How That Should Have Ended

Copperfox

Copperfox

Well-known member
ON YOUTUBE, one can often see a humor series, "How It Should Have Ended." For instance, "Thor: Ragnarok" really should have ended with Doctor Strange bringing huge reinforcements (including Beta Ray Bill, half a dozen Green Lanterns, and all available X-Men) to slaughter Hela before she could have destroyed Asgard.

I shall NOW give this treatment to the "Bram Stoker's Dracula" movie which starred Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder.


''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

The descending sun approaches the horizon. The wagon carrying Mina, Dracula's coffin and the vampire's Gypsy servants is drawn by horses who are ensorcelled not to fear their master-- will soon reach hill country where pursuers might be shaken off.

Dracula is not strictly immune to the sun, but he is weaker and more vulnerable in its light. Far behind the wagon, wolves-- controlled by Dracula's will but themselves enjoying no magical invulnerability-- have spooked the heroes' horses. Doctor Van Helsing and company quickly mowed the wolves down with rifle fire, but now are scrambling to calm their steeds.

This is the hero-moment for Quincy Morris. Quincy earlier failed to win the heart of Lucy Westenra, who had preferred Arthur Holmwood. Lucy had been vampirized, but putting a stake through her physical heart had freed her soul to enter Heaven. Rescuing the still-breathing Mina, and avenging Lucy, is more than enough of a boost.

He quickly inventories his weapons load: lever-action Winchester, Colt revolver, two-shot Derringer, and Bowie knife. Van Helsing previously advised Quincy that it doesn't strictly have to be WOOD which penetrates a vampire's heart.

Catching and soothing the nearest mount, Quincy hastily tells the others, "That Count feller don't understand about Texans and horses." Mounting, he calls over his shoulder, "Follow me soon as y'all can!"

HERE'S WHERE THE HERO-MUSIC BEGINS. We hear the chase theme from "The Man From Snowy River." Quincy fires and levers his rifle without wasting a bullet. Every shot fells a wolf, and hurling the empty rifle knocks another off its feet. Not missing a beat, he draws the six-gun left-handed. By the time the revolver is also emptied, the surviving wolves are growing discouraged.

Mina regains enough free will to seize the wagon's reins and uncouple the harness yoke. Then she pushes one Gypsy off the wagon, before the other knocks her unconscious. An instant later, the still-standing minion dies by the first shot of Quincy's Derringer. The Texan climbs to the wagon bed and begins prying loose the coffin lid. It loosens, and Quincy pulls the lid aside, starting to position his knife tip over the Count's chest. But just before he can stab, the remaining Gypsy thrusts a dagger into Quincy's right side. He falls to the ground hard. Mina, however, scoops up the fallen Derringer and shoots that remaining bad guy.

For one moment, Mina feels the Count's mind trying to reassert his waning control over her. The coffin lid begins to open; but the bleeding Texan struggles back up to the side of the coffin.

>>>> Around this point, we begin to hear the climax music from "Return of the Jedi": the music where Palpatine is electrocuting Luke, but Darth Vader's humanity returns and he saves Luke.

With sunlight subsiding into afterglow, Dracula ALMOST gets clear; but the triumph vanishes from his face when Quincy pushes a cross into his face.No nonsense in this story about vampires being immune to holy objects. "No, you DON'T," our hero snarls. "The only place you're going from here is to Hell!"

Clinging to outward self-confidence, Dracula scoffs, "Then where are YOU going? And why should you sacrifice yourself? For Lucy, who rejected you? For Van Helsing, who used you? For your friends, who will soon forget you? You need only permit me to taste your blood before you die, and you will become immortal. There is plenty of room for two master vampires in the world; you can rule the Americas, once we secure transportation for you."

Dracula tries to catch Quincy's wrist, so he can divert the cross without touching it. But he's too late. Mina retrieves the Bowie knife and positions it.

"Monster, did you REALLY think I would ever willingly prefer you over my husband? Your arrogance has defeated you!" She then forces the Bowie knife all the way in.

