Let’s make this simple: You want to know if there are any post- or mid-credits scenes in Borderlands. The answer is kinda – but it’s really more of a very brief mini-scene that functions as a parody of a credits scene.
Full spoilers for Borderlands follow!
It has been a rough road for Eli Roth’s Borderlands movie, which is finally out in theaters now more than three years after it wrapped its initial production in June of 2021 – and after acclaimed Chernobyl and The Last of Us writer Craig Mazin’s name was removed from the film completely, even though he’d written the script that was first expected to be used when Roth was hired as director back in 2020. (Roth now also has both a Story By and Screenplay credit.)
Following a ton of bad buzz, release date delays, and a two-week round of reshoots in 2023 that were directed not by Roth but by Tim Miller (Deadpool), the film has been greeted by absolutely abysmal reviews, including by Matt Donato here at IGN. And yeah, gotta say I agree with Matt and most everyone else, because Borderlands is a pretty awful viewing experience, with its attempts at humor, action and drama all falling flat and the entire movie feeling notably inert nearly start to finish.
But how does it all end? With the bad reviews, maybe you’re skipping seeing it and just want to cut to the chase. So that’s what we’re here to dive into!
Borderlands Movie Ending Explained
The brunt of Borderlands involves intergalactic bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) reluctantly teaming with soldier Roland (Kevin Hart), bomb-loving kid Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black), reformed Psycho Krieg (Florian Munteanu) and, eventually, scientist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) to find the legendary hidden vault on the planet Pandora and the secrets left inside eons ago by the alien race known as the Eridians. And if you’re a fan of the games saying “Since when is Lilith a bounty hunter?” you’ll notice plenty of other tweaks from the games throughout the movie and its conclusion.
Lilith’s group needs three keys to get into the vault and, after retrieving two of them, they come to discover the third key is a person. That person seems to be Tina, who reveals she is not actually the biological daughter of Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) – the scheming corporate head who hired Lilith to find Tina for him – but rather a clone he made from Eridian blood with the single purpose of helping him open the vault to access its secrets and power. During a battle with the bandits known as Psychos, Roland serves as a distraction, allowing the others to escape – and they suddenly teleport to safety to everyone’s surprise, with phasewalking appearing to be a newfound ability of Tina’s.
When Tina overhears Atlas contacting Lilith, asking her to betray Tina, she mistakenly assumes she’s going to go along with it – like a lot of the movie, it’s dumb, and could have been solved with a few more seconds of conversation – leading her to set off a bomb, knocking Lilith out. Tina, Tannis and Krieg go to the newly discovered vault entrance to open it on their own, while Lilith awakens and, accompanied by Claptrap, stumbles upon an old, abandoned settlement, which just so happens to be where Lilith grew up.
They go into her childhood home and, upon seeing it and Lilith’s drawings on the wall, something is activated inside Claptrap he himself had forgotten about, causing a holographic recording of Lilith’s late mother (Haley Bennett) to appear before her. She explains that Lilith is the one who can actually open the vault, which is why her mom sent her away to safety with Tannis years before, to avoid her being discovered. Lilith is also an Eridian and realizes she’s the one that can phasewalk, not Tina.
Rise of the Phoenix… I Mean Firehawk
At the vault entrance, Tina – sure she is “special” and that opening the vault will make her invincible – attempts to complete the process to open it, but fails. Then Atlas, with all of his soldiers and the Psychos helping, him arrives. Atlas intends to kill Tina, believing her to be another botched clone and intending to try again with another one to get the vault open. Roland then shows up to help Tina and the others, having survived his encounter with the Psychos thanks to a bomb given to him by Tina. And then, in an incredibly random moment, the leader of Atlas’ forces, Commander Knoxx (Janina Gavankar), suddenly switches sides and stands with Roland, Tina, Tannis and Krieg because of one quick throwaway interaction she had with Roland earlier in the film about fighting on the wrong side – only to be disintegrated immediately by a blast from Atlas’ ship.
