Final Destination
Final Destination series | |
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Directed by | James Wong (1,3) David R. Ellis (2,4) |
Written by | Story: James Wong Glen Morgan Eric Bress Characters: Jeffrey Reddick |
Produced by | Craig Perry |
Music by | Shirley Walker (1-3) |
Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release date | 2000 – 2011 |
Running time | 280 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $315 million |
The Final Destination series is the series of fictonal horror films created by James Wong and Glen Morgan, based on an unused X-Files script and characters created by Jeffrey Reddick and distributed by New Line Cinema. The films mainly centers on themes of determinism, predestination, and precognition, in relation to death (i.e. how to avoid, foresee, or control it), as well as a related series of books (published by Black Flame) and comics (published by Zenescope Entertainment Inc). Visually, they center around killing people in a variety of elaborate, gory, ways.
Basic story
Premise
The premise to both the film and book series about death is essentially the same: A group of people are gathered together at a venue, when suddenly a member of the group has a premonition of a disaster that will kill all of the people present. Horrified and motivated by the vision of impending doom, the person with the premonition then tries to prevent the incident by alerting the others. The other members have doubts of the incredible claims but the visionary is persistent, fracturing the group in hostile skeptics, dubious believers, or those that had no choice but to accompany the visionary. Soon afterwards, disaster strikes as foreseen, proving to the survivors that the visionary was right and their opinions change drastically.
Over the next few days, weeks or months, the same survivors begin to die in a series of horrific accidents and/or incredible circumstances until the same visionary notices a pattern and concludes that while surviving the initial disaster, they are still destined to die shortly. Determined to once again cheat death, the same group devises various plans to survive that usually fail until the protagonist visionary finds a solution to their fate, having salvaged two or three of the others. At the end however, there is one fantastic event that kills most or all of the survivors.
Cheating Death
A recurring theme in each Final Destination films is the concept of truly defeating Death. Constant intervention is shown to merely keep repeating the list. Once the list of Death's Design runs through, it rewinds to the beginning. The only way to defeat Death is through "new life". This is first introduced by the mortician Bludworth in the second film. So far, one way has been determined to cheat Death once and for all, while another remains a theory.
Volée Air Flight 180 (2000)
Plot synopsis
Volée Air Flight 180 is the fictional flight route designator for the flight featured at the beginning of the film; most of the flight and subsequent crash was based on the real life crash of TWA Flight 800. It is assumed that the flight routinely flies from John F. Kennedy International Airport near New York City to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France. On the night of the crash, Flight 180 is being operated by a Boeing 747-200 aircraft when it explodes on a 9:25 PM take-off just off Queens and burns up in the Atlantic Ocean on May 13, 2000, with the loss of 287 lives. Among the passengers are 39 high school students from Mount Abraham High School and their four chaperones. Several days later, the National Transportation Safety Board rules that metal fatigue had deteriorated silicon insulation on an electrical connector to the plane's scavenge pump, sparking electrical wires in a fluid line. This ignited a fuel tank in the fuselage and caused the explosion.
Several minutes before takeoff, one of the passengers, Alexander Chance "Alex" Browning (Devon Sawa), has a premonition of the plane's explosion. He causes a minor uproar, and he gets himself thrown off the plane along with his best friend, Tod Wagner (Chad Donella), soon to be his girlfriend, Clear Rivers (Ali Larter), Carter Horton (Kerr Smith) and his girlfriend, Terry Chaney (Amanda Detmer), Billy Hitchcock (Seann William Scott) and Ms. Valerie Lewton (Kristen Cloke). Alex is soon proved to be correct when Flight 180 explodes as predicted. As seen in the first film, the survivors soon learn that Alex's vision went against the death's design, which is not just a biological event but a nearly conscious force that causes people to die at a predetermined time. The survivors begin dying in the order they would have on Flight 180 (depending on the seating arrangement and a small diagram displayed on the news which explained how the engine exploded, which brought together the death order and seating) and he sets out to save them, which becomes the plot of the first film.
Despite its total destruction within the first few minutes of the film, the plane’s predestined effects allows Flight 180 to serve as a MacGuffin, and a Chekhov's Gun — evidenced by the death-related imagery in the pre-flight part of the film. Later in the series, the plane's flight number appears extremely frequently, and the characters occasionally associate it with the flight and take it as a bad omen. Appearances in the second film include a car crash at mile marker 180 on a back road that leads to the death of three survivors, which happens after an electronic construction sign that reads NEXT 180 FEET. In the second film when Kim just saw the premonition she saw a sign that said "Next 180" the same sign is seen in the third film. As well as in the third film in which the ID on the subway is 081, becoming 180 in the reflection of the train’s windows before crashing. More examples include a large neon sign that reads Le Miro 81. When it falls apart, it swings backwards and hits Carter. From behind, the last letters read 18 o.
Deaths
# | Character | Death | Portrayed by: |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Tod Waggner | Slips on water in his bathroom, and strangled to death by shower cord during his fall. | Chad Donella |
2 | Terry Chaney | Smashed by a speeding bus. | Amanda Detmer |
3 | Ms. Valerie Lewton | A broken piece of computer launched at her neck, stabbed by a knife and blown up when her house explodes. | Kristen Cloke |
4 | Billy Hitchcock | Decapitated by a piece of a car bonnet at the railroad crossing. | Seann William Scott |
5 | Carter Horton | Hit by a huge neon sign that read Le Miro 81 (never shown, but implied when the credits roll). | Kerr Smith |
6 | Clear Rivers | Killed in an explosion from the escaped oxygen (shown in the second film). | Ali Larter |
7 | Alexander Chance "Alex" Browning | Killed by a falling brick (never shown, but directly mentioned). | Devon Sawa |
Route 23 Pileup (2003)
Plot synopsis
The second movie begins on the 1st anniversary of the Flight 180 explosion, on Route 23. A log truck's chain supports break off and the logs crash into the cars behind, killing 26 people in the ensuing chaos. But Kimberly Corman (A. J. Cook) had a vision that allowed her to stop several people from gaining access to the highway. The pile-up happens but Kimberly's friends Shaina, Frankie and Dano are killed when a truck carrying cars drives off the roadway and smashes into their car, killing them instantly and nearly killing Kimberly.
