The sci-fi genre gives filmmakers the liberty to write and depict ideas beyond the scope of reality. So what happens when those ideas are just so far-fetched or heartbreaking that entire plot points need to be adjusted?
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00The sci-fi genre gives filmmakers the liberty to write and depict ideas beyond the scope
00:05of reality.
00:06So, what happens when those ideas are just so far-fetched or heartbreaking that entire
00:10plot points need to be adjusted?
00:12A quintessential 80s family film, Steven Spielberg's E.T.
00:16The Extraterrestrial tells the story of Elliot, a little boy who befriends an alien creature
00:20stranded on Earth.
00:22While Elliot struggles to keep his alien friend a secret, E.T. searches for a way to return
00:26home, eventually building a communicator that draws his people to Earth.
00:29In the heartstring-pulling finale, E.T. is rescued from government agents with just enough
00:34time to say a tearful goodbye to Elliot.
00:36But in 2017, actor Robert McNaughton, who played Elliot's brother, talked about another
00:41secret ending.
00:42He told Yahoo,
00:43"...the last scene was going to be all of us playing Dungeons & Dragons again, except
00:46this time, Elliot's the dungeon master, and then they would pan up to the roof and you'd
00:50see the communicator and it's still working."
00:52In other words, Elliot is still in touch with E.T.
00:55According to McNaughton, Spielberg and company eventually agree that Elliot's farewell as
00:58he watches the spaceship depart was too powerful a moment to not be the ending.
01:02Whether the alternate ending was developed to sequel-bait, or just to give audiences
01:06the sense that the friendship between Elliot and E.T. wasn't over, the ending we got remains
01:10one of the most iconic moments in 80s cinema.
01:141979's Alien was an instant classic, with director Ridley Scott delivering a sci-fi
01:19horror film that has endured for more than 40 years.
01:22Led by Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley in a career-defining performance, the film sees
01:26an alien monster picking off the crew of a long-haul space freighter.
01:30By the time the credits roll, only Ripley is left alive, but if Scott had gotten his
01:34way, it might as well have been no one.
01:36In the version of the film we got, Ellen Ripley lives through the bloody encounter and sets
01:39off in an escape pod.
01:41In a 2017 interview with Entertainment Weekly, however, the director revealed that he had
01:45a very different ending in mind for Ripley from the get-go, saying,
01:48"...I thought that the alien should come in, and Ripley harpoons it and it makes no difference,
01:52so it slams through her mask and rips her head off."
01:54The closing scene would have had the alien take control of their ship.
01:57As Scott revealed, it would mimic Captain Dallas, saying,
02:00"...I'm signing off."
02:01But, as Scott described it, 20th Century Fox executives were appalled by the ending and
02:05planned to shoot.
02:06"...You have my sympathies."
02:10Threatened with being fired, Scott slapped together a new ending that was less defeatist,
02:14and the rest is history, including several sequels, prequels, and spin-offs.
02:18Though it wasn't quite his breakout role, Will Smith's performance in Independence Day
02:23will go down in cinematic history.
02:25Smith stars as a gung-ho fighter pilot who becomes a key part of a plan to stop the Tentacord
02:29invaders from obliterating mankind and claiming Earth as their own.
02:33The multi-pronged assault also involves a kooky farmer named Russell who is enlisted
02:37to pilot a fighter jet in the film's finale.
02:39Russell sacrifices his own life to get revenge on the aliens who he believed had once abducted
02:43him, destroying their attacking ship in the process and saving countless lives.
02:48"...The words of my generation, ab-yours!"
02:55But that wasn't quite how it went down in the film's original alternate ending.
02:59As first shot, Russell volunteers to join the group of pilots, but is denied when a
03:03military commander deems him unfit.
03:05When the initial attack fails, however, Russell saves the day out of the blue, showing up
03:09in the thick of the fight in his crop-dusting biplane with a missile strapped to his side.
03:13Though both versions are played for laughs, the producers of the film may have felt the
03:17sight of the biplane was a bit too over-the-top in terms of goofiness.
03:20As a result, in the finished cut, Russell is allowed to fly alongside the military pilots,
03:25and nooch scenes were shot with him inside an F-18 fighter jet instead.
03:29Another classic sci-fi action movie, John Carpenter's The Thing is a 1982 remake of
03:34an older 1950s B-movie, The Thing from Another World.
03:37This version sees Kurt Russell starring as R.J.
03:40McCready, a helicopter pilot on an icebound research team who discovers a strange alien
03:44creature has invaded their Antarctic base.
03:47Because the alien is capable of assuming any form, paranoia sets in when they realize any
03:51one of them could be a killer creature in disguise.
03:54In the extremely bleak original ending, most of the crew are killed by the creature.
