History Main / EndingFatigue

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* ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'' was a stupidly long storyline. It spent six months building itself up by introducing Bane, Azrael, and Batman's HeroicRROD, then nine months were used to break Batman and bring Azrael in, eight months to show Azrael's SanitySlippage, two months for Bruce to come back and defeat Azrael, and after a two-month break for ''ComicBook/ZeroHour'', three months for Dick to be Batman before Bruce returned to the mantle. That's right, the storyline, counting ''Zero Hour'', lasted ''three years''.

** Creator/RogerEbert cited ''Film/{{Hook}}'' as an example of this trope for good reason. With the climax down to the swordfight between Peter and Hook, it ends and begins again ''twice'' before the villain finally gets his comeuppance. After that, Peter sends Jack and Maggie back to London with Tinkerbell guiding them, then bids farewell to the Lost Boys (and [[spoiler: chooses Thudbutt as their new leader]]) before setting off alone. The kids greet Moira and Wendy in the latter's townhouse, but Peter comes to Kensington Park for some reason and encounters in turn [[spoiler: a trashman who may be Smee]] and Tinkerbell, making a final farewell to her. He returns to the townhouse for ''another'' joyous family reunion, the business deal and "Tootles's lost marbles" subplots are tied off, and '''then''' the movie ends.

* As pointed out quite humorously by WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick the PilotMovie of ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower'' ends and then promptly moves onto a previously unmentioned plot point, several times. (The film clearly was intended as a FiveEpisodePilot -- it aired on television in that format later -- not a theatrical film.)
--> "Okay, so now we're off to rescue some queen we've never heard of..."
--> "Christ Almighty! This movie has more fakeouts than ''Return of the King!''"

** ''Film/TheWildWorldOfBatwoman'', as seen on [[Quotes/EndingFatigue the quotes page]]. In the film itself, the plot has been resolved, the villain defeated, ''everything'' is wrapped up... and yet the movie continues, inflicting more on the viewer, up until the cast evidently decides to indulge in a disco dance party (''really'' badly), causing Tom Servo to lose it and just start screaming at the screen.
--->"'''EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND!''' '''''EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEND!'''''"

** ''Film/TimeOfTheApes''. Has to be seen to be believed (warning: not for first-time ''[=MST3K=]'' viewers). The first time the writing staff watched it, they had been misinformed about the running time, so the multiple false endings -- a side effect of the film being a CompilationMovie -- drove them ''nuts''.

* ''Film/TheLoneRanger'': [[http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/a-punishingly-overlong-i-lone-ranger-i/277496/ In the words of critic Christopher Orr]]:
-->'''Orr''': Somewhere, around the hour-and-a-half mark, ''The Lone Ranger'' makes the fateful decision not to end. Worse, the movie keeps not-ending for another full hour.

* The second acts of [[TheMusical stage musicals]] overall are generally victim to this trope. It's been referred by different names and definitions. Musical theater You-Tuber, Tommy of Musical Theater Mash, refers to the "second act slump" while WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic, in his group commentary of his ''[[Recap/TheNostalgiaCriticS6E14 Les Miserables]]'' review, refers to how musicals like Les Miz tend to have story-driven first acts and emotionally driven second acts which often feel like they slow down the story. Another possibility of musical ending fatigue is that a lot of musicals' [[AwardBaitSong signature]] [[BreakawayPopHit songs]] are performed in the first act, leaving most audiences feeling dry as if the songwriters laid down their best cards too early. An example of this can be found in ''Theatre/AnythingGoes'' where the title song, "You're the Top" and many other famous tunes from Music/ColePorter's catalog are performed in the first act. The second act is considered very forgettable. This slump is actually the reason that TheElevenOClockNumber exists, as a way to wake the audience up and lead them into the finale. An example of this is in ''Flora, the Red Menace'', which has become widely forgotten, save for the second-to-last number, "Sing Happy" which made a star of the song's originator, Liza Minelli.

-->'''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Croshaw]]:''' Saturday afternoon, I was like, "Oh boy! I finally reached the epilogue! Maybe I'll actually have Sunday free to relax on!" Eight hours of additional story later "Fuck me, my definitions are out of date! I had no idea that 'epilogue' now means 'entire second game'!"

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' wraps up nearly all of its plot points in the Hollow Bastion chapter, where Sora defeats the BigBad [[WesternAnimation/SleepingBeauty Maleficent]], rescues the seven [[Franchise/DisneyPrincess Princesses of Heart]], squares off against Riku in a dramatic CainAndAbel confrontation, and pulls a HeroicSacrifice to save Kairi by [[spoiler:temporarily becoming a Heartless]]--all of which would make for a perfectly satisfying ending. But then the game ''just keeps going'' with the End of the World area, with Sora reliving all of his adventures in the previous worlds, culminating in a battle with ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}} Chernabog]]''. Except that's not the ending either: afterwards, Sora still has to survive the most intense Heartless battle in the game... which only leads to the door to a boss battle with the ([[TheManBehindTheMan actual]]) BigBad Ansem. And even then, he has to defeat Ansem ''four times in a row'', then fight his way through a succession of Heartless-packed room before destroying his battleship form.

* In ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', the Rapture Central Control level appears to be the end of the game, complete with a climactic confrontation with Andrew Ryan, only to reveal that [[spoiler:"Atlas" was Frank Fontaine, and Jack was just helping him gain control of Rapture thanks to being mentally controlled with a trigger phrase]]. Cue five or six more hours of gameplay, including two [[ThatOneLevel much-hated stages]] with randomly switching powers and an EscortMission, capped off with a nonsensical final boss fight.

