Every time I see the theatrical ending my hatred of it only gets deeper and broader. It sucks!! Because Seymour is "nice" we get that fake over the top asinine happy ending that makes zero sense. It is so over the top that it a parody. And why did we get it? Well test audience wanted a happy ending because Seymour was "nice". Lets see Seymour sells himself to the devil for profit, murders Audrey's boyfriend not really to save her from abuse but so he can get her himself. Then he arranges his bosses death. But because he is "nice" he is supposed to deserve his happy ending? Whatever. He seems to learn nothing, there are no real consequences, (He gets away with cold blooded murder for profit). And to make it even more dumb the way he kills Audrey II in the happy ending is bluntly really stupid. Seymour is a selfish, entitled, whiny little so and so who made a deal with evil he is not actually a nice guy he just seems "nice". When I saw the Directors cut and Seymour was eaten by Audrey II that seemed so absolutely right and proper. Finally the completely insane ending of the Directors cut is vastly superior to the moronic, sappy idiotic "happy" ending that ends with a cold blooded murderer getting away with it.

I might be biased. I got interested in Little Shop of Horrors after I read a book about an autistic high school girl and near the end she got miscast as Audrey II only because the original actor got booted for being late to rehearsal, the director had a superstition against understudies, and her best male friend (who she confesses her love to at the end of the dress rehearsal in front of the school in the final chapter) saw this as her opportunity to shine on stage when normally there's a rule against 9th graders performing at their school. When I finished it, I got curious about Audrey II, so I went into the movie intending to focus on her (I use she/her pronouns for the plant because they go with the name). My mom is also a longtime fan of the movie (like since it's release long) and she admitted her favorite character was Audrey II. I guess those factors just swayed me towards loving the thrilling apocalypse ending. I kind of want to write a story with a similar plant where the protagonist willingly ushers them to their world domination, and the ending song is called, "She Fed The Plants,"

Not all families love each other.

I prefer the darker ending because i feel the og ending kind of ruins the message of the film. Having the Symore get off scott free for his actions also leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. It also commits the writing sin of "giving the characters exactly what they wanted at the begining of the film".

Honestly, the og ending doesn't feel deserved, Seymour in this version means well, he doesn't even directly kill anyone, the og ending just feels like a depressing spiral before tonel shift to what was clearly intended to be a scary ending , but is actually goofy as hell do to the puppetry and over the top acting on top of the song number ....its really feels like they wanted to just ho for ever edgy joke they could pack in at the very end its a mess you feel unsatisfied going through. And then there's theatrical ending which completes Seymours character arc by finally standing up to audrey 2 and making up for his mistakes. And Audrey 2 gets one of the best death lines in cinema, with a happy ending for our 2 leads. It leaves a far better impact.

Both endings are great, but the film makes us care about Seymour and Audrey so much that the original ending just feels gratuitous. It would make more sense if Seymour had been a darker character like in the original film or stage production.

B movie?

I saw the original Roger Corman version to begin with. Where Seymour dies killing the plant. He makes amends and saves the world.

While I agree with a lot of this analysis, as a stage thesp I'd like to push back against the idea that 'film is inherently a lot more intimate' and immersive than plays and musicals are. I take your point about cinematic close-ups (and would emphasise that theatrical performance practice is often less naturalistic precisely for this reason - cinema can more easily communicate emotion through subtle voice and face work*; live theatre tends to demand larger gestures that secondarily add distance of their own through their unreality). But - well... this is a very broad generalisation. Studio theatre productions often have audiences and actors brushing shoulders, and there's something especially intimate about actors and theatregoers actually sharing the same physical space in real time, even where the fourth wall is relatively thick. Whether intentionally or not, stage performances can be subtly influenced by audience responses, while the closest that cinema can get to that phenomenon is through focus testing of the sort that shaped the changes to LSOH. In that respect, stage characters and theatregoers construct a kind of community that is absent in cinema. Meanwhile, in live theatre, *planned* interactivity has arguably been the norm rather than the exception from the Early Modern period onwards (and prior - see medieval mystery plays like the York Play, which had Jesus riding a donkey right through the streets, with audiences suddenly finding themselves larping as Biblical crowds). The most intimate performance (of live-theatre or cinema) that I've witnessed was a production of 'Trojan Women' that placed the women of the audience *onstage* to be divided up by the Grecian conquerors - honestly, no horror movie has left me feeling quite as exposed and imperiled as that theatrical meat-market did. And musicals aren't exempt from immersion of this sort - productions of 'Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens' typically have their actors work hard to provoke audiences into vocal and/or physical interaction, and in LSOH itself I'd argue that there's more scope for immersive intrusion alongside the staged 'this theatre' line of 'Don't Feed the Plants' than the cut cinematic 'where *you* live' achieves. You reference the theatre curtain call as an immersion-breaking phenomenon; I'd argue that this isn't a bug but a feature - after all, the predecessor of the curtain call was the jig that followed performances in Elizabethan and Jacobean theatres. The jig provided a ritualised framework for actors to be seen casting off their characters, a framework that contemporaneous playwrights had a lot of fun with (see, for example, Ben Jonson's 'Volpone' and 'The Alchemist', which refuse to fully disentangle character from actor, and - by proxy - their respective narratives' unwitting dupes from their audiences). TLDR: While it's difficult to apply absolutes here, plays and movies typically utilise different tools to perform their magic and employ different strategies to close their respective summoning circles. I'm not convinced that either form is inherently more intimate than the other - they can both be strangely intimate and immersive, albeit in often very different ways. * ALTHOUGH the same cinematic POV changes that typically facilitate such intimacy arguably introduce their own subtle distancing effect - 'Rear Window' shows how a single shot can endow a movie with a certain kind of uncomfortable intimacy that film editing usually removes.

