How would you have ended the movie? (Pirates 3 and other Spoilers likely)

[The Grumpy Celt]

I was mulling over my thoughts on how Piratesx3 ended and what I would have done differently and it occurred to me any number of movies were mostly well handled but fell apart in the last reel or two. Like Matrix x3, for example.

So, name a movie - any movie - and say how you would have ended it, as compared to how it did end.

In Pirates x3, I would have had Will Sr. kill Davy Jones, so as to offer that character a better redemption than he actually got in the movie. Then I would have had Barbossa and Jack both discover the Pearl was gone, accuse each other of doing something with it, only to have a camera cut reveal Will Jr. and Elizabeth had made off with the ship.

 

[EricNoah]

In Matrix 3, I would have revealed that Neo's training in the Matrix now carries over to the "real world" -- once he got his mind around the fact that he could bend certain rules there, he can bend them anywhere. I would have skipped the whole "Invasion of Zion" business. And then I guess I would have had Neo, in the real world, face down real world puppetmasters of the Matrix (including the Agent Smith who managed to merge himself with a real human).

 

[WayneLigon]

Most of my 'druthers' involve re-writing entire movies or turning them into mini-series.

X-3: The mutant 'cure' is discovered and it divides the mutant community; Magneto uses it to stir up sufficient anti-human sentiment that mutants beseige San Francisco and riot at the Alcatraz facility. Magneto and several others are de-powered and Xavier's becomes a halfway house for these people trying to learn to cope with being human. Weeks later the team that developed it has grave news for the President: further analysis shows the cure is only temporary. A cabal within the White House sees this as a sign and activates the Sentinel prototypes to attack the school and destroy everyone inside while there are so many potential mutants that are depowered and helpless.

Sentinels land like rockets in reverse on the school lawn.

Magneto (Wryly, to Charles): My, if only we had a mutant capable of manipulating metal....

Big-ass fight scene. Colossus fast-ball-specialing Wolverine. Iceman sliding around, freezing these man-sized Sentinel drones. Angel dropping Kitty through a Sentinel to disrupt it's electonics. Storm cutting loose with the lightning. Cyclops being the big leader and punching holes in the things left and right. The Brotherhood mutants joining in. Big mutie free-for-all. Magneto almost getting squished but his powers returning at the last instant (he's the first because he's the strongest) to tip the balance of power. Jean, at the last part of the battle, flares up as Phoenix when she thinks a Sentinel has killed Scott.

Having lived as a human for weeks and been reminded of his essential humanity, Magneto and his hard-liners depart in a spirit of neutrality while the others stay. Jean and the Professor depart for Muir Island so they can run tests on her.

 

[The Serge]

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: In the final confrontation between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Vader beats the hell out of Luke and, when The Emperor demands that Vader destroys Luke to reveal his commitment to the Dark Side, that's when Vader redeems himself, grabs The Emperor and dumps him down the shaft.

Lando Calrissian doesn't make it out of the Death Star in time.

All of the ewoks contract a lethal disease that kills them off before anyone makes it to Endor to discover them, forcing Lucas to write something that's far more desperate and, therefore, fulfilling and uplifting in the final Rebel victory over the Empire.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Matrix 3

I would have left it the same right up part of the way through the Agent Smith Fight. Then at the point where Smith asks Neo why he fights and rails against him in the crater I would have had him realize that he was limiting his perspectives. Then he sort of flickers and is standing there perfectly fine and dry with rain bending around him and tells Smith "I understand now. I don't need to fight you when I can destroy your world with two words" "What are those Mister Anderson?" "Wake up." Then a pixellation effect and flicker as if the Matrix were a malfunctioning TV, Smith looks horrified and it flashes to the machines shutting down. Then it flashes to a simple blank blue screen with the words 'Fatal System Error' which rolls into the credits. Basically Neo BSODs the machines.

 

[James Heard]

Return of the King: Slow motion follow camera as the ring tumbles into volcano. The end.

300: Hail of arrows blotting out the sun, dying king stands defiant. The end.

Return of the Jedi: The end. Lucas makes some other new classic movies that don't feature Ewoks or Jar Jar, and shows us he's not simply riding the success of his action figures.

Basically I think an awful lot of movies try to engage in this lame sort of explanation/epilogue that doesn't need to be there most of the time. Directors need to not be afraid of ending a movie on an absolute highpoint, even if it doesn't allow the "complete vision" or some nonsense about showing what happens to the characters "after $%^ stops blowing up." Even Star Wars has the unnecessary element of pinning a medal on the wookie and creepy brother/sister glances while accepting accolades at the end...if the scene absolutely must be in the movie for it to make any sense at all then maybe the whole thing needs to be rewritten, or directors should take a page from horror movies. In a horror movie, when there's an epilogue it's always because there's a hook at the end where the hand claws its way out of the grave again, an eye opens up because the villain lived, or something. If there's something more in the story, make it something more instead of the protagonists patting each other on the behinds and/or easing the viewer off the climax.

/rant

It just bothers me. I like movies to end where I'm still in shock/excitement or plot overload, not wiggling my behind in my seat because my bladder and brain decided the movie made sense to end 15 minutes earlier.

 

[TanisFrey]

In Matrix 3, I would have revealed that Neo's training in the Matrix now carries over to the "real world" -- once he got his mind around the fact that he could bend certain rules there, he can bend them anywhere. I would have skipped the whole "Invasion of Zion" business. And then I guess I would have had Neo, in the real world, face down real world puppetmasters of the Matrix (including the Agent Smith who managed to merge himself with a real human).

I would have made the ending be the Neo discovering that he could efect the machines in the 'real wold' because the Matrix had 2 levels. So the real world he know was in reality a matrix desinged to alow some humans whom could not execpt the fake human socity to rebel but still be hooked in the the matrix. And the very end Neo would be the very first human to wake up in the real world for hundrads or thousands of years.

 

[Prince Atom]

Why not have Darth Vader, at the end of Revenge of the Sith, break down and sob? That lame tantrum he throws is less compelling. Plus, it avoids more dialogue (which George can't write well, anyway).

One other thing about Star Wars:

It's not an ending so much as a change, but this just occurred to me:

In Star Wars, Luke is the "best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories," and yet the only time he flies a ship is in the attack on the Death Star.

A good time to demonstrate his skill would be in their escape from the Death Star. As the movie plays, Han and Luke man the guns while Chewie and Leia take the controls. I think it would better highlight everyone's skills to have Luke at the stick and swap out either Chewie or Leia into the other gun well.

If you're not going to have Han flying his baby, why not give it to Luke? As it stands, neither Leia nor Chewie are called out in the script as being great pilots.

I realize that the limitations of the time mean that Star Wars didn't have the same sophistication of maneuvering that we saw in Empire or the later films. But, assuming that Han didn't tinker with the maneuvering jets between Yavin and Hoth, the Falcon should be capable of the kind of aerobatics (?) it demonstrates in the Hoth asteroid belt.

Just a couple thoughts.

TWK

 

[Wombat]

All of the ewoks contract a lethal disease that kills them off before anyone makes it to Endor to discover them, forcing Lucas to write something that's far more desperate and, therefore, fulfilling and uplifting in the final Rebel victory over the Empire.

I so needed a happy this morning and you gave it to me.

Kudus!

 

[Arnwyn]

Revenge of the Sith: Amidala does not die in childbirth, instead becoming sickly. Maybe a short scene at the very end with a young/toddler Leia on Alderaan standing at her mother's grave (do they have graves in Star Wars?).