** One of the major complaints about Diamondback is that he's able to escape time and time again despite having no real reason to actually do so. He's not superhuman, he's not a trained elite warrior, he's not an ultra-charismatic leader. But from episode 7 onward, the entire show revolves around stopping him and, [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating despite everyone hating him]], he keeps the upper hand until the final battle. It takes until the twelfth episode for him to pull another game-changing secret weapon to show why he's the main threat and he needed PlotArmor to use it (keeping Domingo's soldiers off when they had him dead to rights to get his PoweredArmor.)

* This tends to happen when long matches tease too many finishes. The Hell In A Cell match between the Undertaker and Triple H was notorious for this. The last five minutes of it were made up of nothing but false finishes.

* ''Film/TheLastAirbender'', once the characters reach the North Pole.

* ''[[VideoGame/TrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel 2]]'' is guilty of this. Once you finish the [[spoiler:Infernal Castle]], you'd expect the game to be over (and rightfully so, as the game's main plot has been wrapped up at this point), but there's one more chapter featuring two protagonists of the Crossbell duology and an epilogue where you and the rest of Class VII explore TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon to conclude the story for good.

* ''[[VideoGame/TrailsOfColdSteel Trails of Cold Steel 2]]'' is guilty of this. Once you finish the [[spoiler:Infernal Castle]], you'd expect the game to be over (and rightfully so, as the game's main plot has been wrapped up at this point), but there's one more chapter featuring two protagonists of the Crossbell duology and an epilogue where you and the rest of Class VII explore TheVeryDefinitiveFinalDungeon to conclude the story for good.

* Creator/DeanKoontz's ''Literature/{{Phantoms}}''. While a very good book overall, the battle against the Ancient Enemy is clearly the climax. Following that, the fight at the hospital feels completely tacked on. It is only tangentially related to the main plot and doesn't count as a TwistEnding or ShockingSwerve because it doesn't actually change anything. It just feels like an attempt to cram one last dramatic moment into the final chapter, and it falls flat because the main plot of the story has already been soundly resolved.

* A universal problem in 4X games such as ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' and many others. Players tend to reach the point where their empire is so powerful that they can't possibly be defeated, but mopping up the AI or completing the Victory Conditions may still take several more hours, at which point the game ceases to be challenging or interesting. Nothing to do but load up a new game and start again! Nowadays games try to mitigate this in various ways, usually by having a scripted "crisis" occur in the late game to actually challenge the player's empire. Even so, many players freely admit to never having actually finished a game, despite having dozens or even hundreds of hours of playtime. (In 4X-game VideoGame/{{Stellaris}} for example, only 5% of all players have the Steam achievement, "Win the game through any victory condition.")

*** And then there's the UpdatedRerelease ''The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth'', which has more playable characters and yet ''more final bosses!''

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': Jerry uses literal ending fatigue against Tom in "The Cat Concerto", by repeatedly restarting the frantic finale of "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" and forcing him to play it out each time rather than let the audience know he's being played, until he finaly finishes and just collapses on the piano on the brink of unconsciousness.

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': Jerry uses literal ending fatigue against Tom in "The Cat Concerto."

** Unfortunately, while the use of the extended ending worked well with that story, with the book being the ur-example of fantasy fiction, it had the side effect of many other authors writing extended sequences [[FollowTheLeader in imitation]]. Famed author ''Creator/GeorgeRRMartin'' has expressed his intent to have a "Scouring of the Shire" like section in his ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' series. Considering the general popular and critical dislike of the post-climactic section of the television [[LiveActionTelevion/GameOfThrones adaptation]], one hopes he will be very careful in how he implements this.

** The [[UpdatedRerelease DS Exclusive]] case 1-5 suffers from this. You know pretty much who the murderer is, but because of some dumb case-exclusive restrictive leash put onto you, you cannot proceed and have to use a loophole to nail him into a potential confession. Had that leash not been there, the case would've been much shorter. And if your client wasn't withholding important evidence from you... again.
** Revealing the identity of the villain in the final episode of ''VisualNovel/AceAttorneyInvestigations'' is a relatively simple task. Actually getting said villain ''arrested'' is [[DiplomaticImpunity a different]] [[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections story]] [[MarathonBoss entirely]]. The fact that the dramatic tension of the VillainousBreakdown pales in comparison to both TheReveal and the accomplice's earlier breakdown really doesn't help matters. Webcomic/{{Hiimdaisy}} parodied it with the villain bragging about how [[spoiler:his extraterritorial rights]] are too powerful to let the game end.
** The final trial of ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonVsAceAttorney'' spans three whole chapters, when every other trial takes up only one. Most of those three chapters are filled with very long {{Info Dump}}s about how the entire plot fits together, with few puzzles or testimonies to break it up. The actual ending itself is quite long, too, making the game feel like it's in no hurry to get itself over with.

** The Broadway version replaced "Pure Imagination" with "The View from Here", followed by a reprise of "Strike That! Reverse It!" that brought back ''all'' the major characters including the restored Four Bratty Kids, then a variation on the West End version's final dialogue. But when this didn't play well in previews, the TriumphantReprise was completely cut, and "The View from Here" was followed by a short dialogue exchange between Willy Wonka and Charlie before the DoorClosesEnding, averting the trope. However, this makes the show's ending both low-key, as "The View from Here" is a sentimental ballad and no other characters appear afterward, ''and'' substantially darker because now [[spoiler: all the brats aside from the now-shrunken Mike may be dead]].

* ''Manga/TheSevenDeadlySins'' didn't just have a long ending, it had multiple false endings, with the sudden Face-Heel-Turn ending of the reality warping cat being the most egregious out of the bunch. There's even a chapter called "The End" and guess what? It's not the end.

* SevenDeadlySins didn't just have a long ending, it had multiple flase endings, with the sudden Face-Heel-Turn ending of the reality warping cat being the most egergious out of the bunch. There's even a chapter called "the end" and geuss what? It's not the end.

