Movies/Shows you wish other things had happened in. OPEN SPOILERS

[Ferret_Herder]

@Elendil_s_Heir

David shouldn’t have freaked out and destroyed those other android kids in A.I. And he shouldn’t have been limited to just one great day with his “mom” at the end.

My change for that film - if we don’t go with ending where he pleads with the Blue Fairy until the ocean freezes - would be him opting not to see his mother and essentially ‘destroy her soul’ if he did. If he could realize the implications of his action, that would be an understanding implying maturity, growth, learning. But after those thousands of years, he was still stuck in his programming, a Pinocchio who wanted something unique to be destroyed for the sake of one day with her.

Alternately, the original ending is good, but it is not by any means happy, and not because he only got one day.

[Sigmagirl]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Having the Dermot Mulroney character end up with Jules would utterly ruin the movie, the point of which was that Jules was being a jackass. MBFW was, in a way, a deconstruction of romantic comedies, in that it concedes–it HIGHLIGHTS–that the kinds of things characters do in such movies to win their lovers’ hearts are, in fact, horrible and wrong.

Agreed. Jules was a narcissistic, self-serving wretch; Kimmy was a sincere, devoted young woman who deserved happiness. Just because she was !perky! and !rich! didn’t mean she wasn’t the right match for Dermot.

[Blut_Aus_Nord]

@Anaamika

Casino Royale should not have played poker. No Bond would ever play poker. It should have been baccarat or some other gentleman’s game instead of trying to appeal to dumb American audiences.

You have to admit that the strategy and tension involved in Texas hold’em adds a little depth to what would have been an otherwise horribly boring game of baccarat, which relies almost entirely on chance.

[Lemur866]

@Skald_the_Rhymer

Having the Dermot Mulroney character end up with Jules would utterly ruin the movie, the point of which was that Jules was being a jackass. MBFW was, in a way, a deconstruction of romantic comedies, in that it concedes–it HIGHLIGHTS–that the kinds of things characters do in such movies to win their lovers’ hearts are, in fact, horrible and wrong.

The whole POINT of “My Best Friend’s Wedding” is that Julia Roberts can’t end up marrying her “best friend”. She does all the stupid rom-com stuff that would get you punched in the face in real life, and IT DOESN’T WORK, and in the end she realizes she’s been a jackass.

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Lemur866

The whole POINT of “My Best Friend’s Wedding” is that Julia Roberts can’t end up marrying her “best friend”. She does all the stupid rom-com stuff that would get you punched in the face in real life, and IT DOESN’T WORK, and in the end she realizes she’s been a jackass.

How does the meaning of what you wrote substantially differ from the meaning of what I wrote?

And Jules does come close to getting punched out by Kimmy–in front of witnesses, all of whom would have testified the the police that Jules started it.

[Covered_In_Bees]

@Blut_Aus_Nord

You have to admit that the strategy and tension involved in Texas hold’em adds a little depth to what would have been an otherwise horribly boring game of baccarat, which relies almost entirely on chance.

That’s if they didn’t script it so horribly. I think they should have had all the guys play poker. Film the whole thing and just edit it down to fit the movie ESPN style. That would have been bad ass.

[Elendil_s_Heir]

@p4poetic

…Not bad for a girl in New Zealand who worked in a gold miner.

She probably left because it was too crowded in there.

[Darkhold]

@Anaamika

I won’t watch that scene either. It’s the main change that pisses me right off about Jackson’s LOTR.

I always thought that Frodo half realized Sam would never do such a thing he was just looking for an excuse to send Sam away in the slight hope Sam would make it home.

Kind of like when someone has to shoo off a beloved pet by telling them they hate them because they know otherwise the pet will keep following them and get hurt.

[Anaamika]

@Blut_Aus_Nord

You have to admit that the strategy and tension involved in Texas hold’em adds a little depth to what would have been an otherwise horribly boring game of baccarat, which relies almost entirely on chance.

I HATE POKER

…but I suppose you’re right. Still, there are other gentleman’s games they could have played.

But to be honest, that wasn’t really a Bond movie, not as I have come to think of them. Daniel Craig was no gentleman. And he was a blonde. Too many things bothered me about that movie. It was a decent movie in its own right…but not a Bond.