This is not the first time a movie took a stage actor to reprise their roll. Rocky Horror picture show did it with Meatloaf. Meatloaf played Eddie in the play The Rocky Horror Show

Original ending is the best, bro got greedy, started killing to get rich only for it to blow up on his face. Sure he was already struggling and we were rooting for the guys but just shows the reality of life that do some dumb bad crap and something worst is bound to happen

4:16 …. Rex Harrison?! Tim Curry?! I can go on

I respectfully disagree. The underlying point of the entire narrative completely falls apart and doesn't land without the original ending. Altering it completely destroys the audience's ability to understand what the work on the whole serves as a metaphor for. Something that reads very clearly with the original ending intact.

I’m a fan of this musical, but I like the movie ending best. And what I like mostly is Mr. Stubbs song. I love the GREEN BAD MOTHER FROM OUTER SPACE. I love that song. So , I’ll stick with the movie.

I know a lot of people hate this movie, but I enjoyed this movie a lot.

I had the theatrical version growing up on VHS. I never knew about the alternate ending until like thirty years later. But, the happy ending did seen out of place looking back.

I disagree with most of the criticisms you mention about Spider-Man 1 and 2, Sam Raimi needs to make his last Spider-Man 4 with Tobey to redeem himself for the problems he had with Spider-Man 3, it's his and our dream, he wanted Spider-Man 4 to be the best one.

At the VERY LEAST the 3rd spider man is the 3rd best spider man movie all the others sucks ass ESPECIALLY the Andrew Garfield version

love the sam raimi spider-men movies because they really emulate the silver age of spider man. these movies FEEL like comics, whereas nowadays super hero films just take themselves too seriously. could have been the best spider-man film if raimi had complete control :((

I hope you continue to the Tom holland movies. As for me I still think these 3 are the cream of the crop. They all made feel for the characters and it’s always going to be that way. To me the holland movies just annoy me no end. It’s just Tom hollands Peter should feel endearing to me on paper. But there’s just disconnect that’s hard to explain.

Great video! Watched it since it was in my suggested and assumed it was from a channel with tens of thousands of subs. Keep it up!

Very underrated videos, man. You deserve more recognition :P

The original trilogy had kirsten dunst, case closed, pack it up people

Definitely underrated. Good cinematic intro to venom. Sandman is lame tho.

I was first introduced to this musical through the 2004 Alan Menken retrospective on the Aladdin dvd and I bought it on dvd soon after and ever since I’ve called it the Warner brothers musical that changed Disney and I think you know why

I love when poor people win #slay

I totally agree with this video. Although there are aspects of the directors ending I enjoy-like the giant pods going on a rampage through New York-as a whole, it was just way too depressing and sad. A film is a totally different animal than a play. Film audiences are less cynical, and want to exit the movie theater happy, plus, at the end of the play, the actors all come out and bow to applause. A movie can't afford that luxury. Plus, Warner Brothers and the Geffen Company spent a *ton* of money on this movie. They couldn't afford to leave audiences sad and depressed, that's not good for business. And yes, I'm aware that the version with the happy ending wasn't a monster hit when it was first released, but it would've made even less money with the original ending, that's my point. And what made matters worse was its release date, which happened to be the weekend before Christmas in 1986. That's the last time of year you'd want to see a movie with such a downbeat ending. Now those who prefer the original ending say that the theatrical one nulls the whole point of the movie, which is that greed can destroy the earth. But I say, this is a musical about a talking, man-eating plant, it's not Death of a Salesman. Anyway, that's my take on it.

