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[Magyk]

For something I spent 5 years watching, the ending was total garbage.

[The Slender Man]

I'm not as butthurt as I was when I first saw it, but I'm still not a fan of the ending.

[Blackout_2014]

[quote="Magyk"]For something I spent 5 years watching, the ending was total garbage.

Yeah, I didn't spend five years, but it was a good three years of watching it. the answers just weren't there. The only hope is the commentary, but the commentary on the first two DVDs was awful.

[Lithp]

[Lytrigian]

There are no answers. There were never going to be. Things like this don't happen for a good reason.

I wouldn't say it was an amazing ending, in that it didn't blow me away -- but the real climax was Tim killing Alex. This was just the denouement.

[Lithp]

Things like what? Disasters often have explanations, so I don't think that's a good defense. Especially since this is a story. And framed as a mystery, at that.

[Xman]

I chose the "forgettable" option, although it wasn't really forgettable. But since Lithp says forgettable = lousy, I'm going with that.

It's not that it was absolutely terrible, it's just that I expected so much more. I feel like there were many things they never expanded on. Other things that once felt mysterious no longer feel meaningful at all now that it's over.

Alex was just an all around confusing mess, who could, for some reason, almost never successfully kill his victims. He was trying to "do good" or whatever by killing everyone involved but he failed hard and died. I'm still not sure where his character lies on the good/bad spectrum, honestly. Like what was with his alliance with the Operator? Why were they allied at all if Alex's goal is to kill everyone and himself to get away from him? And why did Alex give any tapes to Jay in the first place? Couldn't he just refuse to give them away? Or maybe make up a lie and say he still needed them, and then just destroy them? They make it clear that Alex pick and chose tapes to make him look innocent. But why did he take the time to do that? Wouldn't it have been much easier to just not give tapes to Jay? And when he attacked Jay after he gave the tapes to him, why didn't he take the tapes back from him? And WHY is it so hard for him to kill someone? I could seriously write endless questions about him. His character just makes so little sense to me.

Hoody is another character I'm disappointed with. I guess he did bring Jay and Tim together, so that's one meaningful thing, but the way he died at the end was so anticlimactic. The character with omnipresent-like abilities, mysterious intentions, and cryptic videos with hidden messages, dies by falling off a ledge. And his reveal was so boring. They teased his reveal 3 times in that one entry, and then after watching that audition tape, Tim concludes that Hoody and Brian are wearing the same hoodie. That was it. That was the reveal. I don't think they could've made it more underplayed if they tried.

The Jessica reveal at the end was cool, but I still don't get the ambiguity with Tim's coughing fit, the static, and then cutting to Tim driving without any mention of Jessica. I guess we're supposed to wonder whether she's okay or not? But why? Why introduce more questions like that in the finale? I'm sorry, but that whole scene just felt unnecessary, and probably would've been better if Tim just said his goodbyes, drove away, and left it at that.

Overall, I hated that the end premise was "the Operator is a disease, the only escape is death, or you can suppress him greatly by taking these pills and saying away from other people who have been involved with him." Marble Hornets once felt so mysterious and complex and the final entries made everything seem basic and meaningless.

[Lithp]

I suppose enough people have voted/commented that my input won't influence anything, so I will say that I voted "Operational."

I can't really argue with any of the complaints that people are making, so I did seriously consider voting "Forgettable." In fact, in a year or so, I might actually forget a lot of this stuff, because so much of it was just so underwhelming. But I thought that the ending was just good enough to pass. But only just.

Part of the reason why is because this is THAC's first horror story, & I know from experience that's not an easy thing to write. Also, I lowered my expectations significantly during Season 3. If you want to call that cheating, maybe you're right, but in the end, I can't say, "I don't like this series anymore." I can say that a lot of it disappointed me, but overall, I still like it.

I do not, however, want to see another series like Marble Hornets. I think they need to seriously step up their game in the future, & I think that's supported by the poll results so far, which are something like 25% of people hating the ending & 50% thinking that it was merely okay. You could say, "But that means that 75% of people liked it overall, & 25% of people thought it was amazing," but who puts so much work into a production & wants people to say, "Eh, it was okay. 1 in 4 people are going to hate it in the end, but if you're only interested in a few questions, you'll like it"? Especially when Marble Hornets received glowing reviews as something amazing & groundbreaking, not mere light entertainment, & is by far the most famous & popular of the Slendervlogs.

[ThinSuit]

It was awful. They pulled a LOST when they said that season 3 was made so the ending won't feel rushed.
Well it felt rushed as fuck.

I loved the whole series, tho, just not the ending.

Also, I can't believe how many dropped plot points they were the entire series

[420Goku]

People saying they'll never watch another THAC series again they ruined it how could they have screwed up so bad etc. really need to keep in mind this is their very first try at this sort of thing. They are literally just random people who made something for fun, somehow struck gold, and ended up being talented enough to keep it going for years and if you ask me, especially if you compare them to the other slender vlogs, they did way more right than they did wrong.

Not whiteknighting or anything but I think that's an important reality check for some of you (some, not most). Especially marble hornets.

Anyways, I'm gonna marathon season 3 soon. I already did with the first two seasons and it was pretty nice, I feel like I have a whole new appreciation of season 2. All of you ought to do it sometime. So I'm somewhat suspecting entry 87 will be more enjoyable/smooth to watch in a marathon setting, I'll see.

