The World's End

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The world's end is the third movie in the three flavours cornetto trilogy, being Shawn of the dead the first one, and Hot fuzz the second one.
At first, i was really disappointed at this movie. I thought is was going to be as good as the other two, but it wasn't (at least in my opinion). But later on i got over my disappointment and could see the movie was actually good and that Nick Frost, Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright did a really good job on the movie, but wasn't at par with Shawn and Hot fuzz. Still a really good movie. I would give it a 7,5 out of 10



The movie was fine until it got alien-y. Really? REALLY? I like Simon Pegg and the large bearded guy (they have their UK "Jay and Silent Bob" vibe going), but this film was almost like watching 2 or 3 films in one film.

Film 1: Coming of Age / Nostalgic Film for 30-somethings (really 40-headed-to-50-somethings by the look of them).

Film 2: Alien Invasion Film (a la Hot Fuzz)

Film 3: Post Apocalyptic Film??? (a la Terminator and Skynet???)

I mustered through the entire film of drinking only to be royally annoyed at the end. At least Hot Fuzz didnt take itself seriously on the main story or Simon Pegg's character's policeman awesomeness - it was slapstick from the beginning, so the wonky town-murders weren't a complete course-change.

The first 30 minutes to 1 hour spend WAY too much time setting up the pub crawl story, to the point of almost seeming like a serious movie - I kept waiting for some random comedy to lighten the mood - and while Pegg's character tried to add levity - he just came off as the awful, brash, stuck-in-the-past friend - of whom everyone has at least one, and that kind of idiocy is REAL man! They made that film way too heavy.

Post apocalyptic? Are they SERIOUS? What a lame ending.

Oh Pierce Brosnan - how far you've fallen!
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Welcome to the human race...
The movie was fine until it got alien-y. Really? REALLY? I like Simon Pegg and the large bearded guy (they have their UK "Jay and Silent Bob" vibe going), but this film was almost like watching 2 or 3 films in one film.

Film 1: Coming of Age / Nostalgic Film for 30-somethings (really 40-headed-to-50-somethings by the look of them).

Film 2: Alien Invasion Film (a la Hot Fuzz)
Well, the thing about the "Cornetto Trilogy" is that each one is supposed to be based on a single distinctive genre of film. Shaun of the Dead was a horror movie and Hot Fuzz was an action movie while The World's End was always supposed to be a science-fiction movie. I guess that's just my perspective because I knew it was going to be a sci-fi movie from the start and it was just a matter of time before those elements showed up, but the extended first act only added to the anticipation for myself. I'll grant it does seem to take a while, though.

I mustered through the entire film of drinking only to be royally annoyed at the end. At least Hot Fuzz didnt take itself seriously on the main story or Simon Pegg's character's policeman awesomeness - it was slapstick from the beginning, so the wonky town-murders weren't a complete course-change.
WARNING: "The World's End/Hot Fuzz" spoilers below
Well, arguably the seriousness of the third act is meant to be the point. Pegg's character is meant to be a pathetic wreck the whole way through the movie and his pitiful attempts to relive his glory days are played for laughs during the first two thirds. It's only once the film reveals that he's recovering from a suicide attempt that it actually casts the whole film in a different light and that his redoing the pub crawl is a sort of suicide mission; several times during the last third of the film he abandons his companions just to continue the crawl because he doesn't care if he survives the alien invasion.

Also, in their own way the murders in Hot Fuzz are just as much of an abrupt second-act twist as the appearance of aliens in The World's End because in both films the first half-hour is dedicated to building up the principal characters. Hot Fuzz feels a bit more organic because it's telling a slow-burning story that unfolds over the course of several days/weeks while The World's End mostly happens in the course of a single night and thus everything happens all at once. The foreshadowing in the former is a little more blatant, especially because of Timothy Dalton's character being so obviously sinister that you immediately suspect something bad's going to happen because of him.


The first 30 minutes to 1 hour spend WAY too much time setting up the pub crawl story, to the point of almost seeming like a serious movie - I kept waiting for some random comedy to lighten the mood - and while Pegg's character tried to add levity - he just came off as the awful, brash, stuck-in-the-past friend - of whom everyone has at least one, and that kind of idiocy is REAL man! They made that film way too heavy.