How about Seymour gets knocked out while the roof falls on him. He dreams that he defeats the plant and goes on to live a life with Audrey only to be rudely awakened by the plant and be eaten.

I agree I love the theatrical cut better than the director's cut Seymour and Audrey desveres to be together but Seymour is that bad he too sympathetic that's why they couldn't kill him in the movie but he needed to kill Audrey 2 because Audrey 2 wanted to take over the whole world that's why he stopped Audrey 2 and got the little house with audrey.

For me, calling the unhappy ending of the director's cut the "original" is confusing, since for most people, the happy ending was the first one they'd seen, and therefore seems like the original ending to them. Did you mean that the unhappy ending was the original ending because it was in the stage show?

16:47 when you watch a movie in front row

I grew up with the theatrical and happier ending of this movie! It's definitely much better than that director's cut ending which was just bad and sad.

I prefer the happy ending

Yeah this ending doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you consider the fact that, in order for these plants to go grow as big as Audrey 2 did by the time he ate Seymore is that each one would need to have been fed at least two to three people by their owners! And that's only if their owners figured out that they needed blood in the first place! Seymore made this discovery by accident! Now you're also saying that ALL of these people who owned these plants voluntarily went out and committed murder? And whats more NONE of them were caught by the police? Nobody reported so many mysterious vanishings? But getting back to the initial fact of even figuring out what these plants needed, these plants when sold were all clearly healthy, so somebody had to have made this connection. So on top of everything else, nobody stopped to think that maybe selling a plant that lives on human blood and nothing else might be a BAD idea? Or did the company selling them simply luck out and the plants simply didn't need blood until they reached their stage of growth when sold? If that's the case, I can only imagine how upset people got when their plants up and died on them. No one demanded their money back? Did people simply buy new plants? As the big as the hype was for these plants people on a whole aren't that stupid. Lastly, if Seymore had truly wanted to kill the plant. A simple solution could simply be to get some kerosene and just burn the whole shop down and then blame it on a electrical fire. It was Skid Row after all, that sort of thing probably happened on a regular basis! The plant was immobile and was only dangerous if you got close enough to it!

The original Ending fits better with the old Black & white movie, side note, there was a book of Broadway Musicals i saw in school that called "little Shop " a comparison to Sweeney Todd

I disagree, Little Shop is a dark comedy and the darker ending fits much better.

Personally, I prefer that theatrical ending. Not because it has a happy ending, though I admit that is my preference. But because when I showed the movie to my mother for the first time, she lost it right before Audrey 2 exploded, when it said “oh… Shit!” Little moments like that are what make the movie worthwhile.

I'm a giant monster fan myself, so I found the original ending interesting; but I agree, the destruction sequence goes on for far too long. However, I'm not sure if I prefer any ending to the story at all. If anything, the original movie by Roger Coreman might have it right; with Seymour successfully killing the plant but at the cost of his own life as well. But I have two big problems with the theatrical ending that I really wish had been better handled, and ultimately the two problems sort of blend into one the more I talk about them... The overall being is...the Theatrical Ending was _rushed;_ you can tell how improvised the new ending is. Audrey II is tearing apart Mushnik's shop like in the original, but before bringing it down on Seymour's head, the movie shows a redubbed footage of the plant's lips from earlier _that very scene._ Then the big departure...The fact that after guns, axes and even weed killer failed on this thing, Seymour emerges with the power-line and manages to electrocute the plant. Now don't get me wrong, this would be a good way to kill it...if it weren't for how the scene ends, with Audrey II exploding. Except because of how rushed it is, you can tell that Audrey II fades out from the shot and is immediately replaced with a really unfitting stock explosion. That right there, kills the immersion for me, because of how fake it looks. It literally feels so "hand-wavey" for a resolution of the climax. And it makes sense that Frank Oz didn't want to do it this way. But like I said, there's two problems in one; and the second problem besides the technical one - is the fact that the Plant is too damn powerful. Mean Green Mother slaps, but it establishes that this thing really is unstoppable at this point. It's casually tossing Seymour around and beating him up for literally nothing more than it's own amusement. And we're supposed to believe that the thing that stops it is a lose electrical wire? It seems too easy. I think what needed to happen was two things... 1; Audrey is sitting by the sidelines the entire time watching Seymour dodging for his life. What she should be doing, is coming back with a can full of gasoline which she pours into the business. 2; When the end of the battle takes place, and Audrey throws the final bit of the gas onto Audrey II, then have Seymour emerge with the cable. Don't have it electrocute the plant; just _burn it._ Show it burning and dying in agony as Seymour and Audrey watch - embracing one another. And Seymour makes sure that not one remaining piece of it survived. It just can't simply remove the plant and show a stock explosion; no, you actually would have to set the plant prop _on fire_ and showcase it burning to sell the illusion that the plant is defeated. I feel like that would've both redeemed Seymour and gave him the happy ending he deserved.