Afterwards, Route 23 is hardly mentioned, apart from a news report after Evan's (David Paetkau) death. The only other reference to the accident is while in the vision, Kimberly drives past a sign that says 'Next Service 23 Miles'. This film connects to the first when the Route 23 survivors visit Clear Rivers, who was the only survivor boarding Volée Air Flight 180 to Paris.
Facts: At the intro of the film, a badge reading Road Trip can be seen. But since there are keys, it is now blocking the letter "T". Now the Road Trip reads Road R.I.P. Also at the intro, if you listen carefully, you can here Tony Todd says "Kimberly" in whisper before she woke up. In the cremation of Evan Lewis, you can see that Tony Todd wears Evan's expensive watch that Evan wears before his death.
Deaths
# | Character | Death | Portrayed by: |
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8 | Evan Lewis | Impaled through his eye by a falling ladder. | David Paetkau |
9 | Tim Carpenter | Crushed by a glass window used for construction. | James Kirk |
10 | Nora Carpenter | Decapitated her head by elevator doors in her apartment block. | Lynda Boyd |
11 | Kat Jennings | Impaled through her head by a broken plastic pole. | Keegan Connor Tracy |
12 | Rory Peters | Sliced his body into three parts by a fence of barbed wire from the van explosion. | Jonathan Cherry |
13 | Eugene Dix | Killed in the explosion from the escaped oxygen (along with Clear from the first film). | Terrance Carson |
14 | Officer Thomas Burke | Shredded by a faulty woodchipper (shown on the DVD choose-your-fate featurette in the third film). | Michael Landes |
15 | Kimberly Corman | A. J. Cook |
Devil's Flight (2006)
Plot synopsis
The third movie begins on the 6th anniversary of the Flight 180 explosion, on a ill-fated roller-coaster ride known as Devil's Flight. The roller-coaster breaks down, and when Frankie Cheeks (Sam Easton) drops a camera, the carts derail, plus the hydraulics rupture and the track is partially broken further on. However, Wendy Christensen (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) foresees this, and gets few of her friends off the ride. There are clues that death is coming including the letter "V" in High Dive. The letter "V" in Wendy's camera, had no light. Now the High Dive reads into High Die. In the end, Wendy had an another premonition of a subway derailment which would be the cause of her death, including her best friend Kevin Fischer (Ryan Merriman) and sister Julie (Amanda Crew).
Deaths
# | Character | Death | Portrayed by: |
---|---|---|---|
16 | Ashlyn Halperin | Burned to death after their tanning beds explodes. | Crystal Lowe |
17 | Ashley Freund | Chelan Simmons | |
18 | Frankie Cheeks | Back of his head sliced off by a still-spinning fanbelt from Kevin's car. | Sam Easton |
19 | Lewis Romero | Crushed his head by gym weights. | Texas Battle |
20 | Erin Ulmer | Hit by a nail gun multiple times in her face. | Alexz Johnson |
21 | Perry Malinowski | Impaled by a flagpole. | Maggie Ma |
22 | Ian McKinley | Crushed half of his body by a falling cherry picker. | Kris Lemche |
23 | Julie Christensen | Died in a subway derailment set 5 months after. | Amanda Crew |
24 | Kevin Fischer | Ryan Merriman | |
25 | Wendy Christensen | Mary Elizabeth Winstead |
McKinley Speedway (2009)
Plot synopsis
On what should have been a "typical day at the races," Nick O'Bannon (Bobby Campo) has a grisly premonition of a race car fatally crashing and sending debris into the stands, gruesomely killing his friends, and causing an overhang to collapse on him. He awakens, not being able to shake the feeling of how real his vision appeared, he panics, and just in time, persuades the group of teenagers to leave the bleachers. Immediately afterward objects begin to fly into the public as his frightening dream turns into a tedious reality. Unfortunately for Nick, along with his girlfriend Laurie Milligan (Shantel VanSanten) and her best friend Janet Cunningham (Haley Webb), this is only beginning. As the survivors begin to perish one-by-one in even more terrifying ways than they had originally, Nick must figure out how to cheat Death once and for all before, he too, reaches his final destination.
Confirmed cast
Actor/Actress | Role | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bobby Campo | Nick O'Bannon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nick Zano | Hunt Wynorski | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Shantel VanSanten | Laurie Milligan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Haley Webb | Janet Cunningham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Krista Allen | Helen | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Jessica Ritchie | Cassie | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phil Austin | Edward | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Billy Slaughter | Frankie | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Justin Welborn | The Racist | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Lara Grice | The Racist's Wife | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mykelti Williamson | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Andrew Fiscella | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Richard T. Jones | The Widow/Security Guard | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tyler Bryan | Trever Cunningham | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brad Pitt | Justin Pitt |
Justin Timberlake || Matt Carter ReceptionBox office performance
Critical reaction
Recurring elements
References
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