Post apocalyptic? Are they SERIOUS? What a lame ending.

Oh Pierce Brosnan - how far you've fallen!
Yeah, Pegg's character is ultimately a bit hit-or-miss - as I said before he's meant to be pathetic but whether or not that translates to humour varies from viewer to viewer. As I mentioned before, the reveal behind his erratic and nonsensical behaviour actually seems to work in the character's favour and therefore the film's, but I guess that might not translate.

As for the ending...

WARNING: "The World's End" spoilers below
The question is "what other ending would have worked?" The implication was that the alien intelligence controlling the robots sought to control humanity by getting them to join their cause by any means necessary - whether by intimidation, seduction or blatantly killing them and replacing them with a robot duplicate. Either the humans remain outwardly happy but internally paranoid (like the old guy or the drug dealer) or they're assimilated. Hardly a desirable outcome for most people. The aliens try to come across as affable by telling the humans that they're simply trying to work in humanity's best interests but only by forcing humans to fit into a restrictive mold. When Pegg's character argues that humans will never accept the aliens' rules because it's against human nature to be enslaved (and that's basically what the aliens would do), the alien intelligence abandons Earth and destroys all the modern technology on Earth (whether it's deliberate or accidental is never confirmed). While humanity does go back to the Dark Ages, it's at least a bittersweet ending where you can see humanity rising back to their former glory one day and potentially becoming more civilised as a result (in this new world the robots aren't guided by an evil master and thus are actually accepted, although some groups still hate them anyway). The fact that Pegg's character ultimately teams up with a group of robots and wanders the Earth fighting those who hate the robots indicates the completion of his character's development. In the beginning he acted out of selfishness, aimlessness and loneliness. By the end of the film, he's found his purpose and it's defending robots against bigoted humans because that's people should do.
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It was ok, not more or less.



Welcome to the human race...
It's currently my least favourite of the trilogy but only because it hasn't had years to grow on me like its predecessors.



Wow -I was convinced it had been Pierce Brosnan as the Teach, not Timothy Dalton, though admittedly, they are similar.

About the speculative fiction movie also doubling as a deep study of psychosis? I think not. First, people will watch the movie whon know nothing and care nothing about the "trilogy." Im on of those people - think of me as the average viewer who is not a cinephile. Thus my surprise at the weird sci fi element at the end. No issue with the sci fi act itself - my issue is that the sci fi act was SO FREAKING WEIRD as to be incongruous with a coming of age/ dealing with deep seated psychological issues.

Because yes. I did note the suicide attempt - this just made the movie even heavier, and it cheapened the ending because you cant throw serious concepts like suicide out there and then end it with "but he got better once the world ended because he finally found purpose in life. And that purpose was leading an ols version of himself thru a post apocalyptic journey!"

Give me a break! Dont you see the narcissism in that? He didnt get better, he just found a younger version of himself that he could continue to live vicariously thru - thus never growing up, nwver actually taking responsibility for himself or his actions.

And i think thats a sad cop out o called a very serious problem. People who deal with suicide CANNOT be fixed by hiding in the past. No fakeafro younger fresh version of themselknew es is going to appear to absolve them of guilt, or save them from themselves. Not in real life. And i felt like if a comedy movie was going to pretend to truly deal with real life issues, it could at least take ot seriously.

So i hated the ending, and i felt it showed him as a failure.



