10 Cases Where Movies Could Have Benefited from One Change

1.      Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992): Make Amilyn’s repetitive death scene an outtake. I realize the movie’s meant to be part comedy, but the repetition clashed with some of the movie’s darker elements (the scene is admittedly a bit of a crowd pleaser, but I think I would have preferred it more on a SNL type skit).

2.      Captain America (1990): Allow Captain American more than one mission during World War II before the suspended animation, to allow him to be more of a legend (Captain America: The First Avenger got this right).

3.      Casino Royale (2006): Lose the Body Worlds scene. I realize some people like that sort of art but using actual skinned corpses moved an otherwise action movie too far into the macabre.

4.      Hulk (2003): Don’t make Banner’s father for all intents and purposes the Absorbing Man. He’s more interesting simply as a crappy parent.

5.      Jonah Hex (2010): Lose the powers. Hex as a curmudgeonly scarred gunfighter is a strong enough concept by itself.

6.      License to Kill (1989): Have Leiter actually be killed, not just injured. Then Bond going rouge to avenge his friend would have made even more sense.

7.      Meatballs III (1986): Get rid of the “No means yes” sequence; it’s hard to sympathize with the protagonist after that.

8.      The Wizard of Oz (1939): Make the ending closer to the book’s. The book’s ending offers more follow-up possibilities and doesn’t impose limits on the audience’s imagination.

9.      X-Men: The Last Stand (2006): Make this two movies, the first being about Dark Phoenix; then have the cure debate be a response to the world nearly being destroyed by Dark Phoenix.

10.   Too many horror movies to list: if the story is leading to one or two characters surviving, don’t tack on a final murder. The characters have been through enough already. Let the audience leave with some sense of relief.