At the end of the credits for the rebooted Star Trek, JJ appears smoking a huge blunt. He grins at the camera and says “Nah, I’m just fuckin’ with ya. The REAL movie will be out next year. You don’t think this dreck was the actual reboot, did you?”
Or, at the very least, a scroll across the screen that says “James T. Kirk then proceeded to fly the Enterprise into a black hole and she and her entire crew were never seen again.”
No one would get the joke until four years later.
Not so happy ending to Jaws.
Shot from behind: Brody and Hooper tread toward shore.
Cut to shot from front: Giant tentacle breeches surface; vermiform motion closes in on hapless pair.
Look up Kevin Smith’s/Randal’s (Clerks II) idea for an ending to Lord of the Rings. Very NSFW.
Also:
Truman sues the studio and Christos for a lifetime’s worth of “acting” fees (at Equity rates) plus punitive damages. Studio goes bankrupt; Truman gains ownership of the big dome. His lawyers are now rich enough to buy Guam.
Truman gets tired of being pestered by literally every person in the world due to his fame; moves back into the dome (sans cameras) to get away from humanity.
Following him becoming a recluse, Trumanism becomes a major world religion.
Instead of the door being closed on Diane Keaton at the end of the first “Godfather”, she’s invited in, and is offered the Don’s position.
She instantly starts talking like Pacino and while pointing at them with a lit cigar in her hand she instructs them that they’re going to have to start wearing their underwear on the outside now, and then hands out red clown noses that they must wear whenever they’re in her presence.
After the end of Dead Alive/Braindead, Lionel and Paquita are picked up by the police, tried for the kidnapping and brutal sayings of dozens of towns people, and arson. Both get sent to the Chair, or Gas Chamber, or whatever it is they do to people in that era of New Zealand.
I have to admit to liking Rama II. Not as a sequel but kind of a soap opera.
Another great story that should never have been defiled with a lesser work is Legacy of Heorot
I loved that book! Among the many “sequels” and “spinoffs” it featured was the “lost ending” to Romeo and Juliet.
Turns out that Romeo’s “poison” was a drug similar to Juliet’s (since the apothecary knew it was illegal to sell poisons), and Romeo’s dagger had been stolen by a traveling acting troupe and switched with a prop dagger, so Juliet hadn’t killed HERSELF either. The two revive with the families looking on–but there’s still the matter of Romeo having killed the Prince’s kinsman Paris in the brawl before the tomb. Romeo offers to take the punishment, but the Prince, after considering this, summons his captain of the guard:
“The Count’s been murdered. Take with you some men
And round up those we usually suspect.
Do question them awhile on Paris’ death,
And then release them.”
…which was basically the Victorian-era’s bowlderized version of R&J. A lot of the Shakespearian tragedies got re-written to give them desperately-contrived happy endings.
You don’t think he’d have been ok with Klink turning out to have been secretly an agent for the allies?
Tony Soprano appears before St. Peter.
Tony: where am I?
St. Peter: You’re at the gates of Heaven, awaiting judgement. You were shot to death.
Tony: Whaddaya mean? I was enjoying a meal with my family, “Don’t Stop Believing” was playing on the jukebox, then everything went black. What kind of ending is that? Ending to my life, I mean.
St. Peter: Come on, you foreshadowed your own death in an earlier episode, saying you thought that when you get taken out, you probably don’t ever see it coming-- everything just goes black. Did you really need everything spelled out for you so obviously?
Tony: OK, I guess you’re right. So am I getting in to Heavan?
St. Peter: Oh, hells no.
Hrmm…
(emphasis mine)
Shots fired?
If this is in any way an allusion to Beast…
(An absolutely wretched rewrite of Jaws, with a deus ex ending on the very last half-page. Horrid. The author should have been shot, even if it was… Peter Benchley.)