Friday, February 10, 2012

Final Destination

This article is about the first film in the series. For information about the series as a whole, see Final Destination (series). For the 2009 film, see The Final Destination.
Final Destination was released in 2000, it was the first of five films in the series, it was a film with a poor budget, and also received a poor reception overall. But it did still attract fans to the series, and a lot of work went into upping the quality for the sequels. The events in Final Destination occur after the events in Final Destination 5.

Plot

Alex Browning an average High School student, is going on a field trip to Paris. He is feeling nervous before the flight (Flight 180) after getting numerous feelings that something bad is going to happen. He gets on the plane, and as it takes off, there is a lot of turbulence, suddenly there is an explosion, which leads to him and all his friends dying. His 'death' snaps him back into reality, where he realizes he has just had a premonition of the death of all his classmates, and other passengers. He frantically tries to get off the plane, this starts a scuffle in the isle. This leads to six students being thrown off the plane, one teacher also accompanies them. Whilst they sit in the airport trying to calm Alex down, they witness the plane blow up just as Alex predicted. The survivors are devastated, and FBI agents Weine and Schreck interview the people who were removed from the plane, and are particularly interested with Alex's vision.
A month later, his best friend Tod Waggner is strangled in his bathtub but his death is deemed as being suicide. When Alex and Clear Rivers go to see his body, mysterious mortician William Bludworth tells them that Death is intervening to kill everyone who was meant to die on the plane. Terry Chaney falls victim the next day when she is hit by a bus. Alex gets the idea that death had a design, and worked out the order the others were going to die. He works out that Valerie Lewton his teacher is the next to die, he goes to try and save her, but is too late after she is killed when a kitchen knife falls and impales her and then blown up when her house explodes. He and the rest of the survivors Clear, Carter Horton and Billy Hitchcock discuss what they ar
Carter takes control.
e going to do. Carter can't take anymore of this, and stalls his car on some train tracks in an attempt to kill himself, but changes his mind at the last second, but his seat-belt is stuck. Alex is forced to take action, and saves Carter at the last second. The train hits the car, destroying it. Billy is then killed after a remain from the car is whipped up by the train, and decapitates him from the jaw up. Alex goes into hiding from the police, when he realizes he is the last in line, and to save
Alex, Clear and Carter in Paris talking about their experience in Flight 180.
Clear and Carter, he must sacrifice himself, as this would mess up deaths design. He does this but doesn't die. Six months later, Alex, Clear, and Carter arrive in Paris talking about their experience about Flight 180 and how they defeated Death. Shortly thereafter, a freak incident involving a bus causes a giant neon sign to swing off a hinge down towards Alex. Carter manages to intervene and pushes Alex to the ground, with the sign swinging down past the two of them. Carter then stands up and turns to Alex who is still on the ground. As Carter asks Alex who is next on Death's list, the neon sign swings back on its momentum towards where Carter is standing. The screen fades to black and a loud whack is heard, leaving Alex and Clear as the last two survivors of Flight 180.

Cast

Alex Browning Devon Sawa
Clear Rivers Ali Larter
Carter Horton Kerr Smith
Valerie Lewton Kristen Cloke
Agent Weine Daniel Roebuck
Agent Schreck Roger Guenveur Smith
Tod Waggner Chad E. Donella
Billy Hitchcock Seann William Scott
Mr. Bludworth Tony Todd
Terry Chaney Amanda Detmer
George Waggner Brendan Fehr
Larry Murnau Forbes Angus
Christa Marsh Lisa Marie Caruk
Blake Dreyer Christine Chatelain
Barbara Browning Barbara Tyson
Ken Browning Robert Wisden
Mrs. Waggner P. Lynn Johnson
Mr. Waggner Larry Gilman
Hare Krishna Guy Fauchon
Flight Attendant Randy Stone
Co-pilot Mark Holden
TV News Anchor Marrett Green
Howard Siegel Fred Keating
Minister John Hainsworth
Student Singer Pete Atherton
Ticket Clerk Nicole Robert
Reporter Kristina Matisic

Alternate Ending

In the alternate ending, Alex and Clear have sex on the beach, resulting in Clear's pregnancy. Later, when Alex rescues Clear, the wire electrocutes him and burns him to death. Nine months later, she gives birth to a baby boy named Alex, named after his deceased father, saving her and Carter from Death. At the end, Clear carries Alex Jr. and reunites with Carter at the Flight 180 memorial. Clear states that they only won the chance of a "full life". A gust of wind, blows a leaf off a tree and the leaf covers the camera and then the credits roll.

