This (three and a half star, written) assignment was to write and alternate ending to a film. The film I went with was Clue the Movie, released in 1985, set in the 50s. This was definitely a really interesting take, and the format of the movie made it very conducive to this assignment.

As far as process goes, I watched the movie last night, which has three alternate endings (all three of which are showcased in the watch at home version, but when it was first released in theatres, only 1 of the three was showcased at any given theatre). Thus, I just added another ending onto this movie. I tried to keep with the relatively light-hearted and comedic vibe of the film, but I wanted the ending to be a little bit less serendipitous and happy as each of the three actual endings were. I was writing out who murdered who, and in the midst of doing so, I realized I could really spice it up by completely changing the vibe of the movie. So I did that! Although the zombie thing is kind of out of the blue, so is the entire rest of that movie so it fits!

The other reason I chose to go with zombies was because it kind of made the movie fit into the mild angst vibe of the 80s that a lot of the other films have (while still being funny- at least to me). The attack of the zombies that kill everybody fits with the Night of the Comet angst, and the Many People Die is reminiscent of Heathers. What I liked about this movie was that it was more outright humorous than the other ones. Not to say I didn’t also enjoy the other ones, but this was a nice change of pace. One thing I struggled with on this assignment was actually trying to create something original and creative while still working within the constraints that the first hour and ten minutes of the film set up. The zombie line might be a little bit outside of those constraints, but the film never really revealed what Boddy did with all his blackmail money, and he obviously had a lot of it, so I did fill a plot hole! The other thing I struggled with was trying not to create any new plot holes with my ending, but I think I accomplished that (anybody who has seen the movie, how’d i do?) This was a really fun assignment, especially with this movie, 10/10 recommend!

watch out for zombies, – liz

If you’ve ever seen the movie Step Brothers, you know that at the end of the movie Dale and Brennan come together (after parting ways for a while) at the Catalina Wine Mixer and play one last song together and save the whole mixer (their jobs depended on it). For my alternate ending I would keep this ending the same, but during the last song these enemy spies would shoot a dart gun into Brennan’s arm (from the crowd) and he’d get super mad and all of a sudden both Dale and Brennan change into spy suits and start shooting around the place, doing back flips off the stage and chasing the enemies down into the sunset. Everyone at the wine mixer would be left in shock and the producers would end the movie there. Step Brothers 2 would then come out and it’d now end up being a secret agent series starring Dale and Brennan.

The man that steps into the bar on a Friday night seems an ordinary one as any, as he takes his place at the barstool, ordering a quick drink from the bartender as he catches him walk by. Though, he’s anything but ordinary, in fact, he’s an angel; or perhaps, that’s all wrong, and the former is closer to the truth now. His shoulders slouch in a tired posture as he scans a few of the patrons talking animatedly nearby, his clothing disheveled, a plaid button-down wrinkled from the long drive, worn boots on his feet. He rubs his shoulder idly where he feels the dull ache of a pain from an encounter with a vamp a few states back, when he’d dislocated it in a nasty tussle. It won’t be fully healed anytime soon, he knows, the pain will linger for a few weeks. He’d even caught a grey hair in the corner of his eye through the rearview mirror on his way in.

Castiel feels human, evidenced by the fact that he feels so thoroughly in the first place. It’s always been his problem, caring too much, as he’s been told once or twice by his brethren and yet, nothing compared to this. His grace, having long since been damaged and broken, feels almost absent entirely now.

There’s only a small spark left in the way that his bright eyes scan the room as if they saw something others couldn’t, had seen more than anyone else here could ever imagine, that might suggest anything remarkably un-ordinary about him.

After a few moments sitting there with his own thoughts, he abandons his seat to sit a few stools over, where a truck driver’s spinning a tale of suspicious disappearances a few miles south of here. Castiel’s money is on a Wendigo, or with his luck, another nest of vamps. In any case, he knows his destination, now, and after bidding the strangers a good night, he steps back out into the parking lot. He spots angry looking clouds overhead and he counts himself lucky that he’s only going a few miles further, at least until he can find a cheap motel nearby.

In the cover of the night, Castiel goes relatively unnoticed as he slips into the seat of a black 1967 Chevy Impala, starting the car in a smooth motion.

“That’s it, girl,” he soothes, smiling to himself as the car engine roars to life, gently patting the center console. Considering life on the road, and the fact that he’s no natural born mechanic, Castiel’s managed to keep the car in excellent shape, smoothing over any scuff he’d find in the paint with loving attention. He’s the only one left to care for it, and so he does. Dean loved this car, his ‘Baby’, and now Castiel realizes it’s become the most important thing to him.

