What if the movie ended after ...

Either way is fine. Lots of great scenes in this movie. My absolute favorite is when Johnny jumps out of plane with no parachute. The scenery and sound is just awesome. Thrilling!

It would have been better. I wish they had ended it that way. It seems like they meant to, originally, then added the final ending later. I wish they hadn't.

Better...

You know, another interesting ending would have been if Swayze was out in the surf waiting for that big old bad wave down in Australia and he glances over and Utah was sitting on his own surfboard out next to him.

That would have been a more open ending where we don't know if Johnny is there to arrest him or join him in more shenanigans.

Worse imo

I wonder how it would play if they cut from the end of the first chase (with Utah screaming and firing his gun into the air) to the Australia finale. We're already about 80 minutes in at this point, and after this, the movie, for me, loses momentum and drags, all the soap opera with Tyler, even the scene where they force him to accompany them on the robbery just doesn't work for me and it seems I'm not the only one who doesn't like that Bodhi suddenly got greedy and went for the safe. Plus, as I've stated on other threads, I struggle to believe that Utah would carry on living in the same place and carry on seeing Tyler now after his cover was blown.
To pad the running time out a bit more, they could maybe have shown more of Utah surveiling Bodhi's gang and observing them staking out the bank. Maybe they catch him watching them and the sky-diving scene could happen after this but before the robbery - all the tension for how it plays out in the final cut would still be there - both know but they have to act like they don't.
As it is, it just goes from Utah suddenly suspecting them based on the fact that he sees one of them mooning to the big chase scene in the space of a couple of minutes - a quick discussion with Papas for exposition, and the comic-book-reading stakeout, and then bang, robbery is happening. Maybe that's the point though, that it happens suddenly.
Another problem with my way is that we'd have missed out on Bodhi's gang and Papas being killed, which obviously ups the stakes for the finale - although maybe that could happen during the first chase, leaving Bodhi as the only survivor, getting away on foot after the car exploded with his people still in it (and Papas could have been shot during this too). Either way, Bodhi still had to go down. People trusted him and they died.

Worse