Final Destination
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- Final Destination is also the name of a stage in the video game Super Smash Bros. Melee.
| Final Destination | |
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 Final Destination film poster |
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| Directed by | James Wong |
| Produced by | Glen Morgan Craig Perry Warren Zide |
| Written by | Jeffrey Reddick Glen Morgan James Wong |
| Starring | Devon Sawa Ali Larter Seann William Scott |
| Music by | Shirley Walker |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
| Release date(s) | March 17, 2000 |
| Running time | 98 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$23,000,000 |
| Followed by | Final Destination 2 |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Final Destination is a 2000 horror film about a group of students who 'cheat death' by avoiding a plane crash but must eventually pay the price; the plot was based on an unused X-Files episode (director James Wong had been a writer, producer and director of that series) and has some interesting similarities with an episode of The Twilight Zone titled "Twenty-Two". The film is distributed by New Line Cinema. The DVD was released on September 26, 2000.
The film was the first in the Final Destination series, and was followed by Final Destination 2 (2003) and by Final Destination 3 (2006). It also spawned a series of related novels, the Final Destination books. Recently, Zenescope Entertainment has begun producing a series of Final Destination comic books mini-series called Final Destination: Death Never Takes a Vacation, featuring a trip to Cancun gone wrong.
The movie takes place on Long Island. Locations such as Jones Beach and John F. Kennedy International Airport are shown. Nassau County is mentioned. However, Vancouver International Airport stood-in for JFK.
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[edit] Plot
On his way to a class trip to Paris, Alex Browning (played by Devon Sawa), has a vision that the aircraft Volee Air Flight 180 is going to explode after takeoff. Alex tries to get off the plane and causes a ruckus; as a result, he, a teacher, and several students are kicked off the plane. Only moments later they witness the plane exploding through the windows of the airport terminal. While the survivors are initially relieved, their relief is short-lived, as Death comes after them to seal their fate.
[edit] Cast and characters
- Alexander Chance Browning (Devon Sawa): Alex, the main character, has a premonition that Flight 180 will explode. Making a scene before take-off, he and six other people get off the plane and witness the disaster. He would have been the last person to die on the plane.
- Clear Rivers (Ali Larter): Clear is a loner who doesn't seem to have many friends, but she feels some sort of connection with Alex on the plane. She is not thrown off the airplane like the other students, but exits of her own volition. At first, she does not believe the concept of Death's design, but eventually does. She would have been the sixth person to die on the plane (although presumed to be last to die throughout most of the movie).
- William "Billy" Hitchcock (Seann William Scott): On Flight 180, Billy was lucky enough to get in the middle of Carter's and Alex's fight and was kicked off. He is the jokester of the group, but not really friends with anyone. He would have been the fifth person to die on the plane.
- Carter Horton (Kerr Smith): Carter is an athlete and a bit of a jerk who resents Alex throughout the film, thinking that he is some sort of freak. We are also led to believe Alex and Carter were not friendly even before Flight 180. He gets kicked off Flight 180 for fighting with Alex after Alex's premonition makes him cause a commotion about how the aircraft is going to explode. He would have been the fourth person to die on the plane.
- Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke): One of the teachers on Flight 180. When Alex and Carter fight on the plane, she and another teacher get off to settle the two students. Finding out that Alex, Carter, and Billy got kicked off the plane, Ms. Lewton tells the other teacher to go back while she stays behind and catches a later flight. When Flight 180 explodes, she becomes very depressed and wants to move away because she feels she sent the other teacher to his death by telling him to get on the plane. She resents Alex, believing him to be some sort of witch. She would have been the third person to die on the plane.
- Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer): Carter's girlfriend. A girl much kinder than her significant other who tried to break up Alex and Carter. She gets off Flight 180 because Carter got off. Terry is getting sick of Carter's constant bickering with Alex and is on the verge of breaking up with him. She would have been the second person to die on the plane.
- Tod Waggner (Chad E. Donella): Alex's best friend. When Alex gets off the plane, Tod's brother, George, tells him to accompany Alex. George dies on the plane, and Tod's father blames Alex for the crash. As a result of this, Tod's friendship with Alex is strained. He would have been the first person to die on the plane.
- Agent Wiene (Daniel Roebuck): Investigating the Flight 180 case. He follows Alex around, thinking that Alex might have had something to do with Flight 180's explosion and the subsequent deaths.
- Agent Schreck (Roger Guenveur Smith): Agent Wiene's partner.
[edit] Rating
Final Destination received an R rating in the United States for violence and terror, and for language. In the United Kingdom, it received a 15 rating, while in Ireland it received an 18, for violence, horror and language.
[edit] Deaths
[edit] Original Design
Death's original design was for Flight 180 to explode, killing everyone on board. However, since Alex has his premonition, he gets others off, saving them. In Death's original design, they would have died in a specific order, it being Tod, Terry, Ms. Lewton, Carter, Billy, Clear, Alex. However, in the movie Alex prevents his "first" death before Carter's intervened death, because he switched seats and ended up sitting next to Tod, making the actual order Tod, Terry, Ms. Lewton, Billy, Carter, Alex (between movies), and Clear (in Final Destination 2).
