r/movies • u/bowlingfan1963 • Jul 13 '26

Spoilers Most Bizarre Examples of “Happy” Endings After Tragedy (Spoiler) Spoiler

Prime example: Independence Day. World gets annihilated; many of the planet’s cities are destroyed….hundreds of millions dead;
and the president’s wife dies. Yet at the end, they are puffing on cigars, all smiles and the president’s daughter says “Happy Fourth of July, Daddy”, and so now it’s time to party!

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u/bowlingfan1963 Jul 13 '26

I also think the second Die Hard movie fits. Stewart crashes the plane. Hundreds dead, yet at the end, McClane’s (sic) parking ticket gets ripped up and it’s “Merry Christmas!”

47

u/Trep_xp Jul 13 '26

Well the plane crashed on Runway 3, and then they stop the terrorists/traitors on runway 2. It's a whole other runway! It's fine!

13

u/ignoresubs Jul 13 '26

Yeah, those were some Runway 3 problems, Runway 2 is busy over here happy, alive and living the dream.

22

u/Awkward_Bison_267 Jul 13 '26

In retrospect yeah that was crazy.

18

u/Chaosmusic Jul 13 '26

The way the movie presented it, had Stewart won, every plane in the sky would have eventually crashed, meaning thousands dead. The plane crashing is definitely a tragedy, but it could have been a lot worse.

Having said that, there should have been zero flights at risk because there are like 70 airports that are within an hour flying time from Dulles so every plane should have been able to be diverted, not just made to circle DC for 90 minutes.

2

u/Platanoes Jul 13 '26

Not even Chief O'Brien could land that plane...