Am I the only one who thinks that every one of these except the last one would have made these movies better?

You missed Twilight:

Mark Morgan:

"Even if you haven't seen the Twilight flicks or read the series, you probably still know that the plot revolves around the love story between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. But before Summit bought the rights to the books, the original script swapped the brooding romance for non-stop action. At the time, studios didn't think Bella's endless lovesickness would interest anyone. Instead, the studio wanted to turn Bella into a vampire in the first movie and kill off her father.

"We went shopping to every studio around, but everyone passed. Finally Summit said 'let's do it.' It was a total blessing.

"Before long, Twilight became an international bestseller and Summit realized they had a blockbuster on their hands. A new script was written to appeal to the rabid fan base.

"I mean, one of their drafts literally had a Korean FBI agent who was hunting and tracking vampires across the coast. There was SWAT in the trees and literally it was like, 'Red leader, read leader one,' and the vampires were picking them out of the woods.

"Just imagine if the original script had gone into production! The world might never have seen Taylor Lautner's abs, and Robert Pattinson would just be that guy who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter."

I mean, SERIOUSLY.
KOREAN FBI AGENTS TRACKING VAMPIRES?
WTF.

The Terminator idea is one I actually like. Seems like a fun way of really twisting around the typical morality tropes and maybe leave people wondering "who's right?" And would probably have been an excellent idea to sort of in-universe reboot the mess they'd been making of the overall story arc. (Though ending it all after T2 would still have been the best plan.)

That Superman plot just made me literally slam my face on my desk. That is just... what the hell were they thinking?

The Terminator one sounds like it could have been an interesting twist that would have been genuinely surprising, but only if it was well executed of course.

Oh my God, that Superman idea sounds like every worst idea in the history of cinema being blended together and then injected right into my spine. I'm not a Superman fan, but dear God that sounded fucking awful

The terminator one sounds really cool. Salvation was such a tame movie that it really could have shaken things up to have such a twist ending. Now I just feel that I dislike the first movie even more.

I really like the Terminator one. Skynet's plan sounds like something a computer would call the best solution, especially if it was originally programed with commands in the vein of "Protect humanity," and the story that it thought it was being attacked by the operators trying to shut it down would still make sense, because it makes sense for your average Resistance fighter.

But the Superman one was totally whack. Can we stop using prophecies as plot points? I don't mind Chosen Ones if they're people who've trained their whole lives for a task, but the whole "Born into greatness" bothers me.

I actually really liked that terminator salvation twist idea.

Again, vote for the Terminator one - even more so if the selected humans weren't even mildly distopic (that's now a mord...). Seemed like a pretty sweet idea, and would have made the film more interesting AND more complex - both things it could have done with ;)

As with the others... Jeez, that Superman plot XD what were they smoking?! Hah hah, oh man...

The Spidey one would have been pretty funny, but no real loss either way, tbh. Just avoids the plot hole that no-one really cares about.

Although I would surely roll my eyes if I was actually witnessing one of these unfold on screen, I do have to applaud the writers for playing with interesting or unusual concepts. It's that kind of "no-such-thing-as-a-bad-idea" brainstorming that can lead to inventive stories... once all the bullshit is filtered out.

Holy shit, I just read the Abrams script. Let me get this straight JJ, LUTHOR IS ALSO KRYPTONIAN?!? You know what? Fuck you Abrams, just...fuck you

MovieBob:
In 2002, long before Lost when Abrams was best known as the creator of Alias and Felicity, he turned in a revamp script titled Superman: Flyby that got Warner Bros. super excited. In this script, Abrams proposed nothing less than a complete reworking of the entire Superman mythology. New origin. New backstory. New powers. New relationships. How new? Well, Krypton doesn't explode, for starters.

Instead, Krypton is engulfed in a Civil War between King Jor-El and his evil brother. The evil brother seizes power, but fails to stop Jor-El from shooting his infant son (you-know-who) to safety in a spaceship. Apparently, it's important for the bad guys to kill Baby Superman because he's (get ready to roll your eyes) "The Chosen One" of an Ancient Kryptonian Prophecy; so they dispatch thousands of their own spaceships to track him down.

In this new continuity, the Kents have been covertly pre-selected by Jor-El to foster parent Superman a la Mary and Joseph, but instead of being innately heroic, the new Clark Kent grows up an introverted emo kid afraid of his own powers - which now mostly include being super-strong. He needs to be wearing the Superman suit, which is now a Venom-like living-costume with a mind of its own, to fly.
Lex Luthor is a CIA agent in charge of UFO hunting, who's walking around pissed at his superiors about a Dark Secret. When the evil Kryptonian army invades Earth to take down The Chosen One, Luthor teams up with them to kill Superman. No, really. Superman dies!

