Cool News
A Color Clip Of Oz's LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS Original Ending Is Now Online!!
Director Frank Oz's wonderfully odd and subversive LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS remake/musical adaptation hits Blu-ray tomorrow - offering an expanded ending which includes an elaborate, apocalyptic music number deleted from the picture's theatrical release.
EW now has a clip from this expanded conclusion, along with some interesting details regarding why it was taken out. You can find it HERE.
I've seen this material before - in Black & White - although I can't recall at the moment it it was included on an official release (I seem to recall that it was). To the best of my knowledge, this represents the expanded ending's first appearance in color...and it's rather amazing. I do see why it was excised, all things being equal. But...honestly...this feels more in keeping with the tone of the overall movie than the conclusion which eventually went into theaters.
What do you think?
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Readers Talkback
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movie I ever paid to see and walked out of.
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It was featured on a Little Shop of Horrors trading card. In color too. "Yikes! Can it happen?" with the plant towering over the Brooklyn Bridge.
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Oct. 8, 2012, 6:43 p.m. CST
I'll take those matte and miniature composed shots over CGI any day.
by MJDeViant
I used to watch this all the time when I was little. Still looks good.
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Cabing In the Woods and Dr. Strangelove are the only ones that pop up first in my mind...
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Not much love for it out there, but a solid closer, that's for sure.
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in the musical the movie is based on.
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i love the play i love this ending i have several woodies (don't ask)
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I'd imagine the play managed to get away with the darker ending because of the distance between the audience and the actors. In film there's more intimacy between the viewer and the characters, generally speaking. When you end up caring that much about the characters it's a little hard not to get upset over the darker ending despite it being more satirically appropriate. The newer ending still gets the job done, though. I rarely buy anything on disc anymore but this is one of those exceptions. Quite possibly my favorite musical of all time.
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Oct. 8, 2012, 7:08 p.m. CST
Note for Non-US residents on this release:
by chronicallydepressedlemming
It's available US only for some reason (according to Amazon.co.uk), but the blu-ray is actually region-free so...IMPORT BITCHES!
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I'd take this over CGI anyday. The other day I saw a tweet that said it perfectly Snakes in Raiders = Terrifying Bugs in Temple = horrifying Rats in Crusade = Frightening CGI Ants in Skull = Boring
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When will AICN take off that horrible advertisement for the tall man. (no need to capitalize, that movie sucked and I haven't watched it) It's fucking annoying.
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And yes, those real special effects make a significant difference. It feels "real," because those things are physically available in the real world.
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Like something I might have dreamt.
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Oct. 8, 2012, 7:26 p.m. CST
You bet your ass i'm buying the directors cut. Also I Have to say that while the original ending is more fitting and spectacular.....
by Father
Feeeed me seeeee-mooowwwwwwwwwww....
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I had a whole set of Topps trading cards from this film and I'm almost positive the last card was from this scene. The one where The plant is overlooking the city and the guy is screaming. Anyways, just trivia. It was in the card set but never in the actual film.
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Someone posted that already. Whatever, guess it means I'm not crazy...
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Oct. 8, 2012, 7:43 p.m. CST
You bet your ass i'm buying the directors cut. Also I Have to say that while the original ending is more fitting and spectacular.....
by Father
...I actually prerfer the tacked on happy ending . Audrey and Seymour are such likeable characters that i wanted to see them have a happy send off in the end .Having said that , i cant wait to see this directors cut- i've been hearing about the original version of the movie for years and its gonna be great to finally see it! "Feeeed me seeeee-mooowwwwwwwwwww"....
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Oct. 8, 2012, 7:47 p.m. CST
The song is an obvious arrangement of Give Me Some Lovin'..
by lowpassat
Would have been cool to see The Bluesmobile drive by. This ending doesnt fit the movie IMO.
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Oct. 8, 2012, 8:12 p.m. CST
It's insane to think the money they spent on that sequence, to not use it.
by Randy
I think it cost like 10 million, and it was never used in the final film. That would really suck for the people who put the money up.
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Oct. 8, 2012, 8:19 p.m. CST
I remember doing this show when I was about 15 and played the dentist. It was great fun to do but I had to laugh non stop for the gas mask scene and felt like a twat!
by Mark Jones
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when he directed that original ending..which explains most of his directorial efforts. Of COURSE people got upset when Seymour and his gal got eaten in the original cut. Duh!!!! People generally don't enjoy watching characters they care about get offed. Oz could have been a bit more truthful about his mistake by saying "I'm an overrated hack who moves socks around. Why the hell am I a director?"
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Oct. 8, 2012, 9:07 p.m. CST
I wasn't expecting much from the ending, but that was pretty damn awesome!
by happybunni
Such a shame.
