We've been looking at plot twists from famous stories. That meant looking at famous twists both ancient and modern. We examined some widely reviled twists (How I Met Your Mother, Twilight, Lost), sometimes joining in the hate and sometimes fighting it. Other acclaimed twists (Fight Club, Rosemary's Baby), we learned, received surprising amounts of pushback at the time, and still other movies changed their twists dramatically as the production went on—you've probably never heard about The Walking Dead's proposed twist or the best twist in Star Wars.
We'll avoid spoiling endings for you because spoilers are terrible despite what misleading pop science claims. That's why some productions and directors work hard to keep the plot a secret (though others give everything away in the trailer).
The links all lead to full articles with much more info, so do the unexpected thing and click every single one that interests you.
Many people speculated that a character would die in this movie. The film does include a tombstone, but they added the name using special effects—when shooting the scene, the stone showed someone's else's name.
The Pope asked Church leaders to rate films to guide the flock, and they came down hard against this one—but it looks like they didn't think their move through.
Everyone keeps sharing this study that you like stories more when you know the ending in advance, but when you look closer, the study is garbage.
The original comic book's author pitched the series by claiming aliens unleashed the zombies, and it would become a humans vs. aliens sci-fi story. Sadly, he never intended to really take the story that route.
The director planned to shoot one ending revealing that most of the movie was all in Scott's head—but Scott had killed people for real, and was in an asylum for being a serial killer.
The game was originally sold as a straight remake, but it changes the plot in major ways.
David Fincher trusted we would, but he did still make some other big changes from the book.
It hits the sour spot of too silly to work as a legit story and not silly enough to work as a spoof.
Not only did it give away too much of the plot, it also spoiled a particularly weird surprise music choice.
The two shows really do share a universe, which gives them a chance to double down a choice everyone else agrees was a mistake.
He was the first director picked for Life of Pi, but he figured he's so associated with twists, his name would ruin the surprise of the movie's ending.
If you're interested in the first twist ending of any kind, however, you'll have to go much further back in history. We've spotted a few candidates, spanning thousands of years.
Everyone knows Darth Vader is Luke's father, but here's a story twist you might never hear if you're not a gamer.
This earlier version of the story would have forced a bunch of changes in later films.
Sure, the Island wasn't purgatory, but even knowing this, audiences theorized that the writers originally planned for the Island to be purgatory. Turns out early scripts actually mock this idea.
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Top image: 20th Century Studios