What’s the Deal With the Ending of Wyatt Earp?

On July 7 in 1900, Warren Earp — the youngest of the Earp brothers — was killed in a saloon in Wilcox, Arizona. Warren’s most famous brother, Wyatt Earp, lived until 1929. On the day he died, Warren was drinking and confronting other customers when John Boyett killed him in a gunfight. In a later trial, Boyett was found not guilty because he was acting in self-defense.

Warren Earp did not participate in the famous 1881 gunfight at OK Corral with his brothers and Doc Holliday.  But he was in the town at the time. And later he helped Wyatt with the revenge killings after the gunfight.  All of those events surrounding the gunfight are portrayed in the movie Wyatt Earp (1994), a decent movie with an odd ending.

The Ending of “Wyatt Earp” . . . on a Ship?

Wyatt Earp is an enjoyable movie and in some ways superior to the more popular Tombstone from the same year.  But there is one major problem with it. The movie has a poor ending. Had director Lawrence Kasden given the movie a memorable ending, the movie would be more highly regarded than it is. (Spoiler Alert: This entry discusses the film’s ending, although it is not a twist or surprise ending.)

In Wyatt Earp, the movie follows Earp’s life from his time as a child to adulthood.  The film, of course, focuses largely on Earp’s western exploits.  And much of the movie centers on Earp’s time in Tombstone, Arizona. It is in Tombstone where Earp and his brothers participated in the Gunfight at OK Corral.

The movie provides a realistic portrayal of that famous fight.  Then, the movie shows subsequent events and the anger among the survivors. As the movie nears the end, we see Kevin Costner’s Earp exacting revenge on other characters who participated in the Tombstone gunfight.

Then, the movie cuts to many years in the future.  Earp and his wife Josie Marcus are on a ship near Alaska.

They are approached by a young man who recounts a story, by aid of a flashback, of how Earp saved his uncle, Tommy “Behind the Deuce” O’Rourke (based on real-life Michael “Johnny-Behind-the Deuce” O’Rourke). Tommy’s nephew describes how Earp had intervened to protect Tommy from an angry mob many years earlier in Tombstone.

Then, after Tommy’s nephew leaves, Earp says to Josie, “Some say it did not happen that way.” She responds to the effect, “Don’t worry Wyatt, it happened that way.” End of movie.

The video below includes most of the movie’s conclusion, although it omits the comments by Wyatt and Josie at the end of the scene.

Why the Ending of “Wyatt Earp” Does not Work

This coda to the movie does not work for a number of reasons.  First, the scene includes a distracting flashback after a short jump to the future.

We are thrown into a big jump in the future, which could work if the future showed us something meaningful about the movie we have been watching for three-plus hours. But the purpose of this flash-forward is to show a flashback to Earp’s lawman days — a time period the movie already covered.

Further, the ship ending — especially along with the flashback — makes it appear that the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce character has some big significance for summarizing Earp’s life.  But what happened with Tommy does not really seem that significant. It is not any more important than the rest of the movie that already focused on Earp’s lawman.  But by ending with a discussion of the flashback, the movie makes the viewer think they should see something important that just is not there.

On the IMDb website, one astute viewer notes that earlier in the movie Josie had mentioned having heard the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce story when she first met Wyatt. But, even assuming viewers will remember one passing mention of Tommy early in the three-hour movie, viewers may not remember at the end.  And even if they remember and make the connection at the end, it is still confusing about why the movie ends on the Tommy-Behind-the-Deuce note.

What Was the Director Thinking?

There does not seem to be much discussion of the ending on the web.  But there are a few brief critiques (“muddled,” “neutered climax,” etc.).  And Roger Ebert calls the ending sequence “pointless.”

One might concede there is an argument for what Director Lawrence Kasden was trying to accomplish. The scene does reflect on the myth of the Western and how events may be remembered differently than how they really happened.

But without a significant connection to the rest of the movie, the coda is confusing and does not work as effectively as the way the same theme was explored in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. I had hoped the Extended Two-Disc Special Edition would add more to explain the confusing ending, but unfortunately nothing was added that affects the end.

The flashback does show Earp as a pure hero.  When we watch Earp in the real-time of the movie, we see many flaws in the man.  But when we see him in the memory, Earp does his job as a lawman perfectly.  So, perhaps Kasden wanted viewers to see that contrast to show how Earp became remembered as a hero and his flaws forgotten in that memory.

That interpretation of the ending makes some sense.  But if that interpretation was Kasden’s goal, the contrast should have been clearer for the viewer disoriented by the sudden jump to the future on a boat.  Maybe the scene needed to be longer.

Perhaps Kasden was trying to invoke another famous movie scene from To Kill a Mockingbird.  In that movie, lawyer Atticus Finch protected a man from a lynch mob, and the viewer saw him as a courageous hero.

That all being said, with the exception of the ending, Director Lawrence Kasden created a very good Western epic biopic with Wyatt Earp.  The film does a decent job of trying to convey much of a long adventurous life.

I even prefer Wyatt Earp to the less realistic Tombstone.  Kevin Costner does a good job in the lead role, portraying the hero as a dark and troubled character. And Dennis Quaid gives one of his best performances ever as Doc Holliday. One of the best things about both Wyatt Earp and Tombstone are the portrayals of Doc Holiday by Quaid and Val Kilmer, respectively.

If you do not mind the awkward ending and the length of the film, and if you appreciate character-studies and Westerns, you might want to spend a lazy weekend afternoon watching Wyatt Earp.

This trailer has a better ending than the movie, withe Gene Hackman’s lines summarizing the theme of the movie better than the lines that actually ended the movie.

Photo via.

Disagree? Have another movie with a stupid ending? Post a comment.

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Author: chimesfreedom

Editor-in-chief, New York. View all posts by chimesfreedom