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I have a bit of a history with this show, having directed a production several years ago, and being friends with one of the actors from the original Off-Broadway production, and as good as the good parts are of the film, there are a couple of inexplicable changes that fatally cripple my ability to enjoy it outright. The first main problem is turning Orin Scrivello into a comic vehicle for Steve Martin. I cringe every moment he is on screen. The second main problem is its ridiculous happy ending. Aside from the fact that it introduces a stupid original song and a dumb action fight scene, it fundamentally alters Seymour's character arc. 'Little Shop' is the Faust story. Faust makes a deal with the devil, then pays for it. By giving Seymour and Audrey a happy ending, they have to completely restructure the second half of the story so that Seymour never makes said deal with the devil, otherwise he's do something awful and evil, then get away with it. In addition to robbing the movie of some really interesting moral ambiguity, it also forces the film to cut "The Meek Shall Inherit", a great example of a showtune that effectively moves the plot forward and develops character. They include a little snippit of it's tune in a montage in the movie, and it kills me everytime that the whole song had to be excised. Those shots in the alternate ending of the old couple being strangled by vines and the giant plant crushing the Brooklyn Bridge so perfectly capture the spirit of the original play, it kills me that Oz pussed out and changed it. btw, if they filmed the original ending, does that mean they also filmed "The Meek Shall Inherit"?
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The very first release of LSOH on DVD included this ending as an extra...but they did it without Frank Oz's permission. Turns out he had creative control over that and was able to fight it and win, causing the entire first release to be pulled from stores. It made that first-run disc a highly prized collector's item in the early days of DVD. They subsequently released a version without the alternate ending.
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...is that Oz also said he wanted the audience to care about Seymour and Audrey. That he worked hard to make that happen. And then when he succeeded, he's dumbfounded when the audience gets pissed that the pair get killed. Again, I say, DUH! It doesn't matter so much in the Broadway version, because in that version Seymour and Audrey have all the depth of a mud puddle. But Rick Moranis has pathos, down to the bone, and that's a killer for a Faustian character. It just didn't work, and the ending was changed so that audiences wouldn't rip theaters apart and send envelopes filled with white powder to Bert's butt monkey. I have spoken.
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Plus they kept Seymour from being a cold-blooded murderer.
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As I worked in a theater when it was released. Loved it then, love it now, but the ending ALWAYS bothered me. Seymor's arm coming up with the cable was always such a jarring, out of place edit it was clear that something was changed. So glad to be getting the original ending back.
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Even though the plot should be Seymour as Faust, I've always felt the strongest character in the story was Ellen Greene's Audrey, who ends up being the emotional core of the entire play. And Ellen Greene was likeable in spades. Or at least she was/is to me anyway. I'll grant you that Rick Moranis was far more likeable as Seymore than Lee Wilcoff or Hunter Foster, but Ellen Greene was beautiful and sad and the play is her tragedy (hapless innocent beaten down and destroyed by an indifferent fate), and I'd argue has MORE pathos in the stage version, and giving her a happy ending in the movie just never sat right with me.
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seeing sympathetic characters become plant food. I get why they didn't go there, but it could be that Oz has the same twisted mindset I do, and therefore wasn't ready to see such a push back. And while Seymour is largely sympathetic, he still makes some terrible choices. Yes, the actual deed is not done by him, but he places characters in the circumstances that kill them. That he doesn't actually pull the trigger doesn't get him off the hook completely in my book. Audrey I deserves to be saved, but not Seymour.
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Oct. 9, 2012, 2:14 a.m. CST
you all know that its based on a musical play...its not like oz came up with anything original
by walt
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And fittingly it was the last DVD in my collection I sold off. I remember the day I bought my first DVD player was the first day that Little Shop of Horrors was availble on DVD, I bought it and the next day it was pulled from the shelves because of the ending in black and white being on there without his permission. Even after i went HD DVD and Blu back in 06 Little shop was one of only a handful of DVDS i didnt sell or trade off. I held onto it untill i heard the rumblings of the directors cut coming to bluray this fall, and was able to get $325.00 for it, a week later the pre order for the Bluray went on Amazon :)
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Last week i walk into ameoba records in Hollywood and a used copy of the "Special Edition" was priced at 19.99 All about timing when selling a long oop item that is about to see a major upgrade :)
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Fuck CGI!
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They did film "The Meek Shall Inherit;" I have a book illustrated with photos from the movie that include a lot of shots from that scene (TV guys ganging up on him to get him to sign contracts, the three girl singers sitting at typewriters, Seymore turning into a plant, etc). Looks like a great scene (also one of my favorite songs from the movie soundtrack).
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Spoiler, man!
