8 Abandoned Plot Twists That Almost Ruined Famous Movies

Australian Cinephile

A drunken dinner with an apologetic Darth Vader? Say no more.    Spoilers are throughout this video, timestamps of when they appear are below:    0:58 / 1:39 - Groundhog Day  1:39 / 2:26 - Good Will Hunting  2:26 / 3:13 - Interstellar  3:13 / 4:06 - In Bruges  4:06 / 4:51 - Birdman  4:51 / 5:34 - Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back  5:34 / 6:26 - Alien  6:26 / 7:13 - Legend.  For more awesome content, check out: http://whatculture.com/  Follow us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/whatculture  Catch us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/whatculture

Transcript

00:00I am the first to say that Shyamalan is the Shyamaman, but even he can over-egg the crazy

00:09plot twists at the best of times. Whether it's revealing a whole village of people to be living

00:14old-timey in the woods, or that water can be utilised as killer alien juice, taking a sharp

00:19left turn in a movie can be the undoing of it, as these films quickly learned. Thankfully,

00:24however, these writers and directors realised just in time that, like a particularly visceral

00:29bout of food poisoning, a plot twist that takes you by surprise doesn't make it a good thing.

00:34More often than not, it just means they're full of shit.

00:37With that in mind, I'm Ash from WhatCulture, and these are eight abandoned plot twists that

00:41almost ruined famous movies.

00:448. Groundhog Day

00:46Rita awakens to find she's trapped in her own Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day ends happily with

00:51a time loop-trapped Phil finally breaking free and waking up next to Rita, the pair both well

00:56and truly in love, and Phil having finally learned to appreciate his existence. At least

01:00someone can.

01:01But that wasn't how things were originally supposed to end. Nope, originally, the script

01:05called for a horrific plot twist which would have cemented Groundhog Day as the ultimate

01:09troll movie, in which Rita, the endlessly kind, gentle, and intelligent female lead who did

01:13nothing wrong, wakes up and realises that it's her turn to spend an eternity learning

01:18to play piano and make ice sculptures. Maybe getting with Phil is the mistake she's never

01:22supposed to make? Who knows what they were thinking.

01:247. Good Will Hunting

01:26Chucky is crushed to death in a horrible construction accident. Good Will Hunting is generally regarded

01:31to be a pretty awesome movie, if you ignore all the boring bits, and that's partly thanks

01:35to Gus Van Sant's amicable direction. And yet, Gus Van Sant also very nearly ruined the movie

01:40with his meddling. That's to say, during the writing and development stages, the director

01:44insisted that, for absolutely no reason, Ben Affleck's character Chucky should end up getting

01:49killed in a freak and very unexpected accident at the construction site where he works. It

01:53would have been terrible, of course, because there is literally no reason for Chucky to

01:57die. Not only would such a death have distracted from the most important part of the story,

02:01which is developing genius Will's character and finding his purpose in life, but it would

02:05have added an unnecessarily schmaltzy layer that might have rendered the film way too sentimental.

02:10Not to mention just a bit depressing.

02:126. Interstellar

02:13The Chinese got there first

02:15In Interstellar, you'll remember that Cooper investigates planets because Earth is mega-dusty

02:20and gross. In the first draft of the movie in 2008, however, Jonathan Nolan decided a

02:25mid-film plot twist would have seen Cooper and his companions landing on a planet, only

02:28to find out that Chinese astronauts had already arrived 50 years earlier. Though all the Chinese

02:33astronauts have since been killed by radiation poisoning, it's then that Cooper discovers

02:38a secret underworld complete with a secure base that...wait for it...the surviving robots

02:43have built for humans to inhabit. It then turns out that the robots have been programmed to

02:47defend the base at all costs, so a large portion of the script is dedicated to Cooper fighting

02:52off landscaping robots in an attempt to escape. Wait, why was this pied off for the sake of

02:57a haunted bookshelf?