... and goes to Heaven, where he gets a pep talk from his dead father about The Prophecy that helps him come back to life, rise from the grave and lead humanity in a rebellion against the Kryptonian invaders. Oh, and in a final setup-for-the-sequel stinger: After all the Kryptonians are defeated, Lex Luthor shows up to challenge Superman to a fight (it'll make sense in a moment) and reveal that Dark Secret of his ... he's from Krypton, too!

That sounds like a shitty piece of fanfiction.

EDIT: Though I like the "teenager afraid of his/her own powers" thing. Dunno why, but I do.

zHellas:
EDIT: Though I like the "teenager afraid of his/her own powers" thing. Dunno why, but I do.

There's really only two outcomes you'd expect from a teenager discovering he's got super strength, be afraid of it making them different (in a time in your life where you want to fit in) or go nuts and smash shit up.

tghm1801:
You missed Twilight:

Mark Morgan:

"Even if you haven't seen the Twilight flicks or read the series, you probably still know that the plot revolves around the love story between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. But before Summit bought the rights to the books, the original script swapped the brooding romance for non-stop action. At the time, studios didn't think Bella's endless lovesickness would interest anyone. Instead, the studio wanted to turn Bella into a vampire in the first movie and kill off her father.

"We went shopping to every studio around, but everyone passed. Finally Summit said 'let's do it.' It was a total blessing.

"Before long, Twilight became an international bestseller and Summit realized they had a blockbuster on their hands. A new script was written to appeal to the rabid fan base.

"I mean, one of their drafts literally had a Korean FBI agent who was hunting and tracking vampires across the coast. There was SWAT in the trees and literally it was like, 'Red leader, read leader one,' and the vampires were picking them out of the woods.

"Just imagine if the original script had gone into production! The world might never have seen Taylor Lautner's abs, and Robert Pattinson would just be that guy who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter."

I mean, SERIOUSLY.
KOREAN FBI AGENTS TRACKING VAMPIRES?
WTF.

That sounds infinitely better than the shit that they did release. We might have been able to see Edward and Jacob shot in the grill by FBI agents. Who wouldn't want to see that?

And that was a good article, although I feel bad that some of them didn't make it. Apart from the last one, I quite liked the sound of most of them.

Man these are all really terbbile ideas and even though alot a pepole on here like the termantior one I can't really get behind it because screws up the mytholgy big time and creats too many holes in the over all plot the previous three movies put togthere also I have a feeling that even if they pulled this off well it would still tick alot of pepole off. I mean pepole have been wanting to see a termantior future war movie for a while so when they finaly get one they expect to see john connor as the main charcter and to either A) see him actauly defeating sky net and win the war or B) strgtenth what has already been establish such as showing john sending his father back threw time. Personaly I think if your going to do a twist on the whole termantior mythos It should be based on the fact that Bascially John Connor and his greateast enemy Sky Net where both createad threw the Time Pardox's caused by the first movie. Maybe having a movie where John realzies the only way he can stop Sky Net is by previnting the first movie all toghther (Which would in cause him to be erased from existance) Would make for a much better plot twist then the one prestend up above in the artical. Esipically since to some extent it's a bit cliched.

That Terminator one sounds oddly like the matrix trilogy compressed into one film.

Idocreating:

zHellas:
EDIT: Though I like the "teenager afraid of his/her own powers" thing. Dunno why, but I do.

There's really only two outcomes you'd expect from a teenager discovering he's got super strength, be afraid of it making them different (in a time in your life where you want to fit in) or go nuts and smash shit up.

The kid that chooses to smash shit up will get killed.

He has super strength, not super regeneration or invulnerability.

I would have loved to see the Superman one!

Hell, I'd have loved to see any of them to be honest...the X-Men one sounds like something that could have been a deleted scene.

Interesting stuff. How about a Part II to this article?

THAT, is a superman movie I would have watched! It sounds a bit cliche at times, but its better than what we got (IE all of superman)

The Superman That Almost Was

[text snipped]

Gaah, that, what, I can't even... Agh! There's just so much idiocy there. How could anyone even come up with something that ridiculously generic and cliched?! The list of links to TVTropes alone would be longer than MovieBob's writeup! I barely know anything about Superman beyond the general stuff, but even I can tell that script is a terrible abomination.

