I usually avoid sticking my nose into other people’s conversations, but I had to poke and sniff lightly into a heated debate this week about Alien 3 being the “only” major sci-fi movie where a main character dies in a “really dumb” manner. For starters, warts and all, there’s a pretty decent (albeit as bleak as rollerskating all the rings of hell in a day) first film in David Fincher’s often negatively discussed sequel/”finale”. I did a RFotW on that a while ago (note that link above – go read it if you’re still one of those who despises the film and maybe it will help out a bit).

And second,Ted Post’s 1970 film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes definitely did its killing off of many major characters (and an entire planet) during the last reel in an even more shocking (and some would say, “really dumb”) manner. It’s actually not a bad film at all, but by upping the shock value of the original classic by obliterating the earth it was definitely a film you didn’t walk out of the theater feeling happy and bouncy after viewing…

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