Welcome to the human race...
Wow -I was convinced it had been Pierce Brosnan as the Teach, not Timothy Dalton, though admittedly, they are similar.
Well, Pierce Brosnan was definitely the teacher in The World's End. I just brought up Timothy Dalton to make a point about Hot Fuzz

About the speculative fiction movie also doubling as a deep study of psychosis? I think not. First, people will watch the movie whon know nothing and care nothing about the "trilogy." Im on of those people - think of me as the average viewer who is not a cinephile. Thus my surprise at the weird sci fi element at the end. No issue with the sci fi act itself - my issue is that the sci fi act was SO FREAKING WEIRD as to be incongruous with a coming of age/ dealing with deep seated psychological issues.
Yeah, on that count The World's End is borderline fanservice since the creators are well aware of how their audience has followed them from Spaced through Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and they may cater a bit too much towards their fanbase (the enemies in The World's End are like a mishmash of the previous films' enemies, after all). Leaving that aside, at the very least the sci-fi twist is a plausible occurrence that at least coincides with some of the themes regarding Pegg's character (going to start referring to him as Gary from now on). Gary styles himself as a free-spirited individual whereas his "friends" and enemies are the ultimate conformists, whether to middle-class lifestyles or body-snatching conspiracies. This is without mentioning the fact that right before the big reveal Gary's companions were all very willing to give up on the pub crawl and just leave Gary to his own devices, but afterwards Gary uses it as an excuse to keep his friends together and continue the crawl. They do subtly explore Gary's own issues during the second act (such as Gary still sticking to the "one drink per pub" rule even when it literally makes no sense for him to do so).

Because yes. I did note the suicide attempt - this just made the movie even heavier, and it cheapened the ending because you cant throw serious concepts like suicide out there and then end it with "but he got better once the world ended because he finally found purpose in life. And that purpose was leading an ols version of himself thru a post apocalyptic journey!"

Give me a break! Dont you see the narcissism in that? He didnt get better, he just found a younger version of himself that he could continue to live vicariously thru - thus never growing up, nwver actually taking responsibility for himself or his actions.

And i think thats a sad cop out o called a very serious problem. People who deal with suicide CANNOT be fixed by hiding in the past. No fakeafro younger fresh version of themselknew es is going to appear to absolve them of guilt, or save them from themselves. Not in real life. And i felt like if a comedy movie was going to pretend to truly deal with real life issues, it could at least take ot seriously.

So i hated the ending, and i felt it showed him as a failure.

WARNING: "The World's End" spoilers below
Well, when it comes to issues like depression or suicidal tendencies or any other types of mental illness Gary himself might have, there aren't exactly any universal solutions. The thing is that at the end of the movie, the aliens literally offer Gary the chance to upload his brain into a younger version of himself and remove all his bad memories, allowing him to remain young and happy forever. You mentioned this same thing in your post. Gary responds by destroying his younger self, symbolically denying the chance to be young and happy because he doesn't need that quick-fix solution anymore, to say nothing of the fact that it'd be letting the evil aliens win.

Also, you're right. Suicidal tendencies can't be fixed by regressing into the past. That's why Gary destroys his younger self even though it would allow him to be happy again and regress into his past life with no problem. Gary definitely feels guilt over all his actions by the end of the film - he spends most of the film irritating his friends and pushing them into continuing the crawl, yet by the time the town is destroyed he finally apologises to the friend he's betrayed the hardest. Gary managed to work through his issues, even though it resulted in the apocalypse. The ending shows that he's willing to protect the now-innocent robots from racist humans rather than manipulate people for his own gain. I grant it's not meant to be a catch-all solution for suicidal/depressed people, though, but that's because not every suicidal person is dealing with the exact problems as Gary.



Iro - I cant fault your analysis, though I do disagree that the outcome was as rosy an outcome as you describe - maybe its because I'm a skeptic, and I'm turned off by his fascination with a young version of himself. I would've felt the arc come full circle if he'd actually rid the world of his younger self and motley crew as well - anything else was only partially redemptive. Why? His younger self was on the fringes - a "fight the man" anti-authority type; his broken older self never grew up from his younger self and suffered in life as a result. Apologizing to your friends for being a prick = check. Actually casting off the juvenile obsession with youthful hijinks and operating outside societal norms? That never happened. So I think the story stopped just short of a real mea culpa for him, although he paid lip service to his friend who crashed.

grown man never grew up and has a life is on a downward trajectory. grown man comes to himself. grown man makes amends. grown man then regresses back into juvenile hijinks.