Skin beginning to dry up almost imperceptibly, the undead lord strains to cling to his twisted life. But Abraham van Helsing joins Mina, and empties a vial of holy water onto the vile Count's face. Not granted the last word, Dracula crumbles away, while Van Helsing tries vainly to stop the Texan hero's bleeding. Quincy pats Van Helsing's wrist in gratitude for the attempt, then addresses the others.

"We all did well, friends. Arthur, looks like I'll get to see Lucy before you do.... She won't be jealous of you finding another lady.... We'll both be lookin' down, wishing the best-- the best for y'all..... And in any, any future hard times, remember.... that evil IS NEVER unbeatable...."

Van Helsing solemnly closes the saintly cowboy's eyes, as the happy- ending music from the "Snowy River" movie builds up.

Quincy finds himself mounting a winged horse, which soars / gallops up into a joyfully gleaming sky. Angels right and left salute him with flaming swords. Gliding down to meet him, Lucy sits on the heavenly steed's neck, facing the valiant rider whose final mortal thought had been of her.

Before passing golden arms around Quincy's neck, she playfully opens her mouth and points to it. "See there, Quincy? NO FANGS!" After kissing him long and soundly, she adds more solemnly: "God is not so petty as to say we're not allowed ever to love anyone BESIDES Himself. And we have all eternity to share joy SO great that we'll never get tired of it!"

They continue upward as the light embraces their embrace. Amid boundless joys to come, eternity will afford them occasional moments to laugh at the absurd concept that vampires could be sexy and charming.


\\\\ THE END ////
 
Last edited:
That wouldn't by any chance have anything to do with the land of Pennsylvania, where mosquitoes come out at night to suck the blood of the living?? ;-)
 
NO, ACTUALLY. THE CLOSEST MY WRITING COMES TO THAT IS THE FACT THAT MY NON-FANTASY "TRINITY MUSKETEERS" NOVELETTE INCLUDES A FEW SCENES TAKING PLACE IN PENNSYLVANIA.
 
Some things are super-extra-simple to remedy.

The whole "X-Files" arc could have been fixed IN ONE EPISODE. The super-extra-uber-invincible evil aliens were so over-powered, they should not have needed any secrecy to take over the world. But since the writers DID set up that no-win situation for Mulder and Scully, Mulder and Scully ought to have resorted to a screamingly- obvious countermeasure. Call up all the Earth-born mutants, vampires, werewolves, etc., TO DEFEAT THE ALIENS.

The John Wick series would be EVEN EASIER to salvage. Have some Frankenstein-ish scientist bring John back to life. Problem solved; now back to defeating villains.
 
EVEN the Sequel Travesty could be salvageable. Han Solo could still be dead, because he died honorably in an effort to redeem his son. Moving forward, The LEAST Jedi could be fixed as follows.....

Luke NEVER DID try to kill his nephew, only argued with him. While Kylo Ren is off being icky, Luke bides his time, pretending to have given up. When Rey comes to his island, Luke begins to teach her, but requires her to PRETEND OUTWARDLY that she found him despondent. She'll pretend outwardly that SHE'S trying to cure HIM.

Carrie Fisher is recast, so Leia can still be alive. When First Order soldiers and aircraft close in on Resistance holdouts. Luke turns up, just not as a Force ghost. He tells Kylo: "I tricked you by pretending to have given up on life. Now Lando's fleet is coming down, and your side is standing right on the target spot."

The good guys win the aerial battle, while Finn helps to beat the ground threat, WITHOUT the idiotic Rose Tico interfering. Poe Dameron fetches Leia to join the celebration..........

And thus EVEN "Rise of Skywalker" is now salvageable. With Luke and Leia alive, it never even crosses Rey's mind to steal the Skywalker name. Nor does anybody need to ride horses along the deck of a starship.

And with all of this made right, EVERYTHING ELSE in Star Wars can be corrected. Mandalorian stuff, and all the rest, CAN become worth watching.
 
Honestly, since folks were trying for the puerile solution of "restoring balance to the force," the worst fate that could befall them is to get their wish. To live in a perpetual tightrope walk between good things that might happen to you and bad things that might wipe them out any minute.
 
