20 Movie Endings You Can No Longer See

Every good story needs a good ending and if you trip up when bowing out you can be rest assured that people will remember that more than anything else you actually accomplished

As a result endings in film are stressed over, often changing between scripts and production, on set or after showing a group of people and asking them what do you think

Whatever the reason though the films we're talking about today have gone through changes that very few people can say they've seen both sides of

These movie endings you can no longer see. Book of Shadows Blair Witch 2

Whilst everyone remembers The Blair Witch Project as the film that popularised the found footage idea

one thing that remains unappreciated is the ambiguity of its ending. Whilst its sequel largely forewent the shaky camera of the original

director Joe Berlinger intended to keep a similar tone in Book of Shadows Blair Witch 2

After visiting the site of the original mysteries, a teenage group of ragtag Blair Witch fans find themselves accused of murdering a group of tourists

that they'd encountered on the way. The planned conclusion saw the main cast plead not guilty

but have found videotape shows otherwise, twisting the narrative that the film had shown us

and leaving the audience questioning the truth. Furthermore, the film was given a purposeful linear narrative

to give the story a descent into madness feeling. After Berlinger showed his film to the studio, however

it seems as though they went about changing just as much as they could muster. In order to make it more contemporary

they requested more violence in the final act and additional shots were filmed that sapped the intended ambiguity of the tourists' deaths

The studio also cut the film's final scene into pieces and interspersed it throughout the story

changing the film's linear descent into, well, a mess. Thankfully, hardcore Blair Witch fans have done the best they can

to restore Berlinger's vision to decent results, but hindsight editing can't help the film's critical admonishment

Will Dies, Rise of the Planet of the Apes Rise of the Planet of the Apes concludes memorably

with the ape leader Caesar bidding his human companion Will an emotional farewell and disappearing into the forest

but the originally filmed ending was considerably more dramatic, with Will attempting to protect Caesar from the owner of the primate shelter, John

and getting fatally shot as a result. This then led to the apes massacring the armed humans who pursued them into the forest

Yet, producer Dylan Clark felt that this scene was idiotic, even when it was being filmed

He said, We were shooting and I remember saying, You know what? This is just going to be a bummer

People are going to be like, It was a dumb scene is the truth. We had Brian Cox coming out of nowhere and shooting James Franco

The scene, dramatically, was idiotic. and worse, it just made you feel bad

It was just like, oh my God, this is the worst movie ever. And so, just a month before the film was due to release

the decision was made to reshoot the ending. And given how much disdain Clark clearly had for that original ending

it's sadly unlikely that it'll ever be screened outside of those who worked on it

The Twin Towers in Men in Black 2. The original Men in Black movie was loosely based on a comic book series called The Men in Black

That series changed ownership a bunch of times before eventually ending up in the hands of Marvel

The second Men in Black movie ends with the good guys launching an alien princess back into space via a giant UFO

and then neuralising the entirety of New York City with the Statue of Liberty

It definitely makes more sense once you've seen it. The film almost made use of another famous New York landmark

although one with a much darker history than Lady Liberty. The film's ending was originally set against the backdrop of the Twin Towers

towers but the events of 9-11 understandably changed that men in black 2 was actually still

filming when the towers fell and production was suspended whilst america dealt with the tragedy

again this probably didn't change things too much in the grand scheme of things but it's weird to

think that this film is linked to one of the biggest disasters of the 21st century dr strange

love dr strange love has one of cinema's most striking conclusions faced with the looming

reality of worldwide nuclear war, eccentric scientist Dr. Strangelove rises unexpectedly from his wheelchair with a plan to stop the destruction and explosions suddenly go off

around the world. Audiences were left with a sarcastic laugh of despair that no other film

in its era could achieve. It also has one of the industry's most discussed alternative endings that

is nearly too balmy to be believed. In the original script, the film continued with a pie fight in the

