5

Passengers Should Have Been A Horror Film From Jennifer Lawrence's POV

Passengers is a science fiction film that pretty much banked on people wanting to see a movie about two doomed attractive people boning in space (it's kind of Titanic, only with a meteor instead of an iceberg). Like most high-concept modern blockbusters, the story is told from the point of view of Chris Pratt. He's playing Jim, who is accidentally awakened from his sleep pod 90 years before his spaceship will land on a new planet, with no means to go back to sleep. That means he'll die on the ship after either a long, lonely life or some kind of super cool spaceship suicide, maybe by having the robot bartender grind a broken bottle into his neck or something.

Instead, after a year of what we can only assume consisted of vigorous masturbation, Jim gets lonely and decides to awaken Jennifer Lawrence's character, Aurora, to keep him company until they both die. He lies to her, saying her pod also malfunctioned, but she eventually finds out otherwise and is understandably upset (this is, after all, a death sentence). She gets over it, because at the end of the day, he's adorable Chris Pratt. They wind up making a life together, passing on long before the ship touches down. The result is a strange, unsatisfactory story of a romance built on selfishness and deceit that works out in the end because the script says so.

4

Ready Player One Should Have Been About Art3mis

In the book and the film Ready Player One, we follow Wade Watts, a nerd whose main personality trait is that he can memorize a lot of trivia about pop culture. He wants to find three keys and win billions of dollars through a scavenger hunt set up by the creator of the OASIS, a digital realm where everyone spends much of their time.

Over the course of the movie, Wade learns he can't win this by himself, and he needs to join a team, including a woman who goes by Art3mis. In the story as we know it, she ends up being the token prize Wade get to have as a girlfriend after learning his lesson, which is that there's more to life than pop culture fandom, even though it was pop culture fandom that got him there. On one hand, it's true that Art3mis is fleshed out to a degree, with her own backstory and motivation ... but in the end it just winds up highlighting how much both she and the movie don't need Wade at all.

Art3mis, aka Samantha, knows as much about pop culture as Wade does. But her father died as an indentured servant under IOI, the evil corporation that serves as the antagonist, giving her a personal reason to win the hunt and take control of the OASIS. At one point, Wade is taken to Art3mis' sweet secret hideout, where we see she has already amassed a sizable number of people for the rebellion. Think about that for a moment. She went from a nobody with no family to leading an army against the all-powerful corporate overlords. So ... why isn't this her story? As it is, the only reason Wade comes into the picture is that he happens to be the first person to figure out he should try driving backwards in a big race. It suddenly becomes hilarious how awkwardly the token dude is wedged into the plot.

3

The Greatest Showman Should Have Been About The Bearded Lady

The Greatest Showman is a musical about the life of P.T. Barnum, played by Hugh Jackman at maximum charm, that made *checks notes* ... $434 million?! Hollywood should be doing way more musicals.

Anyway, the main problem here is that the real-life guy they're trying to make an inspirational musical about was a greedy piece of s**t. In the film, Barnum is given a stereotypical "Started from the bottom, now he's here" rags-to-riches story about a guy down on his luck who decides to pursue his dream (note that the real life, Barnum was already wealthy via a number of shady schemes before he started his circus). From a storyteller's point of view, that's just weird. "The world must know about this man's inspirational tale! Also, his tale is actually not inspirational, so we must invent a fictional version!" Why not just follow a fictional character, then?

Or, if you want to follow a real inspirational person, there's a better story right in front of you: That of the bearded lady. In the movie it's Lettie Lutz, though in real life her name was Annie Jones. If you go with the film's version of events, you have a woman who faces constant ridicule, forcing her to hide from others, developing an incredible singing voice while everyone else is out having friends and dating. This leads us directly to the moment in the real film when Barnum meets her.

2

War Of The Worlds Should Have Followed Dakota Fanning's Character

In the 2005 War Of The Worlds, Tom Cruise does what Tom Cruise does best: run away from things and protect whatever woman happens to be in his life. In this film's case, that's his daughter, played by 10-year-old Dakota Fanning.

This is, at heart, a horror movie, built entirely on a series of eerie/creepy/terrifying setpieces. But we're being led through all of it by the handsome, glib, indestructible action star Cruise. Let's be honest, it's the aliens who are in trouble here. All of it takes on a much scarier, more apprehensive tone if we're forced into the perspective of a little girl in the middle of an alien invasion, one who doesn't know who to trust.

For proof of how much more terrifying this version of the movie would be, look no further than the best scene in the film, in which Cruise blindfolds his daughter so that he can go into the next room to murder an unstable man who could potentially get them both killed.

1

In Avatar, Neytiri (The Na'vi Love Interest) Should Have Been The Star

Here's a fun game: Without looking it up, what is the name of the main character in James Cameron's Avatar, i.e. the highest-grossing film of all time? If you guessed "Jack Sullivan," sure, that sounds about right.

The only reason this guy is the lead is so that the audience can have the point of view of a white dude taking us into the world of Pandora and the Na'vi. Sullivan is part of Earth's military, there to learn more about the alien race, eventually earning their trust so that the humans can extract MacGuffin-tanium from the Hometree. As Sullivan spends time with the Na'vi, he begins to sympathize with them (that is, he falls in love with one of them -- Neytiri, played by Zoe Saldana). He regrets his actions once the humans launch an assault on the natives, and joins the fight against the humans.