[Spoons]

@Anaamika

Casino Royale should not have played poker. No Bond would ever play poker. It should have been baccarat or some other gentleman’s game instead of trying to appeal to dumb American audiences.

In fairness, at the time the film was made, Texas Hold’em poker had gone through a popularity phase, with tournaments on TV, and would be familiar to a lot of people internationally–not just Americans. However, I’d guess that baccarat, while an extremely simple game, would be unfamiliar to many people. IIRC, Ian Fleming explained the rules of baccarat in the book Casino Royale (which is where I learned how to play it), but I’m unsure how well Fleming’s explanation would have translated to the movie without causing a break in the action. Playing poker in the movie was a good solution: as in the book, the audience observes a tense card game; unlike the book, the majority of the audience understand the game without instruction.

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

@Idle_Thoughts

In Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the show), I watch the early episodes and always say to myself “Now why didn’t they ever have Xander and Willow become a constant couple?” That would have been nice. I think they would have deserved that.

No, Willow and Zander should have had martial arts lessons. Why they never learned any fighting skills (not Mad Fightin’ Skillz, just fighting skills/self defense) is a gaping hole in the show.
And Spike should have been naked more often.

[jackdavinci]

@The_Devil_s_Grandmother

No, Willow and Zander should have had martial arts lessons. Why they never learned any fighting skills (not Mad Fightin’ Skillz, just fighting skills/self defense) is a gaping hole in the show.
And Spike should have been naked more often.

Speaking of martial arts skills, the whole time Buffy was doing her ridiculous stint at Double Meat Palace I was thinking two things

1. If Giles gets a salary from the Watcher’s council, which has enough staff to take up an entire multistory building, surely they could afford to give Buffy a salary.

2. Assuming there was some legitimate reason she had to get a job of her own, living in Sunnydale with her skills she could have made a fortune teaching self defense classes.

[typoink]

@Blut_Aus_Nord

You have to admit that the strategy and tension involved in Texas hold’em adds a little depth to what would have been an otherwise horribly boring game of baccarat, which relies almost entirely on chance.

I’m no expert, but I’m under the impression that “real” Baccarat as played in European casinos isn’t just a game of chance, and has a degree of skill involved. The version played in American casinos is a dumbed-down version and is basically glorified acey-deucey.

Texas Hold’Em is definitely a more skill-based game, although I found using the “It Game” of the moment kinda bleh. If they wanted poker, I’d have liked to see them use another variant. Heck, the studio probably could have made a killing by officially licensing “Bond poker” as a new name for whatever variant they used.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@jackdavinci

2. Assuming there was some legitimate reason she had to get a job of her own, living in Sunnydale with her skills she could have made a fortune teaching self defense classes.

IMHO, her fighting style is only effective is built around (a) having superstrength, and (b) stabbing an improvised weapon into someone’s heart. So, okay, Buffy Fu involves leaping over your attacker to land over by that distant pool cue you can now snap in half and punch through a man’s ribs; how does that help guys who aren’t named Peter Parker?

[MaxTheVool]

The Matrix: When the agents have captured Morpheus, and one of them asks the other ones to leave, I was 100% convinced that the revelation was going to be that the Matrix was trying to follow a version of the laws of robotics, and was programmed to make humanity happy. Which it initially did by making a world where people could be happy in suspended animation. But parts of the matrix itself realized that the artificial world it had created wasn’t, in the long run, making people happy, so it was having a personality conflict, which is why all of the gaping security holes existed, and Agent Smith wanted to help Morpheus and Neo. Which would obviate the need for that totally idiotic battery explanation. Not to mention the second and third movies

Harry Potter: Given the meeting with the muggle prime minister, and given that one of the recurring themes of the book was Voldemort’s hatred of, and dismissal of, muggles, I was anticipating that the climax of the book would involve a scene where Harry had successfully gotten rid of all the horcruxes, and is facing Voldemort, but of course Voldemort is a vastly more powerful wizard than him. But a mortal one. And then, bam, a special forces sniper blows his head off from 1500 yards.

