Get Reel...

Dear Congressman,

I will start with first wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving. Now... on to today's topic.

A very popular form of entertainment among your constituents is to hop into the family automobile, head down to the local theatre, and catch the latest Hollywood release. I myself have spent untold hours pursuing this recreational assignment, usually with mixed results.

Not to criticize the Screen Writers Guild of America, but does every script have to be written so the good guys are victorious? Sometimes it stretches the realm of reality, so given that criticism I would like to present some minor additions to the end of well known films to make them more plausible.

Independence Day (1996)

Summary : This movie ends with the survivors of the US Government hiding at Area 51 and defeating a fleet of large Alien spaceships by invading the mothership in Earth's orbit, downloading a computer virus that lowers all their protective shields, and then allows other survivors around the world to shoot down the offending over sized space crafts. Also, Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum escape from the mothership just before the thermonuclear device they left behind turns it into pixie dust.

Rewrite : After the spaceships are shot down and crashed into earth, there are quite a few aliens who survive. These aliens band together to form a resistance movement that is taken in by Kim Jong-il, since he has more in common with the aliens than with human life forms (see 2004's Team America, World Police). Under his protection, they rebuild advanced technology weapons that, within six months after their defeat, allow them to again attack the world's population and take over. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea becomes the Democratic Alien's Republic of the World.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

Summary : Most everyone is familiar with the story of George Bailey and his soul reviving brush with an angel that shows him that his life does have meaning, as the movie ends with the entire town pitching in money to save his bank from ruin due to some nitwit leaving $8000 on a park bench. The bank is saved and George Bailey lives happily ever after.

Rewrite: After the happy ending, the scene cuts to 40 years in the future. Bailey Home and Loan is now BHL, Inc, the biggest writer of sub-prime mortgages in the world. It is June 2008, and George Bailey, III is trying to convince Gordon Gecko, now that he is on parole (see 1987's Wall Street), to help him to raid another more conservative bank for their capital to write more garbage mortgages in Sacramento, CA and Ft Myers, Fl. This time collapse of Bailey's bank occurs before they can pull it off, with the bankruptcy taking down the entire US financial system with it. The movie ends with George Bailey, III quietly slips out the back of his $47 million mansion with a one way ticket to Argentina as the FBI are breaking down his door with a search and arrest warrant.

The Sting (1973)

Summary: Robert Redford and Paul Newman stage a fake bookie operation against the odds to steal half a million from a gangster, Robert Shaw, who killed their friend Luther. The story ends with a faked shootout between Newman & Redford and a fooled Shaw hustled out of the betting parlor before he got arrested. Everyone laughs and splits up the money.

Re-write : One of the minor participants in the sting gets drunk at a bar and brags about what they did to a stranger. The stranger goes to Shaw, who then hunts down the conspirators one by one, saving Redford and Newman for last. The movie ends with the duo beat to a pulp on a construction site, where they are encased in concrete while still alive and used for the cornerstone of the new Bailey Home and Loan Building....