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY:

Almost _embarrassingly_ simple. Dump Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Allow the _adult_ Short Round to return and share another adventure with his father figure; the actor Ke Huy Quan had openly expressed interest in doing this. Then make logical, franchise-respecting alterations to the time- travel premise. Absolutely _don't_ let Indy be erased from history.

There, Kathleen Kennedy, I fixed it. You're welcome.
 
I seriously enjoyed Duane Johnson as Black Adam. This movie _would_ have gone on to generate sequels, if DC hadn't chosen a different direction. Mister Johnson and I would have liked Henry Cavill to reprise the role of Superman; but _even_ with David Corenswet in the part, what I'm going to suggest should still work.

We pick up in the post-credits scene, where Amanda Waller has made a harrumphing threat to have Black Adam slain if he leaves his new kingdom. I would estimate that Superman _plus_ The Flash (noting his depicted ability, through the Speed Force, to deliver damaging blows even to Darkseid) _plus_ Wonder Woman _plus_ two or three Green Lanterns, would be able to kill Black Adam, assuming they suspended the no-kill rule. Now for the "should have" punchline. Superman says the following:

"Amanda says that Kandaq is your prison, and leaving it is the trigger for you to be killed. But we can do a letter-of-the-law bypass. She never explicitly _said_ you couldn't fly straight up. You can survive in vacuum, right?"

Black Adam nods. "I wouldn't be much of a demigod if I couldn't."

"Good. I can get members of the Justice Society, _plus_ the Justice _League,_ to construct a long-term self-supporting environment on the Moon. We can transport your new wife and stepson, with Hawkman, Cyclone and Atom Smasher, to equip and furnish the facilities inside the shelter. When the World Assembly sees our progress, we can let public opinion build up in our favor. Heads of state will eventually get sick and tired of Amanda's blustering. Even folks like Harley Quinn will treat her as a pitiful joke."

Black Adam's bride and adoptive son appear from the fog. The bride hugs and kisses her Champion, while the boy high-fives Superman. The reconciliation unfolds so well that Black Adam's arc _doesn't_ have to be mutually exclusive with other DC productions. _One_ more bit: Black Adam goes looking for Atom Smasher, and tells him: "I apologize for telling you not to push it; we really _will_ make a great team. I'll even ask Hawkman to stop scolding you over details like your cowl. Cyclone can fix the side visibility, just like she made a cape for our boy."

Superman excuses himself to begin contacting fellow heroes. Atom Smasher asks Black Adam to be his best man when he marries Cyclone. In the meantime, Hawkman looks for Zatanna, hoping she can contrive to undo the destiny which requires the bride's brother to die of electric shock.
 
Last edited:
The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. She wakes up, everyone tells her it was a dream, but no, she insists, it's a "real truly live place and you were there and you were there...and you!" Only she throws back the cover to reveal that she's still wearing the ruby slippers.
 
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was a fun movie, especially where it says that Mister Lincoln faked his death so he could keep on slaying vampires. Just ONE correction, an extremely obvious one, would have remedied everything. Overlooking this should have been a painful facepalm for the writers.

During his antebellum anti-vampire campaign, our hero learned beyond question that silver weapons could easily slay vampires. He naively imagined that running for office would somehow diminish the power of the undead underground-- yet (gigantic script blunder here) he forgot to consider that the vampires HAD NOT ALL BEEN WIPED OUT. As one of the biggest plotline blunders in the history of plotline blunders, Lincoln failed to stockpile silver weapons for his troops. He could and should have issued silver bullets, silver bayonets, etc. before there even was any talk of secession.

Just like that, problem solved. It would have been a top-tier good-guys-win movie.
 
Voyage of the Dawn Treader should have ended with the entire cast coming out of character to apologize for changing the plot so radically.
 
.........................................................................................................................................................