03:57Only McCready and one other survivor are left to stare each other down in the wreckage of
04:01the base, which they'll presumably do until they freeze to death.
04:05You the only one who made it?
04:10Not the only one.
04:12Fans are left to wonder if one of them was the alien, and led to believe that the characters
04:15will both die regardless.
04:17But there was another, unseen ending that was quite different, and would have changed
04:20everything.
04:21In 2019, Den of Geek explored the deleted and alternate scenes known to exist for The
04:25Thing, including an extended ending which saw McCready rescued and brought to another
04:29research station to recover.
04:31There, his blood is tested, proving he's human and not an alien imposter, ending the story
04:35on something of a positive note.
04:37Considering that the film's dreary and certain final scene is one of its signature moments,
04:41it seems Carpenter made the right call to go with the downbeat ending.
04:45Stanley Kubrick had already directed Paths of Glory, Spartacus, and the controversial
04:49classic Lolita when he cast comedian Peter Sellers to star in the Cold War sci-fi parable
04:54Doctor Strange Love.
04:55A black comedy about the ludicrousness of military and politics, it culminates in an
04:59all-out nuclear war that destroys the Earth.
05:01But Kubrick originally had another ending planned.
05:04Over the years, stories have circulated about a lost ending that capped off the grim final
05:08act in which the world is destroyed in an atomic horror that drives home the futility
05:12of war.
05:13This alternate ending was said to close out the film on something far less serious.
05:16In this version, the final scene takes the film's comedy to its furthest extreme, with
05:20the surviving military and political leaders getting into a pie fight in the war room at
05:24the Pentagon.
05:25Some may think this is just some wild rumor, but there is proof of its existence.
05:28Images of this lost ending have surfaced over the years, thanks to the work of Arthur Fellig,
05:33a press photographer who was hired by Kubrick to chronicle the making of the film.
05:37Not only did he capture incredible images of Kubrick in action, he also snapped what
05:41would be the only available evidence of the deleted ending.
05:44So rest assured, the footage does exist, reportedly sealed up in the studio vault somewhere.
05:50Star Trek Nemesis
05:51Star Trek Nemesis isn't the only movie in the franchise with an alternate ending.
05:53But while Star Trek Generations famously had a different version of Captain Kirk's death,
05:57it wasn't really that different.
05:59In Nemesis, however, a series of deleted scenes at its end would have shaken up the status
06:03quo and set the stage for more stories.
06:05In the theatrical cut, Captain Picard is aboard the Enterprise, overseeing repairs
06:09to the ship.
06:10In a pair of scenes, he bids farewell to both now-Captain Riker and the android B-4, a childlike
06:15duplicate of Commander Data.
06:16The ending we didn't see extends this sequence, adding a moment in which Dr. Crusher talks
06:20with her captain.
06:21Crusher reveals she's no longer assigned to the Enterprise, having left the ship for good
06:25to become head of Starfleet Medical.
06:27There's also a deleted gag where a departing Riker plays a prank on incoming First Officer
06:31Madden in that character's only scene.
06:34These deleted moments had the potential to impact the future of the franchise, but because
06:37we never got a follow-up, we don't know if Madden's assignment or Crusher's transfer
06:41actually happened.
06:42In 2002, Trainspotting director Danny Boyle revived the zombie genre, which had been thought
06:51long dead by many, at least in the mainstream.
06:54He did it by flipping the idea on his head and mixing it with post-apocalyptic sci-fi,
06:58kicking off the zombie craze in movies and TV that continues today.
07:01The story centers on Jim, a bicycle courier who awakens from a coma to find Britain engulfed
07:06in a deadly plague that has turned unwitting victims into mindless flesh-eaters.
07:10The theatrical ending sees Jim escape the clutches of a group of power-hungry survivors
07:15and their zombies dying of apparent starvation.
07:17It's implied that he will be rescued, closing out the story on a hopeful note.
07:20When the movie came to DVD, however, it revealed multiple additional endings.
07:24In the first, which was fully filmed, Jim succumbs to a gunshot wound and dies at the
07:28close of the story.
07:29In an audio commentary for the sequence, writer Alex Garland described this ending as somatic
07:34closure.
07:35He ends up back in the hospital where it started.
07:36It goes full circle.
07:37It ends as it begins.
07:38In the second secret ending, which was only storyboarded, Jim sacrifices himself to save
07:43Frank, who has become infected with the virus.
07:45But another, more radical conclusion, described in a report by Newsweek, makes a shocking
07:49reveal that the entire movie was a dream.
07:52A wild mix of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, Army of Darkness was the third Evil Dead film
07:57from director Sam Raimi.
07:58This time, the story's hero, Ash Williams, is hurtled back in time to the Middle Ages.
08:02After a zany adventure, Ash manages to get the help of a wizard who can cast a spell
08:06that puts him into a magical sleep until the 20th century.