* ''Manga/{{Monster}}''. 74 episodes. Shots sustained simply to reproduce the manga rather than narrative purpose. Repeatedly winding up suspense to yet another lack of climax. ''Monster'' in general is a series that likes to take its sweet time in doing things. In general, it loved to do this thing where it would basically make the main protagonist, Tenma, disappear for a little while, introduce a side character or small set of side characters, give them ADayInTheLimelight and sufficient CharacterDevelopment to get the audience to like or remember them to some extent, and then much later reintroduce Tenma to clean up whatever the new characters were doing. The epitome of this would be the Bayern arc, for introducing about six new characters that went on with their own problems for, in the manga, about 15-20 chapters before Tenma even shows back up, and even then, the main plot is largely disconnected from this. All-in-all, the characters this arc focused on really didn't impact the plot in any huge way but was largely still compelling enough to read through to when it would. Plus, the story is resolved two chapters/one episode from the end, with the rest being dedicated purely to a WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue. Although there were so many character threads to wrap up that they fill that time quite easily.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing''. From the destruction of Sauron to the actual end of the movie is almost 30 more minutes, during which the movie "fades out" ''six'' times! The effect is mitigated somewhat if one considers it the ending of a twelve hour film, and the conclusion of the entire film trilogy[[note]]the source material is not actually a trilogy but rather a single DoorStopper book that was DividedForPublication[[/note]].
** A further complication is that the ''novel'' doesn't have six potential endings in a row: the film adaptation cut out the longer "Scouring of the Shire" sequence, due to the (debatable, but not irrational) assessment that it is anticlimactic and would slow down the pacing of the film - and, if nothing else, it would add ''another'' 30 minutes or so of screentime to the movie, between the farewell to all the non-Hobbit characters at Minas Tirith, then the farewells to the Hobbit characters. In the source material it was less "multiple endings in a row" than an entire ''sequence'' serving as a coda. Loosely compare to how adaptations of ''Les Miserables'' speed through the DistantFinale epilogues for the entire cast, which were better paced in the novel (but a book can do things a film can't).

** ''Film/ForrestGump'' just never seems to end, as you'd expect everything to wrap up once Forrest's life story caught up to the present and he reunited with Jenny, but it keeps going past that to cover [[spoiler:their wedding and her eventual death via AIDS]]. It's kind of a surprise when the credits finally do roll. (Ironically, some might have expected the movie to go on even longer, since it was released in 1994 but the movie's "present" is in the early 1980s.)

** Unfortunately, the ''climax'' of ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' tends to go on and ''on''. First Anakin and Padme; go to Geonosis to rescue Obi-Wan, get into a scrap in the droid factory, get captured and have to fight in an arena battle alongside Obi-Wan. Then the other Jedi show up and have a fight with battle droids. Then Yoda shows up with the Clone army and there's another massive battle while the heroes chase Dooku. And ''then'' there are three separate lightsaber duels involving Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda and Dooku, before the movie finally reaches its resolution. While there are certainly some good and exciting moments in the third act, considering the entire film is over two hours long (until ''The Last Jedi'' was released, it was the longest theatrical ''Star Wars'' film), one gets the sense some of the action could've been condensed to shorten the runtime.

** ''Film/TheLastJedi'': There are ''four'' climatic fights stuffed between the second and third act of the movie. [[spoiler:Kylo Ren defeating Snoke and then he and Rey fighting his guards and then each other]], Finn dueling Phasma as Snoke's ship goes pear shaped due to [[spoiler:Holdo hyperspace-ramming the ''Raddus'' into it]], the First Order's assault on the old Rebel base on Crait where the last of the Resistance are hiding, and finally rounds it out with a duel between [[spoiler:Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker]]. To say the least, it goes on and on, and it's ''a lot'' to take in.

** Creator/RogerEbert cited ''Film/{{Hook}}'' as an example of this trope for good reason. With the climax down to the swordfight between Peter and Hook, it ends and begins again ''twice'' before the villain finally gets his comeuppance. After that, Peter sends Jack and Maggie back to London with Tinkerbell guiding them, then bids farewell to the Lost Boys (and [[spoiler: chooses Thudbutt as their new leader]]) before setting off alone. The kids greet Moira and Wendy in the latter's townhouse, but Peter comes to in Kensington Park for some reason and encounters in turn [[spoiler: a trashman who may be Smee]] and Tinkerbell, making a final farewell to her. He returns to the townhouse for ''another'' joyous family reunion, the business deal and "Tootles's lost marbles" subplots are tied off, and '''then''' the movie ends.

** ''[[Film/AIArtificialIntelligence A.I.]]'' seems like it will end twice: when David drops on the sea that engulfed New York, and when he is talking to a submerged statue of the Blue Fairy, begging to be turned into a real boy. Both would be {{Downer Ending}}s of their own, but then the film cuts to a DistantFinale long after humanity has gone extinct, and some Sufficiently Advanced Robots turn the film into a real TearJerker.[[note]]Perhaps this reflects the difficulty Kubrick and his various cowriters had coming up with an ending they liked[[/note]].

* For being an 87 minute film, ''Film/FreddyGotFingered'' at least flirts with this, but also puts a fourth-wall-breaking lampshade on it: After the movie threatens to end about three times, Gord and his father return home from Pakistan, and they're greeted by a crowd holding up signs, one of which reads "Is this fucking movie over yet?".

