note that, despite what some would tell you, the game didn't sell poorly; it sold so well that they gave the expansion away for free. If you find the previous seven words impossible to believe, bear in mind this was back when they were Electronics Arts; they had really only started down the path of become the "EA" we all know and loathe today.

Not to mention, after the first trilogy, and then four, where else was there to go with his character? The whole new generation of pilots had to come in to freshen things up, and had Blair remained in place, he'd've served as a constant overshadowing presence, and a memory of a higher-stakes time; taking him out of the picture makes sense. And simply kidnapping him again wouldn't work; it had to be something big, something to, at least, make you believe he's really dead... but we never got to find out, and so it ended.

I suspect if we got to include unresolved cliffhangers, this thread would be much, much longer.

 

[Droopie]

Probably How I Met Your Mother. Looking back, the whole show is mediocre, but I loved it when I was younger and was furious at the finale. The pacing of the entire last season was brutally slow, each episode only covering a few hours at a time (whereas past seasons were regular sitcom pace, usually with one episode taking place over a few days). The finale was incredibly rushed and covered several years in, what? An hour, if that? Not to mention the character they'd spend the entire show developing and building up to was killed off in a 30-second montage. Fucking bullshit, all of it.

 

[Hawki]

Well, he wasn't killed off; he was missing in action- and then EA killed the series. Do note that, despite what some would tell you, the game didn't sell poorly; it sold so well that they gave the expansion away for free. If you find the previous seven words impossible to believe, bear in mind this was back when they were Electronics Arts; they had really only started down the path of become the "EA" we all know and loathe today.

Not to mention, after the first trilogy, and then four, where else was there to go with his character? The whole new generation of pilots had to come in to freshen things up, and had Blair remained in place, he'd've served as a constant overshadowing presence, and a memory of a higher-stakes time; taking him out of the picture makes sense. And simply kidnapping him again wouldn't work; it had to be something big, something to, at least, make you believe he's really dead... but we never got to find out, and so it ended.

I suspect if we got to include unresolved cliffhangers, this thread would be much, much longer.

Well, I have included cliffhangers in the "pissed me off" category, so there's that.

I feel guilty about talking about Wing Commander in any great detail, same reason that I feel guilty about complaining about ME3's ending (only watched, never played). That said, I'm not opposed to Blair dying, but with Prophecy currently standing as the last 'proper' installment, it does leave a bitter taste. Especially since in the context of the game, Blair really seems to be pushing his luck/authority. He's the captain of the Midway, he shouldn't be flying around. Yes, I know, he was the captain of the Union of Border Worlds ship in the previous game and still went on missions, but WC4 felt like a natural end to his character arc, and indeed, a 'book ending' to the series as a whole. Prophecy in many ways feels tacked on to the overall storyline.

Like I said, limited 'right' to gripe here, but given how Blair went out/disappeared, and Prophecy as a whole, it does feel like a lacklustre ending. Not every cliffhanger was put on my list, but Prophecy is certainly one of them.

 

[Mister K]

The earliest I can remember is the movie version of Stephen King's The Mist. At the end of the film, the main character and a few others--including his own son--are trapped in the middle of the monster-ridden mist after their car runs out of gas, so they decide to kill themselves. The main character does the deed, shooting them all--which again, includes his own kid--with the last of their bullets before wandering out into the mist to be killed by the monsters...

....at which point, the army shows up, kills all the monsters, and the mist instantly clears up. It's a literal last minute gut punch. I spent the car ride home from the movie alternating between being at angry it and laughing at it over how heavy handed it was.

I think even bigger gut punch was that the protagonist saw mother and daughter who either refused to hide in a shop, or were the first ones to muster the bravery to leave (don't remember which) INSIDE the civillian truck, safe and sound.

But I kimd of liked that ending. You are probably right in that it could be shot better, but at its core, for me, it was a lot better than the ending in a book, when they stop at a hotel, turn on the radio, hear the name of the city through static and are now filled with hope. It just didn't have the same impact.

 

[Recusant]

I feel guilty about talking about Wing Commander in any great detail, same reason that I feel guilty about complaining about ME3's ending (only watched, never played). That said, I'm not opposed to Blair dying, but with Prophecy currently standing as the last 'proper' installment, it does leave a bitter taste. Especially since in the context of the game, Blair really seems to be pushing his luck/authority. He's the captain of the Midway, he shouldn't be flying around. Yes, I know, he was the captain of the Union of Border Worlds ship in the previous game and still went on missions, but WC4 felt like a natural end to his character arc, and indeed, a 'book ending' to the series as a whole. Prophecy in many ways feels tacked on to the overall storyline.

Like I said, limited 'right' to gripe here, but given how Blair went out/disappeared, and Prophecy as a whole, it does feel like a lacklustre ending. Not every cliffhanger was put on my list, but Prophecy is certainly one of them.

Guilty? Why? It did make for a lackluster ending, it left us with a lot of unanswered questions, and it ended on a cliffhanger; that's never a good sign. More was planned, but never came. Complaints are wholly warranted.

However, I do feel the need to point out that Drake was the captain (though as I recall he didn't show up much); Blair just helped design the ship and was brought along basically as a courtesy before returning to Earth to retire.

 

[Fox12]

Impossible to remember. One of the earlier ones was Evangelion, but I rewatched it when I was older and enjoyed the ending. I didn't like the alternate, darker theatrical ending that I watched after my third viewing of the show, but that was like seven years ago and I've never rewatched it.

Have you read the Manga? (Which is a finshed series as of now mind you)

I haven't. I don't read manga much. I don't know if I'm gonna revisit Evangelion in any form.

The Mangas worse. I would avoid the manga and the the Rebuilds if I were you. Personally, I loved the show and film, but if they didn't do it for you then the rebuilds won't change your mind.

 

[Hawki]

I feel guilty about talking about Wing Commander in any great detail, same reason that I feel guilty about complaining about ME3's ending (only watched, never played). That said, I'm not opposed to Blair dying, but with Prophecy currently standing as the last 'proper' installment, it does leave a bitter taste. Especially since in the context of the game, Blair really seems to be pushing his luck/authority. He's the captain of the Midway, he shouldn't be flying around. Yes, I know, he was the captain of the Union of Border Worlds ship in the previous game and still went on missions, but WC4 felt like a natural end to his character arc, and indeed, a 'book ending' to the series as a whole. Prophecy in many ways feels tacked on to the overall storyline.

Like I said, limited 'right' to gripe here, but given how Blair went out/disappeared, and Prophecy as a whole, it does feel like a lacklustre ending. Not every cliffhanger was put on my list, but Prophecy is certainly one of them.

Guilty? Why? It did make for a lackluster ending, it left us with a lot of unanswered questions, and it ended on a cliffhanger; that's never a good sign. More was planned, but never came. Complaints are wholly warranted.

Guilty in that I never spent money on the product, and only watched a film version of it (same with the others - some guy compiled the gameplay and cutscenes into pseudo movies that are about 3-4 hours long), so I can't say if I have the 'right' to complain. Secondly, watching a game doesn't give the same narrative experience as playing it, and doing the latter after the former has changed my opinion on a game's story in the past. It's a case of not being sure if I have the 'right' to complain, per se.