Buffy: [spoiler]Not a specific change, but one big that always bugged me about the series was how utterly idiotically inept and pointless the Watcher’s Council was. I mean, nothing about it made any sense. Basically every single thing it ever did (with the exception of hiring Giles, I guess) backfired horribly. It was exaggerated beuracratic infighting and inefficiency taken to the extreme.

Part of it, of course, is the idea that there’s only one slayer in the whole world at a given time. Sure, Sunnydale has a hellmouth, but given how many vampires Buffy has to slay ALL THE TIME, not to mention the other schemes she’s constantly foiling, how is it that every other place in the entire world has not been overrun long ago?

Further, there’s some inane dialog involving Kendra in which she says that in her village, being a slayer is taken seriously, or something. How can that be? There’s an average of one slayer IN THE ENTIRE WORLD every 3 years or so. So there should be one in her village maybe every other millenium?

The whole thing just doesn’t make much sense.
[/spoiler]

[Whiteknight]

@Darkhold

I always thought that Frodo half realized Sam would never do such a thing he was just looking for an excuse to send Sam away in the slight hope Sam would make it home.

Kind of like when someone has to shoo off a beloved pet by telling them they hate them because they know otherwise the pet will keep following them and get hurt.

I always took this to be the ring’s influence over Frodo causing him to be unnecessarily distrusting and paranoid. Gollum, having spent hundreds of years under the influence of the ring, knew exactly how to manipulate Frodo into sending Sam away.

[Ephemera]

Worf should have allowed Jadzia to die on the rescue mission to get the Cardassian defector instead of rescuing her, and allowing her to be killed by Dukat a half-dozen episodes later. The mission should have come first, and it would have made Worf a richer character while also giving meaning to Jadzia’s death instead of the farce it wound up being.

By extension, no Ezri. I liked Nicole de Boer, but she didn’t really add much to the series.

The Prophets should have stayed the hell out of the Dominion War instead of closing the wormhole on the Dominion reinforcement fleet.

The Dominon War should have ended with either a stalemate with the Cardassian Union becoming a rump Dominion state, the Federation doing what it can to make sure the wormhole is never opened again for fear of losing this time, and the Bajorans pulling away from the Federation because they’ve mined their Celestial Temple; or an overwhelming victory with Cardassia turned into glass by orbital bombardment from the Klingons and Romulans instead of the BS of the Female Founder calling off the hounds so long as Odo agrees to go home to his people.

No Odo/Kira. Just no.

[Little_Plastic_Ninja]

@MaxTheVool

The Matrix: When the agents have captured Morpheus, and one of them asks the other ones to leave, I was 100% convinced that the revelation was going to be that the Matrix was trying to follow a version of the laws of robotics, and was programmed to make humanity happy. Which it initially did by making a world where people could be happy in suspended animation. But parts of the matrix itself realized that the artificial world it had created wasn’t, in the long run, making people happy, so it was having a personality conflict, which is why all of the gaping security holes existed, and Agent Smith wanted to help Morpheus and Neo. Which would obviate the need for that totally idiotic battery explanation. Not to mention the second and third movies

And wouldn’t that have made for a much more interesting movie?

[jackdavinci]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

IMHO, her fighting style is only effective is built around (a) having superstrength, and (b) stabbing an improvised weapon into someone’s heart. So, okay, Buffy Fu involves leaping over your attacker to land over by that distant pool cue you can now snap in half and punch through a man’s ribs; how does that help guys who aren’t named Peter Parker?

It was fairly well established that she could train large groups of inexperienced non powered women in season 7. And besides that I’m sure Giles could have helped her out with learning how to train others. Watchers had to train not just Slayers, but Potentials as well.

[typoink]

@Whiteknight

I always took this to be the ring’s influence over Frodo causing him to be unnecessarily distrusting and paranoid. Gollum, having spent hundreds of years under the influence of the ring, knew exactly how to manipulate Frodo into sending Sam away.

As did I. The scene shows how at-risk the whole journey is, since Frodo’s control is really slipping.

My only complaint with the scene is that Sam DOES go away. If I was given the rewrite, I’d have Sam trailing them at a distance the way Gollum had been.