Final Destination (film)
| Final Destination | |
|---|---|
 Final Destination film poster | |
| Directed by | James Wong |
| Written by | Jeffrey Reddick Glen Morgan James Wong |
| Produced by | Glen Morgan Craig Perry Warren Zide |
| Starring | Devon Sawa Ali Larter Kerr Smith Seann William Scott |
| Music by | Shirley Walker |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release date | March 17 2000 |
Running time | 98 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$23,000,000 |
Final Destination is a 2000 horror film about a group of students who 'cheat death' by avoiding a plane crash when one has a premonition of their deaths, but soon after, they begin dying one by one in mysterious freak accidents.[1] The script was originally written by Jeffrey Reddick as a spec script for the X-Files. (Director James Wong worked as a writer, producer and director on that series.) The story 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.[2]
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 Cancún gone wrong.
The Final Destination takes place on Long Island[3]. 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.[4]
Plot
WHEN NOTIHNG IS WHAT IT SEEMS AND EVERYTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS HAPPENS TO BE AXL ROSE
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.
(Ali Larter): Clear feels a connection with Alex, and believes his frantic assertions that the plane will explode. 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 film).
- William "Billy" Hitchcock
(Seann William Scott): On Flight 180, Billy is lucky enough to get in the middle of Carter's and Alex's fight and gets kicked off. He is the jokester of the group. He would have been the fifth person to die on the plane.
- Carter Horton
(Kerr Smith): Carter is an athlete who deeply resents Alex. He gets kicked off the plane for fighting with Alex after Alex causes a commotion about how the aircraft is going to explode. (We are also led to believe Alex and Carter were not friendly even before Flight 180.) He later accuses Alex of being behind the crash. He would have been the fourth person to die on the plane.
- Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke): Ms. Lewton is one of the teachers supervising the trip to Paris. 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 makes plans to move out of town, feeling she sent the other teacher to his death. She would have been the third person to die.
- Terry Chaney
(Amanda Detmer): Terry is Carter's girlfriend. After trying to break up the fight between Alex and Carter, she follows Carter off the plane. Sick of Carter's antagonism towards Alex, she 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): He investigates the Flight 180 case, following Alex around and suspecting him of being behind it.
- Agent Schreck
(Roger Guenveur Smith): Agent Wiene's partner.
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. In Ireland it received an 18, for violence, horror and language.[5]
Deaths
Original Design
Death's original design was for Flight 180 to explode, killing everyone on board. However, Alex's premonition and the commotion he makes leads to his and several others' getting off the plane, thus saving them. In Death's original design, they would have died in a specific order: Tod, Terry, Ms. Lewton, Carter, Billy, Clear, Alex (though he later determines that because he switched seats and ended up sitting next to Tod, his and Clear's positions are switched). Alex determines this based on schematic reports of the technical failures causing the plane explosion. However, Clear does not die after Alex because Alex prevents his own death, thus changing the order.
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.
Tod goes into the bathroom, and the door closes behind him, as though part of Death's intent to minimize interruption. Water leaks from the toilet and as Tod reaches for clothes on a clothesline, he slips on the water and into the line. The force of the fall causes the wire to wrap tightly around his neck and he falls into the tub, spilling shampoos and containers. The wire chokes him, blood vessels break in his eyes and he slips on the spilled contents in the bath. Unable to stand up, he spies a pair of nail clippers and struggles to reach them to cut the wire. He is unable to do so before the lack of oxygen causes his death. The water then retreats to the toilet as if it never leaked out. His father believes it was suicide and blames Alex for making Tod feel guilty. This is the first and only time that "Death" is seen as a malevolent force.
Clues
- Alex threw a magazine at an owl in his room and a page caught in his fan and shredded the paper. A piece flew onto his knee and it read 'Tod'.
- The song 'Rocky Mountain High' came on the radio in the bathroom.
- Also, "Tod" is German for "death". Likely intentional since "Todd" is the more common spelling of the name.
