Movies you feel you could have saved by with slight altering.

MOVIES YOU FEEL YOU COULD HAVE SAVED WITH SLIGHT ALTERING. What changes would you make to movies that you feel would improve the movie a lot?

Just wanted to see what people had to say.

SPOILER ALERT

For me the end of Superman where he spins the world in reverse to rewind time.

Replace Shelley Duvall with a normal actress in The Shining.

At the end of Shutter Island the audience should have still been unsure of whether he was just being tricked by the doctors or if he was really crazy to leave it more ambiguous

Harvey Dent should have not died at the end of the Dark Knight. The movie would have ended on a more natural note if they revealed his face at the very end, and Harvey Dent would have some time to turn crazy for the next movie.

Han Solo should have died in honorably in Episode 6. And take out the Ewoks.

I could probably think of a bunch of others but name any interesting ones you have.

As much as I love the new Star Trek movie, I would take out all of those blinding camera glares.

NEEDS EDITING.

NEEDS EDITING.

A.I. – End the film underwater staring at the Blue Fairy for eternity.

I always thought TWINS could have been saved if all the other characters REALLY COULDN’T TELL Danny Devito & Arnold Schwazzenager apart…as it is, that movie is nearly laughless

What I would do to the new Star Trek movie was make Kirk’s tactical decision making process a little more like what it is in the series. More misdirection, less just kind of jumping in randomly and starting shooting.

Speaking of writing Kirk wrong, Generations.

American History X: The older brother dies

A Streetcar Named Desire: The ending of the play

Minority Report: The guy kills Anderton to prove the system right, instead of totally scrapping the system they decide to hold actual trials for people who were supposedly going to murder someone.

I’d let Taste of Cherry end with Mr Badi gazing into infinity, waiting for the end

These are classics and don’t need “saving,” but there are isolated moments that took me out of the films.

The Searchers – Remove the Indian wife comic relief
Straw Dogs – She doesn’t start to enjoy getting raped by her ex.
Schindler’s List – Remove Neeson’s histrionics near the end (play the same emotions silent)

EMPIRE OF THE SUN — get a director better suited to bring J.G. Ballard’s harrowing vision to the screen without turning it into a tearjerker.

MINORITY REPORT — get a director better suited to bring Philip K. Dick’s comic edginess to the screen without tacking on a Restoration Of The Family happy ending.

HUGO — hire a capable child actor instead of Asa Butterworth, scrap the foolishness with Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour.

Too major?

@Brad S. – I like the Indian wife sequence. The most problematic moment of The Searchers is that Ford undercuts the reunification of Debbie and Ethan with Ward Bond getting an arrow pulled out of his ass. For whatever reason, Ford couldn’t just let the moment sit for a little while before the comic relief.

minority report recut to make it clear that the ending is a dream sequence ;)

The Ascent- Still a fantastic film, but it should have ended immediately after “that” scene instead of dragging on with that over guy acting all horrified for a while.

Slumdog Millionaire- Still would have been shit, but dear god they shouldn’t have put in that bollywood dance scene. Ehk.

Intolerable Cruelty- Rethink the whole second half and it may have been a decent film.

1900- Get rid of that god-awful in your face pro-communism ending.

@Brad S., I also like the Indian wife sequence. I would say that the Searchers wouldn’t need to be changed in the slightest, it’s pretty damn perfect.

I’m not sure I like the dream sequence theory that much better than the ending we got. It’s a little more interesting than the one we got, but it’s still a copout ending.

What it really needed was just something that acknowledged the moral complexities of the question raised. Something way darker.

Fire Walk With Me: Original Donna actress

124 Hours: Less special effects

I think that this thread should be limited to EDITING only.

lol this is controversial but i would edit away around 30 minutes or so of Pulp Fiction; it would start just after Wallace and Coolidge’s ‘conversation’ and end just before the prelude to “The Gold Watch”. Despite brief moments of entertainment in those scenes with Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace’s, they are unnecessary to the rest of the film. I know that their is off course that iconic dance scene, however unless you’re a hardcore Saturday Night Fever fan, it’s not so special. It also means that this rather shallow yet (at times) immensely entertaining pulp film is streamlined to 120 minutes. By making this edit, you are then keeping that ambiguity and fascination with Mia and are removing the overwrought and unfunny overdose sequence.