[edit] Actual Deaths
The order in which they actually die is different because some get saved and moved to the end of the order. In most of the instances, a dark reflection of sorts can be seen, usually signifying that Death is nearby.
- Tod Waggner: Death by Strangulation.
First, a gust of wind blows through an open window and shuts the door to the bathroom while Tod is in it, so as to minimize intervention. Water leaks out of a poorly screwed pipe in the back of his toilet, creating a puddle that he does not notice while grooming himself in the bathroom and is listening to the radio. He then walks over to the tub and slips on the puddle, causing him to fall on a clothesline cord, which snaps off the wall and, pulled by the velocity of Tod's fall, wraps around his neck in a hanging form and strangles him in the tub, while he struggles to stand up, but only manages to kick over bottles of shampoo and soap, spilling them inside the tub and making it slippery and preventing him from getting to his feet. The blood vessels in his eyes burst as he tries to break free from the wire and reach a pair of scissors on the counter across the room. He slowly weakens and finally dies, and then the water snakes its way back under the toilet, disappearing as if it never leaked. It is interesting to note that Tod's death is the only scene that shows Death played a role in it, by showing the water going backwards. All the other deaths in this and the two sequels to this movie appear to be freak accidents.
- Terry Chaney: Death by blunt force trauma.
While sitting at a café and talking with Clear, Alex watches as a bus speeds by in the reflection of the window. As Alex turns around to look, he discovers that it isn't there. Shortly after, Carter drives by with Terry, and decides to pull over to argue with Alex. As he does, Ms Lewton shows up, and Carter shoves it in Alex's face that Ms. Lewton has to move all because of Alex's premonition. Alex is still trying to tell everyone that Death is still coming for them, and Clear is trying to stop him. It all ends up in a huge argument that Terry decides to break up. As she gets out of the car, she starts yelling at Carter to get over the plane crash. As she does, she backs up into the street. She finally tells Carter to just drop dead. At that moment, she steps into the street, right into the path of a speeding bus, which then maims her and sends blood flying everywhere.
- Ms. Valerie Lewton: Death by stabbing.
She suffers the most violent and longest death. While she is packing, she makes some tea in a kettle on her stove. She sees a dark reflection on the kettle and turns around to check, but sees nothing. When she pours the tea into a mug, she notices that it bears her High School's name, freaks out, and throws out its contents. She then gets a hold of herself, gets a bottle of vodka out of the freezer, and pours it into the mug. The sudden drastic temperature change causes the mug to crack and leak, to which she is oblivious. She drinks the vodka as she walks over to her computer, leaving a trail of it on the floor, then she inadvertently holds it over her computer monitor as the vodka leaks into it and causes it to start to smoke and spark. She notices this, and when she walks up to the monitor to examine it, it explodes and a glass shard from the screen flies into her neck, causing her to bleed extensively when she pulls it out. As she attempts to hold the blood in, a spark from the monitor ignites the vodka trail, following her to the kitchen where the stove ignites, the vodka bottle explodes on the counter, and she falls to the floor. She reaches up to the counter for a cloth, not realizing that it is draped over a block of knives. She pulls on the cloth, resulting in the fall of the knife block, and one of the knives stabs her in the chest. Alex then shows up to save her, but when he attempts to remove the knife, the oven explodes, knocking down a chair, which lodges it in further and kills her. Alex removes the knife, then realizes that she is dead and runs out of the house, immediately afterwards, the house explodes. This death had a sign of what she was going to die from. (When she bent over to wrap something a stained glass window had a dagger on it that was pointed at her head).
- Billy Hitchcock: Death by Decapitation.
To prove that Death won't kill him and that Alex is lying, Carter drives his car on a train track while a train is driving toward him in the distance. Everybody runs out of the car off the tracks except for Carter, who insists on staying in the car until the train nearly hits him to jump out at the last minute. When Carter tries to get out, however, the doors lock from the outside, trapping Carter in. Alex runs up and manages to save Carter's life just in the nick of time, but not his car. The train smashes into it and destroys it completely. While Billy screams at Carter that he is next and that he's not staying around him, a chain dangling from the speeding train hits a piece of metal shrapnel on the ground left from Carter's car and propels it at Billy, cutting off the top half of his head, killing him instantly. His headless body stands momentarily until it collapses to the side (the group was unaware, at this point, that Alex had, in fact, changed the order by intervening in Carter's death when Alex saved him).
- Carter Horton: Death by Blunt force trauma.
Six months later after thinking the three dodged death they are in Paris. After Alex thinks death is coming back for him, Alex tries to leave for his friends sake but Clear insists on going with Alex. When Alex steps out of the cafe they are in Clear screams at him to watch out as a city bus nearly runs him down. Alex manages to jump out of the way, but the bus driver swerves and crashes into a pole. The force of the impact sends the pole flying into the air and smashes it into a neon sign, sending it swinging off its hinges and toward Alex. Fortunately, Carter pushes out of the way and saves his life. After they get up, Carter asks "So, who's next?" His question is answered when the neon sign swings back around into his back, killing him instantly. The credits then roll.