Gary didnt destroy the aliens and thereby reject himself (or show that he's moved on from his failed past life) - he just destroyed the force controlling his younger self and placed himself as his own new leader, thereby also destroying everyone else's world in the process. Gary's life already sucked. The decision he made rained down destruction on the entire world (via the alien withdrawal and resulting apocalypse), and basically brought everyone to abject poverty - a place he already knows well.

Gary, the great equalizer. Gary, now an older man, "leading" a gang of young boys (sound familiar? disturbing themes here, btw.) Gary, still "fighting the man" by attempting to bend everyone to his way of thinking, even if he has to operate outside of the rules to do so (e.g. you WILL respect his alien friends, even though aliens destroyed the world, even though he himself rejected and destroyed aliens, these aliens, you WILL respect, even if he has to beat you into submission to do it). Why do you have to respect these particular aliens? Because he said so. Because they are his friends, and the "chosen ones" who he deems should escape human retribution. Because he worships himself, and that era of his life.

Gary. Still a child at the end. Still having it his way, or no way at all (tantrum time!)

I'll concede the flick is fanservice - i'll even concede its not a bad romp, if you really like Simon Pegg and crew. And I do. Except about halfway through the film I started thinking "what a waste of time" and by the end, I decided we hit D-movie level. And I thought. Oh Simon Pegg. How far you have fallen!



I liked the crazy 90-degree turn, personally. I won't necessarily try to defend it from a storytelling standpoint or anything. I just really like it when a movie manages to morph into something completely different halfway through. Maybe because I'm so used to promotional materials telegraphing everything.



Yeah - I guess I am sort of "going in" on the story right? Poor Iro! He's valiantly trying to get me see if from another standpoint. And the thing is, he's probably right - Im sure it may just come down to how it hits each viewer - different people get different things from movies. I think my problem with movies is that I can get stuck in the story. And once I disagree with a premise in a movie, or I feel that the opinion of the writer as expressed in the story arc is flawed, it trashes the movie for me. So yeah, I might be judging the film a little harshly.



Welcome to the human race...
Iro - I cant fault your analysis, though I do disagree that the outcome was as rosy an outcome as you describe - maybe its because I'm a skeptic, and I'm turned off by his fascination with a young version of himself. I would've felt the arc come full circle if he'd actually rid the world of his younger self and motley crew as well - anything else was only partially redemptive. Why? His younger self was on the fringes - a "fight the man" anti-authority type; his broken older self never grew up from his younger self and suffered in life as a result. Apologizing to your friends for being a prick = check. Actually casting off the juvenile obsession with youthful hijinks and operating outside societal norms? That never happened. So I think the story stopped just short of a real mea culpa for him, although he paid lip service to his friend who crashed.
The reason Gary doesn't get rid of the other young robots is because at the end of the film the alien intelligence no longer controls them (he kills his clone because it's still the alien's puppet trying to manipulate him). The ending shows that without the alien intelligence controlling them remotely the robots are reasonably peaceful sentient beings capable of leading the same lives as the humans they replaced (the two main characters who were turned into robots are shown going back to their old lives with no complication). Andy (Nick Frost's character) even remarks that he even feels sorry for the robots as they were all merely pawns of the alien intelligence and lacked their own free will. Destroying the robots at that point wouldn't make sense and might even be considered unethical depending on how much sentience they have.

grown man never grew up and has a life is on a downward trajectory. grown man comes to himself. grown man makes amends. grown man then regresses back into juvenile hijinks.
The main difference is that Gary's usual juvenile hijinks were motivated by his shallow desire to have a good time (even at the expense of his friends), while his actions in the last scene of the film are motivated by a sort of selflessness where he willingly gets into trouble with bigoted humans because he feels like the robots have a right to exist even though it'd be safer (but more unethical) to let the humans destroy the robots.

Gary didnt destroy the aliens and thereby reject himself (or show that he's moved on from his failed past life) - he just destroyed the force controlling his younger self and placed himself as his own new leader, thereby also destroying everyone else's world in the process. Gary's life already sucked. The decision he made rained down destruction on the entire world (via the alien withdrawal and resulting apocalypse), and basically brought everyone to abject poverty - a place he already knows well.
Well, it's kind of hard to totally blame him for the world ending. All he wanted was for the aliens to leave the humans alone (quite understandably because they were murdering large numbers of humans and replacing them with mind-controlled robots). He could never have predicted that the alien intelligence abandoning Earth would've destroyed all the technology in the process. It's never confirmed whether or not the alien intelligence did it deliberately or accidentally, either.