Pentagon's war room. This 1960s classic originally closed by parodying the war front with a battle

of cream and pastry. So close was this to being the case that not only was it shot, it was also

shown to test audiences that included critics. Director Kubrick felt that the final scene became

too farcical and worse yet his actors had lost focus in the fun of the pie throwing and had

actually started laughing on camera. The final nail came when a preview of the film was due to

land on the same day as the real-life assassination of John F. Kennedy. The line in the scene that

exclaimed, our gallant young president has been struck down in his prime, suddenly felt too close

to the bone. Thus Kubrick found the right point to cut the final scenes off of Strangelove and they

haven't ever been seen since. Jyn and Cassian run across Scarif's beach, Rogue One, a Star Wars story

Now it's no secret that Rogue One was massively overhauled during post-production with Disney

splashing out on five weeks worth of reshoots in order to fix major sequences in the movie

especially in its third act. As a result, numerous scenes from the trailers ended up not appearing in

the final film, including a thrilling-looking climax in which Jyn and Cassian sprint across

a Scarif beach whilst being fired upon by AT-ATs. Ultimately, director Gareth Edwards confirmed that

the ending was retooled primarily for pacing reasons Originally Jyn and Cassian had to run across the beach in order to reach the communications tower where they could transmit the Death Star plans to the rebels But to compress the finale the tower was moved into the Empire main base negating the need for the mad dash In Edward own words he said

in cutting the film, it just felt too long. We had to find ways to compress the third act

which was quite long as it was. And one real, fast, brutal solution was to put the tower in the base

so they don't have to run across the beach and do all of that stuff to get there. That became a

decision that eliminated the shots you see in the trailer of the backs of Cassian and Gin

While Edwards' rationale seems reasonable, it's a shame that the more elongated alternate

ending has never been shown outside of the Lucasfilm brain trust, because, let's face

it, it looked terrific. Ash's curse in The Crow, City of Angels

Sticking with tragedy, let's move on to The Crow, a film more famous for its backstory

than its plot. Actor Brandon Lee was shot and killed on the set of the movie

after a prop gun was incorrectly loaded. The accident sent shockwaves around the industry

and has tainted the film ever since. This is why when a sequel to The Crow was announced

people were a little bit sceptical. Still, Hollywood got a Hollywood and The Crow's City of Angels was made

Vincent Perez took on the titular superhero mantle, playing a resurrected version of Ash Corvin

The film ends with the vigilante mourning the loss of his new love interest before heading off into the afterlife to be reunited with her and his son

The original ending, as conceived by director Tim Pope, saw Ash curse to walk the earth forever

never to see his lover or his son ever again. This proved too bleak for the studio

who forced Pope to change it to a more hopeful one. More hopeful? The guy still dies at the end of it

Brazil. According to Universal, who was set to handle the US release of Terry Gilliam's Brazil

the reactions from international and European audiences to the dystopian black comedy were

unsatisfactory. Brazil's lead character Sam, who has spent the film struggling against a bureaucracy

that has pinned a string of terrorist attacks on him, ends the story thinking that he's evaded his

captors and avoided torture. However, it's all revealed to be an illusion in his head as he

stares, smiling madly into the middle distance and humming to himself. Studio head Sid Sheinberg

demanded that the film be given a happier ending, cutting around the story and reusing footage where

possible so that love interest Jill survives and Sam makes it out of the city to start a new life

But the egg landed firmly on the face of Universal when, having screened his version to critics in

secret, Gilliam's Brazil won a plethora of awards. It forced the studio's hand and they released it

in its original edited format. Ergo, the version of this film that you would struggle to see today

is the Sid Sheinberg cut. It did appear on a Criterion DVD and LaserDisc of all things

But with technology moving forward and not always so well preserved, it may be a matter of time before this version and its sappier ending goes from hard to find to totally lost

Ava's point of view reveal, Ex Machina. Alex Garland's terrific sci-fi thriller Ex Machina almost wrapped up with an even more provocative ending

In the final cut of the movie, android Ava escapes Nathan's secure facility

leaves poor Caleb trapped inside and rides a helicopter to civilization where she's able to effortlessly blend in

The original cut offered a slight tweak on this grim finale, though, by presenting greater insight into precisely how Ava views the world

