How Five Famous Films Stuck The Landing... By Changing Their Original Endings
A film's ending is everything. But some of these memorable films had conclusions that would have altered them completely differently.
Endings matter. People can remember things entirely differently based on how it ended. There’s even a psychological heuristic known as the ‘peak-end rule’ where people will judge an experience more by how they felt at its most intense point (the peak) and its end rather than every moment of an experience.
Movies fall into this category. A movie with a ho-hum beginning and an incredible ending will be recalled being better than it was while a movie that begins terrifically but ends lousily will be remembered less fondly.
And sometimes, the endings that filmmakers originally planned— even if they make more sense— don’t go down well with audiences. Or perhaps sometime during filming, the team realizes that the ending doesn’t work altogether. Which begs the question: would the following five films be remembered as much if they kept their original endings?
The Karate Kid (1984)
If you remember The Karate Kid, you know how it ends: Daniel delivers the crane kick, wins the tournament, and even earns the respect of his rival1. From climax to credits, it is one of the shortest denouements in cinematic history2.
And the thing is, it works. It’s beautiful. Daniel has triumphed, he’s got the girl, and above all, he’s earned the nod of proud approval his sensei, Mr Miyagi. The final frame is literally of Miyagi (Pat Morita) smiling— Mr Miyagi doesn’t smile in the film— while Bill Conti’s music crescendos. It’s such a feel-good triumphant ending that it takes a moment to realize that the film is actually over.
But in the script, this wasn’t the planned ending. It was supposed to end in a confrontation between Miyagi and Kreese in the parking lot outside the tournament, where Miyagi intervenes when Kreese attacks Johnny for losing to Daniel. The Cobra Kai students quit, Kreese is defeated and humiliated, and Miyagi sort of gets his triumphant moment, too.
Now fans will recognize this scene as the one that opens The Karate Kid Part II. The filmmakers realized that it served as a nice bridge between the two films.
Had they used this ending for the first film, however, it would have added another five minutes to the runtime, and while it would have symbolically wrapped up the rivalry between the mentors, it would have clearly taken the wind out of The Karate Kid’s sails. Director John G. Avildsen knows a thing or two about ending a film on a high note, having done the same thing in an earlier film Rocky3; they made the right choice here. If it worked before, it’ll work again too.
Moral of the story: Always end on a high note, and quit while you’re ahead.
The Godfather (1974)
You know how this one goes4. Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has successfully eliminated his rivals during his nephew’s baptism; he also has the child’s father Carlo, Connie’s husband and his brother-in-law, killed moments after the church service for having conspired with Barzini to arrange the murder of Sonny Corleone (James Caan). Michael, who said in the beginning that he’s nothing like his family, has become the Don but without the warmth or wisdom of his father. When his wife Kay (Diane Keaton) asks about Carlo’s death, Michael lies to her face, and Kay realizes when she sees the others calls Michael “Godfather”. The door is shut in Kay’s face, automatically cutting to black.
Brutal. So it’s hard to imagine it ending any other way. But it almost did.
The originally planned ending, which Coppola actually shot, was lifted straight from the book. Kay accompanies her mother-in-law to a Catholic church to light candles and prays especially for Michael’s soul. This ending offers a small hint of hope, as Kay resigns herself to being the wife of a mobster and turning a blind eye to Michael’s business— just as Carmela Corleone did with her husband, Vito Corleone. It also reinforces the themes of Catholicism, given that the entire world of the Italian mobsters portrayed is steeped heavily in Catholic traditions, right down to the title of the main character which also happens to be the film’s title: godfather. Very much a Catholic thing.
Unlike with The Karate Kid, this alternate ending probably wouldn’t have made it feel as if The Godfather was overstaying its welcome. But it lands a much weaker punch compared to what was actually used in the final version. Even though The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King gets mocked for its multiple endings, those endings are necessary to wrap up the loose threads5. However we ended up with the final shot being of Kay shut out from Michael’s true self, it turned out to be the right decision.
Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele’s directorial debut is such a knock-out from beginning to end that it’s hard to imagine the story concluding any other way— in which Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is rescued by his best friend Rod (Lil Rel Howery), and is taken home. Perfect.
Except, that wasn’t how it was originally going to finish.
