10 Original Endings That Would Have Ruined Great Movies
8. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return Of The Jedi (1983)
The Ending We Got: Having finally brought balance to the Force by hurling his evil master down a shaft, Darth Vader succumbs to his injuries and dies in his son's loving arms. The second Death Star is blown to a zillion pieces, and Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia, and the rest of the gang rendezvous on Endor to partake in the world's weirdest party. Right at the very end, everybody assembles for what is presumably the Star Wars equivalent of a Kodak moment, and John Williams' bombastic score tells us that everything wrong with the galaxy has been fixed, and everyone is going to get seriously drunk.
The Original Ending: Since The Empire Strikes Back received such high levels of praise for taking a generally light-hearted space story and making it dark and broody for its second instalment, the original script for Jedi aimed to go even darker - and that meant killing off Han Solo mid-way through (at Harrison Ford's request - something he insists should have happened to this day).
According to producer Gary Kurtz, the original ending had Luke Skywalker wandering the galaxy "like Clint Eastwood in spaghetti westerns" and would have been more "emotional and poignant". George Lucas changed all that before any of those scenes could be filmed. According to Kurtz, Lucas already had his sights set on some great merchandising ideas and considered Ewoks to be rather profitable little fellas. Although we could've surely done without the Ewoks - and though in retrospect having Luke wandering the galaxy with some stubble and a husky voice might've been quite cool - an ending of such dark means might not have been the right way to close the saga.
The happier ending with everyone smiling and kissing and hugging might seem a little too perfect, but it brought the series to a rightful close, especially when you consider the saga would later be expanded; a joyful pay-off kind of seems essential after so many chapters. The original ending also saw the death of the Millennium Falcon, a plot point hinted at through a Han Solo line that was kept in ("I got a funny feeling, like I'm not going to see her again"). And we all know what Rule No. 1 is, don't we? You don't mess with the Millennium Falcon.