Secure Immaturity

With home release brings so many versions of a film. The home releases may have the theatrical version, the International cut, the Director’s cut, the Criterion, the final cut, and extras that may include alternative storyboards and/or endings.   The 1985 board game-to-Silver Screen adaption, Clue, featured three separate theater versions (”Ending A”, “B” or “C”).  It turned out to be an effective marketing ploy and got me thinking about alternative movie endings.  Here are some movie endings that I took upon myself to alter, along with the concepts behind my climactic facelifts:

Basic Instinct (1992)

The movie: Catherine Tramell thrilled and chilled audiences in the widespread 1992 release of Basic Instinct.  When I say “widespread release,” I am speaking, of course, of Sharon Stone’s relaxed leggy posture during her interrogation scene.  Detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas) heads up an investigation into the murder of a former rock star. Behind every investigative turn nakedly lies Stone’s Tramell, who wields her sexuality and, seemingly, an ice-pick as well.  The happenstance surrounding the murder mirrors the exploits of the novel Stone’s character has penned.  Curran succumbs to Tramell’s animalistic wiles and takes her on as a lover, all the while, trying to control his lust to find the truth, without obliterating the line of judgment.

The Ending (*spoiler*): After the climactic cinematic swerve, Tramell finds herself free of her accuser’s eyes.  Curran finds himself back in Tramell’s bed. While bumping uglies, the camera pans down her side of the bed to the floor, revealing her trusty metallic ice pick.  The camera faded out.  [Run credits]

The Un-director’s cut: After panning down to Tramell’s pick, the camera continues to pan left under the bed, to Currran’s side, where it unveils his service revolver lying on the floor.

The Concept: Curran is a streetwise detective with a history of pessimistic mistrust.  Aphrodisia had overtaken him, but after his partner and girlfriend are killed, he is able to extract the cop from copulate.  As a detective, his basic instinct is his best survival attribute.  This ending sets up a more climactic “showdown” concept that pulls the audiences’ imagination out into the final fade.

Seven (1995)

The movie: The film, Seven is David Fincher’s dark and grisly foray into the depths of humanity, predicated on Dante’s “Seven Deadly Sins” — lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.  William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is the aging & brooding veteran, who sees no light at the end of the urban tunnel.  On the other end of the spectrum is David Mills (Brad Pitt), Somerset’s impulsive but idealistic new partner. They catch the mother of all cases – a series of gruesome murders that are bound by one commonality – the victims all showcase the killer’s concept of the various sins.

The Ending (*spoiler*): While in police custody, the character who has come to be known as John Doe (Kevin Spacey), gives instruction to Mills and Somerset to pull over into an open field, whereby a package is soon delivered.  To his horror, Somerset finds Mills’ wife’s severed head lay in the box. Doe declares his sin as envy and confirms the content of his package.  Thus, igniting Mills high-tempered fuse.  Sommerset tosses his gun & attempts to talk Mills revolver from his hands. “If you kill him; he will win.” Hence, the final sin, wrath.  Mills unloads his gun into Doe.

The Un-director’s cut: After the content of the package is confirmed, Sommerset runs over to the Mills. He sees that Mills will exact his revenge.  Before Mills can unload on Doe, Sommerset pulls his trigger & takes out Doe.

The Concept: The last piece of Doe’s symphony of sins is wrath. By Mills pulling the trigger, Doe completes his tortured composition. The film starts with Somerset. Seven is seen though his eyes and he is the conscience therein.  He takes issue with Mills for choosing to come to his dark & dilapidated precinct, full-knowing that Mills will become what he has become – apathetic and jaded.  He has seen evil.  He knows the only way to beat Doe is to break his deadly chain.  Sommerset knows Mills will pull the trigger & Doe will win.  Earlier in the film, Sommerset affirms his animus with his unnamed city & his reoccurraning exposure to the sins of man.    He is just days away from retirement, which makes his story as tragic as Mills.   He shoots Doe out of preservation to Mills, not for wrath; thus breaking Doe’s chain.  The film starts with Freeman’s Sommerset & ends with him.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

The movie: By now, we’ve all seen the Wachowski’s mind-bending Matrix Trilogy.  This seizure-inducing trio of films comes to a conclusion with The Matrix Revolutions. In TMR, the Zion military forces battle to hold back the Sentinels.  The Machine army bores into the Zion stronghold, as Neo sets out on a one way trip to bring understanding and conclusion to the war.