* ''Film/SantaAndTheIceCreamBunny'' falls into this in the version that is a repackaging of a standalone ''Thumbelina'' film, because that movie already has a framing device of a young woman visiting an amusement park and visiting a series of dioramas illustrating the fairy tale -- it's a story within a story within a story! When the retelling is over, there's a few minutes following the woman back outside; then the movie returns to the new framing device of Santa Claus trying to get his sleigh out of the Florida sand! Just end already! It doesn't help that ''Thumbelina'', being plopped wholesale into the film, has its own credits intact, meaning there's a "The End" title card shown before returning to Santa and company.
* A common complaint of ''Film/TheAssassinationOfJesseJamesByTheCowardRobertFord'' is that the title event happens, and then the movie goes on for another hour. This is largely due to BillingDisplacement and misgivings over the title. Jesse James isn't the main character, Robert Ford is and it's the story of his legend compared to James's. This even extended to Casey Affleck bizarrely getting nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. In the as-yet unreleased director's cut it in fact goes on for another two hours after the assassination. This accounts somewhat for why the final third feels a bit more rushed than the previous two thirds.
* ''Film/BadBoysII'' would seem to logically end around the time when the team captures Tapia's drug and money shipments, gaining enough evidence to have him convicted. Instead, Tapiya kidnaps Sid and flees to Cuba, causing the film to go on for another half-hour and leading to a climax where Mike, Marcus and a few other cops go to Cuba, hook up with local resistance fighters, and assault Tapia's heavily fortified mansion. Even ''this'' takes longer than it should with the gun battle leading to an extended car chase and ending with a standoff outside of Guantanamo Bay. However, one may feel ''MUCH'' more satisfied to see him [[spoiler:get blown up by a mine]] rather than just getting arrested.

* ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'' subverts the trope. After a lengthy climax, Scott defeats the final villain and learns a lesson, but out of nowhere he's suddenly faced with his "evil doppelganger," making it look like there's a whole additional action scene about to take place. [[spoiler:Instead, we cut to after their confrontation, in which they apparently just chatted and parted on good terms. The film ends quickly afterwards.]]

* ''Film/{{Savages}}'' has what seems to be a big climatic finale that would end the story...oh wait it was just an ImagineSpot by the narrator. Now HERE'S the real ending!

** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' climaxes with [[spoiler: Superman's HeroicSacrifice]] and the denouement starts with a scene between Martha and Lois. Then we get a talk between Bruce and Diana, [[spoiler: an extended funeral montage]], another talk between Bruce and Diana, a sequence wrapping up Lex's fate and [[spoiler: teasing that Superman is NotQuiteDead]] before the credits finally roll.

* ''Film/JackieBrown'' sets things up so that it appears the plan in the clothing store will be the big climax... but nope the film goes on for another twenty plus minutes as Ordell just keeps one-upping the protagonists.
* ''Film/DjangoUnchained'': It seems like the gun fight at Candyland will be the finale. But then Django has to give himself up, gets hung upside down for two minutes of torture, has to talk a group of rednecks out of taking him to the mines, rescue his wife and then finally shoot up the rest of the people at Candyland. And this is after things have already gone on for over two hours. According to Creator/SamuelLJackson, the shootout at Candyland originally ''was'' the ending, but after they shot the scene, the director and some of the actors realized that ending was a bit too generic in light of all that had preceded it. Hence Tarantino's decision to add a bit more.
* After the evil werewolves and government agents are dead, ''Film/HowlingIIITheMarsupials'' then starts a drawn out happy ending with the two werewolf women hooking up with their respective love interests, living happily together, having children, said children growing up, meeting each other after a long time, and so on.

* In ''Film/{{Cooties}}'', The teachers get away from the school - the main plotpoint that had to be overcome. Then they get a JumpScare in the truck. Then they get to Danville. Then they get chased again. then they're cornered. Then TheCavalry comes. THEN the movie ends.
* ''Film/{{Spectre}}'' builds up the climax to be in Morocco. However, with a half an hour left for the movie, the real FinalBattle occurs when Bond returns to London.

* Inverted during post-production of ''Film/TheTerminator''. The producer insisted that the film end at the scene where the title character appears to have been killed in the oil-truck explosion. [[Creator/JamesCameron Cameron]] locked him out of the editing suite so he could include the scenes in the factory after it, where Reese dies after blowing up the metal skeleton, leaving Sarah to finally crush him to death herself. No one complained that it went on too long.
* The climax of ''Film/XMenApocalypse'' has been seen as this by some viewers. It's awesome to see characters like Cyclops, Storm and Magneto cut loose with their powers unlike in previous films, but after a certain point, it can become a bit numbing to watch.

** In season 21, James and Abba’s taxi driver stole their bags and one of their passports in leg seven. They had had a twelve-hour lead on some of the other teams because of a missed flight but they spent the entire evening trying to track the guy down, including going to Interpol. They finally were allowed to check in once the two other teams who’d gotten so far behind did so to find out it was non-elimination. The next leg didn’t have any travel so they spent the entirety of the day trying to find the passport while still technically racing. Being non-travel also made it impossible for them to catch anyone when they finally did the tasks. Not helping matters is the looming fact that they’d be eliminated on the spot when they had to go to another country. This also made two episode late in the game unintentional filler.

* Averted quite noticeably in late-70s/early-80s British TV show ''Series/TheProfessionals'', where the credits often ran straight after the scene in which the bad guy was caught or shot (or the objective achieved). In such cases, there were just a few seconds of terse post-action dialogue or banter before things finished. Where epilogue scenes did exist, they were still fairly short and no-nonsense.

* Music/{{ABBA}}'s "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" seems to go on for an awkward amount of time ''after'' starting to fade out. There's also an extended version which has a disco-inspired breakdown in the middle.

* The harpsichord flourish ending a recitative (the second movement) of the Music/PDQBach cantata ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_eW0Y-tFAY Iphigenia in Brooklyn]]'' (it starts around 2:35 in the video and lasts a little over a minute). P.D.Q. Bach has ''so much'' of this. Notes held for incredibly long amounts of time, little things that are four or five times as long as they "should" be... it's one of his most common gags, behind blatantly ridiculous instruments. A prime example is the ''Schleptet in E-Flat Major'', which opens with two insanely long-held chords, separated by the wind players taking a deep, loud, comical breath. (And these are not ''fermatas'' -- the opening is scored in a ridiculous time signature, something like 72/4.) In live performances, the usual ''schtick'' has the horn player black out from holding the second note, falling off the chair and taking the music stand to the floor with a crash. (Which, for a musician untrained in physical slapstick, can be hazardous, and has sometimes resulted in a damaged horn, or a damaged horn player!) He would also end pieces on unresolved chords
* Creator/AllanSherman has "The End of a Symphony," which directly addresses the tendency in classical music for long, drawn out endings. In the piece (which runs over eight minutes) he complains about this while offering multiple parodic examples.