THIS is how it was meant to end.
Yeah. Chris goes through hell… only to end up in jail for the murder of the Armitages. Realistic? Yes. Brutal? What do you think??
Here’s how one of the producers, Sean McKittrick, describes testing the film early on:
“We tested the movie with the original ‘sad truth’ ending where, when the cop shows up, it’s an actual cop and Chris goes to jail. The audience was absolutely loving it, and then it was like we punched everybody in the gut. You could feel the air being sucked out of the room. The country was different. We weren’t in the Obama era, we were in this new world where all the racism crept out from under the rocks again. It was always an ending that we debated back and forth, so we decided to go back and shoot the pieces for the other ending where Chris wins.”
The cast loved the ending, but even they understood the response. Here’s Daniel Kaluuya talking about it:
“I love the original ending. It was great because of what it said about life — there’s this black guy who’s really cool and went through this trauma, got through all this racism, and in fighting for himself he gets incarcerated. That really resonated with me, because it showed me how unfair the system is. However, in hindsight, you still have that with the police lights, and Rod saves him through the black -brotherhood — and also, Chris has a life, you know? He has to go out there even after he’s experienced all this racism, and people expect you to see the world in the same way when they haven’t experienced something like that. I thought that was really honest.“
And Bradley Whitford, who played patriarch Richard Armitage:
“The original ending was making a statement that I think Jordan felt a white audience might be able to dismiss about mass incarceration. The ending he ended up with does a brilliant thing, because when Chris is strangling Rose in the driveway, you see the red police lights, and then you see the door open and it says “Airport” and it’s a huge laugh, and everybody has that same laugh and release. You understand from Chris’s POV that if the cops come, he’s a dead man. That is absolutely brilliant, non-lecturing storytelling.“
As for Peele, he didn’t sweat it too much— at least, according to the record:
“I think my improv training just put me in this mind frame of, with each problem, there’s not one solution, there’s not two solutions, there’s an infinite amount of great solutions. That includes the ending. When I realized the original, downer ending wasn’t working, I didn’t freak out. I looked at it as an opportunity to come up with a better ending.“
When Aaron Sorkin asked him during The Hollywood Reporter Writers Roundtable6 about changing the ending, Peele elaborated:
“I wrote the movie primarily during the post-racial lie. So the Obama era, when everyone was saying, ‘Hey we’re past racism!’ right? ‘We did it!’ And the notion of bringing up racism was almost thought of like perpetuating it. And so the movie was originally meant to be a more direct, brutal wake up call to say ‘No. Guess what? The horror movie with the black protagonist, the cop showing up at the end is a different thing.’ And it became very clear by showing people the movie that they needed a hero. They needed the movie to be an escape. What I love about the current ending is that moment you’re talking about with the police showing up, the audience does all the work of the original ending, and then [you see it’s Chris’s best friend]. I had my cake and ate it, too.”
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
James Cameron knows a thing or two about changing endings. He dealt with it on The Abyss (the Special Edition has his planned ending with megatsunamis), and now he was facing it with Terminator 2, his sequel to the film that launched his career. Originally, the film ends with a scene in an alternate future in which Judgment Day was averted. An aged Sarah Connor watches an adult John Connor, now a US senator, playing with his daughter, while recording her thoughts into a tape recorder that explains the narration at the opening.
It is… uhm… jarring, to say the least.
Cameron’s goal was lofty. In an interview with Newsweek, four months prior to the film’s release, he said:
“I think of T2 as a violent movie about peace, and I’m perfectly comfortable with these ambiguities. It’s an action film about the value of human life.”
Putting aside the logistical problems— if the war never happened, then Kyle Reese would never have been sent back, John Connor would never have been conceived, and the events of the two films technically would never have happened…7— the tonal shift is rather discombobulating. Carolco demanded a test screening, something Cameron was averse to after The Abyss. But at George Lucas’s Skywalker Ranch where the screening was held, the audience had one consensus: the ending was terrible.
Cameron resisted, but eventually relented. In a published version of the script, he explains:
“I began to think that the message of the film might be better served by not letting the audience off the hook so easily. We decided not to tie it all up with a bow, but to suggest that the struggle was ongoing, and in fact might even be an unending one for us flawed creatures trying to come to terms with technology and our own violent demons.”
