Nope Movie Ending Explained: and The Meaning of Jordan Peele’s Movie! Every Question Answered

In the room we find Nope Movie, the third feature film by Jordan Peele, an American filmmaker known for how he manages to bring themes of great social value to the screen, exploiting genres such as thriller and horror uniquely and originally. Both of Peele’s previous films Get Out and Us have focused on hot topics such as racism (in its different forms) or more generally on the class difference so entrenched in the United States, Nope does too, but it shifts the focus of his investigation also on the world of entertainment and, more specifically, on Hollywood (in which the black workers, although present since the dawn, have been systematically ignored), even going so far as to talk about the search for fame at all costs, a plague that seems to afflict modern society.

Nope Movie Recap: What Happens In The Film?

Before going into the explanation of the film’s ending, let’s take a step back and retrace its plot so that we can then easily frame the different interpretations that we will provide. Like Us, Nope also has different levels of reading, others more clearly, others slightly more hidden. The protagonists of this story are brother and sister, OJ and Em Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer), who inherited the family business after the disappearance of their father Otis Senior, killed by some mysterious objects that fell from the sky a few months before the beginning of the facts. The Haywoods have been horse breeders for the cinema for generations and generations, their great-grandfather was present in the first film frames ever made, those of Eadweard Muybridge: a jockey who was filmed on horseback for a few seconds.

This illustrious past would make the Haywoods members of the Hollywood royalty, too bad the pivotal role played by their ancestors has been forgotten. Business for OJ and Em does not go, however, has swollen sails: the first knows how to deal with horses but is unable to interact better with customers, directors and the whole circus of characters that revolve around him, Em is instead more self-confident, but is more interested in succeeding in a different career, entering show business as an actress, dancer and even singer (as she announces in one of the film’s opening sequences).

Things change suddenly for the two when an unidentified extraterrestrial being appeared in the skies of their ranch, systematically feeding on some of their horses. The two decide that the presence of the UFO could mark a positive turning point in their lives: being able to film it would guarantee them new economic well-being and the fame that, especially Em, they are looking for. Shooting it, however, is not so simple: whenever the monster approaches, every electronic device in the vicinity stops working. Finding the means to immortalize him, therefore, seems to be more complicated than expected. They come to their aid Angel (Brandon Perea), a UFO enthusiast electronics store technician, and later Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), a director obsessed with the idea of ​​filming the “impossible” and making the perfect shot.

Nope Movie Ending Explained

In the second act of the film, we witness a real tragedy. Jupe (Steven Yeun), the owner of a nearby tourist ranch and former child star, had known for months of the presence of what he had identified as a spaceship and had organized shows offering a horse as bait, he showed spectators as from time to time the creature would have devoured the unfortunate animal. But one day something goes wrong: the alien arrives more nervous than expected after OJ and Em feed him a plastic horse, and in response, he eats Jupe, his family and all the spectator’s presents. At this point, it is absolutely clear that it is not an aircraft but a real creature, which feeds on organic matter and spits out the inorganic one it cannot digest. This explains what happened to Otis Senior, fatally hit by one of the monster’s scraps. Shortly after exterminating Jupe and his family, the monster moves to the Haywood ranch, covering it with the inorganic remains of its latest victims and flooding the house with blood.

Otis, however, has clearer the situation and begins to work out a plan to attract the creature and be able to photograph it without incurring the danger of being eaten. If you behave with it as if it were an animal, an extremely territorial predator, it is possible to predict its movements. The group formed by OJ, Em, Angel, and Antlers then organizes itself to attract him and film him (using a manually activated video camera): OJ will be a sort of bait that, on horseback, will take him to the right point where he can be filmed.

The plan details the entry of a TMZ reporter (a well-known gossip magazine), who is soon sucked into the monster and with the uncontrollable need, by Antlers, to attract him to a different position to find a better light. and be able to film it even better. Of course, as soon as he comes out of his hiding place, the director becomes yet another victim of the flying monster.

It’s up to OJ and Em to try to save the day: OJ manages to distract him on horseback while Em retrieves the reporter’s motorcycle and heads for Jupe’s now uninhabited ranch, where he releases a huge inflatable in the air with the features of a cowboy who, once swallowed by the monster, manages to make it explode from the inside, eliminating it permanently. All this not before she managed to take a picture of him, with a manually operated car that was present among the attractions of the ranch. The doubt about what happened to OJ is soon removed we see him arrive at the ranch shortly after, safe and sound.

