Edge Of Tomorrow

*SPOILERS! OBVIOUSLY...*

There's been a lot of love for Edge Of Tomorrow, a smart, funny, exciting blockbuster that took a seemingly tired concept and made something entertaining and surprising. However there's been a lot of grumbling directed towards the movie's ending, and indeed, when I saw it I felt a tad short-changed too, but I'd built up enough goodwill for the movie by then to forgive it this final stumble.

Interestingly one of the screenwriters - Christopher McQuarrie - has spoken to Film School Rejects about his original take on the ending, either approaching it as a 'downer' in that Cruise kills the big bad alien but stays dead this time, or leaving it with the doubt that anything actually ever happened.

I mean, the film was perilously close from doing a Next* and leaving the audience feeling cheated by having the film reset to before anything actually happened anyway.

My issue with the ending is not because it resets back, it's that it misunderstands the journey of our two main characters: Bill (Tom Cruise) and Rita (Emily Blunt).

It's established earlier in the film that Rita previously had the time-loop power that Bill now possesses. She lost it thanks to a blood transfusion because she lost consciousness rather than - the preferred - dying. She expresses her fury and frustration because she felt like she was close to finding the Omega creature and ending the war forever. Clearly she holds a massive personal grudge against this Omega, and - having become the poster child for this war - she needs to kill it to close her arc.

Bill on the other hand needs to learn about sacrifice, about the heroes of war, the people he used to just run the marketing campaigns about, urging other innocent men and women to sign up and be massacred in their thousands. Through his journey of training and trying again and again he lives out the experience of war, the countless, near pointless sacrifices, that these people make. His goal is to get Rita to that Omega.

So, the film would play out exactly as it does, with our last act beginning when Bill wakes up to find out he's been given a blood transfusion and has lost the power to reset the day.

It continues as he takes his squad to Paris, to where they believe the Omega to be located, and, again, everything plays out just like it does in the film.

Bill and Rita make it into the main lair, where the Omega is deep underwater and an Alpha - along with a few other Mimics - prowl the grounds. As they do in the film, Bill goes off after the Omega and Rita distracts the Alpha.

Bill loses sight of Rita, he hurries towards the pool where the Omega waits, however as he nears he doesn't see the Mimic emerging from the shadows behind him - we do - he's psyching himself up, about to make his final move, and then the Mimic strikes -

Bill turns. It's too close.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

From off screen Rita unloads her rifle into the creature, destroying it.

Bill's bewildered, she hurries forward, pushes him down as another just misses them both, she swings her weapon round, fires, taking that one down too.

"Don't worry," she says, "I've done this before."

He realises that when they were seperated she took the power from the Alpha again. He watches as she performs an incredible feat, dispatching Mimics that seem to keep emerging from nowhere.

"What are you waiting for?"

Bill realises, she's now passed the baton onto him to take down the Omega - honestly I'd rather Rita killed it, but I doubt Cruise would have let himself be so passive in the film's conclusion, but you never know, he's a smart guy when it comes to film - and he does so in much the same way as it plays out in the film now.

Once it's dead everything resets back to before and the film concludes with them sharing a look in the training room.

I think, for my tastes, Rita became a bit too unimportant once we got to Paris and it would have validated her character if she could have got her chance to help in those final moments rather than being killed as a way of giving Bill that final push to succeed and sacrifice himself. I believe it's called being "fridged" in comic book tropes, and it's a shame that it happens to Rita because she's such a great character outside of that.

Anyway, so that's my alternative ending for the film. Not a massive change, but I think - considering how strong the film was until the final fight - a very important one that would have really elevated those climactic moments.

　
*The worst Nicolas Cage film ever, and believe me, there are plenty of contenders. This one nudges out even Ghost Rider by having an ending so infuriatingly insulting that it made me feel like the entire film had stolen my time and spat it into my face.