02:595. In Bruges

03:00Rey survives, then commits suicide

03:03In Bruges follows hitmen Rey and Ken hiding out, you guessed it, in Bruges. The reason for this

03:09is that Rey's feeling immensely guilty, having accidentally killed a little boy during

03:13a botched job. Ken reveals that he was instructed by their boss to kill Rey for his incompetence,

03:18but refuses. As a result, Ken is actually the one to eat a lead sandwich for disobeying

03:22orders, and Rey gets a hot load of bullets too. In the original script, the director included

03:27a further twist that saw Rey back in London recovering from his injuries. Love interest Chloe

03:31calls him up, only for Rey to tell her to hang up the phone for her own good. She asked why,

03:36to which Rey replies, I don't want you to hear the gunshot. Rey hangs up himself at this

03:41point, puts a pistol to his head, and cuts to black. Thankfully, McDonagh reconsidered

03:45and decided to stick with the more vague scene in which Rey bleeds to death in the square

03:49and really, really hopes that he doesn't die.

03:524. Birdman

03:54Is that Johnny Depp?

03:55Birdman is a great, weird movie, following an actor trying to reinvigorate his career with

04:00a stage play. The original plan was to have its ending drift back to the theatre that sees

04:04most of the action, back into the dressing room only to reveal Johnny Depp putting on

04:09a wig similar to the one Riggan war whilst on stage, surrounded by a bunch of Pirates

04:13of the Caribbean posters, only for him to say, in Jack Sparrow's voice mind you, what

04:17the f*** are we doing here mate? The point? Well, they wanted to imply an endless loop.

04:21Another actor made famous through playing the same character over and over again, attempting

04:25to make amends and gain some credibility through the act of theatre. This would have been a funny

04:30twist of course, but it would have also cheapened the film somewhat. Also, Disney didn't allow

04:35it. Killjoys.

04:363. Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back

04:39Darth Vader apologises unexpectedly over an awkward, drunken dinner. In the first draft

04:44of The Empire Strikes Back, the script calls for the ultimate twist, one more expected

04:49than Vader turning out to be Luke's dad. Yes, Vader sits down to a meal with Han, Leia and

04:54Chewie, sort of apologises to Leia for being a dick on the Death Star, whilst Han watches

04:58on and glugs down glasses of wine. It's probably a good thing that the script was rewritten

05:02to feature an antagonist who was actually scary, and not one that, you know, preferred to host

05:07dinner parties and make amends. After witnessing Darth Vader's cruelty in the original movie,

05:12it would have been super out of place to witness the sudden plot twist that saw him acting

05:16so casual. Anything for a scone though. Pass the tea, Darth.

05:202. Alien The alien bites Ripley's head off and imitates her voice

05:25One of the inherently great things about Alien, which is the tale of a spacecraft invaded by,

05:29you know, an alien, happens to be that it features a female lead who faces a mighty challenge and

05:34overcomes the odds, as well as the cool xenomorph stuff and killer robots and a space cat. But it

05:38very nearly destroyed Ripley's badass heroism with one foul swoop, killing her off for literally no

05:44reason at all. And not just killed though. The plan was for the alien to bite her head off in the

05:49escape to the shuttle and then, in the weirdest plot twist ever known to man, sit down in a chair

05:53and record a message on the log whilst imitating her voice perfectly. Which is... unfortunate,

05:58I guess? This ability actually wouldn't have been mentioned beforehand also. Shock factor intended.

06:04It was supposed to be crazy and completely out of nowhere. A plot twist nobody could have ever seen

06:09coming. Well, that's one thing they got right.

06:121. Legend It was all a dream

06:15There is arguably no worse of a plot twist than it was all a dream. Not only does this type of ending

06:20cement a film as entirely pointless, it almost never ever enhances the story. The normal version of

06:26fantasy extravaganza legend culminates with Tom Cruise recovering a ring and using it to revive the

06:31princess after she's knocked out by darkness. And the two go off into the sunset and it's happily ever

06:36after. An unused ending however, one which was actually filmed, throws in the most arbitrary plot twist

06:41imaginable. It was all a dream. Scott shot this ending, which was the lovers going their separate

06:47ways, complete with implied wake up sequence for Jack. What really would have been the point in that?

06:52Now viewers, you can open your eyes as this video was actually all in your mind. It was a dream all along!

07:11you

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