It seems quite ridiculous, for Castiel, who’s lived for so many millennia, who’s walked on Earth when the fish first grew legs and journeyed on land for the first time, to place such an importance on an old car. His brothers would laugh at him for it, no doubt, but those times, too, were long past. Castiel was an angel. The amount of time he’s spent in this car, the company he’s shared here, is negligible in terms of the big picture; only, it was the most important time of Castiel’s life, no less than everything, when counting what mattered.

He wonders, if now that he is human, he’ll have a soul, and when he reaches the end of this road, if he’ll join Sam and Dean Winchester in heaven. At the thought, his smile softens; somehow, for some reason, Castiel doesn’t doubt he’ll find his way there in the end.

For now, there is the road ahead: saving people, hunting things, a legacy that was his to continue. It’s what Sam and Dean would’ve wanted, and it’s what Castiel wants, what he needs. It matters, and so, with his foot on the gas petal, he drives out onto the open road.

The second writing assignment I chose, for 3 and a half stars, is this one, which asks you to write an alternate ending to a book, movie, show, etc. I took this opportunity to write for my favorite TV show, Supernatural, which ironically fits the theme of our class, as it follows two hunters who travel across the country hunting monsters, if you’re not familiar with it. I took a creative liberty with the assignment prompt as Supernatural doesn’t currently have an ending since it’s an ongoing show. That is also why I was compelled to write an ending for it, since I don’t see one coming out in the show in the near future, so I thought I’d try my hand at it myself.

For this short coda, I chose to write from the perspective of Castiel, my favorite character from the show, an angel who rebelled from heaven to help the Winchester brother’s save humanity. In writing this story, I tried to make it accessible to those who weren’t entirely familiar with the show. As it’s an ending of sorts, it did take on a somber tone, with the setting sometime long after the two man characters, Sam and Dean Winchester have long since passed away, with Castiel taking over as a hunter. The story was admittedly a chance for me to write a lot of introspection on Castiel’s character. Whether you’re familiar with the show or not, I hope you were able to enjoy the story!

Personally, my strategy for writing a story like this is to write down the story I’m picturing in my mind; if I have inspiration to write it and an idea in mind, I’m able to get into it and just see where those thoughts take me. When I saw the image of Castiel sitting at the wheel of the Impala in the end, I knew what I wanted to write for this prompt and just went for it. I know many people have a more structured approach to writing (which I should probably take up at some point), but that’s how I manage to write something, if I’m passionate about it!

Its cold. I am wet sitting in a swamp. I am the last woman in existence. Where most woman would give up and accept their fate, i refuse. I pick myself out of the swamp once again and scavenge the nearby lands for anything of use that I may have missed. I also look for new ways to use common items. That is when I see it, the school bus. How could I have been so blind this entire time.

I decide to turn this school bus into my new protective living quarters. Using old boards and metal scraps, i barricade the windows and wheels so that no one can get in or out without using the lever. I also use wooden rods, barbed wire, and trash cans that I find to build defenses that can be used to attack as well when I drive the bus. I then move all of my rations into the bus. I calculated that these rations would last me about half a year before I have to scavenge again. Hopefully by then, the femicide will have subsided.

Now i wait…

…

Alice crept closer to the man as the grey light rose upon the watery air.

“Kiss me!” she whispered suddenly, throwing her arms around his neck. He could feel her trembling. “Say you love me; hold me in your arms. There is only an hour.”

“Don’t be afraid. Try to face it bravely,” stammered Eastwood.

“I don’t fear it—not death. But I have never lived. I have always been timid and wretched and afraid—afraid to speak—and I’ve almost wished for suffering and misery or anything rather than to be stupid and dumb and dead, the way I’ve always been.

“I’ve never dared to tell anyone what I was, what I wanted. I’ve been afraid all my life, but I’m not afraid now. I have never lived; I have never been happy; and now we must die together!”

It seemed to Eastwood the cry of the perishing world. He held her in his arms and kissed her wet, tremulous face that was strained to his.

The twilight was gone before they knew it. The sky was blue already, with crimson flakes mounting to the zenith, and the heat was growing once more intense.

“This is the end, Alice,” said Eastwood, and his voice trembled.

She looked at him, her eyes shining with an unearthly softness and brilliancy, and turned her face to the east.

There, in crimson and orange, flamed the last dawn that human eyes would ever see.

CONTINUED

A town had prepared for this very moment, moved the whole city down miles, far enough that the new star would not harm them.

