10 Movie Endings Way Darker Than You Realise

You have to give the filmmakers behind Batteries Not Included some credit - back in 1987, they managed to address the issue of gentrification in a film aimed squarely at children.

The plot centers around an impoverished New York neighbourhood where an apartment building and café operated by the Rileys (Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy) is under threat of demolition by property developers.

With the Rileys and some of their tenants refusing to move, the developers ramp up their threats, until the Rileys are visited by mechanical creatures resembling flying saucers, dubbed "The Fix-Its," which promptly start repairing the run-down building.

All the same, an arson attack causes it to be destroyed near film's end, before a fleet of the Fix-Its return and rebuild the entire apartment block to a better state than ever.

This results in the building being spared by the developers, with the final shot taking place years later and showing the block nestled safely between the developers' fancy high-rises.

Though the café is said to benefit from the influx of new people to the area, everything we know about gentrification says this won't be a good thing for the Rileys, their tenants, or really any not-rich person living nearby.

The property developments would end up raising the value of the surrounding area enough that it would almost certainly price the Rileys and their tenants out of the area on a long enough timeline.

The Rileys would have to pay more property tax, likely forcing them to raise their tenants' rent, while the cost of everything in the area would also skyrocket, ensuring that affordable living quickly became anything but.

Obviously gentrification is a multi-faceted issue, but while the end of the movie posits a prosperous future for the central characters, the reality is likely to be considerably more complicated - and that's something the Fix-Its sadly can't repair.