Gary, the great equalizer. Gary, now an older man, "leading" a gang of young boys (sound familiar? disturbing themes here, btw.) Gary, still "fighting the man" by attempting to bend everyone to his way of thinking, even if he has to operate outside of the rules to do so (e.g. you WILL respect his alien friends, even though aliens destroyed the world, even though he himself rejected and destroyed aliens, these aliens, you WILL respect, even if he has to beat you into submission to do it). Why do you have to respect these particular aliens? Because he said so. Because they are his friends, and the "chosen ones" who he deems should escape human retribution. Because he worships himself, and that era of his life.
"Disturbing themes", huh? That's an interesting interpretation, though there doesn't seem to be much in the way of evidence about anything particularly disturbing going on between Gary and his robot friends. Granted, there is something dark about the idea of a group of robots with the minds of teenage humans being forced to fight for their lives in a world where their kind is hated simply for existing; on top of that, the fact that their only ally is one of their human oppressors whose major motivation for helping them isn't so much because it's the right thing to do as it is because they're ideal copies of his best friends from high school. My main argument leans towards the notion that Gary leads and defends the robots because it's the right thing to do, but that's actually some good food for though. Anyway...

In the case of the epilogue, it's not so much about Gary defending his particular gang of robots as it is about robots in general. The human population in the finale are divided between the humans who accept the robots (Gary's real estate agent friend is seen doing his real estate job for humans who don't seem to care too much that he's a robot) and those who don't (the bar patrons from the last scene). The only reason the robots were evil in the first place was because they were being controlled by the alien intelligence. Without it they're actually peaceful and able to co-exist with humans. They're like drafted foot soldiers forced to follow a general's orders; without the orders, the soldiers are just people. None of the individual robots were responsible for the alien intelligence destroying the world, yet they make convenient targets for angry humans. Gary knows better than anyone that the robots themselves weren't responsible for the end of the world and thus goes out of his way to defend them against bigoted humans who wouldn't know the true story.

Gary. Still a child at the end. Still having it his way, or no way at all (tantrum time!)
Yeah, but at least this time he actually has good reasons.

I'll concede the flick is fanservice - i'll even concede its not a bad romp, if you really like Simon Pegg and crew. And I do. Except about halfway through the film I started thinking "what a waste of time" and by the end, I decided we hit D-movie level. And I thought. Oh Simon Pegg. How far you have fallen!
That's only fair. It's not a perfect movie by any means and I'll acknowledge it has its flaws, but I still really liked it and will defend what I can about it.



Uhm. I thought the Alien presence clearly warned along the lines of - if you reject us, we'll leave your world and take all of our technology with us?

Im not sure I buy the "human oppressors" bit, or that the robots are wholly lacking in culpability bit. The whole "I'm a thinking, reasoning person, but I acted under duress from my master," is rather vague, and the movie didnt really dig too deep to even set up a real storyline for the robots-created-by-alien-intelligence. We dont know enough about them to really make an informed decision that they are emotional feeling beings that "wish they didnt have to do what they were made to do."

That whole aspect of the film was hokey and unrealistic, because they really dont flesh out the robot backstory in any real way. Where did they come from? (Aliens) How were they made? Are they "just" robots or are they emotional beings, "a la Almost Human" and a host of other relatively thoughtful films that explore how AIs can become sentient? Now, if you had told me they were human CLONES, or an enslaved race of aliens that can be made to morph into another person once in their lives and then they are stuck as that person - another story.

To go all "Gary is just a decent guy standing up for poor, picked on people. Gary is their Saviour" is a bit too much me. Specially when the person he's saving (by drinking and bashing heads in) is...oh dear...a younger version himself. Its very self-focused, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing, which we know he is prone to do.