The Ending (*spoiler*): Neo allows Smith to assimilate into him.  Neo’s body convulses and acts as a conduit for energy that enters his body. Thus, destroying the Smith clones and restoring The Matrix. The Sentinels vacate the Zion stronghold.  The lifeless Neo is unplugged from the Matrix and his body is carried away by the Machines.

The Un-director’s cut: Once Neo’s body surges through the system, his EKG flat lines; this image is juxtaposed with a flat lining EKG in a modern hospital.  A doctor in a white lab coat (played by Hugo Weaving, aka, Mr. Smith), administers shock paddles to Keanu’s character.  These images flash back and forth from the Matrix world and the real world.  The patient’s name, Thomas Anderson, is written over the hospital bed at a Neurology I.C.U. unit. Anderson is a patient, being brought back from a comatose state. The camera pans down the I.C.U. wing to other comatose patients, including that of Morpheus, Trinity, and others that endure in the Matrix realm. All are coma patients.  All are collected by wiring that run to computers.  Once Neo has energized in the Matrix, all of the patients start to awaken from their comas; all except Anderson. A tattoo can be seen on one of the nurses that is bearing witness to this — a tattoo of a white rabbit.

The Concept: The concept of the Matrix has always been an internal war between man and machine.  Despite the opposing combatants, a central concept of the Matrix universe is the interdependence of man & machine.  They are electronically hooked into the Matrix; much like a patient is reliant on medical machines during incapacitating medical conditions. The human brain has oft been compared to a computer.  What if the human brain – which has been shown to exhibit levels of neural activity while in a comatose state of being – interacted on a different plane of existence?  What if such a state of being connects one person to another in a similar state?  This would exhibit this idea of man/machine connectivity and the battle to overcome the machines that keep us “alive.”  Radical concept, I know.  But so is the film.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)

The movie: Blade Runner is one of the most revered science fiction/cult endeavors ever put to screen. Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner is a visually-hypnotic futuristic film noir centered around Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) , a retired detective pressed back into duty to track down and extinguish synthetic genetic beings, known as “replicants”, that have taken over a shuttle and returned to Earth.

The Ending (*spoiler*): Deckard tracks down Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), the leader of the Replicants.  Deckard plays witness to Batty’s dominating physical gifts and tries to flee for his life. In trying to leap from one rain-soaked rooftop to another, Deckard hangs from a rooftop plank, destined to drop off. Batty launches out his hand and grabs Deckard from certain death.  Batty explains to a stupefied Deckard:  “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… Time to die”. With that Batty expires. Deckard goes back to his apartment to find Rachel (Sean Young) alone. While he whisks her away, he finds a paper unicorn on the ground, suggesting Gaff was there and was offering insight into Deckard’s being.

The Un-director’s cut: Deckard watches Batty expire. He notices something in his hand. Upon further inspection, Batty was holding a paper origami dove.  He realizes Gaff (Edward James Olmos) has been playing both sides.   He rushes home to find Gaff’s spinner docked.  As the elevator reaches his floor, he hears the sound of a gun shot. He goes inside to find Rachel holding a smoking gun; Gaff on the ground dead.  He looks down at Gaff’s body.  He notices pictures in his pocket and a carving of a dove on the butt of his cane.  He rushes Rachel out of the apartment.

The Concept: Ridley Scott has maintained that Deckard himself is a replicant.  He has left clues to that assertion in subsequent versions (i.e., the unicorn dream sequence coupled with the origami unicorn left by Gaff).  However, such a twist spits in the face of one of the most powerful concepts of the film – the frailty of life.  Deckard’s lot in life was to hunt down the non-humans and “retire” them. Only in the end, when Batty saves his life and expounds on this concept, does Deckard realize that life, in any form, is precious.   It diminishes this concept if he, too, is a non-human.  Gaff is one of those strange characters that show up in times and places that suggest he has a greater understanding of a bigger picture. Gaff speaks a mixed language that may suggest he has been off-world.  This cut suggests that Gaff is bent on retiring the advanced Nexus-6 replicant for his own motives.  This ending would provide an added layer to Gaff’s statement to Deckard, “To bad she won’t live; but then again who does?”

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