10 Movie Adaptations That Changed The Ending For The Better

4. Dr. Strangelove

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4VlruVG81w Peter George's 1958 novel Red Alert is not a comedy, at all, at least not intentionally. The novel ends with a fleet of planes armed to the gills with nukes heading to Russia, though all but one of them manages to be recalled. After this errant plane delivers its unfortunate payload, America tries to make reparations with Russia by offering up one of its own cities as retribution, deciding to sacrifice Atlantic City. It's a ludicrous premise and one that George was misguided to try and sell seriously. Kubrick evidently saw the comedic potential in such a scenario, and decide to milk that for the loony climax to his sublime masterpiece. His film, of course, ends with nuclear bombs going off all over the world, reducing the planet's surface to irradiated dust while the survivors eke their way through life underground, attempting to re-populate and readying themselves for an inevitable stick fight with the Russians in the future. This is bleak hilarity at its best.