Why passengers’ end was so controversial

Despite two bankable stars in the leads and a big sci-fi budget, the Passengers End chose a controversial way to keep his big twist. Passengers Revolves around mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) and journalist Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), Two passengers on a spaceship traveling to a distant planet who are awakened from their hibernation pods 90 years early. On the empty ship, because they will be dead long before the rest of the crew wakes up, the two characters make a new life and fall in love. However, there is a darker twist to the story.

The twist, which the film’s trailers failed to reveal, is that Jim actually awakens Aurora after his own pod malfunctions and he is unable to bear the thought of living the rest of his life in isolationSave for the ship’s android barman Arthur (Michael Sheen). Although there are scenes of Chris Pratt’s Jim and Jennifer Lawrence’s Aurora having great chemistry and having fun together, it’s the truth about what he did that will eventually come out. When it does, the way Passengers Dealing with him raised a lot of controversy among the crowd.

What happens at the end of passengers

Aurora learns the truth and makes a decision

With the threat of Jim’s terrible secret being revealed lingering throughout the story, it finally happens in the film’s controversial third act. Arthur casually reveals to Aurora what Jim did. Although she is naturally angry with Jim and tries to avoid contact with him when they share the ship, Aurora must put those feelings aside when the entire ship is put in danger.

The two learn that the ship is suffering from multiple system failures as a result of an asteroid collision (the same one that caused Jim’s pod to malfunction in the first place) and they must repair the ship before it’s too late.

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Jim makes a brave and dangerous attempt to save the ship, succeeding and nearly dying in the process but Aurora manages to save him. With the catastrophe averted, Jim reveals that he has found a way to put Aurora back into hibernation for the rest of the trip, but that would mean he has to stay awake and alone. But, rather than say goodbye to Jim forever, Aurora chooses to stay with him and the couple live the rest of their lives on the ship together.

Why are the passengers ending so controversial

The movie raised questions about consent and accountability

Passengers was largely regarded as a space movie with a good idea and disappointing execution, with critics describing the ending as a highly problematic wish-fulfillment fantasy at best (one where a woman stays in love with a man, despite learning their relationship is based on a terrible, self-serving lie) and, at worst, one that morphs the film into an unintentional horror movie.

The problem for most critics is not the choice to let Jim wake Aurora when his isolation becomes too much to bear; It was Passengers‘ Failure to examine the moral implications of his action and the questions it raises about consent.

People similarly took the movie to task for not fully developing Aurora as a character and diving deeper into her complicated feelings for Jim after she learns the truth. instead, Passengers Morphs into a disaster thriller in its third act and pushes its relationship storyline to the backburner, before resolving it in an unsatisfying way that betrays the moral dilemma of the narrative by making Aurora simply forgive Jim.

What the Passengers filmmakers and cast said about the controversy

Jennifer Lawrence has expressed regret about the movie

Just like with the reaction of the audience itself Passengersend The people who made the movie shared different observations about the controversy What followed. Producer Neil Moritz later dismissed the criticism of PassengersFinally, claim:

– said one guy [we were justifying date rape] And a lot of media picked up on that and it became the mantra that the film carried.”

On the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence responded to the backlash against Passengers And expressed that she thought some of the criticism was valid:

“I’m not ashamed [Passengers] by any means. It was just things I wished I’d looked into more deeply before jumping in.”

Despite the critical response, the film still managed to gross a little over $300 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo). At the same time, the consensus on Passengers Has not improved over the years since its release. There are many who felt that the movie would have been more successful if it had embraced Jim as the villain and told the story from Aurora’s perspective. Instead, it remains a complicated and flawed film that tries to tell a great sci-fi romance story while saddled with a very disturbing premise.

How critics and audiences reacted to the end of the passengers

Critics panned the movie while the audience was not so harsh

The reception to Passengers Was not positive from critics. Based on critical reviews, the film has a very low 30% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the audience score is not so harsh, with a slightly positive 63% approval rating. Many audience members were not as excited by the ending as otherswith one Audience reviewer writing, “I thought the story and concept was excellent and the driving force for the film. It really makes you think what you would do in this situation.”

However, critics are not as forgiving of this ending. Leah Pickett of the Chicago Rider There was one critic who thought the film had a lot of promise but there was something she couldn’t get past when she thought about what she called the “IQ factor.”

“So, we’re supposed to like Pratt and Lawrence together, yet Pratt’s character does something so unforgivable to Lawrence in the beginning that their subsequent interactions simmer with a mix of horror and disbelief; they appeal to actors failing through the film’s many contrivances. “

Even some positive reviews saw a problem with the ending. Collider Film critic Perry Nemiroff wrote, “Passengers would have been a much stronger film if it had only been a sci-fi relationship drama. You could easily remove the “ship error” component and still get to the same exact ending.“The Passengers The ending is problematic and changes the themes of the film, possibly for the worse. However, the success or failure of the film depends on what the viewers and critics took away from the twist.