12 Depressing Alternate Endings That Were Way Better Than The Originals

3. Rambo

Rambo is hardly the most uplifting of movies, with its portrait of PTSD, and the distinct lack of help that a badly unbalanced veteran receives on his discharge, so it might come as something of a surprise that the original ending was even darker than the final version of the film.

In the version we all saw, Rambo gives up and hands himself in, when cornered, and he lives on to star in far too many inferior sequels. But in the original, Rambo is left broken by his ordeal, and begs his friend Trautman to kill him, who refuses, only to see the iconic angry character take the gun and shoot himself, before dying...

That would have been the better ending for the depressed national hero, who literally has nowhere else to go by the climax of the film: he is impotent and trapped, and the greatest dramatic response would be for him to take his own life, grasping furiously at the last threads of power over his own trajectory.

The Problem

Hollywood loves a sequel, and Stallone had already proved himself a bankable franchise draw thanks to the three Rocky movies. Plus, painting the establishment in such a poor light wasn't yet popular in mainstream cinema.