MovieChat Forums > Little Shop of Horrors (1986) Discussion > Wanted to see the dark ending for so lon...

Wanted to see the dark ending for so long and it's unsatisfying

posted 10 years ago by rattleNwoolypenguin
11 replies | jump to latest

And I'm not saying they should have kept the happy ending, but the original one feels like it should be way shorter as well as "Mean Green Mother" feels unnecessary when the plant eats him anyway and the Godzilla segment is belabored.

I will say Audrey's death is handled very beautifully but they should've rethought the ending of this movie and I think it could've been more powerful to imply what will happen to the world with Audrey 2 like in the stage show as apposed to having this while masterfully done, seemingly detached tonally Godzilla ending.

I have to underscore again that I love the way the play ends and I'm sure there is a way to end a film version of Little Shop faithfully, but this just doesn't work.

[–] inlibrislibertum 9 years ago

I agree. Aside from the deaths not feeling like a good fit after the editing and character choices they made for the film, the rampage wasn't right after the intimacy of everything that preceded it. We only saw five or six scenes outside the flower shop. To then suddenly be out in the rest of the world just felt like a different movie.

[–] yniehr 9 years ago

I think it would have worked much better had they a) included some of the even minor tidbits that got changed, recut or dropped during the editing process to makre the film a bit darker again and b) not restore the entire workprint but actually cut the DFTP-ending (which is supposed to be a black-humored punchline, an epilogue, not a huge monster-movie extravaganza that goes on for several minutes) to a reasonable length. The deleted scenes that have surfaced on yt and elsewhere give a good impression of what the movie could have been and that the original ending would have worked had they gone about it differently in the BluRay-release

YAHTZEE!!!

[–] martymcsly2k1 9 years ago

Having seen the workprint in its entirety, you're spot on. The deleted/alternate scenes in full context give the film a much darker tone

UNTIL

the "Suddenly, Seymour" reprise. It's just too on the nose and campy. I'm guessing they were trying to make Audrey's death a surprise by teasing a happy ending, but the movie clearly stops being a comedy during Orin's death sequence. They should have nixed this and maybe tried to work in the much more somber "We'll Have Tomorrow" that was cut from the play.

"Mean Green Mother" sounds more sinister on the film's soundtrack somehow... And the test audiences apparently were shown a butchered microcut of "Don't Feed the Plants," the overlong version actually seems to work better with the longer workprint that lets the numbers breathe more.

[–] inlibrislibertum 9 years ago

I think Oz was just really set on showing a big scale puppet and special effect extravaganza and didn't realize he wasn't harmonizing with the rest of the movie.

[–] 9 years ago

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[–] JediJones (235) 5 years ago

I believe that in the play you actually see Audrey II sprout buds with the heads of the four eaten characters sticking out of them. I think that's why the dark ending can't work on film. They couldn't do that because it's too unrealistic. But without that, the movie ends with the characters' deaths and then forgets about them like they're not important and not the stars of the movie. By showing them imprisoned inside the plant at the end, you get a laugh by giving them an ironic punishment and you remind people that the story really was about them. Even if they're in hell, at least they're still together.

[–] vilafire (660) 2 years ago

The John Collier story all of this is originally based on actually did have the plant sprout vegetable versions of its victims. I think it’s called Green Thoughts.

[–] StrongRex (1319) 5 years ago

I have the Director's Cut which has the dark ending, and I think it works just fine.

[–] AnubisRaydeen (7897) 4 years ago

The Godzilla style ending is fantastic! I love it. But it is better left as a DVD extra. The theatrical version is best as it is.

[–] Otter (24464) 2 years ago

It's a better movie with the happy ending.

[–] BrandNewPoster (10996) 8 months ago

I prefer the happier, theatrical ending.