Ending explained videos on YouTube are the ones where people try to come up with their best guess on what the ending of a specific movie or show meant based on their expertise. You can find it for almost every movie or show with even the slightest ambiguous endings. Before I get into my reasons, I want to say I have nothing against the people who make these videos, there’s clearly a demand for it and I myself used to be a fan of these videos at one point.

Ending Explained

Young Richu didn’t like the unknown. He always wanted a concrete answer to questions, and “open to interpretation” was his worst enemy. So every time he watched a movie with an ambiguous ending he went straight to YouTube to find someone who explained it or, which I later realized, shared their interpretation on the ending of the movie. My oldest memory, regarding this, is when I watched movies from one of my favorite Directors, Christopher Nolan.

I used to dislike how Christopher Nolan ended his movies. The final spinning top of Inception, the final cut of Interstellar, all evoked anxiety the first time I watched it. I was young, and so invested in all these movies that, the ending seemed like a criminal offense. I went straight to YouTube for comfort every time. But I was never satisfied with the answers as, like me, all that the YouTuber’s can do is speculate. But I didn’t say Christopher Nolan was one of my favorite Directors for nothing because as time passed by, I slowly started to understand the value of the unseen.

The realization of not everything is to be understood wasn’t an immediate one. I don’t even remember who planted the seed for that thought in me. Maybe I just matured, or maybe it was something else, but I do remember the first time I thought, “You know what, I think I’m just going to sit with this”, was when I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion. Probably the show with one of the most “out there” endings, which I know is a controversial one too, but personally I don’t have strong opinions on it. But it was the single show which demanded me to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of not knowing and just reflect on what it is that I just experienced. I still only have a vague idea of how it ended, and I’m surprising okay with it. Because I know that, when I re-watch it, I will get a new meaning out of it and even more the next time around.

I still think about those movies. That’s the single best reason I can give you for not wanting to know the ending. Having an open for interpretation ending increases a movie’s lifespan. It’s weird saying movies have a lifespan. But what I mean is how long the movie going to be talked about?. If the movie has a concrete ending, it has to be good and satisfying, otherwise the entire movie will be judged based on that bad ending. Quentin Tarantino for example does endings amazingly. And it goes the same for open-ended movies, if the movie doesn’t give enough to chew on, and it’s just randomness, then there’s no use.

The movies which evoke the curiosity of the watcher and makes them ask the “What if?” questions are the most powerful ones. “What if this?” “What if that?” are some of the questions that can really evoke the imagination of the movie watcher. I have since re-watched Christopher Nolan’s movies and, although not perfect, they are a masterclass in story telling and cinematography. I have also watched plenty of other films with ambiguous endings, and I’m happy to say that I’m finally starting to be satisfied with my own interpretations of endings and I can’t wait to re-watch these films and experience it again, and come up with a whole different interpretation.