* Music/DinosaurJr's "Said The People" has what feels like a natural Solo Out conclusion, until it comes back for another verse, another chorus and ''another'' solo.

** "Last Call", the closer from ''The College Dropout'', lasts 12 minutes, starting with an excellent 4 minute track and spending the last 8 minutes in a monologue of Kanye's career up to that point,

* Music/{{Catatonia}}'s "Karaoke Queen" proclaims in the chorus that "it's just a three minute song, it doesn't last very long". Uh-huh. It's a five minute song because the outro ("ooh sha la la, ooh sha la la" repeat) goes on forever.

* "Moonchild", by Music/KingCrimson. Basically a two and a half minute song with a ten minute long improv piece tacked at the end that goes nowhere. It got so bad that for the newest reissue Robert Fripp cut off about two minutes of it.

* "Sinner Man" by Music/NinaSimone seems to be ending at the eight minute mark, only to continue for another two minutes with some ACappella {{scatting}} and a drum solo.
* {{Music/Devo}} has been known, in concert, to play a thirty minute version of ''Jocko Homo'', in Mark Motherbaughs words, "until people were actually fighting with us, trying to make us stop playing the song. We'd just keep going, "Are we not men? We are Devo!" for like 25 minutes, directed at people in an aggressive enough manner that even the most peace-lovin' hippie wanted to throw fists."
* {{Music/Magazine}} intentionally invoke this trope at the end of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dvUgtveuHU 'I Wanted Your Heart']], a song Nick Kent of the New Musical Express picked out as a masterpiece, which it is, right up until the last minute, when the band seemingly find themselves having some sort of vaguely Music/CaptainBeefheart style jam that seems completely out of place in the context of both the song and the album.

* Dance remixes and dance songs in general will sometimes have false leads outs, often containing little more than the beat, mid-way through the track to give DJ's a option to mix out. Often if you kept playing the track, you might get a repeat of the first part, a reprise that repeats or sometimes instrumentation. Worse case scenario is when the 'true' ending to the track will be a fade out or a cold stop (with no beat-only outro) making the DJ's wish he would have taken the mid-track lead out instead to get a cleaner mix.

* Sibelius' Fifth Symphony has a unique ending. The symphony builds to its conclusion in several waves of sound and at just the point where you might think there's nothing more to say... everything ends and there are six sudden explosions of whole-orchestra noise, like hammer blows, at two or three second intervals - six false endings, in fact.

* "Born to Fly" by Music/SaraEvans. The album version has a nearly one-and-a-half minute instrumental ending.

* While he avoided it on his albums, Music/{{Prince}} had a tendency to let solos and instrumentals go on ad nauseam in concert. Concert versions of "Purple Rain" would play the last twelve or so bars, including the suspended note, ''twenty times'' before it properly ended!! And his controversial performance of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," at a tribute show for Music/GeorgeHarrison, featured a 4+ minute electric guitar solo long after Tom Petty, Steve Winwood and Jeff Lynne ended the song proper.

* Just when you thought Hazel O'Connor's song "Will You" had come to a satisfying end, a couple of seconds later a brief drum riff leads into a blistering two minute sax solo by Wesley [=McGoogan=]. It's virtually two epic songs for the price of one.

** The Fifth Symphony is a big offender. The Presto section at the end of the finale (beginning at bar 364 of 446), which is scored for full orchestra throughout, goes on for over six pages in one edition of the score (out of just over fifty) and could achieve an epic ending almost anywhere after the second page, but instead it goes on and on and on. The last 29 bars of the symphony consist entirely of C major triads repeated over and over, until at last the orchestra plays a final-sounding C major chord... and then another... and then another... and then three more... and another... and finally a unison C. One has the impression Beethoven couldn't decide which ending to use, so he decided to use them all, one after the other. As noted by the commentary in [[Music/PDQBach Peter Schickele's]] "New Horizons in Music Appreciation", even just the first movement has some fake-outs.

* José González's song, Cycling Trivialities, has a crescendo near the logical endpoint of the song, before going into a decrescendo and repeating the same phrase 27 times, at which point it finally ends. The repeated phrase is pleasant the first few times, but quickly becomes monotonous.
* Music/IronMaiden has it at times. "The Angel and the Gambler" ends with the chorus being repeated ''[[BrokenRecord 7]]'' times. "The Red and the Black" has an instrumental section that goes for 6 minutes. "Empire of the Clouds" returns to the pared down sound that made for a SlowPacedBeginning, and the calm delivery makes every verse feel like it could be the last.

* While it is true matches in the US had been getting shorter over the decades, that fans had been asking for a return to form, a common criticism Wrestling/RingOfHonor main events is that they tend to overcompensate on that front, especially during it's earlier years. On Quebrada.net, for example, it was suggested the 75 minute ''Testing The Limit'' match between Wrestling/BryanDanielson and Wrestling/AustinAries should have been over at the forty-five-minute mark with Danielson crushing Aries, since the suggestion Aries could be outwrestled and punished for as long as he did and still mount a comeback was beyond their WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, as did the suggestion it would take Danielson over thirty minutes, much less more than an hour, to reach the culmination of his game plan(even while they praised him as perhaps the greatest technical wrestler in the world).

* ''Theatre/{{Turandot}}'' can get a bit boring after Liu's death. It's practically Calaf and Turandot making a "who can yell louder" contest for about 20 minutes. See Siegfried above. (Well, it's not Puccini's fault, poor man died and a colleague finished it.)

