# Changed to a Happy Ending **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2015, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686 "2015-03-10T13:27:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/121 "2015-03-12T07:44:48Z")
> [@dougie\_monty](#): > > Isn’t that the most repulsive picture you’ve ever seen? 😃 The artist obviously drew it based on first hand experience. Incidentally, if you have not been to the TV Tropes web site before, don’t get in too deeply. [Whole days can go by before you realize it](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/122 "2015-03-12T11:11:44Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > I was going to mention the movie version of the musical stage play Little Shop of Horrors. > > Because they did test it and then audiences didnt’ like the downer ending but they felt that a stage audience were OK with it because the actors come out for curtain call. (smiling) They put ‘curtain calls’ in the credits (showing the actors on screen with their names) but that didn’t work. > > One of my least favorites is the changed by test audience ending to Fatal Attraction. In the release version the evil Glenn Close gets killed by the Mrs. of the cheating husband. The audiences felt she (the Mrs.) needed some vengeance on Glenn Close. Originally Close framed Michael Douglas for her murder. (she kills herself) Much better ending IMHO. Remember, the movie was SUPPOSED to parallel the opera _ **Madama Buitterfly** _! Michael Douglas was supposed to be like Pinkerton, who callously impregnated Cio Cio San, and drove her to suicide. If Glenn Close DOESN’T commit suicide, what was the point of the whole opera theme? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/123 "2015-03-12T17:46:56Z")
_Limitless_, the very, very good Bradley Cooper / Robert De Niro technothriller, has a significantly different ending than the Alan Glynn book (published originally as _The Dark Fields_) which inspired it. The book: Eddie is going through withdrawal with no superpills left, alone and probably dying, in a seedy Vermont motel. The book we just read is his hastily-scrawled description of how he came to be there. He sees the President begin a speech on TV - probably to announce the invasion of Mexico after a long-brewing crisis there - and realizes the President is a superpill addict, too. The movie: Eddie is a polished, confident, almost-certain-to-win U.S. Senate candidate who easily fends off frenemy billionaire Carl Van Loon’s attempt to control him or, as is implied, let him die when his pill supply is cut off. Eddie still has his adorable girlfriend and is probably going to end up in the White House someday. I confess I prefer the movie. ---
**Author:** ![HubZilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ccd318/32.png) [@HubZilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HubZilla)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/124 "2015-03-12T18:47:37Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > Also, a number of scripts submitted for the movie version of _Friday Night Lights_ were rejected _because_ they tried to turn it into a “happy ending” where the team wins the state championship (in the book, they lose the championship game; in real life, they lose in the semi-finals, but the team that beat them and went on to win the championship game was later disqualified for having players from outside of its school district). They should’ve left off the ending card. Next year’s team WINS the state title. Without their star QB, star defensive player, and many other key players who were departing seniors. The new team had essentially rookies in those positions and managed to win it all!! THAT, folks, is your classic underdog story with a superb happy ending. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/125 "2015-03-13T05:03:53Z")
The film version of _On the Beach_ had a relatively “happy” ending in comparison to the book. Which, if you seen the film, tells you how bleak the book’s ending was. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/126 "2015-03-13T16:07:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The film version of _On the Beach_ had a relatively “happy” ending in comparison to the book. Which, if you seen the film, tells you how bleak the book’s ending was. How much worse could it possibly be? Maybe I don’t need to know. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/127 "2015-03-13T16:21:14Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The musical **Wicked** gives a Happy Ending to the story that the book _Wicked_ doesn’t have, but I’ll say no more about it I actually popped into the thread thinking about this very change, but since the thread is supposed to be about _annoying_ happy endings I wasn’t going to. The book, to me, was nearly unreadable. I gave up halfway through (didn’t even get that far with Maguire’s treatment of Cinderella). I read the summary on Wikipedia. The play had, to me, a much better ending. Elphaba finally finds some measure of happiness, after a pretty awful life. At the expense of losing everything else she has ever cared about, true, and of course Fiyero has also lost virtually everything (but her). Reading the synopsis in Wikipedia, I found the original ending hideously, slit-your-wrists depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/128 "2015-03-13T16:24:23Z")
