The end of the muppet movie always bothered me. I think I finally figured out why... Orson Wells murdered everybody at the end!
Consider how the end number is set up. The muppets go to Orson Wells's office. His poor secretary is terribly allergic to animals, but she still does her best to stop them from seeing Orson Wells. She went above and beyond, because to get past her, they had to turn on a fan and jump around, creating lots of dander to torture the poor woman. On the verge of anaphylactic shock, she finally pressed the button to allow them to see Wells.
The secretary is the real hero of this part of the movie. The poor lady had to work for a notoriously abusive drunk like Wells, so she knew he would probably do something horrible to them if she let them in without an appointment. Then, she also had to take crap from the muppets, even as she was trying to save their lives.
So they burst into Orson Wells's office and tell him they are there to be rich and famous. He looks at them with a grumpy, annoyed expression, as he munches on his cigar. He's probably hung over or something. He thinks for a moment, to concoct his evil plan, then tells the secretary to bring in the standard rich and famous contract. This is a ruse.
Cut to the climax. It starts out with a reprise of rainbow connection, as the muppets frolic across a non-OSHA compliant set that Wells gave them. It's so bad, they didn't even train Scooter how to work a clapboard properly. Wells gave them this sound stage specifically so they would do something stupid and hurt themselves. That's not enough, though. He wants them all dead, not injured, so he hires a guy named Crazy Harry to work the pyrotechnics. Crazy Harry is a professional hit man, with instructions to murder everybody, and make it look like an accident. Harry looks around, realizes that an accident is inevitable on a set like this, with poorly trained crew, so he waits for the accident to happen, and then sets off the explosives, to make it look like gonzo knocking down the set is what triggered the explosion, rather than his detonator. So he blows everything up, killing everybody.
Of course, they can't show muppet body parts and cotton stuffing flying around in the resulting carnage. This is a kids movie. So they show it from Kermit's perspective, as his soul leaves his body. The camera backs out and shows every muppet that ever existed suddenly materializing around him, encouraging him to go towards the light of the rainbow that came in through the hole in the ceiling, made by Harry's explosives. Then Kermit turns towards the camera and starts singing, in a minor key for a few notes... "Life's like a movie, write your own ending, we've done just what we set out to do..."
I bet Wells was secretly in league with Doc Hopper.
www.mcsweeneys.net
www.theguardian.com