My only huge complaints are that Alex's motivations and actions don't really make sense and I'm not very content with the idea that that's just because slenderman made him crazy, and that Hoody's motivations and actions weren't even attempted to be explained! And Hoody's probably the coolest character in the series in my book. Dude seemed to be steering the whole course of the series with some kind of master goal all while making great avant garde film collage. Now that's the kind of bad boy I can dig. I might try to seriously look into and make sense of him later and if I strike gold I'll report back.

Oh, and Tim hiding Jessica away did not feel like a very HUGE secret, contrary to all the "HE LIES" Hoody was throwing at us but I guess it actually was a massive, important secret to Jay. It's just... I'm not the one jacking off to Jessica rule 34, so I'm not so involved. Then again maybe the LIES also had to do with Tim knowing all along that he was the source, and that he remembered way more about his history than he let on.

[baseballfuries08]

[DHawk314]

First of all, everyone saying the ending is anything like Lost is basically full of shit. Why? Cause it's a twist? I guess. It's not THAT big a twist. 10 entries previously Tim gave Jay a big speech about how he didn't actually want him to find Jessica because she'd get "dragged back into this all over again". So Tim knew where Jessica was the whole time? I mean, it's a twist. But it's hardly fucking Lost.

Also, that wasn't the ending. I mean, it's over now, and that was the last entry, but the "Ending" was Tim stabbing Alex to death with Jay's pocket knife, and as someone who's been watching for three and a half years, I find that completely satisfying.

Entry #87 was the epilogue where Tim goes "It's over, I'm gonna live with this forever but I'll just take my meds like I always have, and now I'm gonna skip town and try to forget about this." Which to me seems completely standard.

Now, that was also the entry that revealed the twist about Jessica, because only once Alex was dead would that be safe to do. But that's the first half of the entry. That basically caps off Season 3, which more or less revolves around conflicts between Jay looking for Jessica and Tim keeping secrets from Jay (The 76 tape for example) and as I said, I take no issue with that part of the plot. As a matter of fact, rewarding certain entries (Especially 63) it actually makes a lot of sense.

So that's the Season 3 ending. But the series ending, which basically intersects the plots of Alex as a murderer from Season 2 and Tim's character arc from the first half of season 3, is totheark leading Jay to Alex, Alex killing Jay, Tim killing totheark, regretting it when he realizes he's Brian, Tim killing Alex, and finally, Tim skipping town in the second half of 87, just like Jay was about to do in 26.

I fully understand wanting more Hoody/Masky/totheark explanation, and I honestly could have lived with a bit more of it myself. But as long as we're looking at the series in a "bigger context" don't also pretend that the literal last entry having the Jessica twist in it somehow retroactively ruins the entries that led up to it as the "Ending" because that's just illogical, and because frankly, those entries were great.

EDIT: I get it, forgettable, cause the Operator makes you forget shit, hahaha

[Kraehtot]

I agree with DHawk in a lot of points, but:

[Magyk]

The series really fell off when Jay died - not because killing that character was a bad idea, but because it was poorly executed. The series had so much potential to use that death to achieve a really emotional payoff, but it never did. In fact, I'm not even sure from the time of Jay's death to the final "epilogue" entry Jay was even mentioned. We're talking about a character we spent YEARS getting to know. This series has the perfect opportunity to tug at our heart strings with his death, make us WANT to see Alex taken down, and make the payoff of seeing Alex offed so much better. I expected to at least feel like Jay's death was avenged when Tim killed Alex, but I didn't. I didn't feel anything at all. Not because of lack of attachment to Jay, but because of poor execution of how his death was played out. And that's a shame, because it greatly effected the last handful of entries.

[Bulb]

A mixed bag, though cleverly executed. The reason I say "mixed bag" is because of Season 3 as a whole, rather than the final entry itself.

I enjoy ambiguous endings in horror. If the day is saved and everything is resolved, then there's nothing to be afraid of when the lights go out. On the other hand, if everyone is killed and nothing is resolved, then the whole thing feels pointless.

Alex was killed. (Check.)
Tim rescued Jessica like Jay wanted. (Check.)
Hoody was revealed, and punished for his meddling. (Check.)

Was Hoody's "madness" diagnosed? (Uncheck - Therefore, its creepiness remains.)
Was "The Ark" explained? (Uncheck - Therefore, its creepiness remains.)
Was the connection between "The Operator" and Tim/Rosswood/anything explained? (Uncheck - Therefore, its creepiness remains.)

To me, the way the final entry flipped back and forth was perfect. Tim throws away his mask, and then has a coughing fit. He says goodbye to Jessica, and then the camera cuts out. He drives out of town, and then has to stop, as though doubting his decision. Someone has probably already mentioned this, but it's like the ending to The Graduate - the girl might rebel and choose her own man at the end of the day, but the final shot focuses silently on her unsure expression, casting doubt on whether or not she's really riding off into the sunset. Like so many other examples, what we don't see makes us wonder; makes us uneasy.

With all that said, there were some small questions which should've been addressed for logic's sake. (Why didn't Brian just, er, talk?) Some answers were underwhelming too. (Speaking of Obito Uchiha-- I mean Brian, his reveal as Hoody was ridiculously predictable.) I feel that this applies to Season 3 as a whole, however, rather than the final entry. When I look at what the final entry tried to accomplish, I believe it did a great job.

TLDR: Read it O___O