Hollywood: An Industry That Ignores Blacks

Let’s move on to the interpretation of the film and the explanation of Nope’s ending: the most evident criticism that Jordan Peele puts into effect is that of the film industry and the glossy Hollywood world, in which blacks have always been used as workers – despite having played a major role in its development over the decades – but are systematically ignored and overshadowed.

The proof is the fact that everyone has forgotten the great-great-grandfather of OJ and Em, who was one of the founding fathers of cinema and who – since he was black – was never considered as such. The racism and classism that Peele denounced in his previous films are therefore one of the main themes of this third work of his, in which the focus is on the industry of dreams, where everything is possible, yes, but where one cannot leave. the sign and to be remembered if you are black.

Giving OJ a great affinity with horses and extraordinary jockey skills, with which he manages to save his sister – letting her reappear in the fog in the end, as in so many western films the white heroes did -, is Peele’s way of reclaiming the fundamental role that blacks have played in the film industry since its dawn, placing its protagonist within a genre – the western – considered one of the most original and symbolic in American (white) cinema. It is the blacks, in Peele’s film, who dominate and conquer the Wild West (represented by the beast of which they are the prey), something that had never been allowed to them in industry and in a genre in which to emerge has always been only whites.

Being Seen: The Pursuit Of Fame

One of the other intentions of the author is certainly to represent the pursuit of fame at all costs as a plague of modern society. If the two protagonists are driven by the need for social redemption and by the search – in fact – for fame for much of the film, they are “saved” in the finale when they rediscover the relationship that binds them, giving more importance to saving each other. the other rather than looking for the perfect shot (which Em manages to get anyway). In the finale, we see Em ignore the photo he took, in which he immortalized the alien in all its terrifying glory – and turn completely to his brother, who arrived safely on horseback.

However, the death of three other characters makes us understand perfectly where Peele is pointing the finger: Jupe, Antlers and the TMZ reporter. In the first case, we have a former child star who, over the years (as often happens) has lost the fame and success it once held. Now he has reinvented himself as an entertainer on a family ranch and would like to exploit the presence of the alien creature to make people talk, to get back on the crest of the wave. But precisely because of this arrogant attitude, to be blinded by the need for success, he is soon torn to pieces, along with all his family and the people who were with him, by the monster. Antlers, initially motivated by good intentions, becomes obsessed with finding the best light and making the perfect shot, for this he comes out of his hiding place and is immediately torn to pieces. Finally, the TMZ reporter (and this is perhaps the most emblematic example) is killed while, instead of worrying about asking for help, he wants at all costs to find his video camera.

If we think of the old cameras, the alien in its final form is somewhat reminiscent of this type of object. The mouth through which it feeds, square, could represent a goal. In our opinion this is Peele’s other way of talking to us about fame and show business: Hollywood is a world that devours its stars and then spits them back when they no longer need them (think for example of child actors, like Jupe), at the same time. way of how the alien monster sucks up its victims digests them and spits out only what they don’t need (the inorganic materials they were wearing).

Violence: Lowering Your Eyes To The Predator

At the center of this story, we also find the author’s need to tell a certain type of systemic violence of which blacks are the victims. In approaching the monster, we discover that the only way to survive is to not look him in the eye and to lower his head. The right behavior to adopt if you meet a ferocious beast, but also perfectly in line with what certain victims of violence are forced to do towards their aggressors.

What if in this case, the connection was to be the one with the violence perpetrated by the police against blacks? At first glance, it might seem a bit risky as reasoning, but if we think of news stories that are still quite recent, it is clear how the use of a video camera represented a turning point in the management of this type of injustice. Filming what is happening can serve to denounce it: in the case of OJ and Em, groped to film the monster is their way to “appropriate” the situation, defeating fear and stop being passive.

Gordy, The Monkey

We conclude by dwelling briefly on the role of Gordy the monkey, a chimpanzee who went mad during a television program in which Jupe participated as a child. After a moment of madness (probably triggered by the bursting of some balloons) in which he killed most of the cast and crew, Gordy is massacred by the police, and Jupe is rescued.

Why is this episode being included in the film? Peele probably wants to pick up on the meaning of a phrase repeated in a flashback by OJ’s father: “Some predators aren’t meant to be tamed.” Gordy is a wild animal and it’s not his nature to put on a show in front of an audience. The ensuing massacre is a direct consequence of the human will to want to tame and subdue species that he considers inferior. And if we think back here to the fact that – in the not-so-distant past – the exponents of a certain type of racism referred to blacks precisely by comparing them to animals, in particular to monkeys, when it happened to Gordy it can take on an additional level of meaning.