Also, in terms of leading the group of boys - I'm probably biased because of nuture, but I come from a large family, and I'll never forget something my parents taught me: to lead a group of people younger than you is easy - you are already larger, stronger, richer, more knowledgeable and probably less afraid than they are. To lead people younger than you can be done by sheer force of personal charisma and hero worship. The real challenge - thus the real nature of a man (or woman), can be determined by their ability to lead actual peers. A person's peers are people who stand on equal footing, and have less to gain by following you. To lead them you must actually command their respect. To be a big fish in a small pond is easy - you just race to the bottom, and stay there, or in Gary's case - never leave it. To ever be a big fish in a big pond(?), you actually have to face the difficulty and fear of leaving the small pond, and potentially being a small, or average-sized fish in a pond of fish much larger than you. Real leadership is made there.

To me, Gary.... almost made his way into the big pond by reconciling with his friends, and becoming a contributing member of society, but in the epilogue, chose the small pond again - running around with the riffraff, on the fringes of society - just like he did before the pub crawl and alien exit. What happens when they actually meet a force they cannot overcome - Gary's gonna be back in gutter, back on the bottle, probably slitting his wrists again. That's my theory anyway.

The whole thing is a farce anyway, because there would be no reason to have robots of them at a young age, because if they were going to be replaced, it would be by robot clones their own age, right? The film makes leaps in even speculative logic, and is downright hokey.


But for real tho - I recognize Im probably overthinking a simple fun film - but I cant help it!! LOL Not meaning to get too heavy, or crush your enjoyment of the film.



I'm pretty sure you couldn't crush their babblings with your enjoyment either, so it looks like stalemate.

Me, I really liked the Beyond Thunderdome ending. In fact, I liked the whole movie, but the first "twist" was entirely telegraphed by the trailer so it wouldn't have felt properly absurd without the second one that wasn't in the previews. It's my favorite of the "trilogy" and Simon Pegg's character reminded me very strongly of a guy I used to hang out with in High School. Wonder if he's got a Sisters of Mercy tattoo now.



Welcome to the human race...
Uhm. I thought the Alien presence clearly warned along the lines of - if you reject us, we'll leave your world and take all of our technology with us?
They never explicitly said that it'd take away the technology, though it was somewhat implied by them mentioning how their presence had improved Earth's technology. The main clue is that when they give up they say that humans "will be left to their own devices", though that's not exactly a threat and also a bit too vague to definitely mean "no more technology for you", hence the ambiguity.

Im not sure I buy the "human oppressors" bit, or that the robots are wholly lacking in culpability bit. The whole "I'm a thinking, reasoning person, but I acted under duress from my master," is rather vague, and the movie didnt really dig too deep to even set up a real storyline for the robots-created-by-alien-intelligence. We dont know enough about them to really make an informed decision that they are emotional feeling beings that "wish they didnt have to do what they were made to do."
"Human oppressors" was a bit much on my part. It's never quite shown how much of the human population actually accepts the robots - it seems like some time passes during the events epilogue and while crowds of humans angrily abuse the robots at first, eventually there are scenes of them learning to accept the robots and co-exist with them and that the ones who still hate them do so out of stubborn prejudice. As for the robots' culpability - well, they are machines. The idea seems to be that the Network removes their capacity for free will and they are programmed to either go about a normal routine based on their human counterpart, react to misbehaving humans (the kid in the toilet) or simply get hijacked by the Network to follow orders (every scene after the big bar brawl, as signified by their glowing eyes and all of them doing the exact same thing). There are hints of emotion to them - when Gary provokes the aforementioned kid in the toilet, the kid gently tells Gary "Please stop, you don't want to do this" but when Gary persists the kid's robot instincts take over and he tries to kill Gary.

