Creating alternate endings by Kat Latham
I hate Gone With The Wind. Hate it.
I know it’s supposed to be one the all-time greatest films, but I’ve seen it once and as God is my witness, I shall never watch it again.
I was 13 when I watched it. No one had spoiled the ending for me yet. My mom told me it was her favorite film, so we watched it together. After investing quite a bit of my heart in the story…after watching the characters’ painful struggle to grow…the film ended sadly?
Uh uh. Not for me, thanks.
The Romance Writers of America defines romance as having an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Perhaps my aversion to sad endings is a sign that I’ve been conditioned by all the romance novels I’ve read. Maybe I’m just naturally someone who loves a happy ending. But in my mind, Rhett and Scarlett stay together in the end. It isn’t a perfect relationship, but they’re perfect for each other and they continue to have a passionate, tempestuous marriage.
They have more children together, not because children are necessary for a happy ending but because Rhett and Scarlett want children again, only this time they won’t use their kids as a weapon against each other. They’ll adore all their kids, but Scarlett will secretly prefer the little boy who takes strongly after Rhett, and Rhett will dote on the little girl who reminds him of Scarlett.
They’ll have to struggle to rebuild their lives, but they’ll rely on each other’s strength and prop each other up when they think they’re going to fail. Their grandsons will fight in the First World War, but they’ll come home safely (and one will bring a sassy French wife with him. Scarlett will hate her.). One of their granddaughters will be an army nurse, and she’ll spend her life fighting for women’s liberation—a cause Rhett supports more vocally than Scarlett.
And, because they’re fictitious, they never die.
What book or film would you give a more optimistic, emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending? Comment and enter to win Erin McCarthy’s THE CHASE because here at The Season happy endings are guaranteed. 😉
Kat Latham has been reading romance for a couple of decades. With degrees in English lit and human rights, she loves stories that reflect the depth, humor and emotion of real life. When she’s not writing contemporary romance novels, she can usually be found blogging or tweeting overly personal information. She loves meeting other readers and writers online, so follow her on Twitter or check out her blog and say hello!
Gone with the Wind for sure. I don’t ever remember a more depressing movie… The only thing I remember about some movies is the crap endings… Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is the #1 on my list, probably followed by Skyline. Both weird and BAD movies for their endings.
Well, why don’t go for The Movie and say Titanic? lol They should have done a happy ending there, shouldn’t they?
Steel Magnolias is my favorite movie. I cry every time I watch it. If I could change anything I would not have her die at the end. It would make it a different movie with less tears.
Gone With the Wind hands down.
Hmm this is a tough one for me. There is so many to chose from. However, not everything has to have a HEA ending to me. This is life. I am content with both endings.
Bambi was too, too sad especially for a small child. Titanic we all know how it ends but would have liked a different ending.
I have to go with Titanic. We all knew what would happen at the end, but we hoped somehow that our hero was less than a hero and jumped overboard and landed on a liferaft, or that he managed to hold on long enough for the rescue boats to come.
Hello,
I’ve never seen Gone with the Wind (I almost can’t believe that myself). One of the main reasons I read romance is for the happy endings, so maybe I will continue to skip it. The movie that comes to mind for me is Up Close & Personal with Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer. The end of that movie surprised me, since I thought it was a typical romance movie with a happy ending. That’s not the case and I would have changed the ending.
OMG, finally some feels the same way as I do about Gone With The Wind ending. I, too, thought ending was so depressing since the H/H doesn’t end up together. I defintely want/love emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending.
Ok, don’t get me wrong I LOVE Titanic and i could watch it everytime its on but for the life of me I’m still trying to figure out why she couldn’t help him onto that piece of wood. It drives me crazy! And Gone With the Wind, I love watching it on rain days where I can just stay in bed, except in my head there is a Gone With the Wind 2 and Scarlett goes and gets her man back. But my movie that I refuse to watch the end of is ET. When I was little I watched it and got really sad and cried when ET left so my mom would always turn it off before he left. Also in my version he never got sick cause mom would just fast foawrd through that too. So I remember when I was older it was on and I hadn’t wathced in a very long time I was very confused about where ET was going. I didn’t like it one bit! For me, ET will forever be with Elliot eating his Reese’s Pieces.
Titianic also
It has to be Gone With the Wind for me.
Ghost probably. I hated the ending of that movie. In my version he would wake up in another body and they would live HEA.
In a way I think that’s part of what makes it so memorable – like Romeo and Juliet and Titanic. Every once in a while the HEA isn’t the answer. I know, I’m not in the majority lol.
Believe me, I have a list of movies that need to have happier endings.
Old Yeller, My Girl, Atonement, ET, Bambi, and Titanic. All of these movies seriously make me cry hysterically afterwards. Some I refuse to even watch again.
I also feel like I’ve been conditioned by the romance novels I read: any story that doesn’t have a happy ending leaves me unsatisfied! I rewrite ways that Romeo and Juliet could’ve avoided the whole poison route, or how Jack really could’ve held on for a bit longer. 🙁
I would say Titanic or Message in a Bottle.
I’d go with anything by Nicholas Sparks. I cry every single time I finish his books. There has got to be one with a HEA. But then again, HEA in a Nicholas Sparks novel wouldn’t make it a true Nicholas Sparks novel. Boo.
I found Gone with the Wind sad all around. I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again, either.
I found the ending of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) so incredibly sad. I saw it a few years ago before I had a child. Now that I’m a mother, I think watching it would just tear me apart. I don’t know how you’d rewrite the script to give this movie a happy ending, though.
I’d pick Gone With the Wind, too. I think the ending is why they published a sequel by another author over 50 years later.
I hate the ending of Sommersby the movie with Richard Gere and Jodie Foster.