When Ava speaks with the helicopter pilot before boarding, we briefly see the events from Ava's perspective

revealing that she interprets the pilot's words as nothing more than sounds and pulses

Basically, Ava wasn't approximating traditional human interaction nearly as close as Nathan and Caleb

and we, the audience, actually assumed Her interpretation of the world around her was totally abstract and unique

and whether that qualifies as consciousness or not is there for the viewer to decide

Garland has never confirmed why the ending was changed though Oscar Isaac theorized that maybe it just didn't work in the cut

Either way, it's clearly something that fans would love to see one day The Clones Attack in Judge Dredd

The original movie's plot revolves around Dredd's evil half-brother Rico and the army of clones he plans to use to take over Mega City 1

Brothers, what are they like? In the theatrical cut of the movie, the clones are shown waking up and that's it

They just sort of wither away and die, taking Rico's lab with them

It's a bit of an anti-climax, really. This might be because scenes were originally filmed of Dredd

blasting his way through the clones in a goo-filled rampage. However, Big Sly wanted the film to be more family friendly and so the violent sequence was cut

He wanted a Judge Dredd film to be more family friendly. Had he even read the comic books

The guy's name is literally Dredd. Misery. A difference between the Stephen King novel Misery and the 1990 Rob Rayner-directed movie adaption

became its most iconic moment. In the book, crazed superfan Annie tries to stop the escape of her captured favourite writer Paul Sheldon

by removing his foot with an axe. In order for Paul to come out of the motion picture version in a more triumphant way

Rayner and company decided it might be best for Annie to simply smash Paul's ankle in with a hammer

Seems like Paul can't catch a break either way. Almost certainly the smallest, most amusing, but keen-eyed change to ever come from a test audience preview

was the suggestion to reshoot the ending of Misery, where Paul, months later, is haunted by his experiences

Why? Because, and I quote, he needs to walk with a cane Paul was too healthy after his experiences and it was too much of a suspension of disbelief In all fairness it a good point but it makes you wonder how many people called this out because apparently it was enough of a pressing issue to fire up the production trucks again as the scene

was indeed reshot. It's presumably almost identical except this time Paul gets a walking stick to lean

on. The caneless ending of misery is not really something we particularly need and as such it's

something that has either been destroyed or locked away in a vault. Regardless it's a fun story and an

anomaly in an otherwise drama-free production. John Connor dies, becomes a Terminator. Terminator

Salvation. When Terminator Salvation director MCG was recently asked if there was anything he wished

he could have done differently with the movie, he offered up a simple response. I would have stuck

with the dark ending that we photographed that got cut. Now, MCG is referring to the film's

stunning original ending, which would have seen John Connor die after being mortally wounded in

the climax. But human-Terminator hybrid Marcus then volunteers to have John's skin fitted over

his own body, effectively allowing John Connor to live on as a mythic, hopeful figure for humanity

despite his actual death. The dramatic irony of Connor becoming a Terminator speaks for itself

Yet this ending ultimately received pushback from both test audiences and the studio

with the latter feeling it was way too dark. And so a new ending was shot in which Connor

survives his grim injuries after Marcus offers up his own heart for a transplant

making the ultimate sacrifice for the cause. Not a bad ending in of itself, but not nearly as interesting as what was originally planned

nor a scripted yet unfilmed version where the Terminator John Connor gets taken over by Skynet

and murders all the key members of the human resistance. Jane waits in Thor

After bonding with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, Chris Hemsworth's Thor is heartbroken

when he has to sever the connection between his world and hers. Unbeknownst to him, Jane waits for Thor on Earth

In fact, she almost did a whole lot more waiting. In a deleted ending, Jane and her colleagues Darcy and Dr. Eric Selvig devise a beacon to attract Thor's attention

There's also a mention of S.W.O.R.D. from Selvig, a branch of S.H.I.E.L.D. that wouldn't make its official MCU debut until WandaVision

If this scene had been included, it might have made audiences care just that little bit more about Thor and Jane's relationship