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how dumb was that
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Technicolor Amazing Giant Monster Carnage!! Love this ending (and they obviously spent a bit of time and money making it, more extras in this sequence than the whole rest of the movie!).
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This EW article basically explains everything: http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/05/15/frank-oz-little-shop-of-horrors/
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Qualms about the script aside, I liked what was done with Where the Wild Things Are. The CGI was only used to enhance the details, but the costumes and animatronics were the main special effects. I think that's how CGI should be used and I think that film should have won Best Visual Effects based purely on it's restraint. I haven't seen this movie since I was 6 but that ending was the most fun thing I've seen in months.
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Oct. 9, 2012, 7:20 a.m. CST
The beginning of Menken's descent into a Disney people pleaser/
by Smerdyakov
Although he sure cleaned-up.
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Another great Corman film with a similar theme.
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Oct. 9, 2012, 8:02 a.m. CST
blowing into the chimney and blowing out the windows is cool
by nephilim138
fuck what the cards said, they should have kept it this way.
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Oct. 9, 2012, 9:43 a.m. CST
I loved this movie so much as a kid I had the soundtrack on tape. Basically memorized all the songs.
by Autodidact
Da-doo..
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Oct. 9, 2012, 9:55 a.m. CST
Great FX work -- but the ending doesn't work, and it's not just because the leads die
by Dursman2000
Oz doesn't want to admit it, and thinks it's solely because Audrey and Seymour don't make it, but the ending doesn't work for one big reason: after watching a fairly confined musical for the better part of 80 minutes, his original ending turns the movie into a big, full scale monster movie with repetitious (though great looking) special effects. It literally stops the movie dead. Tonally, stylistically -- it comes across at odds with everything that came before it. I realize it's how the stage version ended, but there's a big difference: on stage it's not being literalized the way it is on screen. It's overbearing and doesn't function. Still glad to see it in color -- and the model work is amazing -- but I'm never going to watch it with the film ever again.
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Oct. 9, 2012, 12:29 p.m. CST
As a kid I remembered seeing this, so I probably would've hated this ending then. LOL
by Wcwlkr
But even now that I'm older I find the movie on whole not holding up very well. So to me if you had this ending it would've been even worse.
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I remember going to a New York YMCA screening and talk back for the film with Menken and Ashman (who announced they had just been hired to do an animated film by Disney based on "Little Mermaid"). They had tried to get the original ending for the screening. I remember Ashman saying, the second number "Downtown" sets you up for something much darker than how the film was rewritten and re-edited. He was clearly not happy with the "new" ending.
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I was disturbed by this film as a young kid, and I think the original ending would have pushed me over the edge. But a few years later I watched the movie again, and it became one of my favorites. I read about the original ending somewhere, and have basically been waiting to see it all my life. Hope it was worth it.
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"I thrill as I drill a bicuspid/It's swell though they tell me I'm maladjusted." It breaks my heart that Howard Ashman died so young. He and Alan Menken had a wonderful partnership, yet thier body of work is so small
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pretty clear with the casting of martin as orin its abusive bf as clown and it didnt work...you never see audrey as real being in danger also oz never lets seymore be cold enough to do things like lead mushnick into the plant...mushnick dies by accident and his own greed the original final sequence also doesnt work as a result of the addition of mean green mother... seymore the idiot doesnt try to kill twoey from the inside...twoey simply eats him while singing the song we also dont get the twoey with flower faces of his victims...which was done in the original move and stage play....that mightve tested well as its macabre and funny despite the movie being a critical and financial success, it has many flaws but i do remember that when it was being made, oz insisted that the ending would be comparable to what happened in the stage show...when it wasnt, i was disapointed nothing cooler than tendrils falling out of the ceiling
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Before I read your post, I had forgotten how much darker the play was than the movie. It's a little strange that Oz was determined to preserve the original ending, when he went to so much trouble to soften so much of the rest of the play. Are you sure that the thing with the victims' faces doesn't appear in the original ending of the film? I always assumed that it did.
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Oct. 9, 2012, 4:42 p.m. CST
I watched Little Shop a few weeks ago for the first time in a long time. This ending doesn't work with the movie as it is
by Emperor_was_a_jerk
I don't know if there are other differences in the movie with this ending but as it is, the world-ending doesn't work. It's fun and interesting to watch and it's cool to say "Oh, that is way better!" but it really isn't. Little Shop is a very small, intimate movie movie with only about 4 (5 if you count the plant) characters. The world in which the movie resides is very small. So to all of a sudden see the rest of the world destroyed is kind of jarring and way too big an ending for such a small story. Like I said, I don't know if there was more build up or more about the rest of the world in the directors cut with this ending, but the theatrical ending works better to bring the small story to an end.
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