Didnt get the end of Scum (Loads of Spoilers)

TechnoCorruption

TechnoCorruption

TechnoCorruption

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Maybe it just went over my head as last night involved a lot of beer but just watched it this morning for the first time and didnt understand the ending, either that or I did understand it and it just wasnt very good.

Right so after the guy kills himself and they are all silent in the eating halls, they cause a riot and smash the place up, then it goes to a scene where the main guys have had a hiding by the guards. So im guessing they were left to a die, and then the guv gives a speech telling them they are all accident prone and to have a minutes silence. The End :confused:

Did the main guys get killed or were they still alive after the beating, how did the guards get it all under control when they were having a riot, I mean its like 10 guards against 150 guys going crazy, half way through there hardly going to say, sorry guv you can give us a hiding and lock us up now.

So can anyone help with what actually happened in the last 10 minutes because at the moment its a very good film completly ruined by the ending.
 
I think the point is that no matter what they do things won't change. They're not left to die I don't think, they've just taken a good pasting.

The violence, the bullying and indeed the bumming is not something that will stop and that the guards will always win no matter who is 'top dog' amongst the prisoners.
 
What's rubbish about it? It's a very fitting ending. No matter what goes on between the inmates, who bums who and who's 'the daddy', they're still all facing a common enemy in the guards.

The film is supposed to highlight the nastiness that is prison/borstal for prisoners, due to their fellow inmates and guards, and I think it did so pretty well.
 
I just thought that it could have been a lot better in the ways of actual ending and better thought out scenes, dont get me wrong its a brilliant film and im only talking about the last 10 minutes.

I mean when there is the mass rioting going on, how did the guards get it under control, theres 150 crazy guys on a rampage and the 5 screws cant do nothing about it. I feel that they could have done with an extra scene here as it just left too many questions and while your sat there thinking about it the film just ends.

I think a better ending would have been for Carlin (who you get the idea off at the start of the film just wants to be left alone and do his time but being so taken in with the violence throughout his stay), being dragged away by the guv, he then gets a good kicking off aload of guards and the guv.

Carlin gets chucked in his cell, the guv would then say leave me alone with this scum "I want to finish him off" the guv locks himself and Carlin in the cell.

You would then have the guv explaining no matter what Carlin thinks that the guv is always the daddy and its time for Carlin to realise this, as he moves forward to give him a hiding, Carlin reaches into his sock pulls out a blade and then the camera would just be looking at the horror in the guvs eyes, the screen would go black and you would just hear screaming, followed by Carlin saying "im the ****ing daddy" The End

Would have been much better in my opinion, it was a brutal film which really needed a brutal ending.
 
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Agr3sive said:
Carlin reaches into his sock pulls out a blade and then the camera would just be looking at the horror in the guvs eyes, the screen would go black and you would just hear screaming, followed by Carlin saying "im the ****ing daddy" The End

Would have been much better in my opinion, it was a brutal film which really needed a brutal ending.
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Just go back to watching your crash-bang-wallop films.

It's MEANT to make you IMAGINE how the riot ends.

It goes something like this: After they've smashed everything up they realise they're locked in and going nowhere. The ringleaders give up because they've no choice. Ringleaders get a good hiding and get thrown in cells to cool off. Everybody else goes back to cells on lockdown.

Governor follows his own moral duty by saying a prayer for the dead kid. Life goes on.

Those kids were in there for a reason. They had been sent there to teach them discipline. Unfortunately, the borstal system only taught kids to be even harder criminals. Military prison MIGHT have worked. Borstals were doomed to failure due to the unprofessionalism/corruption of the screws.
 
Big Chris said:
I think the point is that no matter what they do things won't change. They're not left to die I don't think, they've just taken a good pasting.

The violence, the bullying and indeed the bumming is not something that will stop and that the guards will always win no matter who is 'top dog' amongst the prisoners.
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That is, indeed the ending. It's brilliant.
 
ElvisFan said:
Just go back to watching your crash-bang-wallop films.
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What I find funny is that because I dont like a couple of films which in my opinion have bad unfurfilled endings, then im some sort of action nut who cant manage to think during a film, I had it the other day too when I said I didnt like The Cube (pardon me for having a opinion :p )

I thought that Scum left too many questions unanswered and I thought that they could have better portrayed the various powershifts in controllment of Borstal.

The first one of three is obviously at the beginning when the guv is running the place and has elected his own daddy out of the lads to run the place.

The second was obviously when Carlin takes over, the guv half realises this during the film when he starts to take control, but all is confirmed in the eating halls and Carlin has the whole place behind him.

The third would have come in the ending that I explained above.
 
I understood the symbolism of the ending and don't think it needed further explanation. TBH i think you can over simplify things, as your ending would've, but the message is generally understood as the ending is. And your talking about changing the ending to a cult classic thats 20 odd years old!
 
Well it doesnt look like im going win this one :) maybe I would have just liked it to be a little more like the guv/inmate relationship in the film Lock Down, where the inmate (stallone) gets pushed so far and ends up chucking the guv in the electric chair.

But obviously from comments above and researching around the web about Scum, I seem to have overlooked the point the directors were trying to make is that the winner will always be the guards.
 
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Agr3sive said:
maybe I would have just liked it to be a little more like the guv/inmate relationship in the film Lock Down, where the inmate (stallone) gets pushed so far and ends up chucking the guv in the electric chair.
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Or Carlin sticking a shiv in the guv? Hmmmm. It's really not that sort of film is it?
 
I think Scum was a pretty realistic portrayal. What would happen in a situation like that, the riot would take place and they would be locked in the building. The other lads would be offered the chance to leave or face severe punishment (which in there means a near death beating) and they would leave and allow the guards to take the ringleaders away. Remember this is a borstal, a lot of them in there are kids really.

I think the message behind it was a scathing criticism of youth detention, and the idea of locking up criminals being the solution. Breeding violence, allowing sexual abuse to take place, allowing criminals to associate, and letting these boys leave with no skills (some could not read) was and is a bad idea IMO.
 
thebrasso said:
What would happen in a situation like that, the riot would take place and they would be locked in the building. The other lads would be offered the chance to leave or face severe punishment (which in there means a near death beating) and they would leave and allow the guards to take the ringleaders away. Remember this is a borstal, a lot of them in there are kids really.
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I didnt really look at it like that, I think this is one of the films where the message the makers were trying to give went straight over my head :)

I read on an internet site that the story of the film was originally made to be shown on BBC1 but they said that it was too much and that they would never show it, at that point the story was then handed over to some directors with the purpose of making it into a film.

Im not suprised really though, has it ever been on tv since?
 
Agr3sive said:
I didnt really look at it like that, I think this is one of the films where the message the makers were trying to give went straight over my head :)

I read on an internet site that the story of the film was originally made to be shown on BBC1 but they said that it was too much and that they would never show it, at that point the story was then handed over to some directors with the purpose of making it into a film.

Im not suprised really though, has it ever been on tv since?
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Get the 2 disc special edition, it's got the TV version and the cinema release on it.
 
It seemed to me the film was a criticism of the idea of locking young lads up because it did nothing positive for them. It showed the bad things a place like borstal can bring about, the culture of fear.

The ending was pretty realistic. 150 lads like that wouldn't be united anyway, and as I said a lot were just kids. If needs be they would have got screws in to end the situation, big blokes with dogs and batons. Chances are for the ordinary lads if they were told they would be allowed to leave if they left in an orderly manner or face serious consequences (i.e. a beating) they would walk.
 
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