I think I'd be busy lobotomizing myself right now if reading that hadn't already done the job for me.

No offence, but when the original concept for the Superman movie makes the actual piece-of-shit homage movie look Oscar worthy, you need to rethink the writing process for these things...

Wow, that Superman film sounds awful. What is it about Superman that attracts that kind of rubbish? I've never understood the mentality of these people who go to the trouble of getting the rights to something like Superman and then change just about everything about it! If you think your superhero/sci-fi story idea has merit, let it stand on it's own and become the next Superman. Superman himself is popular for a reason and his mythology is really well known because of that. People will come to a Superman film because they want to see that, so make a film based on that.

foxlovingfreak:
Man these are all really terrible ideas and even though a lot a people on here like the Termintor one I can't really get behind it because screws up the mythology big time and creates too many holes in the over all plot the previous three movies put together also I have a feeling that even if they pulled this off well it would still tick a lot of people off. I mean people have been wanting to see a termintor future war movie for a while so when they finally get one they expect to see john connor as the main character and to either A) see him actually defeating SkyNet and win the war or B) strengthen what has already been establish such as showing john sending his father back threw time. Personally I think if your going to do a twist on the whole termintor mythos It should be based on the fact that: Bascially John Connor and his greatest enemy Sky Net where both created threw the Time Paradox caused by the first movie. Maybe having a movie where John realizes the only way he can stop Sky Net is by preventing the first movie all together(Which would in cause him to be erased from existence) Would make for a much better plot twist then the one presented up above in the article. Especially since to some extent it's a bit cliched.

I liked the Terminator idea, then I read that..Now I want both ideas..because the first one would have been "OH SHIT WTF! That's awesome John Conner was a douche anyways!" Then the second one would have been more "I see, so that's what happens."

marscentral:
Wow, that Superman film sounds awful. What is it about Superman that attracts that kind of rubbish? I've never understood the mentality of these people who go to the trouble of getting the rights to something like Superman and then change just about everything about it! If you think your superhero/sci-fi story idea has merit, let it stand on it's own and become the next Superman. Superman himself is popular for a reason and his mythology is really well known because of that. People will come to a Superman film because they want to see that, so make a film based on that.

I 100% agree with you on this maybe if more people did this we wouldn't have so many bad superman movies

There's a reason why the first 2 superman movies are still popular today people

Ladies and gentlemen, why I hate J.J. Abrams!
Excellent article though.

Wow, the Terminator idea actually sounds like the kind of awesome, tearing out chunks of your own hair, twist ending that would've made the otherwise bland T:Salvation an actually noteworthy movie. Beyond the Sean Connor thing, having skynet revealed to be a well intentioned extremist would've made for a much more compelling conflict.

funny how things coulda gone for some productions

its a sad thing when stories have to be changed like that. its like having your script torn up in front of you.

Can't really speak to the other ones (except to say that the Superman one boggles the mind), but I actually really like the Spidey costume one; note that it would have necessarily been a larger part of the character than just a gag at the end: it evokes DIY culture vs. commercialization, even including marketing of hero worship, and image being a very different thing than reality. It actually sounds pretty dang neat. (I mean, sure, someone in Hollywood could probably botch the entire idea, but it's far from inherently bad.)

tghm1801:
You missed Twilight:

Mark Morgan:

"Even if you haven't seen the Twilight flicks or read the series, you probably still know that the plot revolves around the love story between Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. But before Summit bought the rights to the books, the original script swapped the brooding romance for non-stop action. At the time, studios didn't think Bella's endless lovesickness would interest anyone. Instead, the studio wanted to turn Bella into a vampire in the first movie and kill off her father.

"We went shopping to every studio around, but everyone passed. Finally Summit said 'let's do it.' It was a total blessing.

"Before long, Twilight became an international bestseller and Summit realized they had a blockbuster on their hands. A new script was written to appeal to the rabid fan base.

"I mean, one of their drafts literally had a Korean FBI agent who was hunting and tracking vampires across the coast. There was SWAT in the trees and literally it was like, 'Red leader, read leader one,' and the vampires were picking them out of the woods.

"Just imagine if the original script had gone into production! The world might never have seen Taylor Lautner's abs, and Robert Pattinson would just be that guy who played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter."

I mean, SERIOUSLY.
KOREAN FBI AGENTS TRACKING VAMPIRES?
WTF.

That would have been awesome...