5 Sci-Fi Movies That Almost Had Very Different Endings

A few of the best science fiction movies didn’t start out that way. A creative misstep here or there, and stories of distant futures, post-apocalyptic worlds, or galaxies far, far away could’ve ended up very differently, failing to stick the landing we’ve come to love them for. Keeping this in mind, we’ve rounded up an interesting batch of sci-fi movies that came very close to finding themselves on a different trajectory altogether. The kind that could’ve led to them not being the fan favorites or cult classics we know them to be, but box-office blunders that couldn’t turn back the clock.

Some of the movies on this list came close to ending on more uplifting notes than the one we got, or dark and direct finales that audiences couldn’t settle with on the first time around. A few of them are certainly better left in the film’s DVD special features, or with fans scouring YouTube to see what could’ve been. In the rarest of cases, there was even an ending that, years after it got shelved, resurfaced and found its way back into official canon of the film it was turfed from. To start off, though, we’re going back to the ’90s and an immensely brighter send-off to a dark science fiction movie.

It’s well documented that James Cameron is something of a perfectionist. Besides spending almost a decade playing around on alien planets with blue cat people in “Avatar,” one of the director’s greatest works almost wrapped things up with a very definitive, upbeat ending, rather than the one we got. “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” closed with Schwarzenegger’s hardwired hero terminating the T-1000 (Robert Patrick) and sacrificing himself to ensure the future of the human race, which, while uncertain, had a lower chance of being decimated by artificial intelligence (lucky them).

That wasn’t the only way Cameron planned to wrap things up, though. As revealed in the Director’s Cut, we are reunited with Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) years later, sitting by the playground she’d had repeated nightmares about throughout the film. The sun is shining, children are laughing, and Hamilton has crinkly makeup that would get a “Great Scott” from Doc Brown if he saw it. We also learn that, thankfully, John has gone into politics, reapplying the leadership skills he’d have used in another timeline as a U.S. senator. The problem for Cameron was that it didn’t quite sit right with the director. In the DVD commentary, the mastermind behind Skynet believed that “it was somehow, in a sense, tonally unconnected to the rest of the film. There was a sense of, why tie it up with a bow? If the future is changeable, then the battle is something which has to be fought continuously.”

It’s arguably one of the most jaw-dropping twists in sci-fi movie history, but before Heston got his legendary cry, there were two endings that were considered for “Planet of the Apes.” The first would’ve had director Franklin J. Schaffner stick to the original 1963 novel written by French author Pierre Boulle. That story saw the planet being an entirely different world to our own, which the hero manages to escape. After eventually returning to Earth, he lands only to be greeted by a gorilla in a Jeep, confirming that, somehow, his home world has suffered a similar fate. The astronaut flees Earth, but not before transcribing his experiences, sticking it in a bottle, and letting it float off into space, where it’s picked up by the book’s readers, who are revealed to have been apes this whole time.

Another ending saw Taylor (Heston) being killed by the apes after learning the big secret that it was Earth all along — but Nova gets away, along with Taylor’s unborn child. By doing so, it sets up a chance for humanity to course-correct and return to a more intellectual state than the one locked up by their ape oppressors. While it might have changed the franchise’s trajectory to what we know, it at least wouldn’t have involved a monkey’s head on a statue of Abraham Lincoln.

What’s interesting about the alternate ending of Will Smith’s post-apocalyptic one-man show is that it’s now been retconned as the official one. The original film, in which Smith’s Robert Neville fought a virus that had turned humanity into nocturnal hunters, led to his sacrifice. The world was saved, but Neville wasn’t, and that, as far as we know, was that. However, the DVD release included a fully filmed alternate ending in which Smith’s hero survived his encounter with the Darkseekers and accepted that they were simply another species trying to exist. As a result, he left New York and reunited with what was left of humanity.

While the ending that made it into theaters feels more in the vein of the Richard Matheson’s novel it was adapted from, it’s redundant now given that a sequel is imminent. According to Collider, “Creed II” and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” director, Steven Caple Jr., has been tasked with braving the end of the world with Smith, who will this time be accompanied by Oscar-winning “Sinners” star Michael B. Jordan in an “I Am Legend” sequel. Currently, there are no plot details available, but now that they’ve got an ending lying around, it might make it into this one, instead.

Sure, Bradley Cooper’s 2011 sci-fi movie “Limitless” relies on a persistent science myth, but one area that it could’ve thrown in a heavy bit of realism was in its ending. If you recall, Eddie Morra (Cooper) had put the magic NZT-48 pill to use and reached a point where he no longer needed it, quashing the plans of business tycoon Carl Van Loon (Robert De Niro), who was hoping to blackmail our hero. Initially, Loon is successful in his plan, and Eddie resorts to drastic measures to turn the tables by creating a pill instead of gradually quelling his need for it.

For a film that shows more highs than lows for the wonder drug Eddie had discovered, this original closer was, quite simply, a pill too hard to swallow for test audiences. The consensus was that Eddie was going to make it out on top, rather than being stuck in a vicious cycle of drug addiction. If you think that’s bad, it’s nothing compared to the original ending from the Alan Glynn book the film is based on. There, Eddie learns that he has been part of a top-secret drug trial by a company that can’t be bargained with. The pills also have a far more negative impact on his life, leading him to write out his accounts of the recent events that have led to his demise, all while the president, whom Eddie knows is under the influence, prepares for an invasion of Mexico. Lovely stuff.

Add fighting teddy bears to any movie in a franchise and it’s always going to be considered the silliest. That’s the title “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi” managed to take away from the “Star Wars” movies and has remained as such ever since, even after “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” Had plans gone differently for the smooth-talking smuggler Han Solo, though, that might not have been the case.

It’s well documented that Harrison Ford wanted to give his character an epic send-off long before he got it in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” As Ford explained on Conan (via CinemaBlend), “I thought the best utility of the character would be for him to sacrifice himself to a high ideal and give a little bottom, a little gravitas to the enterprise.” Screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan agreed that characters were up for the chop in what was believed to be the final film at the time. “It should happen very early in the last act so you begin to worry about everybody,” he explained in the documentary, “Empire of Dreams” (via Den of Geek).

“Star Wars” creator George Lucas didn’t see things that way, though. “Luke needed to live, and we needed to have Leia and Han together at the end. The fact that the boy gets the girl — or the girl gets the boy — in the end was a key factor and was as important as Luke overcoming his demons.” In the end, Darth Vader was the dad who died this time around, leaving Han to snuff it decades later instead.