10 Sci-Fi Movies That Broke All The Rules
7. Changing The Original Ending...For The Better - Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
Remaking a classic sci-fi movie is a thankless task at the best of times, but you're wading into flat-out sacrilegious territory when you start to toy with the plot - in particular, the ending.
Don Siegel's original 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a classic sci-fi horror film in which aliens attempt to covertly invade Earth by replacing its citizens with creepily docile "pod person" replications.
This version of the film ends on a somewhat optimistic note as it's implied that the FBI is finally taking measures to stamp out the pods, but for the 1978 remake, director Philip Kaufman dared to offer up a far bleaker climax.
In the remake, the final scene horrifyingly reveals that protagonist Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) has also become a pod person, leaving Nancy Bellicec (Veronica Cartwright) as one of the city's few remaining humans and implying that, most likely, the pods will end up winning.
Though there was some initial division about the remake straying from the original ending, ultimately it's a gamble that paid off with unforgettable dramatic results.
There are sadly far more instances of sci-fi remakes altering endings for the worse - primarily the shambolically nonsensical climax of Tim Burton's 2001 Planet of the Apes - but Body Snatchers 1978 was brave enough to try something different and pull it off in a manner both clever and terrifying.