Clue wasn’t done right during its theatrical run though.
As originally designed, they tried to pull off a theater gimmick where every time you went to see the movie, you got a different ending. Only one of the three endings was played. It was supposed to be reminiscent of the board game in which the same mystery can have multiple solutions. So to get all the content, you had to pay at least three ticket prices. This made the finished film about an hour long, and felt kind of scammy.
The television release of the film strung all three endings together with that “that’s what could have happened, but here’s what really happened” text screen. This increased the run time, kept the energy up for a much longer finale, and just…increased the chaos. Plus it invented a joke, with “communism is just a red herring” brought up three times in three different contexts.
Besides, I think it works better as a TV movie. It’s great for movie night with your friends. Having it boom down at you from the big screen in a theater feels like it would be a bit much.
I have the opposite opinion. Three different endings were a fascinating gimmick and a novelty. I wouldn’t want that for every movie, but once in a while this is kind of refreshing. And in this movie it worked perfectly, it was made for this.
And in a time where movies go to streaming in a month anyway I would be perfectly fine with that.
To be fair they were doing movies like clue, long before battleship. Additionally, clue is a great example of a board game movie done right
Clue wasn’t done right during its theatrical run though.
As originally designed, they tried to pull off a theater gimmick where every time you went to see the movie, you got a different ending. Only one of the three endings was played. It was supposed to be reminiscent of the board game in which the same mystery can have multiple solutions. So to get all the content, you had to pay at least three ticket prices. This made the finished film about an hour long, and felt kind of scammy.
The television release of the film strung all three endings together with that “that’s what could have happened, but here’s what really happened” text screen. This increased the run time, kept the energy up for a much longer finale, and just…increased the chaos. Plus it invented a joke, with “communism is just a red herring” brought up three times in three different contexts.
Besides, I think it works better as a TV movie. It’s great for movie night with your friends. Having it boom down at you from the big screen in a theater feels like it would be a bit much.
I have the opposite opinion. Three different endings were a fascinating gimmick and a novelty. I wouldn’t want that for every movie, but once in a while this is kind of refreshing. And in this movie it worked perfectly, it was made for this.
And in a time where movies go to streaming in a month anyway I would be perfectly fine with that.
I mean, It’s okay to be wrong.
Absolutely:)