A different take on “happy endings”: that some shows won’t go where the story is leading them. That the show’s so-called reality is not really what it seems. That the leads died in a particular episode, or that the viewer’s understanding of the underlying reality is wrong. (Of course, such a downer of an ending would also be the end of the show…) I have an interpretation of the X-Files episode [Field Trip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_Trip_%28The_X-Files%29) that makes the entire rest of the series a tacked-on happy ending. I have always believed the intrepid agents never got free of the cave. So the “tacked on” happy ending is that they lived, and went on for 3 more seasons. If you took the events in the “hallucination” part of the Deep Space 9’s episode [Far Beyond the Stars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_Beyond_the_Stars) as fact, then the “happy ending” is that DS9 is real. People would not want to believe life is really as depressing as Benny Russell’s is. And, although I’ve never watched Buffy, I have always had a fondness for[Normal Again](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_Again) once I read about it. Deep down, I think the events of Buffy being mentally ill is the actual true reality. (Not because I hate the show or anything, I just love that interpretation. And I was never invested in the show, so it doesn’t ruin it for me to take that interpretation.) ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/129 "2015-03-13T16:34:35Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > _Man of a Thousand Faces_, the wonderful Lon Chaney biopic starring James Cagney, has a happier ending than Chaney’s real life. Although he dies at the end, the film doesn’t reveal that his death came just before he was to star in Tod Browning’s _Dracula_ (Bela Lugosi, who was playing the role on stage, was brought in at the last minute to play the role in the film), nor that his last illness was lingering and painful; it’s quick and graceful in the film (albeit, it is true to the fact that he couldn’t speak in his last days, and used the sign language he knew because he had Deaf parents). It further shows him turning over his make-up box to his son, and adding a “jr.” to the name, suggesting that his son had his blessing to go into film as “Lon Chaney, jr.” Actually, Chaney was against his son acting, and wanted him in a steady profession, so he sent him to plumbers’ school. The son, whose actual name was Creighton Chaney, wanted to be a serious actor, not a film monster in make-up, like his father (his first film in the movie is suggested to be a horror film). Creighton Chaney made a number of films throughout the 1930s as Creighton, including _Of Mice and Men_, where he played Lennie, and it was nominated for Best Picture. It wasn’t until 1941, ten years after his father’s death, that he bowed to studio pressure, and let them bill him as “Lon Chaney, jr.,” and he began making monster movies for Universal. I just looked this up on IMDB because the 1939 _Of mice and Men_ popped up on my DVR and I noted he was billed as Lon Chaney, Jr. The biography on IMDB claims it was 1935, five years after his father’s death that a producer insisted on him changing his billing to Lon Chaney, Jr. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/130 "2015-03-13T16:43:20Z")
The Reese Witherspoon film _Vanity Fair_ (2004) has a decidedly more upbeat ending than the Thackeray novel. Still a decent movie though. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/131 "2015-03-13T16:48:28Z")
[These Three](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/These_Three) - the first film adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s stage [The Children’s Hour](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Children%27s_Hour_(play)). Basic synopsis of the play “the Children’s Hour”: Karen and Martha jointly run a boarding school for girls. (Karen is engaged to be married at the start of the play.) One of their students is a nasty, spiteful little bad seed girl who spreads a rumor that Karen and Martha are lesbian lovers. The rumor spreads, students are withdrawn from the school in droves, Karen’s fiance leaves her, the two teachers are utterly ruined - all because of a lie started by a nasty brat. In the climax of the play, Martha confesses to Karen that she _is_ a lesbian, and does in fact have ‘lustful thoughts’ about Karen. Consumed with self-loathing, Martha shoots herself. Despite the play being a massive Broadway success, the plot of course would never fly in the mid 1930s. Thus, playwright Hellman herself wrote a new version of the play in which: The little girl spreads the rumor that Martha was having an affair with Karen’s fiance. The rumor still leads to the school being shut down, and Martha confesses she did have feelings for Karen’s fiance, but never acted on them. Nevertheless, Karen patches things up with her fiance, the little girl’s lies are exposed but the women forgive her, Martha doesn’t kill herself and nobody has same-sex feelings for anybody! Interestingly enough, Hellman wrote the screenplay for **We Three** that removed the lesbian angle. But the film was remade with the original story-line and title in '61. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/132 "2015-03-13T16:58:47Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > I just looked this up on IMDB because the 1939 _Of mice and Men_ popped up on my DVR and I noted he was billed as Lon Chaney, Jr. The biography on IMDB claims it was 1935, five years after his father’s death that a producer insisted on him changing his billing to Lon Chaney, Jr. Happy ending? I saw this movie when I was a kid: my Dad took me to the movies. I had seen one poignant scene in particular long before the ending: a man with no legs pleading for help. As for the deathbed scene, with the elder Chaney formally presenting his makeup case to his son… the general tone of the movie caught me; I started to cry as the dying man wrote “JR.” on the case. I was only 8 when I saw this. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/133 "2015-03-13T17:27:36Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The musical **Wicked** gives a Happy Ending to the story that the book _Wicked_ doesn’t have, but I’ll say no more about it I didn’t think the book was gibberish. What it was was insanely depressing. There’s not a happy moment in the damned thing, and I’m astounded that anyone could read that and think “Hey, this would make a neat musical!” It’s like turning “The Road” into “Singin’ In the Rain”. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > I think the most famous of the “tacked on Happy Endings” occurs in John Gay’s **The Beggar’s Opera** (1728). An early version of [lampshade hanging](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging) (warning: TV Tropes). ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/134 "2015-03-13T17:40:09Z")
No mention of Breakfast at Tiffany’s yet? The book was fairly ambiguous, so you can’t say just how sad it was, but the movie clearly went for happy. That’s regardless of all the other changes in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/135 "2015-03-13T19:48:47Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Wow. Really? I mean, I wouldn’t expect a middle school to put it on at all, what with the …this… and the …that… but if you’re going to do it, you couldn’t betray the vision of the play more than that if you wanted to. > > Do you know of any middle schools that put on the first act of _Into the Woods_? I saw one back around 1990 - terrible too. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/136 "2015-03-13T19:59:17Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I didn’t think the book was gibberish. What it was was insanely depressing. **There’s not a happy moment in the damned thing** , and I’m astounded that anyone could read that and think “Hey, this would make a neat musical!” It’s like turning “The Road” into “Singin’ In the Rain”. (Bolding mine) I dunno…lesbian sex is usually pretty happy at the time ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/137 "2015-03-13T20:05:28Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > **JAWS** > > In the novel, Hooper is killed by the shark. I think that was the first movie I ever saw where I had alraedy read the book, and oddly enough I liked the movie version better at the time. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/138 "2015-03-13T20:11:44Z")
The Handmaid’s Tale. They gave a happy ending to the movie version: Offred slits the Commander’s throat; then escapes with the rebels. The movie ends with her hiding in a isolated trailer in the mountains. I have got to admit I had certain visceral enjoyment of that ending (Yeah! at least one of the bad guys got part of what he deserved), but at the same time the book was so much more than that. The book ending though ambiguous was better in more profound ways. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/139 "2015-03-13T20:13:09Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > …Frodo, Sam, Merry, and \*\*Pippen \*\*come back and organize a militia to fight off the invaders… That would’ve made for a 'way more interesting movie! > **[Scottie Pippen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottie_Pippen)** > > Scotty Maurice Pippen Sr. (born September 25, 1965), usually spelled Scottie Pippen, is an American former professional basketball player. He played 17 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls. Considered one of the greatest small forwards of all time, Pippen played an important role in transforming the Bulls into a championship team and popularizing the NBA around the world during the 1990s. > Pippen was named to the NBA All-De... > **[Pippin Took](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peregrin_Took)** > > Peregrin Took, commonly known simply as Pippin, is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings. He is closely tied with his friend and cousin, Merry Brandybuck, and the two are together during most of the story. Pippin and Merry are introduced as a pair of young hobbits of the Shire who become ensnared in their friend Frodo Baggins's quest to destroy the One Ring. Pippin joins the Company of the Ring. He and Merry become separated from the rest of the gro... ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2015, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686/140 "2015-03-13T20:15:16Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > How much worse could it possibly be? > > Maybe I don’t need to know. In the movie (the 1959 version)The final scene shows the submarine heading back to America so the crew can die at home. Moira is last seen watching the sub depart (with her lover on board) from a cliff overlooking the harbor. In the novelThe crew has no plan to go back to America. They just sail the sub out to sea so they can sink it and drown. In the last scene with Martha she’s taken her suicide pills and is waiting to die as she watches the sub sail away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/changed-to-a-happy-ending/714686.md?page=8)