That whole aspect of the film was hokey and unrealistic, because they really dont flesh out the robot backstory in any real way. Where did they come from? (Aliens) How were they made? Are they "just" robots or are they emotional beings, "a la Almost Human" and a host of other relatively thoughtful films that explore how AIs can become sentient? Now, if you had told me they were human CLONES, or an enslaved race of aliens that can be made to morph into another person once in their lives and then they are stuck as that person - another story.
I think the robots' back-story was fleshed out just fine. They were built by aliens (who may or may not be robotic themselves). How they're actually built is somewhat irrelevant, but the best explanation seems to be that they're cyborgs - since it's revealed that the robots are cloned from DNA samples, the likely story is that they're artificially grown in vats like the ones seen in the last pub. Granted, whether they're legitimately "emotional" is never explicitly confirmed, though in my last paragraph I mentioned implications that they seemed to be (although that was suppressed under the Network's command). The only robots we really get to see after the Network leaves (aside from the crowds of robots getting attacked by humans) either return to their old human lives or join up with Gary, which can be read as either their own free will or mechanical routine. There is evidence for both conclusions, really.

As for the robots being changed to actual human clones or shapeshifting alien slaves...well, the human clones thing might work but it wouldn't make for some of the cool visuals and action potential provided by robots with blue blood, glowing eyes and easily detachable body parts (plus how would they controlled and unified? Brainwashing, perhaps, but the Network being able to use basic remote control to do it makes just as much sense). The shapeshifting alien slaves concept would not only generate just as many plot holes as the original robots did, but it also doesn't make sense considering the Network's goal. The Network's goal is to "perfect" the human race by forcing them to either behave properly or by replacing them with an identical copy that still retains some of the same memories. Alien slaves make no sense because while they might be able to copy a human's appearance, underneath it they still have the mind of an alien slave. Changing the aliens' motive wouldn't work because "evil world domination through genocide and slavery" is far less complex/interesting/sensible than "morally ambiguous world domination through convincing humans to conform for cool rewards or else be turned into a robot anyway".

To go all "Gary is just a decent guy standing up for poor, picked on people. Gary is their Saviour" is a bit too much me. Specially when the person he's saving (by drinking and bashing heads in) is...oh dear...a younger version himself. Its very self-focused, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing, which we know he is prone to do.
Simon Pegg's Cornetto protagonists never really do a complete 180 in their character development by the end of the movie. Shaun learns to be a caring, responsible boyfriend but still keeps the zombie version of his troublemaking best friend out back because even after everything he still loves him. Angel learns to make friends and lighten up but he still gets his team to fill out massive amounts of paperwork at the end because that's what the police are supposed to do. Gary follows the pattern in that he learns to stop being completely selfish (plus he apparently quits drinking because he orders water instead of beer at the end), but he's still willing to chase a good time. His friends may be robots, but they're still his friends (even if it's not entirely their choice) and if the bar patrons are not willing to let them have a good time simply because they're robots then he has to do the morally right thing and fight for their right to party. Sure, it's self-aggrandising in its way (just look at the way he calls himself "The King" before starting the fight) but it's motivated just as much by a need to stop ignorant bullying, if only to stop the part getting ruined. Nobody said he had to be perfect by the end.

Also, in terms of leading the group of boys - I'm probably biased because of nuture, but I come from a large family, and I'll never forget something my parents taught me: to lead a group of people younger than you is easy - you are already larger, stronger, richer, more knowledgeable and probably less afraid than they are. To lead people younger than you can be done by sheer force of personal charisma and hero worship. The real challenge - thus the real nature of a man (or woman), can be determined by their ability to lead actual peers. A person's peers are people who stand on equal footing, and have less to gain by following you. To lead them you must actually command their respect. To be a big fish in a small pond is easy - you just race to the bottom, and stay there, or in Gary's case - never leave it. To ever be a big fish in a big pond(?), you actually have to face the difficulty and fear of leaving the small pond, and potentially being a small, or average-sized fish in a pond of fish much larger than you. Real leadership is made there.