I agree Gone with the Wind. I would change Titanic and Out of Africa too.
I wouldn’t have minded if Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck ended up together in “Roman Holiday.”
I would have to say Steel Magnolias.
I wish Thelma and Louise could have ended on a happy note. One part of me loves the ending, the other wishes that it didn’t have to end that way.
Oh, Kat—
You really hate Gone With the Wind? Have you read it? The novel is so much more than the ending you dislike. Besides, Scarlett’s vow to get Rhett back and her closing oath that “Tomorrow is another day” can be characterized as optimistic. I know it’s not the HEA we know and love in today’s books. But your vision is probably right: Rhett and Scarlett probably do rebuild, maintain a passionately tempestuous marriage and have more children to spoil and love. (Her son and daughter from previous marriages are still there at the end of the book.) I hope someday you’ll give the book a try.
I can’t help but wonder—are Casablanca, Roman Holiday, Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, and some of the others mentioned today not considered romances, simply because there isn’t a traditional HEA?
Definately Titanic and Ghost
I can’t really answer this question because I refuse to watch/read anything that does not end in an HEA. Which is why I have *gasp* never watched Gone With The Wind, and probably never will.
Definitely Titanic. They went through so much and still did not end up together.
I would have to say Beaches since my husband and I recommended it to my mother but didn’t tell her about the unhappy ending and she was very unhappy with us since she demands a happy ending to her movies.
I would have to agree with Gone With the WInd.
The movie whose ending is still making me spit nails is “Big Night” with Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub as Italian brothers trying to make their American Dream of a profitable restaurant come true in 1950’s America. They have one big night to try to impress a food critic and they get into more debt. Of course, the critic never shows and the brothers presumably will have to close their restaurant and move back to Italy. I don’t care how beautifully the scenes are shot, especially the food prep scenes; they lost everything in the end: the restaurant and the girlfriend. WTH? I agreed to see this film because it was briefly billed as a romance – how romantic is this when the girl and the restaurant are gone? The American Dream is over? Granted, some of the actors are wonderful (Ian Holm, Minnie Driver as the girlfriend, Isabella Rossellini), and the food scenes are great. Still, with that ending, forget about it!
Have you seen that movie “Snow Walker”? It’s a great story about a man (Barry Pepper) who’s plane crashes over the artic tundra. With him is a beautiful Eskimo girl. With no chance of being rescued the girl teaches him how to survive off the land. However, after many months the girl passes away of an illness and the movie ends with the guy finding a tribe of Eskimos. You never really know if he gets back to civilization or not. I would of loved to see them fall in love and live off the land, together, forever…The End! I really loved the movie, but it left me with a “that’s not good enough” feeling.
One of the movie endings I would change would be Atonement with Keira Knightley, definitely had no idea when I watched it that it would end the way it did. Also, I would have to agree with the others and say Titanic too. I have to have a happy ending!
I totally hated Message in a Bottle – and I would never have anything to do with anything Nicholas Sparks was involved with ever again. The ending was just horrible, I left the theater in a rage, and so did my sister. The ending could have been so much better, after investing all that time with those characters, I would have loved to see them get the happy ending they deserved and was very unhappy that they didn’t get one.
I have to say Titanic also. Gone With the Wind didn’t disappoint me much because I always knew how it ended before I saw the movie (from movie clips I’ve seen) so the ending was no surprise and I expected it.
Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult. Argghhh!!! I hated that ending.
GONE WITH THE WIND is a great romance. Unfortunately, not all love stories end the way we’d like. Sorry, but Scarlett pretty much deserved what she got. Maybe in “book 2” there would be a reunion, but they both need to grow first.
There are some great romances out there that don’t have an HEA and would actually not be as poignant if they did, all mentioned above. CASABLANCA, ROMEO AND JUNIET, TITANIC, GHOST, ROMAN HOLIDAY, and SOMMERSBY.
One not yet mentioned was COLD MOUNTAIN. I may not have liked the way these movies ended and shed many tears over it, but a “Happy, happy, joy, joy” HEA ending would actually make them less romantic. The love and the romance is what makes these endings all the more potent. With some of them, an HEA wouldn’t work.
The movie I think should have a different ending was City of Angels. I hated that she died right after they got together. I thought that was so sad :-(.
For me personally, Gone With The Wind.
I love Gone With the Wind and in spite of the fact there is no HEA, it is still my all time favorite book and film. The story wouldn’t be the same if Rhett stayed with Scarlett at that time. As evidenced in the sequel book ‘Scarlett’, they still didn’t get to the HEA…only more heartache. Rhett and Scarlett are just not meant to be…not in the sense we, as romance readers want them to be. I’m sorry, but the story just wouldn’t be the same if they did!
I agree with everyone that Titanic and Gone With thee Wind should have had HEA’s. Moulin Rouge could have ended differently for Satine and Christine. And Danielle g, Yes I agree with Old Yeller. That movie broke my heart.
Carol L
Lucky4750@aol.com
I have to agree with the person who said Nicholas Sparks. I love his books and insist on reading them and then I always cry. I don’t know why I do that to myself?
I agree that all of the above movies ended sadly. One not mentioned that made me cry many years ago is The Yearling when the boy had to shoot his deer.
Okay, the one that always gets me is Last of the Mohicans. I know, Hawkeye and Cora end up together, but I find it heartbreaking that Uncas dies and his father is left without a son and heir – he is truly the last Mohican. Breaks my heart every time I see it.
Every horror flick I’ve seen for the last 10 years!
Nicholas Sparks books don’t always have a HEA.
So many great suggestions! The one that popped into my mind was Gladiator – hated that Russel Crowe’s character died at the end. Also hated that ending in Braveheart, but that was historical fact. Also hated that Heath Ledger’s character died in the Patriot.