Let’s all agree, right here and now, that movies are fucking awesome. Nowhere else can we vicariously experience the thrill of ramping a sports car over the body of a burning robot while firing an uzi and high-fiving The President. The realities presented in film are fantastical and amazing and, normally, tied up in a pretty little bow by the end of act three. However, if we take a few minutes to think about the reality that we’re shown after final credits have rolled; the world that we’re left with might be a little more screwed up than the problems they were trying to solve in the first 90 pages of the script. Sometimes, after the story on-screen ends, the reality that the characters are left with is far worse than the world they started with.

Like these.

(Also...spoilers….duh.)

Wall-E

The Story: Humans WalMart their way into destroying the planet and pull up stakes and head for the stars in an intergalactic ocean liner to indulge in their Love Boat, end of life fantasies.

The Ending: After spending 750 years being tended to, cared for and and softened, the jelly beans with faces that are humanity rise up against their robot overlords and head back to Earth because one garbage-bot showed ‘em a plant.

The Horrible Consequences: Humanity is DEAD
After roughly 35 generations of doing close to jack-shit, the humans of the Axiom Weeble-Wobble their way out into the light of actual sun for the first time. Sun that hasn’t touched their species' skin in 750 years, on a planet thats atmosphere is obviously depleted. Exerting physical exercise for the first time in at least, based on guess of the average age of the residents of the Axiom, 35 years. After 35 years of floating in chairs and being fed through a straw, their teeth would no longer be able to bite, tear and gnaw the flesh needed to assimilate the protein needed to reinvigorate their sallow and atrophied muscles. These fat, gelatinous, playdough people, devoid of the ability to even tend for their young, let alone walk upright are expected to be able to reinvigorate life on a planet that shows ZERO ability to support humans beyond the existence of one plant? NOPE! Not a fucking chance. And, if by some miracle beyond all logical reasoning, they are able to survive, what happens when the citizens of the other ships come home? When do the food riots begin? When does it devolve into an extra chunky version of Lord of the Flies and the last of humanity kills itself over the same scarcity they had before they left for space?

Like these fuckers are gonna plow a field

Kingsmen: The Secret Service

The Story: Evil genius plots to take over the world by recruiting the rich and powerful into his scheme to radically depopulate the earth leaving only the secretive intelligence agency The Kingsmen to stop him.

The Ending: Everyone involved in the evil plot, every President, Prime Minister, Genius and and super-model ends up having their heads blown off as the Evil Super genius plan backfires.

The Horrible Consequences: World War 3
A power vacuum like the world has never known. Valentine’s evil plan had reached the highest echelons of corporate and political power. By the end of the movie, the top of the spire has been sheared straight off leaving in its wake a absence of power and leadership like the world has never seen before. Every country is left without a leader. Every palace of prestige and power is sitting leaderless and without a figure head. While The Kingsmen may have been able to spoil the super villain’s evil plot the resulting power-struggle-war is more likely to destroy the world than anything else.

Also, if this doesn’t win an Oscar for something then the whole shebang is fucking rigged

Pacific Rim

The Story: Giant monsters come from out of the sea and devastate the West Coast so, in a 13-year-old boy’s wet dream, humanity chooses the least viable option for defense and creates giant robots to fight them.

The Ending: Giant robots detonate a nuke inside Monster world (MURICAFUCKYEAH!) and send those creepy crawly bastards to monster hell.

The Horrible Consequences: Collapse of the World Economy 
Ever since the giant, Godzilla-esque monsters showed up acting like toddlers destroying a town of blocks the world has been operating on two fronts: 1) defend against the monsters and 2) profit off of the monsters. The military-industrial complex must have looked like child’s play before all of the nations of the world had to unite together to create real life Transformers capable of nut punching Mothra to death. The sheer force of the labor pool needed to create, maintain and operate a psychically powered murder machine would dwarf the efforts of WW2 Americans a thousand times over. The secondary market that cropped up after the remains of the city smashing monsters from Rampage started falling down on their suburbs provided a serious, lucrative industry—as represented by the pimped out Hannibal Chau. But what happens when there’s no more monsters to defend against? When there’s no more Kaiju bone powder to sell for old man weiner pills? What happens when the majority of the industry of the world ceases to be necessary or sustainable? And you thought the 1930s were bad…

He’s the Billy Mays of Monster-Town

Equilibirum

The Story: In a dystopian world where emotions have been outlawed, the populace is doped up on the opiate of the masses—Prozium, which prevents people from enjoying things like art and poetry and pro-wrestling, and any other thing that can make people feel. The militant arm of the law—The Grammaton Clerics—are assigned to stop humans from having feels about anything at the behest of the spiritual and political leader: Father.

The Ending: One Grammaton Cleric goes rogue and uses his gun-ninja skills to absolutely destroy the shit out of everyone and everything that controls the world he lives in.

The Horrible Consequences: Complete Societal Collapse 
After generations of society being unable to feel emotions, of being content with simply subsisting on a day-to-day basis, suddenly they are all thrust into the miasma of human existence like teenagers in the throes of puberty and an ecstasy trip at the same time. Suddenly everything has meaning. EVERYTHING. Everything that was once considered institutionalized, standard and benign now holds the entire weight of the human condition. Government, law, order, have all become out-dated and oppressive ideologies. Dirt is a beautiful thing made of stardust and hope and now no one has any idea what to do with themselves. All of these feelings and emotions and everybody is going to be too busy contemplating the meaning of their belly buttons to do fuck-all about running a society. And still, behind the scenes, the Grammton Clerics exist and, despite their newfound feelings, are capable of gun-kata’ing the shit out of your ordinary human life. Maybe you should vote for them for the next President.

The Avengers

The Story: The world’s mightiest superheroes join forces to stop an alien armada, led by a mythological demi-god, from destroying the earth.

The Ending: All of the good guys smash, bash, and laser cannon the aliens, leaving one of the wealthiest parts of one of the strongest countries in the world absolutely desolate and destroyed.

The Horrible Consequences: Faith in God, humanity and the American way of life decimated leading to the downfall of Western Civilization

Yes, The Avengers saved the day. Yes, they stopped the alien horde. But the ramifications of their actions, and their call to arms, would destroy the reality of most of the world. First of all, it would prove that we’re not alone in the universe, and some of the things that are out there are giant space whales that want swim-fly their way through our high rise office buildings. Second, it would affirm that the only gods that are real, and have made their presence known, are the Norse Gods (hard to argue that their mythology when Thor is fighting his brother Loki in the middle of the Financial District). Third, it would prove to every government around the world that their armies have been made outdated by five people.

Religious entities around the world would now be devastated that in this, an amazing time of need, only the gods of the vikings came to help. Every smart person in the world would begin to question their studies and understanding of physics, science, the whole of existence as an intergalactic wormhole opened up over Manhattan.  Somewhere, in a quiet pub, cowering under a bar, Neil DeGrasse Tyson would be muttering to himself, “We were wrong...oh god we were all wrong.” And the soft, nougaty center of humanity would begin to crumble as they realize not only that they have to rebuild their city, but they now have to live in a world where all the bad things from every summer blockbuster can actually happen to them.

Avengers: Assembling and destroying your reality