HERE WE HAVE A CASE WHOSE REMEDY WOULD HAVE BEEN LAUGHABLY SIMPLE, YET THE CAUSES OF THE TROUBLE REQUIRE A DETAILED EXPLANATION. IT ALL INVOLVES THE LATE BRANDON LEE, AND HIS LOOK-ALIKE MARC DACASCOS. WE ARE CONSIDERING THE "CROW" FRANCHISE, WHICH ITSELF HAS MORE THAN ONE VERSION.

Around thirty years ago, Brandon Lee died by accident while filming "The Crow," but enough was completed that a double could fill in for Brandon / Eric Draven, with a little face-faking and voice-mimicking. In the end, the little girl was rescued, her mother was cured of drug addiction, villain "Top Dollar" got what he deserved, Eric had the chance to tell the honest cop "You saved me from failing," and then Eric was united with his murdered Shelley in the afterlife.

EVERYTHING was fixed, NO loose ends, No need for a sequel. But nope, Hollyweird lives by the slogan of the cultural vandal: "If it ain't broke, break it, and pretend that you improved it."

Since Eric Draven is the starting point, we step directly into the theatrical sequel.

Movie #2 accepts that Eric joined his true love Shelley in eternity, so there's no need to recast him. Thus we see SOME OTHER GUY being revived as an undead hero. This guy somehow knows to look for the little girl and her Mom. Here's where the script becomes contemptuous: Nyaah nyaah, fooled you, the mother DIDN'T recover from addiction; in fact she died! AND this further means that the girl has no mother after all!"

Movie #3 was as bad as the system could get without entirely discarding the goodness of Crow-beings. The THIRD separate Crow discarded EVEN Eric's refusal to kill innocent persons. When Eric #1 was shot at by cops, he merely retreated without retaliating in any way. But Crow #3, when mistaken for a crook, still could have merely trotted away from the officers who opened fire on him. Or, alternatively, he could have remained where he was and SAID that he wasn't a criminal. But nope: he was morally no better than Top Dollar. He shot the cops dead purely for the fun of it.


Here's where we rewind, retconning the extra Crows out of existence. NOW there's a BRANDON LEE recast, with Marc Dacascos finally stepping in as Eric and being a clear good guy. An insignificant location shift, from Detroit to the Seattle area, does no harm; but THE CONTENT AND THE MORAL THEME are distorted. Eric still is friends with an honest police detective, with a single mother (minus any addiction issue) and with her precocious daughter Here, then, you have "The Crow: Stairway To Heaven," but the Led Zeppelin song is not on the soundtrack.

Shelley remains dead and safely in Heaven; but NOT ONLY is Eric delayed from joining her, he has to prove worthy to be reunited with her. It's like passing through Purgatory, but EVEN THIS isn't enough to appease television writers who enjoy making likeable characters suffer, just because. Wait, there's STILL more: a breed of Anti-Crows is written in as adversaries, called Snakes.

Did you think that was all, folks? Ha ha, surprise: Eric is made to suffer a Jekyll-Hyde split, and his Hyde gets to keep all the invulnerability. Just when Shelley is allowed to descend into earthly life, she has to watch helplessly as Good Eric is trampled into the pavement. Bad Eric carries Shelley away in the best monster-kidnaps-the-heroine fashion....... and the series is cancelled on a sour note.

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for want of a nail, the horse was lost --etc.

All we ever needed, >ALL< we ever needed, was for Marc to step in as Brandon's character. But no: the same sickos who insisted on Luke Skywalker being a loser, just couldn't forgo the sick pleasure of ruining the Crow concept.
 
Last edited:
The Revenge of the Sith should have ended with Anakin Skywalker coming into contact with the personality side of the force and dying of shock.

He deserved it. After all her murdered Natalie Portman's career in cold blood.
 
Recall that, in my parody, Acne-Skin Skystomper NEVER DOES turn evil. Emperor Porkanbeen fails to corrupt him, and Acne-Skin dies slaying him. Because Acne-Skin dies as an uncorrupted hero, never joining the down-side, Poormee Armadillo never dies of grief. In turn, Only-One Kanoli never needs to sacrifice himself (on board the Deaf Star?) and is available to mentor Duke and Dana.
 