08:09Once there, he tells his story to a fellow employee at the store where he works, and
08:12the film is capped off with a surprise attack from an evil deadite.
08:16But we only get that ending because the studio hated Raimi's original idea.
08:20In Raimi's first ending to the film, Ash makes a minor mistake in the wizard's spell and
08:24sleeps for a bit too long.
08:25Instead of awakening in the 1990s, Ash finds himself in a distant post-apocalyptic future
08:30where the world had been destroyed, and he is seemingly the only one left alive.
08:34Studio execs weren't exactly pleased with the director's original vision for such a
08:37depressing ending, and asked him to come up with something a little more fun.
08:41"...Name's Ash.
08:45Housewares."
08:47Decades later, in the finale of the TV sequel Ash vs. the Evil Dead, Raimi finally got to
08:52use this ending, with a fun twist that teased a bizarre future.
08:56Jordan Peele's Get Out was immediately hailed as a new sci-fi horror classic, and wholly
08:59unexpected from a first-time director more known for his off-the-wall comedy.
09:04Social allegory wrapped in sci-fi, the film follows a young black man named Chris who
09:07makes a horrifying discovery about his girlfriend's family.
09:10The film ends with Chris surviving a violent encounter that leaves the family dead.
09:14The cop car shows up, and audiences would have been forgiven for expecting a tragic
09:18shootout given the social climate.
09:20Chris' friend Rod of the TSA steps out, and all is well.
09:23But in an interview with Vulture, Peele revealed that it initially designed a far more sinister
09:27fate for Chris when he first dreamt it up, one that was more along the lines of what
09:30viewers may have predicted.
09:32Peele acknowledged,
09:33"...we tested the movie with the original sad truth ending where, when the cop shows
09:36up, it's an actual cop, and Chris goes to jail.
09:38The audience was absolutely loving it, and then it was like, we punched everybody in
09:42the gut."
09:43Considering the state of the world, Peele reconsidered, wanting to give audiences a
09:46little hope in dark times.
09:48He explained,
09:49"...we weren't in the Obama era.
09:50We were in this new world where all the racism crept out from under the rocks again.
09:54It was always an ending that we debated back and forth, so we decided to go back and shoot
09:58the pieces for the other ending where Chris wins."
10:01If you thought The Thing ended on a down note, it doesn't hold a candle to the final act
10:04of The Mist, from director Frank Darabont.
10:07At the climax of the film, with the monster-filled mist engulfing them and death seemingly assured,
10:11David gives up all hope, and decides to use his last four bullets to kill the remaining
10:15survivors, including his son Billy, to spare them a more horrific fate.
10:19But just after he does, the mist clears, and the military arrives to save him, leaving
10:23him with the heartbreaking realization that he's killed his son for nothing.
10:26Believe it or not, though, there was almost an even more gut-wrenching ending.
10:29In another version of the final scene, things play out mostly the same way, but are told
10:33from a different point of view that somehow cuts even deeper.
10:36As producer Denise Huth told Slashfilm in 2022,
10:39"...there was one that I swear to God was even worse.
10:41It was, you ended on Billy waking up and saying, Daddy, and then it cuts to black and you hear
10:46a gunshot.
10:47And it was so awful.
10:48It was just so much worse."
10:49Whether it was because the scene was more emotionally affecting than they wanted, or
10:52because someone simply felt it played better from David's viewpoint, the scene, as told
10:56from Billy's perspective, was dropped.
10:59Ridley Scott may have allowed Ellen Ripley to live in his finished version of Alien,
11:02but that didn't stop director David Fincher from killing her off in Alien 3.
11:06Fast forward a few years, and Alien Resurrection brought back Sigourney Weaver as a genetic
11:10clone of the original Ripley, cooked with xenomorph DNA to create the perfect hybrid.
11:14The movie also brought the franchise to Earth for the first time, with the planet imperiled
11:18by the threat of a xenomorph invasion.
11:20But as nonsensical as the movie's plot was, its original alternate ending was perhaps
11:24even more mystifying.
11:25The film's writer, future Avengers scribe Joss Whedon, was dead set on the film actually
11:30taking the action to Earth.
11:31As he told InFocus in 2005,
11:33"...unfortunately, due to complications during filming that saw the story heavily rewritten
11:37more than once, the final battle with the alien takes place on a starship, and the film
11:42never actually shows the Earth of the far future."
11:44In a deleted sequence originally planned to end the movie, however, it did.
11:47Recalling shades of Raimi's alternate Army of Darkness ending, Ripley and the android
11:51Annalie Coole land their ship on Earth to find it a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
11:55Ultimately, though, the filmmakers chose not to use this ending.
11:58According to Whedon, the reason was that the filmmakers just didn't feel it necessary to
12:02set foot on Earth.