Especially when they show a bunch of dead characters, and then you rewind and see them kissing their kids goodbye or petting a puppy and promising to take them to the park when they retire tomorrow. That’s just emotional manipulation, and it makes me feel detached from all of those characters. “None of this backstory matters because they will all be irrelevant to the story soon.”

Then they do that bullshit fakeout “haha, nobody was actually dead, they were pretending for some contrivance so we could make you think they would be dead. Eveybody is alive and the puppy does get to go to the park!” That’s not a happy ending. Go fuck yourself, that’s a happy ending. You, the filmmaker, fucking off and stubbing your toe, that would make me feel better about your attempt at forcing me to care.