** The Broadway version replaced "Pure Imagination" with "The View from Here", followed by a reprise of "Strike That! Reverse It!" that brought back ''all'' the major characters including the restored Four Bratty Kids, then a variation on the West End version's final dialogue. But when this didn't play well in previews, the TriumphantReprise was completely cut and "The View from Here" was followed by a short dialogue exchange between Willy Wonka and Charlie before the DoorClosesEnding, averting the trope. However, this makes the show's ending both low-key, as "The View from Here" is a sentimental ballad and no other characters appear afterward, ''and'' substantially darker because now [[spoiler: all the brats aside from the now-shrunken Mike may be dead]].

** Standard multiplayer RTS etiquette is for the losing player to surrender when the result is clear, so that the winner doesn't get frustrated hunting down the last unit. Newer players occasionally don't understand this, figuring it to be polite to give the opponent the satisfaction of smashing everything, but anyone who has won more than a couple of matches will simply find it tedious.

* ''[[Franchise/DotHack .hack//G.U. Vol. 3: Redemption]]''. After a battle with shiny lights, faux computer abilities and screams (lots of them), Ovan's Avatar finally finishes its mission to reset The World and save his little sister, by sacrificing his own life, and all people who went comatose do wake up, one by one. That should be the end of the game, huh? Well, not really. All of a sudden Yata reveals that Cubia, a BigBad from the previous series of games, suddenly resurrected (under pretty vague circumstances) and now he is threatening to destroy The World. Now you have some more 6 hours of gameplay on doing almost nothing interesting to stop it.
** All of Volume 3 really has this problem. Before you fight Ovan you have to deal with Sakaki making a random return to....basically act evil, kick you out of your guild and host a tournament that does nothing really but waste time before you kick his ass again and he's finally removed from the story. The staff was banking on the Ovan reveal being a massively shocking plot twist that was the climax of the game. The director even mentioned they were expecting Evangelion level backlash, death threats and all. They didn't get it as most saw it coming and the others than didn't it wasn't that big a deal to. To make matters worse they had to reveal Ovan in Volume 2, so that people following Roots and people who played the game in Japan would get the reveal at roughly the same time (they tried to do the same in the US, but the US practices of changing timeslots and preempting episodes quickly ruined that plan) so Volume 3 is mostly wasting time before the fight with Ovan, and then Cubia as an epic final threat.
* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'', once you've whupped Malpercio's ancient godly ass and saved the world everything's over, right? Nope! You're in for about a half hour of exposition that attempts to wrap up all the loose ends left by the game's rather confusing plot. Then it's over, right? Nope! They introduce ''new'' plot points and drop even more exposition on you that takes an extra 20 minutes or so to wrap up. ''Then'' it's over, right? "Noooooo! Not so fast kiddies! What do you think you're doing?!" Yep, Geldoblame is somehow back to cause a ruckus with one brief final boss battle, followed by another half-hour or so of the ocean being restored, Xelha's fake-out HeroicSacrifice, a bit more exposition to wrap things up, and the final "good-bye to the player" scene. Yes, you could actually watch ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' in it's entirety in the time it takes for ''Baten Kaitos'' to finally wrap up.
* In ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', the Rapture Central Control level appears to be the end of the game, complete with a climatic confrontation with Andrew Ryan, only to reveal that [[spoiler:"Atlas" was Frank Fontaine, and Jack was just helping him gain control of Rapture thanks to being mentally controlled with a trigger phrase]]. Cue five or six more hours of gameplay, including two [[ThatOneLevel much-hated stages]] with randomly switching powers and an EscortMission, capped off with a nonsensical final boss fight.

* ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'''s endgame devolves into this for some people, possibly because [[spoiler:the BigBad gets killed [[WhatAnIdiot in a very stupid way]] two dungeons before the end of the game, forcing the party to climb a ridiculously large tower and fight his right hand man instead. And then the game throws one last boss fight at you in the form of Chopin himself]]. Add to that a lengthy ending cutscene, not to mention [[CharacterFilibuster the entire cast lecturing you over the end credits]], and you've got a game that seems to go on forever.

* Many games of ''VideoGame/FootballManager'' suffer this as a season draws to a close. Players heading towards the end of the season, especially if they stay up late and into the early morning, can often start pushing towards the end of the season and not paying as much attention to their team, lineups, tactics and various non-match related aspects like scouting new transfer targets for the off-season. This can lead to extremely frustrating losses and situations which can cause that entire season to go up in smoke. This is [[JustifiedTrope not the games fault]] as each season has as many games as it would in real life.
* ''Videogame/GoldenSunTheLostAge''. Make no mistake! The ending is great, very climactic and satisfying. But what is the one thing you want to do above all after defeating that nasty Boss? That's right! Save your progress! However, while you sit around with your Game Boy in your sweaty hands, shaking uncontrollably with the unquenchable desire to save, the ending drags on and on and on....

** ''VideoGame/KirbyStarAllies'' is the worst, though. It has a fight with Zan Partizanne, a two-phase fight with Hyness, and a ''four-phase'' fight with Void Termina. And that's not even the end, after beating Void Termina, you have to go through a button mashing segment to truly defeat him.
* The sequel to the otherwise famously excellent GameMod ''Brotherhood of Shadow'' for ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', ''Solomon's Revenge'' has this. What appears to be a fairly straightforward final battle in a climactic location ends up in an extremely long scene littered with flashbacks, self-findings and whatnot and most importantly, neither the heroes nor the villains JUST.STAY.DEAD.EVER. Whenever it seems like one side has finally been dealt a lethal blow, they still somehow manage to get up again and everything begins once more. This actually culminates in a scene where the player character has to beat down the Brotherhood around a dozen consecutive times under exactly the same conditions in different environments until they ''finally'' give up.

* ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'' became a bit too long in the tooth at the end. The developers actually seems to be aware of this, as April (the protagonist) is around midway outright given a PlotCoupon, instead of having to do the usual fulfilling of ancient prophecy ballyhoo (April {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this).

** ''VideoGame/MakeAGoodMegaManLevelContest 2'''s final stage consists of, in order: a brief intro sequence; a lengthy cutscene; another [[MarathonLevel insanely long maze]] in the vein of ''Rockman 4 Minus Infinity'' with five boss fights scattered throughout; a long battle against a Wily Machine that spends most of its second phase out of your attack range; the FinalBoss fight, bookended by lengthy cutscenes; a PostFinalBoss; one last cutscene; and finally the credits roll. That's eight boss fights and four cutscenes in one stage! [[spoiler:''Then'' the postgame opens up: 12 new stages (including several infamous {{That One Level}}s) with 14 energy elements and 37 [[CollectionSidequest Noble Nickels]] between them, a huge [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon really-final-we-mean-it-this-time stage]] with ''24'' good-sized areas to clear (though thankfully you're only required to do six unless you're going for HundredPercentCompletion) along with three more Noble Nickels, and a four-phase BonusBoss. And '''''then''''' it ends for real--unless you want 100% on your save file.]] Whew!

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' has Skull Face being killed and Metal Gear Sahelanthropus destroyed in Mission 31. However, there's 50 missions total so the game drags on for another 19 missions to wrap up minor sideplots and introduce MORE sideplots that never get resolved. Also, half of those 19 missions are actually just rehashes of the some of the first 31 mission with increased difficulty. And the icing on the cake was that there was supposed to be a massive 51st mission that was supposed to wrap up all of the still unresolved plot points, but it was ultimately cut from the game.
* ''[[VideoGame/MetalSlug Metal Slug 3]]'', the final mission. First you go through a long, hard dogfight with Morden's forces, then you fight Morden himself... But it turns out to be a Martian. The Mars People then abduct the character you're using, forcing another character to go after them, you storm the mothership, you battle the Mars People from inside, rescuing Morden and your captured comrade in the process... Then comes a FreeFallFight with the leader of the Mars People, Rootmars. On a good run, the game takes 45-50 minutes to complete, with the final mission taking about half an hour out of that time. Yes that's right, ''you spend over half of your play time on the final mission.''

* ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' is divided into 6 day segments. Day 5 is easily the longest in the whole game where you slog through the [[FinalDungeon American Museum of Natural History]] whose duration in time spent in there is almost as long as the trek through [[MarathonLevel Central Park]] earlier in the game. The museum has four floors with a lot of backtracking required once you have the proper keys to open doors. A lengthy cut scene with the TheDragon ensues, followed by a mini-boss fight, an actual boss fight, a trek to the top floor to confront the BigBad, a ''really'' lengthy cut scene showing the protagonist and the military teaming up to reach the villain, and then a two stage boss battle with the main bad girl herself. But wait, now you have to progress through day 6 before completing the game! While the 6th day is thankfully short, it mostly consists of a cut scene, the FinalBoss fight that has ''five'' stages with a cut scene in between, followed by a chase sequence with the dying final boss going after you while you flee, rig the cruiser to explode, then escaping as the ending (which is reasonably short) plays out. Woe to you if you die during any of these segments and have to watch the cut scenes all over again!

** [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Pokémon Generation II]]. Sadly, the remake of Kanto after completing the league falls victim to this if you're not butted by the nostalgia factor in seeing an updated Kanto from Generation I. The main flaw here was that the Kanto remake felt incomplete due to the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor cartridge format lacking the room to portray Kanto as it was in Gen. I; this caused many points of interest such as the Safari Zone, Pewter City Museum, etc. to be closed off to save room on the cartridge. In addition, there was nothing close to a plot in the entire region other then a side-story regarding a last-remaining Rocket member sabotaging the Power Plant. The Generation IV remake mostly rectified this other than there still being no major plot after completing the league.

*** The Heatran island mission after clearing the league isn't any better. Just a bunch of high level trainers, some new Pokémon to catch and having no plotline. ''Platinum'' tries to make it more plot-relevant with a return of what's left of Team Galactic, but still comes off pretty weak.

** [[VideoGame/PokemonXAndY Pokémon Generation VI]] was infamous for this when it came out (and indeed prompted some FanDumb segments to declare it the worst game in the series before they had even played it). Notably, there are no post-game areas besides Kiloude City, and the Unknown Dungeon (which is a single room with Mewtwo in it). That means that there are no more Pokémon to catch outside of the Friend Safari. Unlike the past two generations there are only four legendaries to catch, counting the one that you catch during the main campaign, and two of them are from previous games. The Looker subplot was praised by some, however, for being better written than the main plot, even if it didn't offer much in terms of gameplay. Meanwhile, the Delta episode from ''[[VideoGame/PokemonRubyAndSapphire Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire]]'' received considerable criticism for its reliance on backtracking and its short length, with the only real highlights being Mega Rayquaza and the final battle against [[spoiler:Deoxys]].
** [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Generation VII]] have a very different plot from previous games in the series, with the Gym Challenge replaced by the Island Challenge and a very major turn of plot taking center stage midway through with the Island Challenge as an afterthought. Both the Island Challenge and major plot point wrap up right before the Pokémon League, but after the credits roll, once again there is no more major plot to speak of. The player can join Looker in a sidequest to catch six ultra-dimensional Pokémon but every leg of the sidequest runs the same. You talk to Looker at one of the hotels, go to the area where it might be, and engage it in battle. Besides that there is only one new area, the Battle Tree. It does allow the player to fight Red and Blue among other tournaments, but you'll need a lot of grinding to be able to face them easily.
** Another entry in the ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series, ''[[VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonGatesToInfinity Gates to Infinity]]'', is chock full of them, particularly at the very end of the game, which, after beating [[spoiler:the Bittercold]], the final cutscene before the credits is ''over a half hour long''. Doesn't help that there are two rather lengthy ones in between the two parts of battling [[spoiler:the Bittercold]], either.

