Let me get this straight
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a_l_i_e_n — 10 years ago(July 17, 2015 10:57 PM)
A father has a responsibility to provide for his children.
Valid point.
Let's just leave children fatherless and the mother all alone to pay the bills.
Another valid point.
And for the record, children don't have a choice when their mother drives them away.
Certainly the younger boy and the little girl were not anxious to go.
when the kids are at their high school graduations and their father is not there
And let's not forget the university graduations and the weddings he won't attend, not to mention missing out on the important role of being a grandfather to their children. The movie is great until we get to this very questionable ending. -
gabby_bm — 10 years ago(July 29, 2015 01:13 PM)
LOL! Like he would have any sort of normal life with his kids after seeing UFOs, throwing bricks, trees and dirt through the kitchen window, stealing his neighbor's property and building a mountain in the family living room.
The guy would be lucky to get an hour's supervised visit with his children, let alone full visitation.
I dont need you to tell me how good my coffee is.
.
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a_l_i_e_n — 10 years ago(July 29, 2015 11:23 PM)
LOL! Like he would have any sort of normal life with his kids after seeing UFOs, throwing bricks, trees and dirt through the kitchen window, stealing his neighbor's property and building a mountain in the family living room.
The guy would be lucky to get an hour's supervised visit with his children, let alone full visitation.
Perhaps so, but obviously Roy's UFO experience would be treated as delusional behaviour or, indeed, an indication of mental illness, and I point out that people do recover from such breakdowns. So (assuming these friendly aliens haven't left him with the permanent desire to build mountains in his house), Roy is eventually going to be assessed as normal and fit to participate in his kids' lives again. And if he weren't, then to me these beings are responsible for ruining at least his earthly life and maybe should've just left him alone. -
gabby_bm — 10 years ago(July 31, 2015 09:43 AM)
I apologize. The LOL wasn't directed at you or your response, but from my imagining how his psychiatric evaluations would progress. He didn't handle his interrogation at Devil's Tower very well.
Of course, this is supposing that the government wouldn;t keep him under observation for a while to study the psychic connection's effect on the human brain
I could even see him getting violent if a couple shrinks stood in the way of him seeing his kids. None too good for his psychiatric progress. I just don't see much in the way of a family reunion after this one.
I dont need you to tell me how good my coffee is.
.
. -
jq-141-648063 — 10 years ago(August 01, 2015 09:11 AM)
At the end of the movie, he got in the spaceship, the spaceship took off, and the movie ended. That's it.
We can assume he's never coming back, but the movie doesn't say that at all.
It's science fiction. We have to use our imagination to make whatever we want out of it. We don't have to assume the worst. We can assume something good.
Maybe he takes a quick ride around the universe and comes right back. He's now a hero on the planet and contributes unimaginable knowledge and insight not just to his wife and 3 kids, who no longer think he's crazy, but to every human being on earth. There are no problems paying the bills. Nobody is left alone. He's the honored speaker at his kids' high school and college graduations. Their friends all think he's the coolest dad ever. Nobody feels abandoned and nobody has any psychological problems.
They all live happily ever after.
Best father ever, best ending ever.
That's just one way to see it, but we can't blame Spielberg if we don't see it that way. -
flaiky — 10 years ago(August 16, 2015 04:21 AM)
Maybe he takes a quick ride around the universe and comes right back. He's now a hero on the planet and contributes unimaginable knowledge and insight not just to his wife and 3 kids, who no longer think he's crazy, but to every human being on earth. There are no problems paying the bills. Nobody is left alone. He's the honored speaker at his kids' high school and college graduations. Their friends all think he's the coolest dad ever. Nobody feels abandoned and nobody has any psychological problems.
They all live happily ever after.
Best father ever, best ending ever.
Love this!
That is a masterpiece of understatement. -
sliat_1981 — 9 years ago(February 04, 2017 01:33 AM)
Maybe he takes a quick ride around the universe and comes right back. He's now a hero on the planet and contributes unimaginable knowledge and insight not just to his wife and 3 kids, who no longer think he's crazy, but to every human being on earth. There are no problems paying the bills. Nobody is left alone. He's the honored speaker at his kids' high school and college graduations. Their friends all think he's the coolest dad ever. Nobody feels abandoned and nobody has any psychological problems.
They all live happily ever after.
Best father ever, best ending ever.
But he still cheated on his wife.. -
sage2112 — 10 years ago(October 10, 2015 09:20 AM)
The thing about him simply taking a "quick trip" and coming right back is always what I assumed was going to happen. For some reason, people have always assumed he's leaving for good - kinda like they're confusing it with the old people leaving in Cocoon.
But I think even Spielberg intended that he's leaving for good, because he now says he would not write that ending today. So it's strange to me that all these years of being a huge fan of this film (since I saw it in theaters in '77), I saw the ending so differently than most everyone else. -
a_l_i_e_n — 10 years ago(October 10, 2015 03:43 PM)
When I saw it, I didn't necessarily think Roy would be leaving forever. However, taking into consideration how long the Flight 19 crew had been gone, I took that as an indication that Roy's excursion could also be a lengthy one. But they never come out and say that this is the last time Roy's gonna be seen in these parts so, yeah, maybe he will be back in just a bit like Barry.
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!!!deleted!!! (9347176) — 9 years ago(April 19, 2016 07:00 AM)
Maybe he takes a quick ride around the universe and comes right back.
This is, technically, exactly what the other "abductees" experienced. Thirty years pass on Earth but for the travelers, a much shorter time has elapsed. "Right back" is for Neary only, however. Everyone else on Earth would have aged at "normal" speed. This is why all the folks leaving the mothership are virtually the same age as when they left, just like the planes and the boat from earlier in the film.
-Rod -
a_l_i_e_n — 9 years ago(April 19, 2016 09:29 AM)
This is, technically, exactly what the other "abductees" experienced. Thirty years pass on Earth but for the travelers, a much shorter time has elapsed. "Right back" is for Neary only, however. Everyone else on Earth would have aged at "normal" speed. This is why all the folks leaving the mothership are virtually the same age as when they left, just like the planes and the boat from earlier in the film.
Very true. However, as we saw in the case of Barry, it is possible to take a trip with the aliens that doesn't last decades. Having said that, at the end it does look like they're heading out for a much longer journey. -
SteveResin — 10 years ago(August 13, 2015 04:33 PM)
He's got a choice. Take a mind blowing trip across the universe and see sights people cannot even comprehend while learning a culture that's even more unusual than the Japanese or go home to his nagging wife who thinks he's a fruitloop anyway, and spend the rest of the year driving that truck for 8 hours a day so his ball and chain and brats can get fat on mashed potato. No brainer really.
Duty Now For The Future -
neoyemi — 10 years ago(March 27, 2016 12:29 AM)
and spend the rest of the year driving that truck for 8 hours a day
And remember he got fired too, so it would be down to the jobcenter first thing the next morning after declining the aliens offer to join them. Definitely a no brainer there. -
dlancer — 10 years ago(September 25, 2015 07:49 AM)
I don't think you can blame the guy, honestly. It's not his fault that the close encounter caused an idea to infest his subconscious mind. He was brought to near insanity by it. At that point, he was neither fit to be their father nor was he capable.
If you can read this then you are trying too hard. -
largo2032 — 10 years ago(September 30, 2015 08:49 PM)
I've always wondered if the Government sent them money after Roy 'left'. Maybe he wanted his family to be taken care of when he was gone. If not, they did get a cool Devil's Tower sculpture in the living room!