- Alexander Chance Browning: Death by head trauma.
Alex survives this film and is killed between Final Destination and Final Destination 2. Clear says that Alex pushed her out of the way of the falling brick and was killed instantly. After this Clear Rivers voluntarily commits herself to a mental hospital, claiming Death itself was after her.
- Clear Rivers: Clear survives this film.
In Final Destination 2, the viewer learns that after the death of Clear's boyfriend, Alex Browning, she voluntarily enters a mental hospital, where she is kept in a padded room. But when Kimberly Corman, the protagonist of the second film, asks for her help, Clear checks out. Towards the end of the sequel, when things seem to be normal, she goes and checks on Eugene Dix. But by opening the door to the hospital room, it triggers an explosion resulting to Clear and Eugene's immediate death.
[edit] Alternate Ending
The scene on the beach where Clear tells Alex about her family's past was extended. Clear was telling Alex how they must take action and do something big while they still had the time. Clear and Alex ended up making love, and Clear later becomes pregnant (the scene where she finds out was deleted.) When Clear is next on Death's list, Alex saves her from the exploding car, but sacrifices himself to do so and dies. Nine months later, Clear gives birth to a baby boy (which she names Alex) and by doing that, she ruined Death's design because Clear creating life was not meant to be. She and Carter became close friends and they visit the Flight 180 memorial. Clear states that even though they defeated Death this one time, they only won a chance at a full life, because for everyone, there is always that one day. A falling leaf drops and the credits roll.
This ending did not go well in test screenings as Clear becoming pregnant made the film's ending predictable. Also, the general audience disliked how an antagonist like Carter receives a second chance at life whilst the protagonist, Alex, ends up dying. When the second ending was test screened, many people clapped and cheered when Carter was crushed by the sign. Although this ending became the official one, the filmmakers preferred the original ending.
The concept of new life defeating death was incorporated into the storyline of Final Destination 2. Many also agree that if this ending were actually used, Final Destination 2 may not have been possible, since a new storyline would be required. A sequel was not completely outruled; however the plot of Final Destination 2 may have changed significantly to the point where it would have surfaced amongst different characters and ultimately a new storyline.
Note: In the original script for this, the ending had a much darker setting. Clear was able to defeat Death only because she had an innocent soul inside her. After giving birth to a baby girl (and now not having an innocent life inside), the hospital shakes, with suspense building up, and the camera zooms in on Clear's face, implying that Death had taken her.
[edit] Trivia
- 180 is the police code for murder in New York
- Although the film is set in New York, the freight train that smashes Carter's car is a BC Rail train. BC Rail only runs in Canada.
- Based on an unused X-Files script. The film was directed by James Wong, who worked on The X-Files.
- Many of the characters have names that derive from actors and directors of classic horror films, including Alfred Hitchcock, Max Schreck, and others. Clear was named after an assistant. Additionally, Clear's name was originally "Kimberly" in the early draft, this name is given to the protagonist in Final Destination 2. Tod Waggner's first name is also German for "death."
- In the bus scene, right when Carter and Terry arrive in Carter's car, the track "Into the Void" by Nine Inch Nails is playing on the radio and the words "final destination" can be heard in the lyrics.
- The song "Rocky Mountain High" by John Denver is played throughout the movie, always before someone dies (fittingly, Denver himself was killed in a plane crash in 1997). This concept was used again for Final Destination 3 when the song "Turn Around, Look At Me" was played before many of the deaths.
- The crash of Flight 180 has a great many similarities with another plane crash, Trans World Airlines Flight 800. Both planes were 747s, both were flying from JFK to Charles de Gaulle, and both exploded right after take-off due to electrical equipment short circuiting. Among the passengers of Flight 800 were a group of students from Montoursville, Pennsylvania going on a class trip to France, just like Alex and his classmates in the film.
- The scene in Paris is actually Bastion Square, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
- On an episode of Robot Chicken, Final Destination was parodied using the cast from Archie Comics.
- There are striking similarities between this film and the film Sole Survivor, in which the sole survivor of a plane crash is stalked by animated corpses and forced into dangerous situations in an attempt to kill her. The implication in this film, however, is not that she was destined to die in the crash but that she had "witnessed death," and a living person isn't meant to be aware of the true nature of death.
- MaximOnline.com named the airplane crash in Final Destination #7 on its list of "Most Horrific Movie Plane Crashes."
- At the end of the opening scene an image of Jim Morrison is shown in a book. It shows his grave and graffited on the grave it says "This is the End." This phrase was a part of his song "The End" which he sung in. It also is metaphoric for the mistreatment of Jim Morrison's grave, but also that Jim Morrison died young.
[edit] External links
- Final Destination Clip plane crash scene
