You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News - Writers of Cracked dot Com [62]
Moral of the movie
Same as the book but without the consequences. It’s not totally surprising, then, that teens across the world started creating their own fight clubs, apparently mistaking the movie for an instructional video on how to achieve six-pack abs.
4. THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS
The man in the title is Philippe, identical twin of King Louis XIV of France. As often happens with twins, Philippe is good and Louis is evil. Philippe has been imprisoned for most of his life due to his dangerous potential claim to the throne. A group of musketeers finds him and hatches a plan to swap him out by making a dramatic charge down a prison hallway into a point-blank hail of gunfire. At this point in a story about the end of an era of heroes, as the aged, formally retired musketeers are making a brave suicide charge for a just cause, you would expect the heroes to die heroically . . .
The book ending
. . . which is basically what happens in the novel you read in school, though it probably took longer than you expected. When the musketeers are eventually defeated, Louis puts Philippe away for life and goes down in history as a great king. Thus we learn a sad truth about the human condition: History is written by the winners and the winners are often dickbags.
Moral of the book
The age of chivalry is passing because men of honor are at a natural disadvantage in our modern, amoral world.
The Hollywood ending
As the smoke clears, the firing squad looks into the haze and sees the musketeers completely untouched, striding forward. Moved to tears, the guards put aside their guns and join the musketeers in putting Louis away and proclaiming Philippe king.
The epilogue proclaims that the good Philippe replaced the evil Louis XIV and was the best king of France ever, thus raising a big cheerful middle finger to everything we know about French history.
Moral of the movie
In a world where the age of chivalry is passing, three men must risk everything, which is cool because the good guys always win, especially when they’re fighting for a cause as handsome as Leonardo DiCaprio. Bonus moral: Hollywood proves that history can be rewritten by dickbags too.
3. FRANKENSTEIN (1931), ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY MARY SHELLEY
Dr. Frankenstein decides to fool around in God’s domain by creating life from inanimate matter. When this results in a monster, he realizes he’s made a mistake and should probably kill it. Disagreeing, the monster fights back and eventually threatens to murder Frankenstein’s new wife.
The book ending
Mary Shelley’s beast is a monster of his word and kills Frankenstein’s wife. Frankenstein’s father then dies of grief. Somewhere along the line, his brother, best friend, and trusted family servant also die. Frankenstein ends up chasing the monster to the North Pole, fueled by grief and revenge, and dies of illness just as the monster bursts into his room, makes a speech about how woeful his lot is, and runs off to commit suicide. Everybody learns a lesson about playing God, or they would have if they weren’t all dead.
Moral of the book
When man decides to play God, he provokes His wrath.
The Hollywood ending
Frankenstein enlists the help of a good old angry mob to finish off the monster before he can hurt his wife. The film ends with Frankenstein’s dad raising a toast to the happy couple and a future grandchild. Sure, Frankenstein messed up with the brain part of his monster, but it’s pretty unfair to say it’s inherently wrong to reanimate a living sentient being from spare body parts or anything like that. There’s no reason he couldn’t try again, as long as he’s got the old monster-killing squad handy.
Moral of the movie
You can play God, just clean up after yourself.
2. THE RUNNING MAN, ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY STEPHEN KING
Ben Richards is a contestant in a deadly reality show in which he gets money if