Has the ending of a story ever been rewritten due to a negative fan reaction?

[Crazytreeman]

Plague Dogs.
Little Shop of Horrors.

 

[Pist0l 07]

"Broken steel" for fallout 3 wasnt so much a new ending, just allowed you to come back to life from your radiation overdose so you could keep playing after you completed the game. Kind of made your sacrifice pointless. But it was still annoying as you may not have saved before starting that mission and thus had to start the game from scratch.

Not to go too off topic, but your sacrifice in the vanilla fallout 3 was pretty much pointless and unnecessary, which is why many of the people were upset with it to begin with.

 

[MasterOfHisOwnDomain]

The ending of King Lear was altered because it was thought to be too much for contemporary audiences of the day. The happy ending version was performed for well over a hundred years afterward because people couldn't face the message of the original.

It's called 'The History of King Lear' and it's by Nahum Tate; more accurate to call it an adaptation. The changes also came about as a result of the political climate in which Tate was altering Lear (the Restoration).

A famous example might be that of Dickens' "Great Expectations"; the original ending was far darker and less hopeful, but on the advice of a friend Edward Bulwer Lytton, Dickens opted for a different ending.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

Neon Genesis Evangelion


THAT IS FUCKING ALL
(also Fallout 3)

 

[Urgh76]

Spoiler: This

upset so many people they had to retcon it. Closest I can think of.

The only other changes like that would be re-released Star Wars and stuff, in which they changed it solely to provoke negative reactions from fans.

This wasn't the original ending?

Or were the fans just upset that they've had their hearts wrenched from their bodies and tossed across the street; and tried to have it changed?

 

[Lionsfan]

Well, I know it happens in movies in post production all the time. Someone above mentioned I am Legend. And he's right. Remember the ending? Will Smith saves the woman and girl, gives them the cure, and kills himself and the attacking horde. In the original ending, it is revealed that the "horde" was just out to save the one he had capture. And in fact, he was their boogie-man and walking nightmare.

One should also mention that "they" are mutants and monsters. And he's the last human being. He's more of an anti-hero tbh :3

Hold on, if Will Smith is the last human (or at the least, one of the last), then he's the monster. I mean think of it this way: A sentient society is living on it's own while a cruel demon, the last of his race, murders every person he finds and kidnaps people as well. Because for the Vampires, Will Smith was the Demon and the Monster while they were just living on their own

Problem is. That "society" hunted down and butchered all other humans alongside with the other abominations. So it's fairly self-inflicted.

I guess it really depends on what POV you look at it from, which I think is a better story than Will Smith blowing everything up

Spoiler: This

upset so many people they had to retcon it. Closest I can think of.

The only other changes like that would be re-released Star Wars and stuff, in which they changed it solely to provoke negative reactions from fans.

This wasn't the original ending?

Or were the fans just upset that they've had their hearts wrenched from their bodies and tossed across the street; and tried to have it changed?

No that was the original TV ending, it got changed to a slightly happier thing in the movies

Spoiler: Specifically

In Benders Big Score, when one version of Fry goes back in time he spends 12 years starting from the year 2000 living in the upstairs apartment where Seymour was waiting outside, and presumably spending time with him. And when he went on his voyage to find the Narwhal, he had Mr. P-something (forgot his boss' name) watch over Seymour. When Bender blew up the apartment, it flash froze Seymour[footnote]Does anybody think the writers planned all that from the beginning? After all in Jurassic Bark the Professor mentions Seymour being flash froze or whatever, maybe it was all planned from the get-go[/footnote]

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Only once that I know of and that was Fallout 3 with the Broken Steel DLC.

In answer to your second question, no I'm not particularly fond of the idea. As much as I may hate a given ending I hate the idea of them arbitrarily changing it even more.

 

[Thoric485]

Well CDPR are fleshing out the last chapter of TW2 with additional content and redesigning some setpieces where the last dialogue takes place, so i guess that's close.

 

[Lionsfan]

Well, I know it happens in movies in post production all the time. Someone above mentioned I am Legend. And he's right. Remember the ending? Will Smith saves the woman and girl, gives them the cure, and kills himself and the attacking horde. In the original ending, it is revealed that the "horde" was just out to save the one he had capture. And in fact, he was their boogie-man and walking nightmare.

One should also mention that "they" are mutants and monsters. And he's the last human being. He's more of an anti-hero tbh :3

Hold on, if Will Smith is the last human (or at the least, one of the last), then he's the monster. I mean think of it this way: A sentient society is living on it's own while a cruel demon, the last of his race, murders every person he finds and kidnaps people as well. Because for the Vampires, Will Smith was the Demon and the Monster while they were just living on their own

Problem is. That "society" hunted down and butchered all other humans alongside with the other abominations. So it's fairly self-inflicted.

I guess it really depends on what POV you look at it from, which I think is a better story than Will Smith blowing everything up

Yeah they should've made it closer to the books. But im quite happy with the way it turned out anyways. Will Smith did a crazy good acting performance in that movie and some of the scenes were heartbreaking to say the least. Ive never cried watching a movie. But the dogpart had me as close to tears as ive ever been.

