Talk:400 Days (film)

Ending

Though the film followed some other poor films with no real ending so you have to decide for yourself, there is no way it could have been a drugged dream as there was too much logical detail and people really died. It was a pre-recorded message that played at the end.(119.246.242.90 (talk) 12:20, 9 January 2016 (UTC))

It's not just that. If you drug everyone, they're not all gonna share the same hallucinations. Basically, the film feels like the writer was trying to cram as much plotholes and logical inconsistencies as possible into the script and when he realized there was just no way out of the hole he'd dug for himself, he just gave up and didn't even finish the thing. --79.242.222.168 (talk) 09:02, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

The open ending does not suggest a 2nd part of the movie in my opinion, which is good. I wonder if the ending scene could be another hallucination, as it is most unlikely that the 400 days are exactly over the moment Zell dies leaving the blood stains on the wall. Also it felt like some sort of TV show, where the curtains drop at the end showing the 'watching-all-the-time'-audience to the contestants. And no one seems to bat an eye to the dead simulation actors. All in all the movie has been very enthralling to me and I really wanted to know more about the mystery in it. But in the end I was left alone and very unsatisfied about it. What happened to the other 2 crew members? Will there be consequences about the deaths of people - maybe they were cybernetic beings? Why was it a supposed success, they all did a terrible and very unprofessional job? What about protocol how to behave in certain situations? The only thing refering to protocol were those vaccinations and doing sports. After all I strongly believe all has simply been some sort of reality-TV show for entertainment purposes only. Surprise, surprise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.171.225.249 (talk) 11:04, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

An examination of the 2016 link(s) to Osterman's own comments on the film suggests a certain facepalming and chagrin over the almost uniformly poor reception by critics. On the one hand he claims the work to be your typical open-ended, let each viewer decide, art-house, whatever, creation. On the other hand he claims the story is seeded with obscure and open clues to guide one's conclusion. He then claims the movie to be in the grand tradition of the Twilight Zone: a dimension of the mind.

Critics aren't stupid. They parse films, often for a living, The Twilight Zone almost always incorporated some kind moral or truism or karmic justification at the end. 400 Days has nothing like that. Open-ended? Whichever of the scenarios followed as to what 'actually' happened entails its own plot-hole(s). Open-ended endings are tricky: the writer must not only plug the usual holes that contradict the arc of the story; all the holes for every hypothetical arc must be plugged. Was the whole thing a drug-induced hallucination? Well that's just cheating: plot holes are part of the territory of dreams and phantasms. How about the 'successful' mission scenario? So, the final 'bad guy' dies being stabbed to death seconds before mission-completion? Well, isn't that convenient. Is the whole desolation scene just a bigger stage within a covered dome? Oh, honestly; there isn't that kind of money. 'Bad' guy wasn't really stabbed? He had a blood-pack on his back? Suppose our protagonist had decided to slit the bad-guy's throat instead? OOPS, survival-misson-CEO, oops. Culpable Homicide charge for you.

I'm tempted to launch into a best-fit scenario with the least plot-holes, and most-likely-what-really-happened. Then I would have to make the charge that I don't like to see from critics, which they only invoke when they really don't like a movie, and want to gratuitously put it on the flaming pile of invective. OK, the best-fit scenario is really, really far-fetched. It's the only thing that really ruins the movie, which I would have (moderately) enjoyed; a diverting bit of sci-fi with only a touch of horror.

It was a bad ending, not open-ended. A botched ending, and hence a poor movie. A ' what-were-they-thinking? ' movie.

Osterman doesn't just want the movie to be regarded as 'open-ended', but his own apologia seems designed to be open-ended as well. If that's the case, it's just digging a deeper hole of resentment. I think the director should come clean, fess up, say he made a big 'mistake', bring out his wife by his side, accept Jesus, go into rehab, swear off drugs and alcohol, etc. JohndanR (talk) 23:19, 26 November 2016 (UTC)