Trivia

  • The filmmakers originally had an ending in which Alex grabs the cable that lies on Clear's car, Alex catches fire and dies. Then Clear gets her baby and Carter survives. The test audience didn't like this, so the filmmakers shot another ending in which Alex is decapitated by a crashing police helicopter. But again, the test audience didn't like the fact that Alex dies, so they shot the finish with the billboard, which took 6 days to film and cost nearly $2,000,000.
  • At least one or two tragedies or accidents in each of the three final Destination films are based on real life events. In this movie, Flight 180 was based on Trans World Flight 800, which also crashed right after takeoff, leaving JFK for Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, and both were carrying a group of students going to Paris on a class trip.
  • Something to watch for, especially considering John Denver died in a plane crash. Whenever someone's about to die, listen for the song "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver to play. The obvious one is when Ms. Lewton is about to die and she plays her mother's John Denver record. Next, after Todd shaves and cuts himself, he plugs in the radio and you think he's going to get electrocuted. What do you suppose is playing for about 3 seconds? At the beginning, when Alex is having the nightmare, he and Todd go to the bathroom, guess what's playing on the loudspeaker. Also at the end, when they are in France, the man playing the guitar is singing "Rocky Mountain High" in French.
  • When Alex's air ticket is torn at the checking desk before he boards 180 if you look at the ticket very closely there is a piece of text saying,'Your Final Flight'.
  • In the airport after the plane explodes, it shows Terry with a terrified look on her face. Right behind her is a picture of a bus, which is the way she would die later in the movie. Also, at Ms. Lewton's house, when she is standing in front of her computer, behind her is a stained glass window with a picture of a knife, which is how she would later die.
  • The sign that falls down at the end is "180", which was the number for their flight.
  • Todd foreshadows his own death - in Alex's vision he mimes strangling himself (when he's trying to stop Alex changing seats), putting an imaginary rope around his own neck and pulling it tight...
  • This is more of something to notice, but when the students are walking onto the airplane Alex looks at the scrapes on the door of the plane, then he looks down through the gap and a baggage car passes underneath. Look at the numbers on top of the car...they read 666, unless you want to be picky then its 999 which wouldn't mean anything.
  • The German dub of Final Destination doesn't change Tod's name. "Tod" means "Death" in German.
  • When Carter is driving to "take control" the train Alex sees out his window is number 747, which is the type of plane that blew up.
  • In the very beginning of the movie you see many different shots of Alex's room, in one shot you see the shadow of a little figure hanging by the neck foreshadowing Tod's death.
  • James Wong, the director for this movie, was also a writer/producer/director for the X-Files TV show. The script for this movie was based on an episode he wrote that was never used for the X-Files show.

Glitches

  • At the memorial service the principal says that it's been 39 days since 39 loved ones had died. But there were 40 students on the plane and 4 chaperones, making the total 44. Now 7 people got off the plane which means 37 people related to that memorial service actually died, not 39. Two pilots would make up the numbers, but there would be flight crew too, which still leaves the numbers off.
  • The scene where Clear is in the garage, she puts the car in drive, but somehow reverses the car through the garage door.
  • The teens are traveling presumably along the Meadowbrook or Wantaugh parkways, when the enter Jones Beach. They see a sign just before the beach entrance that says "New York: 93 miles", when Jones Beach is less than 15 miles from NYC limits and approximately 25-30 miles from Manhattan.
  • Right before Terry is hit by the bus, there are puddles and wet patches all over the road and path. But when the bus actually makes contact with Terry, they all instantly disappear.
  • At the end when Clear is in the car, trying to get away, she knocks over a can of turpentine. When you look at the can again it has changed the way in which it fell.
  • After Mrs. Lewton closes the kettle lid, it is open in the next shot.
  • At the start when you see Alex, Tod and co. walking down the walkway to the plane you can see that their heads are almost touching the ceiling. You can tell it was shortened to make the path longer for the appropriate sequence and then after when they reach the turning the ceiling is much higher.
  • People sitting beside Alex disappear at the funeral.
  • The pump removed from Tod's neck, in the morgue, reappears.
  • In the scene where Alex is watching the TV on how the plane exploded, look at the illustration shown. Then compare it with the illustration that appears on Alex's computer screen. The positions of the explosions shown are opposite.
  • When Alex is in the cabin opening the can the pull tab is already lifted up making it easier to open because he is wearing gloves. It was already up when he took the wrapper off.
  • When Billy is explaining about being in the bathroom, not on the plane, he has his head in the door's path. Camera cuts and he puts his head back in the path, blocking the door.
  • The match Mrs. Lewton lights is obviously way too long for the matchbox to light up.
  • The wheels of the police car screech when there's gravel on the street.

Posters

The poster features five characters. The characters are: Alex, Clear, Carter, Billy and Terry. The cast has half of their face as a skull. The background of the poster is lightning.