With the release date only a month away, reshoots might have been daunting. But Cameron’s solution required no actors, no massive crew: the final shot hurtles down a dark highway accompanied by Sarah Connor’s new voiceover: “The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because if a machine, a terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.”
Cameron still got to keep his nonviolent message but he was able to put it in a way that didn’t take you out of the movie8.
Still, it wouldn’t be the last time that he was forced to change an ending…
Titanic (1997)
Technically, James Cameron did not change the ending of Titanic. It’s the scene that preceded it— and set the tone for the conclusion: the moment Old Rose throws the Heart of the Diamond into the ocean, where it presumably sinks back to the Titanic shipwreck. In the finished film, this is how it plays out.
But that’s not how it was scripted.
In the script, Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) stops her and tries to convince her to let him hold the necklace before she throws it overboard. Here’s that version of the ending:
Producer Jon Landau and Lightstorm Entertainment president and executive producer Rae Sanchini, though, felt that the scene didn’t work— Rose, it seemed, ought to be at the rail by herself, as she stood with Jack when she was young. Not with other people.
Cameron disagreed.
A test screening was held for friends and family. Landau took Steve Quale, who’d done the second unit directing and was Cameron’s protégé, and asked for his thoughts. Quale thought the ending was “off” and later told Cameron as much: Rose ought to be alone when she throws the necklace. Cameron listened. This time, he agreed.
Trouble was, all the sets were dismantled. They still had the Russian ship to shoot Rose at the rail, but there was nowhere to show the necklace as it sinks into the water. In his memoir The Bigger Picture: My Blockbuster Life & Lessons Learned Along the Way, Landau reveals the simple solution they used in the end for a $200-million-plus film:
“And so we shot that scene in my swimming pool in Sherman Oaks. When the camera looks back toward the surface of the water, you are, in fact, seeing my backyard.”9
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Landau elaborates the reasons why he advocated for the change:
“You can take all the time and spend all the money in the world, but, in the end, it’s the small changes, those that reflect on character—Rose was independent and adventurous; that’s what she got from Jack and that’s why she had to act alone—that make a film.“
Landau and Sanchini’s instincts— and Quale’s— were right. The scene as originally filmed is only four-and-a-half minutes, but it disrupts the mood just like the ending of T2 and really takes you out of it. It’s also corny as hell.
We tend to remember endings better than beginnings, so God forbid you fumble the ending10. Knowing where to end can be difficult; sometimes, the version we had in mind doesn’t play out so well in reality. But sometimes, your instincts might be more right— the original ending for Blade Runner was not what Ridley Scott had in mind, and was right. So how do you know when to pivot, and when to stick to your guns?
I think Neil Gaiman11 said it best: “Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”
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Long live the movies!
D.L. Holmes
Which somehow got forgotten in the Cobra Kai spin-off, but oh well.
From Daniel getting up to deliver the final blow to the fade out, it’s about 40 seconds.
Lots of parallels between The Karate Kid and Rocky, in which Italian-American underdogs from a working-class background rise above their circumstances through sports. In his memoir, Ralph Macchio jokingly notes: “Rocky was such an influential movie in my childhood. Perhaps the title was just a play on what they should have been calling it, The Ka-Rocky Kid. Actually, that is what Avildsen jokingly said the film could arguably be branded.”
If you haven’t watched it, why??
At least the film omits the entire Scouring of the Shire chapter that would have added another 30 minutes to the runtime if it had been kept!
In that same interview, The Big Sick writer Emily V. Gordon mentions watching Get Out with a mostly white audience who, when the red-and-blue lights flashed on Chris’ face, all went “No!”
A paradox! What a concept!
Not to mention cost-effective!
I’m not entirely sure why they reshot the part with the necklace sinking since in the original planned ending, it’s there.
TV shows have it worse: How I Met Your Mother, Game of Thrones, and Dexter squandered all the good work of the past years with divisive finales. At least Dexter found a way to re-earn some of the goodwill partly with the mini-series Dexter: New Blood and then, unexpectedly, with Dexter: Resurrection.
I know that quoting Gaiman might be controversial but allegations or not, it doesn’t take away from the fact that he is a good artist, and is right on the money.