- In the Opening a Little Doll is being hanged from the shadows.
Terry Chaney: Death by blunt force trauma.
Carter argues with Alex outside of a coffee shop, and Terry gets angry and explains she's moving on and getting over the plane crash. She backs up onto the road as she speaks and tells Carter to 'drop fucking dead'. A bus plows into her at high speed, splattering blood everywhere.
Clues
- While Alex was talking to Clear, he saw the reflection of a bus approaching in the window, but when he turns around, it is gone.
- Right as the plane blows up after the premonition a poster of a bus can be seen behind Terry.
Ms. Valerie Lewton: Death by stabbing, penetrating trauma, burning, and loss of blood
Ms. Lewton is in her house pouring some hot tea into her mug. She sees it has the school logo on it and, thinking of the explosion, flings it away. She then pours some cold vodka into the cup, rather than replacing the tea. The sudden temperature change causes the mug to crack, to which she is oblivious. She walks from the kitchen with the dripping mug to where her computer is. As she leans over her computer, the liquid drips inside, causing sparks and smoke. As she inspects the computer, the monitor explodes, throwing a shard of glass into her neck. She promptly pulls it out, causing the bleeding to worsen. She stumbles into the kitchen, followed by a trail of fire igniting the line of spilled vodka. The vodka bottle in the kitchen explodes, knocking her over. Still bleeding, she reaches a towel on the counter, unaware that it is draped over a knife block. She pulls on the towel and a large carving knife tips out and into her chest. Alex bursts in (knowing she was next in line), sees her in the kitchen and tries to help. The oven blows up, knocking a nearby chair into Ms. Lewton and propelling the knife deeper in. Alex is unable to save her and runs out of the house; a few seconds later, the whole house goes up in flames.
Clues
- Ms. Lewton puts on a record, which ironically is 'Rocky Mountain High' by John Denver, which also played right before Tod's death. John Denver died in a plane crash.
- While Alex is on his way to Ms. Lewton's house, he sees a man raking some burning leaves. As the ashes surround him, he realizes it's a clue and breaks into a run.
- As Lewton leaned over her computer, you can see a dagger decoration on her door pointing at her. When the shard of glass hits her neck, she backs up into the door with the knife picture on it.
Billy Hitchcock: Death by decapitation.
After Alex gets Carter out of the car stalled on the tracks in the path of an approaching train, the group is standing near the tracks arguing. A piece of metal shrapnel from the car is propelled up from the speeding train and decapitates Billy.
Clues
- Billy is nearly run over multiple times by Carter's car, and it eventually leads him to his demise.
- While Alex was in Carter's car, he saw a reflection of an incoming train, even though they weren't near the railroad.
Note: Alex intervened in Carter's death, so it skipped to Billy.
Carter Horton: Death by blunt force trauma.
Seeing a bus headed towards Alex, Clear screams at him to get out of the way. A string of events causes a neon sign to swing free from its frame and towards him, but Carter intervenes and saves Alex. The sign swivels back towards Carter. (This is the end of the movie; the credits roll immediately after this shot in the theatrical ending.) The death is confirmed in Final Destination 2.
Clues
- Behind the three survivors, a singer is singing 'Rocky Mountain High' in French.
- A gust of wind blows a glass of red wine over onto Alex's paper. It spills over his name, resembling blood.
- When the neon sign is detaching, the lights flicker off except for 'o81'. when the sign is about to hit Carter, it reads '18o'.
Alex Chance Browning: Death by head trauma
A brick falls on his head, killing him. The death is confirmed in Final Destination 2.
Clear Rivers: Death by incineration
Clear is killed in Final Destination 2 in an explosion. She had been helping another group of survivors.
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 having sex 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.
In the original script for the first movie, 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 may have taken her.
Influence on sequel
The concept of new life defeating death was incorporated into the storyline of Final Destination 2.
References
External links
- Final Destination at IMDb
- Kerr's Secret -- A Kerr Smith Fansite
- Final Destination Clip plane crash scene
