Films with stuck-on endings

[JoeZhang]

In another thread there was some discussion about unbreakable and how the end sequence is something that seems to be stuck on at the behest of the studio.

What films are spoiled or semi-spoiled for you by having such an ending, or even, what films do you suspect have a tacked-on ending?


While it wasn't spoilt for me, MI:3 seems to one of those films - it seems to me that the original film ends in china....

 

[TremblingBluStar]

I'd have to go with the "love scene" near the end of The Matrix. While I don't have an issue with the entire ending, the part where Trinity tells Neo she is in love with him felt entirely out of place and hammered into the script to have some sort of romance angle to the story.

 

[Marc]

Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan.

Nicholas Meyer wasn't impressed when the scene with Spock's photon tube on the Genesis planet was tacked on and refused to do it.

 

[Kegek]

Thieves Highway ends with a rather awkward assurance to the audience that the man and woman are going to be married; which was a tacked on ending.

 

[ST-One]

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - the whole San Diego thing is not part of the book.

 

[JoeZhang]

I'd have to go with the "love scene" near the end of The Matrix. While I don't have an issue with the entire ending, the part where Trinity tells Neo she is in love with him felt entirely out of place and hammered into the script to have some sort of romance angle to the story.

But that's a theme that runs through the whole story - so I don't see how it relates to a tackled on ending?

 

[Christopher]

Of course, one of the classic tacked-on happy endings was in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The film was supposed to end bleakly, with Kevin McCarthy warning everyone that the aliens were taking over but no one listening. But the studio didn't want such a depressing ending, so they forced the filming of a new frame sequence that ends with the authorities very quickly, conveniently gaining proof of McCarthy's account and alerting the troops to rush in and save the day (offscreen).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Wasn't A.I. supposed to end with the kid underwater?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I don't know for sure but The Last Samurai certainly seemed to cheat with Tom Cruise's final fate.

The Golden Compass ends in a very abrupt way that differs from the book and there is footage out there that suggests it was supposed to be otherwise.

 

[Guartho]

The Golden Compass ends in a very abrupt way that differs from the book and there is footage out there that suggests it was supposed to be otherwise.

I thought the ending totally sucked. It killed any interest in a sequel for me. Of course, I was only mildly interested anyway.

 

[Harvey]

Wasn't A.I. supposed to end with the kid underwater?

I haven't heard anything about the film being intended to end underwater, but by all accounts it should have ended there. The future epilogue is out of place sentimentality tacked on for no discernible reason, IMO.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I thought the Doolittle Raid at the end of Pearl Harbor was completely out of place.

But, the whole movie sucked monkey-balls, so whatever.

 

[Brikar99]

I thought the end to the recent "I Am Legend" fits well into this category.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Wasn't A.I. supposed to end with the kid underwater?

Sadly, no. The film was supposed to end where it did.

I long thought that the ending with David drowning was the sort of downbeat thing that Kubrick would have done, and the "happy" ending with the super-evolved mechas (that looked like aliens, but really weren't) was a Spielbergian addition. Then I read an interview with screenwriter Sara Maitland who had worked with Kubrick on the film, and she explained that, no, Kubrick had intended the ending with David getting one happy day with his "mother" and then dying.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

The Golden Compass ends in a very abrupt way that differs from the book and there is footage out there that suggests it was supposed to be otherwise.

I thought the ending totally sucked. It killed any interest in a sequel for me. Of course, I was only mildly interested anyway.

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-HDjGM0lwE

It doesn't necessarily save the movie but it's interesting and strangely opens the door to a sequel better than what they went with.

 

[Aragorn]

Here's a site that shares my opinion on test screenings. The movie within a movie in The Player has a great example of changed endings.

Original Blade Runner cut happy ending.

Fatal Attraction
The Breakup
Pretty in Pink

Supposedly Dead Calm also had a studio ending.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park - the whole San Diego thing is not part of the book.

Seeing as how the script was written before there was even a book, I don't see how that can be considered tacked-on.

 

[The Lady Eve]

"L.A. Confidential." A fine, gritty film until the tacked on ending that has Det. White going away with a Good Woman. The film should've ended after the shoot-out and Det. Exley staggering toward the approaching cop cars with his I.D. raised high. Just IMHO.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

But that's a theme that runs through the whole story - so I don't see how it relates to a tackled on ending?

Not really. Trinity doesn't mention being in love with Neo until the very end, and there is little indication that she feels anything for him up to that point. The two actors have zero on screen chemistry, and didn't so much as touch until that point.

 

[Christopher]

But that's not a tacked-on ending. A tacked-on ending, the kind of ending being talked about in this thread, is an ending that was forced on the film by the studio in defiance of the filmmakers' wishes. A twist late in the film that strikes you as coming out of left field is not the same thing at all. So complaining about Trinity's admission of love in The Matrix belongs in a different thread than this one -- unless you can demonstrate that the studio forced that scene to be shot and included in the film against the Wachowskis' wishes, which I really don't think is possible.

 

[JoeZhang]

But that's a theme that runs through the whole story - so I don't see how it relates to a tackled on ending?

Not really. Trinity doesn't mention being in love with Neo until the very end, and there is little indication that she feels anything for him up to that point. The two actors have zero on screen chemistry, and didn't so much as touch until that point.

I'm pretty sure this is tied to a scene earlier in the film when they go to visit the oracle and also when Cypher says something like "look into his big blue eyes as I kill him" (or something like that).

I honestly don't think we can say it comes that far out of left field - and anyway, as Christopher has pointed out, it wouldn't fit what we are discussing anyway.