Dogs in movies always suck. Cause 95% of the time, said dog will die in the movie, and man is that depressing. Strange how everyones allergies always kick up when that happens, or how it suddenly becomes very dusty

 

[Ifrit7th]

Well, I know it happens in movies in post production all the time. Someone above mentioned I am Legend. And he's right. Remember the ending? Will Smith saves the woman and girl, gives them the cure, and kills himself and the attacking horde. In the original ending, it is revealed that the "horde" was just out to save the one he had capture. And in fact, he was their boogie-man and walking nightmare.

One should also mention that "they" are mutants and monsters. And he's the last human being. He's more of an anti-hero tbh :3

Hold on, if Will Smith is the last human (or at the least, one of the last), then he's the monster. I mean think of it this way: A sentient society is living on it's own while a cruel demon, the last of his race, murders every person he finds and kidnaps people as well. Because for the Vampires, Will Smith was the Demon and the Monster while they were just living on their own

As I recall, that was the exact point of the original 'I am Legend', and why the former ending would have been much better.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Well, I know it happens in movies in post production all the time. Someone above mentioned I am Legend. And he's right. Remember the ending? Will Smith saves the woman and girl, gives them the cure, and kills himself and the attacking horde. In the original ending, it is revealed that the "horde" was just out to save the one he had capture. And in fact, he was their boogie-man and walking nightmare.

One should also mention that "they" are mutants and monsters. And he's the last human being. He's more of an anti-hero tbh :3

Hold on, if Will Smith is the last human (or at the least, one of the last), then he's the monster. I mean think of it this way: A sentient society is living on it's own while a cruel demon, the last of his race, murders every person he finds and kidnaps people as well. Because for the Vampires, Will Smith was the Demon and the Monster while they were just living on their own

As I recall, that was the exact point of the original 'I am Legend', and why the former ending would have been much better.

My understanding was that the vampires had changed since the days when they wiped out society.

 

[Asita]

Well, there's a short list right here.

The movie I Am Legend.....fans hated the original ending from the book and they re filmed a new dumb ending that went against what the whole book was about.

The original script's ending wasn't in the book either. The book itself had a deutagonist who was infected but maintained her mental abilities (indeed, the protagonist originally thought she was uninfected until he took a blood sample), as did a subset of the infected population, distinct from their feral counterparts. The movie lacks this distinction entirely and instead opts for a "the infected in general have developed a feral intelligence like wolves now" in the original ending, which similarly missed the 'reveal' of the book that the protagonist had become the new society's boogey-man, as the infected in the film had presented themselves up to that point in much the same way the wolves in The Grey did. Truthfully, The Omega Man did a lot better at presenting the book's themes than either version of I Am Legend did.

 

[Seanfall]

An argument I'm hearing alot against changing the ending is that it's 'art'. I'm sorry but I must have missed the memo about Games suddenly being known as art to every gamer. Or the one where the meaning of art was changed to mean: big steaming pile of Bullshit.

Games are not art. Because as far as I know no other form of art is interactive.

 

[Eumbner]

The 90's TV series La Femme Nikita ended it's fourth season with a finale that was almost universally hated by fans. There was such an uproar with the amount of e-mails and direct letters that the USA network called in the entire production crew for an 8 episode fifth season to fix the hated ending.

There's plenty of precedent for fixing a hated ending.

 

[twistedmic]

From what I've read online, Dragon Ball Z was changed due to fan complaints. Originally Goku (the main character from Dragon Ball) was supposed to stay dead when he was killed at the end of the first 'saga' and the rest of the series was going to focus more on Gohan (Goku's son), but there was so much outcry that the writer caved and brought Goku back.

 

[StylinBones]

Snakes on a Plane went back and added Sam's famous line because of the internet.

 

[FateOrFatality]

Well, I know it happens in movies in post production all the time. Someone above mentioned I am Legend. And he's right. Remember the ending? Will Smith saves the woman and girl, gives them the cure, and kills himself and the attacking horde. In the original ending, it is revealed that the "horde" was just out to save the one he had capture. And in fact, he was their boogie-man and walking nightmare.

I didn't know about this, but that is a lot closer to the ending of the book the movie is based on. I honestly would have preferred the ending you described.

 

[MetalMagpie]

The good decisions you made at the completion of the work are always better than that "moment of clarity" you get later on in your life.

I'm not so sure. There's a reason many novel writers advise new writers to "put the manuscript in a draw for three months" after they've finished it. Distance often helps a writer to see what they actually wrote, rather than what they vaguely intended to write.

X-men: First Class retconned the series so Final Stand and Wolverine couldn't have occurred within the same continuity. I think Movie Bob probably said that, I wouldn't have figured it out on my own and can't remember the details, but I'm glad they did.

I think the main details are that:
a) There is a mutant called Angel in both X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Last Stand. (Which irritated me a little because the Angel in First Class was just crying out to be called Dragonfly. C'mon, she has insectoid wings and spits fire!)
b) (spoilers for the ending of X-Men: first Class)

Spoiler

In X-Men Origins: Wolverine Professor X is played by a bald (but digitally made more youthful) Patrick Stewart and is shown walking. In X-Men: First Class, Professor X loses his ability to walk while he still has a full head of hair.

But yes, I'm also very happy to consider X-Men, X-Men 2 and First Class to be a cannon set. We can just leave out the other two.