But when all hope seems lost, Lilith arrives, informing everyone that she is the one who can open the vault. Tina is initially distraught, saying she thought she was special, but Lilith tells her she still is (just not in the cool superpowered way Lilith is). Lilith then makes a shaky deal with Atlas that he’ll let everyone go if she opens the vault for him, and when she begins to do so, she is suddenly enveloped in energy, burning bright from within, with fiery wings keeping her afloat in full Jean Grey upgrade mode. And so we learn she is the Firehawk. Rather than a name Lilith already sometimes used herself, as was the case in the games, the Firehawk was oh-so quickly mentioned earlier in the movie as a legendary deity. Now, seeing what’s happening to Lilith, Tannis has a couple of lines about prophecies being fulfilled, yadda yadda, and it turns out Lilith has the touch, Lilith has the power, yeah.
It’s a very rushed and anticlimactic final showdown, especially so for a movie based on games where you tend to actually have a full fight with a giant monster at the end.
Not only is Lilith able to fly and fight Atlas’ forces with her powers, but she is able to create energy shields around her friends, allowing them to fight back as well. At one point, she is knocked to the ground, causing everyone’s shields to drop, but some encouraging words from Tannis gets her back on her feet. All of their enemies are soon defeated by our heroes except for Atlas himself, who manages to grab Tina, threatening to kill her unless he’s brought inside the vault. Lilith obliges, phasewalking the three of them inside, where Atlas is amazed by all of the old artifacts he sees around them – before Tina kicks him in the leg and runs to Lilith. Suddenly, Atlas is grabbed by the tentacles of a large creature inside the vault while Lilith and Tina escape.
And yes, this is a very rushed and anticlimactic final showdown with your primary villain for any movie, but also especially so for a movie based on games where you tend to actually have a full fight with a giant monster in a vault at the end – not just see part of a monster for a second as it conveniently grabs your enemy for you.
Soon after, in a nearby town, the locals celebrate Atlas’ demise. A couple of kids kick the helmet of one of Atlas’ dead soldiers around, and it may or may not have someone’s head inside, given this is Eli Roth including a self-reference to his far more entertaining Hostel: Part II, which ended with kids playing soccer with the decapitated head of a villain.
Outside on a balcony, Lilith and her friends all celebrate, watching a huge fireworks display. Lilith, at Tina’s urging, turns on her Firehawk powers and flies into the air, making a huge bird in the sky. In voiceover, Lilith, who’d always spoken of Pandora disparagingly, now says it’s home.
Awwwww….
Is There a Mid- or Post-Credits Scene in Borderlands?
Sort of.
After the initial main credits play, we cut to a black screen and Claptrap appears on top of it singing and dancing for what looks to be a mid-credit scene kicking off – except the remaining closing credit crawl begins coming up from the bottom of the screen almost immediately and physically hits Claptrap, knocking him on his side on top of the first credit line. He screams in protest that he’s just giving the people what they want as the credits continue to push him up and offscreen. And that’s it!
In a movie devoid of much genuine entertainment, this is a relatively decent gag involving a mid-credit scene literally pushed away by the credits themselves.
Does Borderlands Set Up Future Installments?
Not really. There isn’t much in the way of direct set-up for more stories beyond the fact that Lilith now has these powers and a new group of pals who could presumably have more adventures with her. Atlas seems to be dead but there is some wiggle room there if they wanted to say he escaped that creature.
Notably though, we don’t ever learn what exactly was in the vault or what it could do. We see a lot of doohickies floating about and are told that what’s in there can basically unlock the secrets of the universe, but that’s all the info we get and it doesn’t feel like Lilith and the others actually care that much about these secrets once they escape.
Of course, maybe the lack of a direct sequel set-up is because Lionsgate saw the writing on the wall with this prolonged, continually troubled production. And given both the wretched reviews and the weak box office opening the film is receiving, this is likely the one and only movie for this incarnation of Borderlands before someone tries again down the line.
