Man, that is one downer ending! Most interesting thing about it is how it totally flies in the face of the thematic thread about protecting your family. Pitt's character risks his life to 'buy' protection for his family, but then loses them? That's harsh! A downer ending is one thing, but a downer ending that totally negates your apparent moral? Most downer endings uphold the story's theme (e.g., the hero dies, but saves others by so doing. Or whatever.) I wonder if it would have been more acceptable if it had upheld the theme somehow (e.g., Pitt's character had to somehow give up his family so others could be with theirs) ?

Interesting, personally I could have gone with that and felt like there was more of an open door for a sequel. Before I read this post I was convinced there would be a dvd extra that showed him taking the dose from the 'wrong box', proving his theory at cost. That would also be an ending I would have been happy with.

Downer endings can be satisfying, so long as you give the audience a victory elsewhere: e.g. the protag fails at A but wins at B, or the main character hits misfortune but a secondary character scores a win. See Refn's BLEEDER.

We all know there are four ways a story can end: 1. The hero gets his want and gets his need (happy ending) 2. The hero loses his want, but gets his need (uplifting ending) 3. The hero gets his want, but loses his need (bittersweet ending) 4. The hero loses his want and loses his need (downer ending) I'm convinced that a well-told story can only have one possible outcome. The author just uses every trick in the book to convince us otherwise and if it is well-told, we are so engaged in the events of his tale, that we don't notice. He's like a great magician. Other magicians know how the tricks work, but if he does his job right, they forget all about it and suddenly they are kids again ... it's MAGIC.

Saw WWZ this pm. The current ending (version 2.03 or whatever) kind of works. With a certain irony. It certainly works better than version 1.0. I'm dazed and amused that version 1.0 got as far along the production line of the sausage factory -- er, movie making process -- as it did.