* Just a simple game of ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'' can end up having this once the players have researched all of the endgame upgrades. These upgrades allow the player to instantly create units, quickly accumulate resources, instantly take over cities and be immune to nukes and missile attacks. This results in a tedious endgame, in which the surviving players throw endless hordes of units at each other, in which the winner is usually the player who can perservere against the tediousness of it all.

* Ryo's journey to Kowloon in ''VideoGame/ShenmueII'' ends with with a lengthy, spectacular climactic fight through the Yellow Head gang's headquarters that culminates in an awesome rooftop duel against leader Dou Niu, all while the BigBad watches from a helicopter. We then get a denouement where Ryo learns that he must travel to Guilin, and he departs for the next chapter of his adventure. So far, so good, but then we find out that wasn't the real ending; it actually makes up ''the entirety of disc 4''.

** ''VideoGame/Persona3'', which alternates between a DatingSim and a DungeonCrawler, takes place over the course of one year ingame, but come November you suddenly run out of things to do apart from your few remaining social links and have no real pressure to hurry up in Tartarus anymore. Two solid months go by without real plot development.

** Notably averted in ''VideoGame/Persona4'', which fixes this by skipping several months of in story time. Although they justify the time skip well enough, the remake ''Persona 4: Golden'' actually gives you most of this time back, and a few extra nifty things to do. Also unique in how each Ending (three or four depending on the version) extends the game, meaning that the ending is only as long as how far the player wishes to ‘pursue the truth’.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'': After maintaining a brisk pace through the first two thirds, the game slows to a crawl once you beat Yaridovich and get the fifth Star Piece. The trek for the sixth star takes you through Land's End, Bean Valley, Nimbus Land, and then Barrel Volcano. All of these areas are rather long, have at least one boss in them (Nimbus Land has two, as well as skippable miniboss fights, and Barrel Volcano has three) and Nimbus Land also has a lot of cutscenes to sit through. But at last you get the sixth star in the volcano. Then it's on to Bowser's Castle which is even longer than the previous areas and at one point forces you to fight your way through four of six random hallways, which variably pit you against difficult platformer segments, logic problems, or just a gauntlet of enemies. And when you finally get to the end of the castle, after beating the third of three bosses, guess what? ''There's still one more dungeon to go'', even longer than Bowser's Castle, with ''six'' bosses before you get to Smithy at last, and the stage is full of clones of Smithy's minions that are themselves minibosses. When Bowser steps out at the entrance to said dungeon and basically says "I'm done, I'm not going any further," the player is probably agreeing with him.

*** And the second half has its own share of Ending Fatigue. While it does resolve the plot threads and character arcs for the whole party, you retread the same dungeons you cleared in the first half of the game to do this rather than go to any new locations, with [[UndergroundMonkey recolors of the same enemies you've already defeated as random encounters]].This all adds up to a 10-15 hour slog of nothing new or interesting to see besides maybe the conclusions of each character's story. It doesn't help that this arc has no spoken dialogue at all (compared with the first half of the story, where almost every cutscene was voice-acted), making it feel like even more of a drag. This lasts until [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon The Absolutely-Definitely-No-Take-Backs-We-Really-Mean-It-This-Time Final Dungeon]], which is little more than a BossRush with the TrueFinalBoss waiting at the end.

* For all of it's high quality, not even ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt'' is immune to this. After finally rescuing Ciri, and the epic showdown at Kaer Morhn, the game looks to be reaching its climax very soon after. Instead, there's still ''10+ hours'' of story left to go, which brings the momentum from said fight to a screeching halt. Now you have to go back over previously cleared areas of the world with Ciri at your side. With no new parts of the world left to explore, it can make the final few missions feel like they drag on and on, though seeing several key side characters and plot points get resolved does help alleiviate this somewhat. Notably, even CD Projekt Red seems to agree that the game went on a bit longer than it needed to, and have stated that the upcoming ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' [[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-09-20-cyberpunk-2077-will-be-slightly-shorter-than-the-witcher-3-because-players-complained-the-witcher-3s-was-too-long will be shorter than Witcher 3, perhaps to avoid this trope popping up again.]]

** The [[VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc first game's]] final Class Trial. All of the school's mysteries need to be revealed and only ''then'' will the mastermind show their face. And then it comes to breaking the mastermind down. This section of the game can take a good two hours or more to finish, at which point, the player is sick and tired of talking to the mastermind, who is shrugging everything off [[note]]at least, until the protagonist Naegi has mentioned the concept of hope often enough[[/note]] and unnecessarily prolonging the trial. The epilogue after the trial itself is, comparitively, much shorter and concise.

* ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' can fall into the trope on occasion, mostly because of the fact that every single episode has 2 epilogues after the conclusion of the main story, and the epilogues can go for a couple of hours sometimes. Even the characters, dangling in post-denouement, express how ready they are for to just get it over with. Even Beatrice gets sick of being "Endless". If boredom is fatal to witches, imagine what it'll do to audiences.

** A further complication is that the ''novel'' doesn't have six potential endings in a row: the film adaptation cut out the longer "Scouring of the Shire" sequence, due to the (debatable, but not irrational) assessment that it is anticlimactic and would slow down the pacing of the film - and, if nothing else, it would add another ''30 minutes'' or so of screentime to the movie, between the farewell to all the non-Hobbit characters at Minas Tirith, then the farewells to the Hobbit characters. In the source material it was less "multiple endings in a row" than an entire ''sequence'' serving as a coda. Loosely compare to how adaptations of ''Les Miserables'' speed through the DistantFinale epilogues for the entire cast, which were better paced in the novel (but a book can do things a film can't).