The first two endings to Wayne’s World were pretty good. The last one was a little sappy for me.
What would be the point? If the movie had been a faithful adaptation of the story right up until the ending, I could see your point. But the movie really just has the title and set-up in common with the story; their morals are very different. The original’s moral was “Don’t try to be something you’re not.” The movie’s message is “follow your dream to get what you want,” with an allegory of growing up and leaving home on the side. But it’s not like the movie just tossed that in at the end; it was a theme throughout.
You mean you want a movie to end with moralistic preaching so blatant that a five year old would feel insulted, due to having to sit there and listen to “oh, when you children are nice, the Little Mermaid will be a year closer to getting a soul (because of course non-humans are soulless and unimportant) but when you’re naughty, she cries, and is consigned to a horrifying limbo for another week or so”?!?
Tell me you were just referring to the self-sacrifice, please!!! (Or just like imagining that ending being in general release for the humor value.)
I would end Unbreakable about 15 seconds sooner.
I was very disappointed in Total Recall, when Mars was terraformed at the last minute. I was hoping that Arnold and his girlfriends’ heads would explode and that would teach those idiots: don’t screw around with other planets.
I’m with FisherQueen on A.I. I just don’t get that ending at all. Why did Spielberg show us David getting what he wanted? I though it was going to end with him beseaching the Blue Fairy until the end of time. That would have been so much more affecting than the bizarro alien ending, which just left me cold.
My own offering would be Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (a real classic, I know). I wish they’d stuck with the original ending, with Ceasar announcing the dawn of the planet of the apes and the imminent end of humanity’s rule. Instead they (very sloppily) added a voice-over where Cesar suddenly changes his mind and backs down. Huzzawhat?
obfusciatrist, out of curiosity, what did you not like about the ending of Unbreakable? I thought it was wonderful!
Cujo should have ended like the book did. But movie audiences need happy endings, according to the studios.
Little Shop of Horrors should have kept the original ending, where Seymour gets eaten by the plant, and then the heads of Seymour, Audrey. Mr. Mushnick, and the dentist sing, “Don’t Feed the Plants,” backed up by Crystal, Chiffon, and Ronette (the Greek chorus). Much better than that stupid “Mean, Green Mother from Outer Space” number.
Army of Darkness should have lost that stupid S-mart ending and kept the original, where Ash takes one drop too many of the sleeping potion and wakes up in a post-nuke LA. It fits the hard-luck loser nature of the character much better, and is thematically similar to the ending of Evil Dead II: Dead Before Dawn.
Dances with Wolves should have ended when the tribe was headin for the hills. Dunbar still had the cool horse, the cool wolf, and the very cool girlfriend, and the indians were all still alive.
Jurassic Park should have had the ending from the book–Hammond dying by poison from the spitter dino and Malcom dying from infection from his broken leg.
The ending was fine. It was the 15 seconds of title cards explaining what happened after the ending that was stupid.
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Alien 4. They should have kept the creature looking insectoid and frightening, as in the previous films, instead of having it evolve into what resembled a skull made from melted wax (ahem…this is a mild criticism compared to what the creator of the original alien, HR Giger, had to say :))
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Return of the Jedi. No teddy bears, this time.
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Mad Max 2/Road Warrior: the cute Amazon chick would have survived, and Max and her would have driven off into the sunset together.
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Long time since I’ve seen it, but doesn’t “On the Waterfront” have an infamously happy ending which totally subverts the novel’s meaning?
I’m usually all for sad/poignant endings (Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Hud, Brazil, and lots more mentioned above, and I totally concur that the Cujo film should have kept the book’s ending) but I have to disagree about Jurassic Park. Hammond’s death makes sense (in the tradition of monsters-destroying-their-creators) but I didn’t see what Malcolm’s death (in the novel) added. Just MHO, of course.
I would have hacked off that hyper-schmaltzy modern day Private Ryan coming back to visit the graves in Saving Private Ryan. I loved that movie, and I daresay the audience appreciated the sacrifice of those guys as it was back in the time of the movie. When they came back to the present and beat me over the head with it in the end, I got mightily annoyed and my estimation of the movie’s quality dropped by at least 20%.
In Titanic, why not just give the damned researcher the necklace? Or at least try to throw it down where their submarine would be sure to run across it and “salvage” it?
** Starship Troopers ** New end. Johnny Depp as Ed Wood leaves theater, says " That’s the worst adaptation I’ve EVER seen."
** Fisher Queen ** Can JarJar die slowly? Maybe the Ewoks roast him alive and eat him, only to find his flesh is toxic waste and both die gruesomely?
** The Empire Strikes Back ** Be honest. Just put up a “To Be Continued”. At least SW:ANH has SOME ending.
OK, I’m a sap - I wanted Jack to live in Titanic. I also wanted Tony to live in West Side Story.
I thought it would’ve been cool in the first Jurassic Park to have a pteradactyl flying alongside the helicopter as they fled the island.
Sheri
The real reason for cutting that bit off is that Private Ryan wasn’t present for any of the events in the movie except the last act. How the hell is he flashing back to it?
Removing the ewoks, while perhaps desireable, would make the movie nearly unrecognizable… I would, however, have Lando die in the death star explosion
The only Hollywood movie I can think of that deserves re-working is “The Abyss”.
I only wish the producers of “The Abyss” had put a little more time or money into the end of the movie. I couldn’t help but think they shot it in sequence and the budget had run dry by the end. Or, they simply got bored with their own production.
They weren’t aliens, they were robots, and it was Kubric’s idea. I guess you could argue that since he was dead, he wouldn’t know he difference if Spielburg just took it out.
She eventually did go to to Europe, but it wasn’t with John Smith. It was with her husband…John somehting else. I can’t remember his last name.
Star Trek Generations
I was so upset by the way they killed Kirk that I cried. Dammit, he deserved more than that!
“Sixth Sense”: I would eliminate the whole explanitory montage.
“While You Were Sleeping”: I would cut the last seven seconds in which Bullock’s voice over attempts to explain the title.
“Return of the Jedi”: Vader should have killed Luke. Really.
“Apocalypse Now”: Don’t let Brando’s eating disorder dicate the ending.
“Un chien andalou”: more ants
I’m not a sucker for happy endings, but in “City of Angels”, I felt totally cheated when she died at the end. Sometimes a happy ending is the right thing to do.
I wish I could remember the name of this movie, but we rented it a couple of weeks ago, and we were actually about to turn the movie off because it was perfectly wrapped up when - wait - there’s another 10 minutes of film! Talk about anti-climactic!