Could have been amazing…

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Remove the Hurricane Katrina framing device.

AI – I actually like the ending that everyone complains about. What I don’t like is some of the awful acting in the beginning and random scenes throughout that I can’t recall that make me gag. Every time I give this film another chance I’m left so frustrated at the difference in quality scene to scene. There’s a masterpiece in there somewhere.

Up – Commit to being something better. There are moments of such humanity in this movie… but then it devolves into a normal kids movie. I get they had a target audience and I appreciate at least some amount of depth, but it left me wanting so much more.

Could have been better…

The Kids Are All Right – Do not have Ruffallo and Moore’s characters have an affair. It was a cheap attempt at drama. The idea that Moore’s character just befriends Ruffallo and that bothers Bening who does not like this new force in her family is so much subtler and more interesting. And Ruffallo is just abandoned at the end which is lazy and unfair writing.

Crazy, Stupid, Love – It could have been such a good romantic comedy if the kid storylines were removed. They make no sense, are poorly done, and sink the movie.

I don’t know, was the Hurricane Katrina part really what ruined Benjamin Button? Even as someone who marginally enjoyed the movie, it was a complete mess.

I would change Madagascar by having all the lion actually eat everyone. At least that would ensure there would never be any sequels.

I would’ve changed a lot of things about two film adaptations of two of my favorite American novels.

Brian De Palma’s 2006 adaptation of James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia and Michael Winterbottom’s 2010 adaptation of Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me. While there is a lot of differences I’d make in my fantasy adaptations, I’ll only remark on the more crucial elements.

CASTING

I thought Aaron Eckhart was well casted as Lee Blanchard, though terribly underplayed compared to the role in the book. Though he would have probably been too old for it in 2006, I thought a young Jean-Marc Barr (circa 1991 in Europa naturally) would’ve been a prime choice for Bucky Bleichert had it been adapted earlier in the 1990s. Also, I think it would’ve been best had Scarlett Johanssen and Hilary Swank had been switched in their respective roles of Kay and Madeleine. Better yet, I keep wondering what the black-and-white David Fincher version would’ve been like…

When reading Thompson’s great novel, I kept envisioning Lou Ford as a Mitchum-esque type of guy, rather than the eventual Casey Affleck, soft spoken young man that Winterbottom made of him – though I have to give credit to Casey Affleck for really bringing to life the essence of Lou Ford’s character. Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson were not bad in their roles, but again I envisioned them much differently in the novel, as well as Simon Baker’s character (would you believe I had a cross between of Gregory Peck and Russell Crowe in imagination?). Bill Pullman was a nice surprise – though the small role in the book seemed to make the guy out to be more of a Danny Devito type – and perhaps his character was really the best depicted in my opinion.

ENDINGS (SPOILER WARNING)

There are many things about De Palma’s version of The Black Dahlia that just piss me off too much to really get into talking about at this time of night, so I’ll sum it up in saying that whoever’s decision (be it De Palma’s or the screenwriter’s) it was to have Bucky kill Madeleine at the end seemed very much a cheap stab at closure for the flailing film’s sake. And the ridiculous shot of the Short corpse at the end out on the pavement just really made it clear giving De Palma directorial helm over this story was totally inappropriate.

Though depicted accurately to the novel’s description (not saying that detail for detail accuracy necessarily ensures a better film, it depends on where you go with the adaptation), the ending where Ford’s house bursts into flames could have been done far better, though it may have been due to budget perhaps why it wasn’t. The digitized fire imposed upon the house exterior really makes it seem faked and deflates what gravity the filmed could’ve had in comparison to the book’s ending. What’s worse is that they play that damn song at the end, and really make it feel like some travesty!

@ ROSCOE

“Too major?”

Not at all. :) Though I haven’t seen Hugo…

@ROSCOE In Hugo I also had a huge problem that much of the plot revolved around uncovering the mystery of George Melies’ past. When Hugo inquires, Melies wife tells him that his heart couldn’t handle such a sad story. Apparently a young boy losing both of his parents and his crazy asshole uncle, then being forced to live in a giant clock and steal table scraps from Borat isn’t as sad as an old man who stopped making movies. There is nothing sad about that, unless it was Scorsese who stopped making movies.