Reception

Critical reviews

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports 33% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based on 93 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/10, and a generally negative 32% approval rating from "top" critics based on 22 reviews. The site's consensus of opinion is that "Despite a panel of X-Files' alums at the helm and a promising premise, flighty performances and poor execution keep Final Destination from ever taking off." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film holds a mixed/average score of 36 based on 28 reviews, while IGN gives the film 2.5 stars out of 5.

Box office

The film premiered in 2,587 theaters across the United States and Canada on March 17, 2000, earning $10,015,822 on its opening weekend with an average of $3,871 per theater. Final Destination placed at #3 in the US box office on its opening weekend, behind biography film Erin Brockovich and the science fiction film Mission to Mars. The film remained at #3 on the next weekend before dropping to #7 on its third weekend. The film continuously dropped on the next weekends until it was removed from the top-ten list on its eight weekend. The film lasted in theaters for 22 weekends, its last screening airing in 105 theaters and grossing $52,675, placing in #56. Final Destination grossed $53,331,147 in the United States and Canada on its total screening and earned $59,549,147 in other territories, having an overall gross of $112,880,294 internationally.

Novelization

Main article: Final Destination (novel)
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Death Design

Death's design

Clear's following of the design
Death's design, also known as the chain, is a special design that is created by Death. According to William Bludworth, death's designs had some rules, but it's not clear how he knew them. During the survival days of Clear Rivers, she following of the design, and marked them on the wall in her room of the Stonybrook Institution Psychiatric Treatment Center.

Premonition

Main article: Premonition
The people who had the premonition could see how the people on death's list died in the disasters, but it's unknown whether the premonition had something to do with Death.

Order of Death

Death would killed people through different orders. In Final Destination, the death order was followed the explosion ways in Flight 180. In Final Destination 2, the death order was turned backward of the premonition, which caused by the Flight 180 survivors. In Final Destination 3, the death order was still based the order of death, but also on the seating on Devil's Flight and the photos taken gave clues to how they might die. In The Final Destination, the death order was followed the order in the premonition, except Jonathan Groves who died out of order by not changing seats.

Cheating Death

Intervention

Intervening in someone's death can hinder the design, and cheat death, but it will only skip the one who being saved. After the first turn, it will still turn back to the one who was saved before. This rule can't defeat Death at all.

New life

According to William Bludworth, only new life can beat Death. In an alternate ending of Final Destination, Clear Rivers had a baby with Alex Browning (although he is dead), so she and Carter Horton beat Death. In Final Destination 2, Kimberly Corman mistook the meaning of new life. She thought if her heart stopped beating for a couple minutes, and then being saved was considered a new life. But her action was proofed wrong, since Thomas and her were still killed by a wood clipper at last, so it's clear that they didn't beat Death. In addition, although one of the survivors - Isabella Hudson - had a baby, she was not meant to die on Route 23, so she couldn't help Kimberly and Thomas with "cheating" Death.

Steal another's life

According to William Bludworth, if you kill someone who is not in Death's design, you as the person who was to already be dead but had cheated Death, receive the remaining life left from the person you killed. Peter eloquently calls this "kill or be killed".
Three instances of this occur in Final Destination 5. Nathan kills Roy, receiving his few remaining days; Roy having an illness that would have killed him shortly anyways. Nathan thus dies shortly after, but not in the original order of death planned by Death, only as the time of death for Roy originally. Peter kills Block, avoiding Death's schedule. Similarly, Sam kills Peter, avoiding Death's schedule. Sam dies shortly after, as Block had been scheduled to die not long after his actual death.

Suicide

If it's not your time to die, Death won't let you kill yourself. This happened to Eugene Dix and George Lanter. It was also tested by Carter Horton when he wanted to "gain control" of his life. He drove his car fast through the traffic trying to kill himself (he would probably kill Clear, Alex and Billy too), but stopped on train tracks waiting for the train to claim his life. Eventually he said "its not my time to die", and unsuccessfully tried to start his car. However, it's revealed in Final Destination 5 that if it's not your time to die, you can't suicide, but you can killed by the others.
In Final Destination 3, Ian McKinley had a theory: if the last person on the list commit suicide, then the rest of the survivors would truly beat Death's design. The last one on the list, Wendy Christensen never listened to Ian anyway, so it is unknown whether or not Ian's idea is true. However, in an alternate ending of The Final Destination, the last one on the list, Nick O'Bannon thought to know how he could defeat death by commit suicide. He jumped out of the mall and landed on a police car and was dead. Nick's action revealed the result of Ian's theory, and that only the last one on the list can suicide whenever they want. But after Nick's death, Lori Milligan and Janet Cunningham who were the only survivors on the list, crushed by a fan and died. This confirmed that although the last person on the list suicided, but the rest of the survivors still couldn't beat Death.
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