Still, considering Natalie Portman vanishes between Thor 2 and Thor 4, maybe it wasn't worth it

And no, the archival footage from Endgame does not count. Somewhere in Time

1980s romance fantasy flick Somewhere in Time is, by general consensus, a fine if not fairly middle-of-the-road film

It explores time travel as obtained by Hypnosis so that our lead character Richard Coulia, portrayed by Christopher Reeve

can meet his otherwise unobtainable girl of his dreams that he sees in an old photograph

Something else that appears to be unobtainable is the original cut of the film

Somewhere in Time ends with the death of its protagonist and through the point of view of the lens we see Cooley's spirit

finally reunited with the woman he loves. It's a fine ending but according to Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells

it was much better the way that he remembers it. Executing a technique that was rare in those days

Somewhere in Time originally ended with an extraordinary and extra long tracking shot

that led us through the halls of the hospital and into the arms of Cooley's love

very slowly and very deliberately. In the 1980s, with very little trickery available, the shot would have been incredibly hard to capture

According to the film's cinematographer Isidore Mankowski, Universal Studios thought that it was too long and trimmed it down to a few edits

fading parts of the shot together to get the point across quicker. And then? Well, it appears they threw the reel in the bin

since as far as Mankowski knows, the original version no longer exists

Kate finds the aliens, The Thing 2011. It's not much of a secret that 2011's The Thing prequel was significantly reworked during post-production

with the studio ultimately mandating that the extensive practical effects be effectively painted over with CGI

Smart move. Much of the third act was also reshot, with the director revealing that the film's original ending had protagonist Kate entering the alien's spacecraft

and discovering the bodies of the original alien pilots, which had been killed by The Thing

This ending would have implied that the aliens attempted to crash the ship in order to kill the Thing

which they had collected from another planet before it managed to escape confinement aboard their spacecraft

The Thing then assimilated one of the aliens in an attempt to fly the ship away from Earth

But ultimately, following test screenings, it was decided that this ending had got too much going on

and so it was ultimately reshot to remove the aliens entirely, replacing them instead with an animatronic pilot with a glowing hologram

Peter's grandfather in Guardians of the Galaxy. Now, there are plenty of unanswered questions in the MCU

Another query surrounds Peter Quill and his extended family. We see a big group of them gathered around Quill's mother's bedside

right at the start of Guardians of the Galaxy, presumably to take Peter in after his mother passes away

We all know that never happens. Instead, the young boy runs away, gets abducted by Ravagers

and becomes one of the universe's greatest heroes. But what about his family? What became of them

That question was nearly answered in the film's ending, according to director James Gunn

The man behind the Guardians explained that the film's original ending would have seen Peter's grandfather still waiting for him back on Earth

This was removed, however, as Gunn believed this ending would be too freaking sad

Well, yeah, of course it would. You really wanted to go straight from Ain No Mountain High Enough right into an old man waiting for his kidnapped grandson Dawn of the Dead After being held up in a shopping mall for months following the end of the world Dawn of the Dead surviving duo Peter and Fran find themselves in jeopardy as raiding bikers

cause their safe haven to become suddenly far less safe. With barriers and defences now down

hordes of zombies begin to pour up into the shopping mall's offices. They're once bunker and

now home under attack. The two race to the roof to get aboard their helicopter to make their

uncertain journey onwards. Whilst the version we've all seen ends ambiguously, the original

script was a lot darker and more definitive about things. According to

special effects guru Tom Savini, the suicide ending was indeed shot. George A

Romero spent some years denying this before admitting in a DVD commentary

that some work had been done on it. Evidence of it still exists in the film making this the only entry on a list that you still kind of see. Peter puts a gun

to his head for a moment and Fran's way out was to include deliberately decapitating herself on the helicopter's blades. A chilling callback to an

earlier scene with an unfortunate zombie. At the very least knowing that the a script called for Peter and Franz to commit suicide

makes the final scenes of Dawn make a lot more sense. Jean Grey battles a Skrull armada in space, Dark Phoenix

