*SPOILER* Question about the ending

Yes I agree it was an odd directorial decision not to cut back to the cabin passengers after the landing. We just see them instead staggering down the exterior stairs. One has to think it was a conscious decision on the part of William Wellman to go that way.

To be perfectly accurate, the depiction of the landing does take place within the aircraft, accomplished with a single shot of Toby, the sleepy little boy, as we hear the tires make contact with the tarmac.

As to showing the other passengers' reaction at the moment of landing safely, my guess that the reason the choice was made to instead dissolve to the debarking sequence is this: as different emotions and reactions are displayed as those passengers exit, it might have seemed jarring and inconsistent to have shown them registering "surprise and euphoria" as a group - essentially all experiencing the same emotions simultaneously - immediately before.

Gann and Wellman apparently decided that placing the dramatic emphasis on those varying moods would provide a richer and more interesting denouement.

There may also have been something of the philosophy expressed by Kirk Douglas (as producer Jonathan Shields) in The Bad and the Beautiful at work here (and I'll have to paraphrase): "What they're feeling we'll leave to the audience to imagine. They'll imagine it better than anything you or I could ever write."


Poe! You are...avenged!

Very cliche.

Why did the cops take away that guy when they were disembarking ? That startled me as it seemingly came out of the blue and his wife let out this scream lol.

Also, aren't you supposed to not inflate your floating device, especially if you're making a water landing ? But the crew kept telling the passengers to inflate while still in the air.