Inglourious Basterds: 10 Things That Would Have Happened Afterwards

Quentin Tarantino's altered history.

Clinging to a plot that saw its cast of brilliantly eccentric characters out to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the height of World War II was a clever move on the part of Inglourious Basterds writer/director Quentin Tarantino. Audiences naturally assumed that the movie would end with said characters failing in their mission, because everybody knows how Hitler actually died: sad, out of options, and trapped in his bunker with a cyanide pill (or pistol, depending on your account). But Inglourious Basterds - or Tarantino, rather - had the balls to rewrite history entirely, and so during the climatic scene (which takes place in a movie theatre), Adolf Hitler is machine-gunned to death - alongside the other top brass of the Third Reich - before being blown to smithereens in a horrific fire. It's an outrageous, totally unexpected ending, and one that ensures Tarantino as a cinematic purveyor of fantasies... and then some. But given that Tarantino's movie is essentially an exercise in alternate history (at least it is once it reveals that final Hitler-death based twist), it also begs the question... what happened next? Here, then, are 10 things that might have occurred in the aftermath of that great cinema blaze, as most of the Nazi high command were killed in one fell swoop... Please Note: This isn't supposed to be a historical document pertaining to "real" history; it is merely speculation as to what could happen next in Tarantino's universe (not our own).

Contributor

Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.