I know this was a controversial ending, but by no means was it 'crap'. I thought it was an excellent ending, and one of the most brutal and sad one too, King himself admitted Darabonts ending was better than his.
Hmm... I'm not sure. I thought the twist worked quite well in Fight Club (though it teeters on the very edge of letting itself down 5 minutes from the end and *just* about gets away with it in my view).
I was under the impression he was making it up as he went along to be honest.
In any case, complaining about ESB is like complaining about Back to the Future II leaving the story open ended. We know the final two of the trilogy were being filmed back to back.
The mists gimmicky ending was fine on first viewing but the film simply isn't good enough for that type of ending to hold up on repeated viewings.
Most people will continue to think it's oh so shocking and edgy though, personally King's ambiguous book ending was a million times better than Darabont's emotionally manipulative tacked on ending but each to their own.
It does start to get particularly silly towarRAB the end
i.e;
There being fight clubs everywhere already
That even the police are in on it
...And they try to chop off his balls!
That they actually manage to blow up the credit card companies and you see all the buildings falling, is a little OTT!
Shooting himself in the head appears to cure his schizophrenia? that was lucky!
But I did like the twist and I tend to let the film off a bit since it is fairly surreal throughout. None of those flaws bothered me all that much when I first watched it. I still think it's a great film.