To me, Gary.... almost made his way into the big pond by reconciling with his friends, and becoming a contributing member of society, but in the epilogue, chose the small pond again - running around with the riffraff, on the fringes of society - just like he did before the pub crawl and alien exit. What happens when they actually meet a force they cannot overcome - Gary's gonna be back in gutter, back on the bottle, probably slitting his wrists again. That's my theory anyway.
That's actually interesting considering the fact that the only way Gary gets to lead his same-aged peers on the crawl in the first place is by shamelessly manipulating all of them into going along with it. Over the course of the film he learns to stop being so selfish and irresponsible (though he still has his lapses) and by the end he actually tells his friends to stop following him because he realises he's not a good leader but they still do it anyway because in spite of everything they still have some respect for him. When the world ends and the others go back to rebuilding their own lives, he respects that and doesn't even ask them to follow him again. Like I mentioned before, Gary undergoes character development but making it so that he gives up his free-spirited ways and settles down just seems too out-of-character to be believable. It's kind of like the ending of Mad Max 2 where Max saves the colonists but he realises he's got no place in their new world so he disappears back into the wasteland and they never see him again. There's character development and then there's being true to the character. Also, if Gary's behaviour in the very last scene of the film is any indication, he's not likely to relapse into substance abuse or suicide. He orders water instead of beer and seems more willing to die fighting for what he believes in than to let himself give up and attempt suicide again.

The whole thing is a farce anyway, because there would be no reason to have robots of them at a young age, because if they were going to be replaced, it would be by robot clones their own age, right? The film makes leaps in even speculative logic, and is downright hokey.
The Network wanted to convince Gary to give up and join them and to do that they offered him the one thing he's been chasing for the whole film - the chance to be his younger self again and forget a lifetime of misery. Making young versions of Gary's friends that still idolise him instead of hating him was meant to sweeten the deal.

But for real tho - I recognize Im probably overthinking a simple fun film - but I cant help it!! LOL Not meaning to get too heavy, or crush your enjoyment of the film.
it's not a problem, I'm actually enjoying this discussion anyway. Always good to see a challenging, well-argued perspective, especially if it makes me reconsider my opinions or at least gives me good reason to argue my case. It's all in good fun, anyway.

Now it's 4:30 a.m. and I've once again taken ages to write a mammoth response.



......., but the first "twist" was entirely telegraphed by the trailer so it wouldn't have felt properly absurd without the second one that wasn't in the previews.
True! I hadnt even thought of that.

It's my favorite of the "trilogy" and Simon Pegg's character reminded me very strongly of a guy I used to hang out with in High School. Wonder if he's got a Sisters of Mercy tattoo now.
Dont we all have that friend?



Simon Pegg's Cornetto protagonists never really do a complete 180 in their character development by the end of the movie. Shaun learns to be a caring, responsible boyfriend but still keeps the zombie version of his troublemaking best friend out back because even after everything he still loves him. Angel learns to make friends and lighten up but he still gets his team to fill out massive amounts of paperwork at the end because that's what the police are supposed to do. Gary follows the pattern in that he learns to stop being completely selfish (plus he apparently quits drinking because he orders water instead of beer at the end), but he's still willing to chase a good time. His friends may be robots, but they're still his friends (even if it's not entirely their choice) and if the bar patrons are not willing to let them have a good time simply because they're robots then he has to do the morally right thing and fight for their right to party. Sure, it's self-aggrandising in its way (just look at the way he calls himself "The King" before starting the fight) but it's motivated just as much by a need to stop ignorant bullying, if only to stop the part getting ruined. Nobody said he had to be perfect by the end.
Fair point - and probably more realistic anyway, as no one really changes overnight in that way. In that regard, I was like: "ok, B-movie. Funny. No real conclusions at the end, but a slight change for the better."

Like I mentioned before, Gary undergoes character development but making it so that he gives up his free-spirited ways and settles down just seems too out-of-character to be believable. It's kind of like the ending of Mad Max 2 where Max saves the colonists but he realises he's got no place in their new world so he disappears back into the wasteland and they never see him again. There's character development and then there's being true to the character.
Good point -

Also, if Gary's behaviour in the very last scene of the film is any indication, he's not likely to relapse into substance abuse or suicide. He orders water instead of beer and seems more willing to die fighting for what he believes in than to let himself give up and attempt suicide again.
- I had forgotten about the water!

I dont think Im going to agree that the outcome was the best outcome, but when I step back and look at the movie as a fun, not-too-serious flick, that is in keeping with its current convention ---- I'll concede that it works!