The original Broadway inspired ending feels like an entirely different movie a-la THEM!, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, or Godzilla. It should be a separate movie. It's high time we had a giant monster plant rampage movie musical inspired by said films.

3:52 You're telling me they made a movie based on an Iron Maiden song?

I'd love to do a combination. Audrey thinks she's dying but has a "I'm getting better" comedic beat, the salesman comes in, Seymour confronts the Mean Green Mother but II starts to get the best of him, AUDREY saves HIM, destroying the weed, but they miss the one seedling that the salesman finds, so Seymour and Audrey must go on the radio to warn people Don't Feed The Plants.

In addition to the excellent reasons you've provided for why the theatrical ending is better that final shot of the plant breaking through the screen only works in theaters. It's a great sight gag but by 1986 VCRs were already popular and people were buying copies of movies they loved. I checked and the 1986 Little Shop was released on VHS and Beta in 1987. The intimacy of home viewing could make Audrey and Seymour's deaths even harder and the final sight gag, funny as it is in theaters, just doesn't work on a small screen.

If you considered the original film as the first ending. Which is also kind of a downer given the character of Seymour, and is still sort-of there in the musical remake. You could say that both versions from Frank Oz were better. After seeing the first films ending I still can't see how Oz's bad ending didn't work. Especially since it bow-tied the setup of the plant coming from outer space.

I never felt like even the movie version of Seymour with his passivity didn't deserve comeuppance. A: that is the nature of tragedy. B: this is a horror-comedy and pulling punches is generically limp. Seymour deserves to have his agency taken away, to be berated, to be beaten anyways. You might as well tell me Hamlet should've stayed alive because he finally kills Claudius in act v. Inaction is just the abdication of responsibility, and it is Seymour's tragic, fatal flaw--in ANY version, no matter how softened he seemingly is by the film.

i refuse to watch this cuz you're blatantly talking shit but i appreciate you talking about it ty ily x

I hate to say this, and I'm not casting blame here...quite the opposite, but I think one reason I personally prefer the film ending is because of Rick Morannis. He plays such a lovable little character! So bullied, so meek, so deserving of happiness! Add to that, Rick's other roles like in Spaceballs and Ghostbusters, and I just can't help but like the guy no matter what he's playing. I don't want to see him get beat up. I don't want to see him die. I don't want to see him suffer. I want him to stand up, take down the evil plant, and ultimately be the little underdog who saves the day! Also, with the original ending, we don't get the hilarious "Oh poop!!!!!" death scene from Audrey Junior.

besides just sad, the movie version of the theater ending feels more grotesque, and not in the fun way the rest of the movie is. gratuitous, like you said. the reprise of somewhere that's green comes off more disturbing than sad.

Grew up loving this movie. Had no idea about the alternate movie until a few years ago when i showed my kids the movie from a 3rd party streaming app. I was shocked.

Just stumbled onto this in my recs, and I 100% agree. I've made the same arguments. And to toss another one on the pile: The movie substantially changes Seymour's character vs the stage, lightening him and greatly reducing his culpability. "The Meek Shall Inherit" was neutered, and they made big changes to the deaths of both the dentist and Mushnik - in both cases, changing Seymour from active participant and into a cowardly schmuck bumbling through the deaths. This makes movie Seymour feel much less villainous than previous versions, making it easier to accept a happy ending for him. I think this also adds even more punch to the sheer cruelty of the director's cut ending, like you talked about. Movie Seymour simply does not deserve to be tortured to death. Even previous Seymours got more dignified deaths than that, and they were genuine killers.

What about sliding down the mountain and falling into the rapids, huh?