Here's one which comes neither from comicbooks, nor TV, nor movies. I saw it in a sci-fi magazine around sixty years back. Titled "The Cold Equations," this expresses the lifeboat mentality. Sometimes the needs of the many do in fact outweigh the needs of one; but the author of this short story, apparently an advocate of the some-are- expendable position, intentionally designed a lifeboat scenario to force the issue.

As is often speculated in science fiction, "The Cold Equations" reckons that a starship emerging from faster-than -light motion, and approaching the boundary of a solar system, needs to shed normal- space velocity, or else overshoot its goal by millions of miles, potentially losing the fuel reserve needed to enter parking orbit and land its passengers or cargo planetside. This creates the author's dilemma.

A solo pilot, beginning his in-system deceleration, discovers to his dismay that a teenage girl stowed away, hoping to visit her brother on the colony planet. But unknown to her, the planet has been hit by a virulent disease, for which no cure exists except the medications the pilot is carrying. To make matters worse, the colony's population is large enough that jettisoning a quantity of medicine approaching the girl's weight will doom thousands of people to death.

You may have heard the saying, "Hard cases make bad law." The author of "Cold Equations" uses a contrived hard case to make any sort of pro- lifers appear unreasonable. But in reality, this dilemma could be solved as easily as could the above- mentioned artificial problem with "The Crow."

Here's how my hero solves it:

The cargo-load problem needs him to subtract one body-weight in order to decelerate. The magazine author wanted us to agree that the girl needed to go out the airlock. Population control uber alles. But the hero, as I imagine him, never got the memo that some lives are inherently less worthy than others. He accordingly produces his own "Kobayashi Maru" solution. Hastily telling the girl that nobody has to be sacrificed, he collects a set of surgical equipment (which by itself wouldn't have come anywhere near the required load reduction), anesthetizes himself and her, severs both his legs and both of hers, hastily cauterizes the life- threatening amputations, and ejects all of this out the airlock. So the orbital delivery succeeds, nobody dies, the girl justifiably falls in love with our hero, and the girl's brother enthusiastically accepts him as a brother-in-law. Everybody happy, and screw you, Z.P.G. advocates.

If I had actually written a story to parody this, I would have titled it "A Not-So -Cold Equation."
 
Stories like this are always contrived beyond what would happen in real life. They don't stand up to critical examination. Even some of the more skillfully done ones have that loose bolt or missing nut in them. Take for example Star Trek. The Vulcans gave up emotion in order to save their violent race from extinction. They do everything exclusively by logic. Problem is, there is no logical way to establish the meaning of life, or that peace through peaceful life is anywhere near as sure as peaceful death. So the entire logical system is based on the emotional reaction that it would be a shame if the race went extinct. Imagine that...all of vulcan logic is based on "Gee whiz, it would be sad to let all this go to waste."
 
Perhaps you saw the episode of "Star Trek Enterprise" in which Captain Archer's crew happens upon a sapient race that seems to be at an evolutionary crossroads, with some of the natives proving their fitness to live by surviving a disease. Doctor Phlox, invoking the best interests of evolution, decided NOT to treat the "inferior" sapients. Is it possible to get any MORE cynical about eugenics?

Years ago, in one of my Spacebullies plot arcs using Star Trek elements, I described a woman doctor in the Andromeda Galaxy balking at this "cold equation." She went right ahead and produced a cure for the plague. Her intervention SAVED the species from extinction, because the "superior" individuals turned out to be sterile. It may jog readers' memory if I add that a descendant of this resolute woman ended up marrying Lodge "Captain Rightawrong" Flake.
 
The central theme to a lot of science fiction is that our emotional reactions of compassion and outrage are unenlightened. That in order to be open minded, we must accept that every culture has their truth and is moral when it is guided by it. The difference between my belief and that belief is that truth is not merely a collection of facts to me, it is a living coherency. Ultimately, I believe that God is the true and ultimate owner of everything, so "my" truth does not actually belong to me, neither does "your" truth. Absolute truth is a blessing bestowed upon us the way human rights were bestowed upon us.
 
Back
Top