The final major movie in Fox's X-Men universe was put through the post-production Mangle

with a large portion of the third act ultimately being reshot. Now, originally, Dark Phoenix saw the X-Men battling the Skrulls

rather than the lesser-known Dabari, and the movie concluded with an epic space battle

in which Jean Grey reached her final Phoenix form before obliterating a Skrull armada

And as for antagonist Vuck, well, she would have faced off against Jean Grey, Cyclops, and Professor X in a more intimate fight set at the United Nations

However, this ending was scrapped in favor of a climactic set piece that takes place primarily on a bloody train

As for the original ending that was nixed, well, James McAvoy suggested it was because the filmmakers realized that it had excessive similarities to a recently released superhero movie

believed to be either Captain Marvel with its space-set final battle, or Captain America Civil War, which similarly had a more low-key fight

Even so, it sounds way more interesting than the relatively tepid ending that we got

Slattery explodes in Iron Man 3. It's safe to say that long-time Iron Man fans were less than thrilled

when legendary villain the Mandarin was revealed to be nothing more than a dingy British actor in Iron Man 3

The fact that the Mandarin, one of Iron Man's greatest ever foes, was reduced to a punchline upset a lot of people

They probably would have killed Slattery if they had the chance. Well, their wish almost came true

An unused ending would have seen Slattery accidentally inject himself with the extremist virus that gives Killian his powers in the movie

Except in this case, Trev doesn't get fantastical strength or the ability to breathe fire, he blows up

Slattery wasn't the best character in the world, but did he really deserve this

The roaches infiltrate humanity, Mimic. Now, Mimic is far from director Gilmo del Toro's finest work

though the production was marred by the constant meddling of producer Bob Weinstein

who felt that the film wasn't scary enough and even tried to get del Toro fired during shooting

Del Toro, for his part, called it one of the worst experiences of his life

Okay then, good. The director's original ending, though, was considered way more provocative than the one that was actually released

You see, Dr. Susan Tyler and Dr. Peter Mann still meet up at the Grand Central Station

but hear the sound of cockroaches around them, implying that the man-sized Judas Breed cockroaches have managed to successfully infiltrate humanity

But test audiences reportedly hated this ending, and so a new, happier ending was shot

which categorically saw the Judas Breed wiped out and humanity prevail. Though a grotty video clip of the original ending was posted online back in 2011

it sadly disappeared off the internet since, seemingly without a trace. Rogue doesn't take the cure in X-Men The Last Stand

The third installment in the original X-Men film trilogy, The Last Stand tries and fails to mush together

about four different huge storylines from the comics. The Dark Phoenix saga, the X-Men vs. the Brotherhood of Mutants

Xavier's death, it's all here, and it's all lost in the shuffle of a bogged-down, bloated movie

Another story that somehow found its way into the mix was the invention of a cure for mutation

This appeals particularly to Rogue, whose energy-draining powers prevent her from establishing any sort of physical relationship

In the actual ending to the film, it's revealed that Rogue took the cure to be with her boyfriend Iceman

The misogynistic undertones of a woman sacrificing something unique about her to be with a man are plain to see and could easily have been avoided

A scene was filmed where Rogue returned to the mansion with her powers still intact

This would have been a much more powerful ending, showing the young woman controlling her mutation rather than the other way round

Quicksilver lives in Avengers Age of Ultron. One of the biggest swerves in MCU history came at the end of Avengers Age of Ultron

Everyone and their dogs thought Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye was going to die

They'd spent the entire film trying to make him interesting, even giving him a secret family to really crank up that sadness factor when he eventually snuffed it

And yet he didn't. Instead, Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Quicksilver got axed instead, actually sacrificing himself to save Hawkeye

What a waste of time that was. Director Joss Whedon actually shot a version of the film's final battle where Quicksilver did not die

just in case Marvel didn't like his idea of killing him off. There also exists out there footage of him joining the Avengers in the final scene

fully suited and booted. However, none of this footage was ever used as Whedon got his way

Yet another example of Joss Whedon ruining somebody's life