mass mediocrity IV: the final chapter [and this is how you get here] {this is for JR, who kept reminding me about this message board with tantalising extracts}

There's another edition of Rediff's end game show called "Which film endings did you not like?" The results induce as much déjà vu as the trite structure of the majority of Bollywood flicks (and they're just worried about the ending??).

A lot of drivel is devoted to Rang De Basanti and some old favourites like the Karan Johar oeuvre, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (wonder if it's time to make the sequel Ab Aur Kya Chaahiye ...), Sadma. Some people complain about movies with cliché endings, wishing for some sequitur; and others complain about movies with downbeat endings, wishing for more clichéd endings. A few samples:

Parineeta

The movie should have been three minutes more. There is no change of heart of Shekar's father, where he should have been in the last scene showing a father's apology towards Shekar and Lolita whom he had hurt immensely.
How can a man who calls a young girl a "whore" welcome her in turn as his daughter-in law? This part still lingers in the minds of the viewers where a more certain clarity of relationships would have made the ending more perfect and much more meaningful.

can u imagine what would have been the state of SaratChandra, the actual writer of the novel, to see his hero breaking a 8 ft rock solid brick wall with another giantic stone and everybody around was not actually helping physically but inspiring by shouting \\\'tod de\\\'......and ultimately he succeeded...

All we want from Bollywood is clichéd entertainment[sic]. Turning deaths of Big B's characters in Sholay and Deewar and Muqaddar ka Sikandar into endings involving happy marriages, and rewriting the death of Satya seem mild when you consider this:

Sholay

Veeru should embrace ISLAM and marry both Basanti and Jaya Bhaduri.
Thalur should get Jay's hands implanted.
This makes all the more reason that Jaya Bhaduri(Radha) should leave thakurs home.
Kalia should got the pachas hazaar inaam on gabbar.
Helen should present item no. on veeru's wedding.
Suurma bhopali should provide all the Lakdis for cremation of Gabbar & Jay
Hope to see all the same in sequal [sic].

Someone even wished that Teesri Aankh had ended with Amisha Patel regaining her power of speech and tied the knot with Sunny "Dhupia-less" Deol.

When the owners of the Friday the 13th railway train named the fourth edition The Final Chapter, they were kidding (they went all the way up to part X, before springing the cross-franchise Freddy vs Jason). Something tells me the mass mediocrity train's just getting started ...