@JIRIN I agree with you that the dream sequence ending doesn’t work too well. The main reason is that it ruins the fact that Agatha saw the future and caused every event to happen to debunk the future murder system so she could be free. Maybe they should have made that slightly more clear.

As a slight tweak to Star Trek I think that whatever Bones injected into Kirk should have temporarily made his speech pattern like William Shatner.

Also take out the romance in V for Vendetta. Not every movie needs romance.

@Drew – I’m with you on Button and Up; though I think both films would need more than minor editing to improve, especially in the case of Up (which I still really enjoy), but does, like you say, devolve into just a kiddie adventure movie with flying dogs and whatnot.

I think the dance scene is important to Pulp Fiction. What’s interesting about that scene is the pushing of implied limits with your homocidally violent boss’s wife, and the limits of her freedom when everybody knows who she is.

But, I would cut out most of the bar sequence in Inglorious Basterds.

@Drew

I agree the affair was stupid in Kids Are Alright. I mean, she’s a lesbian, and he reminded her of her children. But I don’t have an issue with abandoning him at the end. At least, I prefer that to some sudden cinematic change of heart. He tried to steal her family from her and get them to abandon her, and the kids picked up on that.

Battleship Potemkin: In the Odessa steps scene, cut out the baby carriage. The evil capitalist militia was hateable enough without beating us over the head with it.

Sophie’s Choice: Make the movie a minimum four hours long and add two key scenes from the book

1) The earlier flashback scene after the party where Nathan beats her mercilessly, and tries to commit mutual suicide with cyanide

2) Some of the precursor scenes in the concentration camp where Sophie is first trying to manipulate Hoess.

Also add back in the ambiguity about the son’s fate. Not knowing whether or not he was saved, and knowing if he was he wouldn’t even remember her, is far more torturous for her than knowing for a fact he’s dead.

A lot of the scenes in the movie weren’t as impactful as the scenes from the book because they left out all the precursor scenes that made them make more sense.

Shelly Duvall is one of the things that made The Shining so great!

Replace Shelley Duvall with a normal actress in The Shining.

Shame on you, Jake!

She was absolutely perfect for that movie – even better than Jack Nicholson! Her face here is just so perfect – the way she stretches and contorts her face throughout the whole movie is just amazing.

Re: Button

Just cut the whole movie. That should do the trick.

Re: Pulp Fiction

Jirin is right. You can geek out on the Saturday Night Fever aspect of the dance scene, or you can focus on the fact that there’s some very real sexual tension between Vince and Mia, and we know (and they know) that that tension is highly dangerous. That is what makes the scene compelling, not the movie reference. It’s also what makes the subsequent OD sequence compelling. Vince is supposed to be just taking her out for a nice night while the boss is away.

Perfume The Story of a Murderer – Cut out the 30 mins, just base the film on half the book.

Never Let Me Go
the last 2 minutes ruined it for me

Darjeeling Ltd
one or two less slo-mo brit rock bits might help

@Nathan: Re: Button — Just cut the whole movie. That should do the trick.

Works for me.

@DRUNKEN FATHER FIGURE OF OLD I have to admit Shelly Duvall does Jack’s descent into madness all the more believable! Who wouldn’t go insane while confined in a hotel for six months with Olive Oil? She is a good screamer though.

And I don’t think there was any scenes I would really want to cut from Pulp Fiction. I love the dance scene.

@BRIAN PADIAN Never Let Me Go was actually just way too predictable for me after The Island and House of the Scorpian. I feel they should have been slightly more subtle and surprising.

To add I just saw MiB 3 and growing up with the first one being one of my faves, I have to say I wish they weren’t so serious all the time. Speaking of time, the time travel made no sense (not that I care). And there was this ridiculous plot device: they knew an alien that saw time future, past and present and all possible outcomes but the idiot alien conveniently forgets shit and gets kidnapped and it just pissed me off. Also Will Smith steals a car in the 60’s and some cops pull him over and Smith just assumes it’s because he’s black even though the car was likely reported stolen. Just an example of how serious this movie took itself. It was still better than the second one anyways and I hope they make more.