How Red State Could Have Ended
Last night, a few theatres across the U.S. played host to a small, one-night-only theatre run of Kevin Smith’s RED STATE, where Smith would accompany the flick with a live streaming Q&A immediately following the airing of the movie. Even in these times, I managed to shell out 20 bucks to see my favorite filmmaker’s recent flick in theatres and see him act a clown on Ustream. The movie aired and it made me wish I had seen it first in a theatre instead of a computer just a few weeks before on VOD. The theatre environment really enhances the experience and the audience is another contributing factor that really makes the movie work better.
Anyway, in the Q&A following the ending of the movie, aside from the few rehashed stories to bad questions, some funny one-liners, and a ill-positioned bald cranium of an audience member, someone finally let slip a gem of a question. “How was the final cut different from the original draft?” Smith immediately launched into the origins of Abin Cooper, where it came upon seeing an interview of Fred Phelps that was filmed for fellow filmmaker and friend, Malcolm Ingram for his documentary SMALL TOWN GAY BAR. From there, Smith realized he wanted Michael Parks to play his version of Fred Phelps and so the writing began.
CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD
Towards the end of the draft, Smith writes the scene when the agents and Five-Pointers hear the trumpet sounding. With no real ending in sight, Smith, on a dare by Ingram, simply ended the draft with the actual rapture taking place. The original ending starts with Cooper shouting “shoot me” to Keenan as he does in the final cut, however Cooper never walked up as close to Goodman’s character. As the trumpet continued to sound, Cooper’s head and chest suddenly explodes. Following that, Five-Pointers and Agents alike begin exploding, while Keenan takes cover. When Keenan finally opens his eyes, he sees the remaining Five-Pointer suddenly thrust with a sword from behind, after being thrown off the sword, we see a armored angel standing behind, where upon seeing Keenan, pushes his finger to his lips to shush Keenan. The angel proceeds to fly off, just as the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse fly across the sky. It abruptly ends there.
Of course, on as a low a budget as $4 million, an ending like that would be impractical. So rewrites were bound to happen.
As for this ending, it just would have been insanely fun to see it. It would have puzzled the hell of out the audience, but I gotta admit I probably would have enjoyed that scene for its sheer absurdity. However, I’m pretty happy with the final ending because it would have been silly to have a hate monger suddenly be correct and plus we got to witness that great performance by Goodman at the end.
