The Drabblecast

Who else saw "9"?

I think I really liked it, but I'm confused by the ending. Anyone have a take on what, exactly, they think happened?

This is my standard response when someone asks me about that movie:
Yes, its enjoyable. Very dark, interesting premise, beautifully done in a richly dystopian end of the world way.
BUT----Leave when you see that there's only 5 minutes left. Go to a coffee shop with your friends and discuss how you think it might end. Everyone choose their favorite possible ending.
Every ending you discussed - including the ones no one picked -- is better than the actual ending of the movie.

The ending was a cop-out for lazy writers who just were tired or lost their edge or got into their time capsule and went into the past 150 years ago an asked a protein-deprived orphan how to end the movie.

I say "Rent It."
English teachers: Have students write a better ending.

I don't know about that. I think the ending makes more sense than you're giving it credit for (despite the horrible cheese of green ghosts walking around with numbers floating over their heads). It seemed to me like The Scientist must have planned for them to do what they did. It seemed like the ragdolls were intended to die and thus re-seed life on the planet, and it seemed like the Machine understood that their deaths would achieve that, which is why it was intent on imprisoning their souls instead of letting them go free.

It just seems so close to making sense that it must, in fact, make sense, if I just think about the right way. The Scientist splits his soul into pieces so that it can be in several places at once. Thus, some of the soul can go "free" while some is sealed in physical containers. Lots of humans died, obviously, but none of their souls were able to restart life. It must be that leaving some of the soul in a body as an anchor is necessary for the process to work?

I don't know: It just seems too well planned to be a copout "AI" ending, but I can't quite put my finger on what the plan is... It left me feeling satisfied, and copout endings never do that.

I'm with Liz. The last 5 minutes of 9 made me go, "No! What were you thinking, writers?! So now we've gone through all this to get an Adam and Eve story?? (See Turkey City Lexicon.) With *bonus silliness* apparently asexual characters?!" Hughes and I tried to come up with something about the ghosts being in the rain and somehow seeding life that way, but in the end, we just threw up our hands and said, "Ending Fail."

My completely uninformed guess is that the writers argued over the ending and tried to please too many people with it, resulting in idea-sludge.

No: The film is a direct extension of a short movie the writer/director made 4 years ago as a student film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IQcMeNh7Hc

Same ending. No idea sludge.

I think I need to watch it again and pay more attention to the recorded speech The Scientist leaves for 9.