A new society is created from the ruins dawning fear that anyone who tries to go to the surface will be destroyed in seconds.

300 years passes, their supplies drop and population rises.

The people from the ruins have never seen the day of light in 3 centuries, so they have no clue as to what is happening on the surface.

A group of activists protest and request they check on the Earth’s surface once more.

However, the majority believe it is still dangerous to go up.

War erupts below the surface and casualties go up every day.

Finally, the ruler of the surface dwellers gave in and allowed a team to go up to the surface to see the current conditions.

Weeks pass by as they prepare a recon team to go up the the surface.

The day comes and the recon group come to the large rusty door, the size of a two story home, that has not been open for 300 years.

It budges open after some hard and determine turns.

A soft white light emerges from the crack and the recon team could not believe what their eyes see…

Green and blue…

*As the two main characters in Finis are in their shelter hiding from the intensity of the new sun (star) that just reached the Earth*

The two were stranded in the bunker with an odd sense of comfort and insecurity at the same time. They were conversing and turning over possibilities on how to survive once the new sun goes down.  They suggested so many ideas, but when it came down to it, Eastwood said that they should try to leave the shelter as the temperature outside went down. He figured if they were able to contact other people, then they would have an opportunity to set up a force field to shield the planet from the light waves.

After weeks of traveling around the town, Alice was getting tired of the lifestyle and running low on energy, while Eastwood was oddly enjoying the apocalyptic days and his new survivalist nature.

One morning Alice had had enough, she went outside to watch a final sunrise and found herself in awe of the heat and light produced from the new star as she burned to a crisp. That very night, Eastwood had come in contact with a scientist named Johansen who had developed a method to shield the planet, but was unable to create his shield because he did not have the raw materials. Johansen gave up hope, leaving Eastwood to create the shield and repopulate the Earth.

The End (Its supposed to be a cliffhanger…get it?)

…

In the nursery the jungle burned. Blue lions roared, purple giraffes bounded off. The panthers ran in circles, changing color, and ten million animals, running before the fire, vanished off toward a distant steaming river…
Ten more voices died. In the last instant under the fire avalanche, other choruses, oblivious, could be heard announcing the time, playing music, cutting the lawn by remote-control mower, or setting an umbrella frantically out and in the slamming and opening front door, a thousand things happening, like a clock shop when each clock strikes the hour insanely before or after the other, a scene of maniac confusion, yet unity; singing, screaming, a few last cleaning mice darting bravely out to carry the horrid ashes away! And one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read poetry aloud all in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked.

The fire burst the house and let it slam flat down, puffing out skirts of spark and smoke.
In the kitchen, an instant before the rain of fire and timber, the stove could be seen making breakfasts at a psychopathic rate, ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast, twenty dozen bacon strips, which, eaten by fire, started the stove working again,hysterically hissing!
The crash. The attic smashing into the kitchen and parlor. The parlor into cellar, cellar into sub-cellar. Deep freeze, armchair, film tapes, circuits, beds, and all like skeletons thrown in a cluttered mound deep under.
Smoke and silence. A great quantity of smoke.
Dawn showed faintly in the east. Among the ruins, one wall stood alone. Within the wall, a last voice said, over and over again and again, even as the sun rose to shine upon the heaper rubble and steam:
“Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today is…”

CONTINUED…

A man with a fedora, satchel, whip, and looks similar to Harrison Ford enters the home.

He scurries around the house looking for a place to hide with seconds til doom.

At last he finds the best suitable shelter to hide in to survive.

He opens the refrigerator door and empties the contents.

The earth is rumbling, sky is blinding bright, and can feel his demise.

He successfully closes the door!

The man, woman, and children are incinerated in seconds.

The refrigerator flies through the sky, tumbles several times til it lands miles from the blast.

The man pops open the refrigerator and crawls out, first thing he sees is a prairie dog.

Then taken by the government and is washed down by a radiation team.

The alternative ending to Tupac Shakur and The End of the World:

“Jack just please shot me” I beg as my body slowly starts to hardened.

“No, I wont kill you, just wait little there have got to be someone here that can help you” Jack says

but I did not care if or if not there was a cure, all I knew was that I was dying and that I refuse to suffer at the mercy of the Creep, so said once again “Please, Jack shot me, end this, do it for…….”

“Susan… SUSAN!” screams Jumping Jack

With all my strength I say “Light”

Jack looked up and as we drove closer we could see a large building lit up with lights

“Maybe there is some hope” I thought as my body become completely taken over by the Creep.