Am I Crazy? (Question About the Ending)
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Littlebitsofgaming — 12 years ago(April 11, 2013 06:39 AM)
This get curiouser and curiouser (said Alice).
More people seem to remember this ending.
As I said previously, I only recall the "proper" ending with the cat being hugged, no breath stealing there.
But I still can not discount that fact others remember the cat stealing the breath, not just random peeps on the interwebs, but people I actually know.
Not everyone can remember the same ending wrongly and describe it the exact same way.
Make me wonder if there was a TV/VHS edit made years ago that people are remembering.
And so, God came forth and proclaimed widescreen is the best.
Sony 16:9 -
kngtmat — 12 years ago(April 23, 2013 08:58 AM)
I have seen Cat's Eye on the original VHS in the 80's 90's & 2000 WB VHS as well as the dvd and I have never seen the cat steal anyone's breath unless Canada or some other Country has that scene. Lewis Teague doesn't mention it in the commentary either.
I have also read most of the stuff related to this & all SK based films never mention it either. In fact the original prolog is the only thing that I have ever heard about that was cut after the test screenings.
But if everyone that had to do with the film tells us that it's true I would like to see it.
(Family Guy)There is no Peter, only Zool. -
boredskater2000 — 10 years ago(September 25, 2015 08:23 PM)
Ok, so I used to watch a VHS copy of this when I was younger all the time, and I remember the ending being different than the DVD release BUT, what I think everyone is mis-remembering, is the cat doesn't steal the child's breath, but actually gives it back! That's the scene I remember, and it makes total sense with the plot of the movie. The troll tried to steal all of the child's breath, but only got some, and the cat jumps on top of her at the end, putting everyone on edge with what's going to happen, but then the cat breaths back into the girl. This would also explain why the rumor started that cat's steal children's breath, because people found cat's sitting on top of their child, breathing close to them, but really they were just restoring breath that was taken from a previous troll.
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jamieflor — 12 years ago(June 05, 2013 07:16 AM)
Yeah,
I think you just made a mistake. I just saw it last night, and I have vague memories of the movie from when I was young. At the end, it seems like the cat is going to steal her breath, but it doesn't. You probably saw it a long time ago, and misinterpreted the scene. -
mmcashan-1 — 11 years ago(September 06, 2014 12:14 AM)
I was in the same boat as you, I saw this movie first when it came out on video and the troll started stealing her breath, the cat fought the troll off and the mom came in and thought the cat was causing the problems (and in one scene at the bird? It's been a long time). But no, the cat never stole her breath, the whole vignette is based on an old wives' tale that cats steal the breath of children, and it was meant to subvert that myth.
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jamjohnx3 — 11 years ago(November 28, 2014 01:10 AM)
The movie is almost 30 years oldI figure someone would have found the alternate ending by now if it existed.
Not that I believe that it does. The cat stealing the girl's breath would be a shocking twist but it doesn't make any sense and goes completely against the cat's personality and portrayal in the movie. I mean, if his end goal is to protect the little girl from the troll and get a loving home as a result, stealing her soul would kind of ruin that, wouldn't it? -
macemace — 11 years ago(December 18, 2014 09:47 PM)
I saw this movie at the theater when it came out, and the ending as you describe did not happen. We see scenes of where troll tries to steal her breath, and you see the "visual effects" of it coming out of her mouth. Later on the cat jumps up and it makes us think at first the cat was going to steal her breath too, but it never actually does anything that would indicate that was the intention. It seems to be implied that the movie makers wanted you to think that, but the cat was actually just checking on the girl.
If the ending you suggest does exist, it would be interesting to find out.
Mediocre Marx Brothers is better than no Marx Brothers! -
iancw1 — 10 years ago(June 06, 2015 11:20 PM)
I just watched this film for the first time in 30 years on dvd. I first saw it in the theater, and I also remember the cat stealing Drew's breath at the end. It stuck out in my memory because of how "off" it seemed, and it was really the only part of the movie I remembered.
When I re-watched just now, that scene was not there, there was just the "happy ending." So I check the IMDB, and, sure enough, there are others who remember it that way as well.
My theory is that it may have been released that way and then changed for home video, as the movie didn't make much theatrically and may have had poor word-of-mouth.
There was originally a prologue shot, and subsequently cut, that set up the cat and the troll and a dead girl. Maybe the twist was supposed to be that the cat was the villain all along, but after the prologue was cut, the movie's ending didn't compute and had to be changed later.
Just my two cents. -
karstenschmieder — 10 years ago(June 30, 2015 10:53 AM)
I dont know where you guys are from but I am from Germany and watched it yesterday on Amazon Prime and was stunned by the ending. I was so sure that the cat would steal her breath like I imagined from seeing this movie some 15 years ago. For a moment I also thought I confused it with Tales From The Darkside butno
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wqxyzcj — 10 years ago(July 01, 2015 01:51 PM)
There is no alternate ending.
You probably just watched the movie long ago, the memory faded and you came up with that ending because the ending scene was extremely suggestive and cat's true intentions weren't revealed until the last several seconds.
The people who feel the same way probably had the same experience. It isn't that improbable. This movies doesn't seem to be popular. -
kaydie-fee — 9 years ago(April 24, 2016 03:39 PM)
You're just 'remembering' what's the movie teases at the end - that the cat really does want to steal Drew's breath, everyone who watches that scene for the first time thinks 'wow that cat really is going to steal her breath, just like her grandma said' then it pulls a bait and switch and the cat just licks her face, your mind conflated the suggestion with an actual memory of the scene happening
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john-2130 — 9 years ago(May 09, 2016 07:53 AM)
This is mental! I remember seeing this as a teenager (I'm in the UK) and (almost) literally the only thing I remember about it is the ending where the cat takes the child's breath away.
As a Physics teacher, I often use cat references/ puns/ cartoons (as a bit of a play on the Schrodinger thing) I've done this for years- and when students query my apparent obsession, I tell them my theory about how all cats are evil, and steal your breath when you're asleep etc. -and this is
all based on having seen this film when growing up!
I don't buy the false memory syndrome thing that people have suggested here- there must be a second version in existence! I feel so strongly about this I've just created an IMDB account, despite this being a six year old thread!
Deffo going to give this one a re-watch -
universaldennis — 9 years ago(May 09, 2016 08:46 AM)
Well, I wish I could find some evidence of it, but I haven't been able to. I even looked to see if maybe the director was on Twitter and considered asking him about this. He's not, though, which is not surprising as he's kind of getting up there now.
_()_/ -
ryansassy1 — 9 years ago(July 29, 2016 08:20 AM)
The false memory syndrome is very real, I assure you. Let me give an example:
Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer was one of my favorite films when I was a kid, saw it every Christmas and even dressed up like Rudolph one Halloween so I had a sort of "expertise" on it even at a young age. The scene where the elf returns to the cave with a tame abominable snow man who is now missing teeth because the elf (who wanted to be a dentist) had a brilliant idea to remove them: in my mind, for decades, I fervently KNEW that he told Rudolph that Bumble was mean because of a toothache, which was solved by removing the teeth, and so now Bumble was docile because he wasn't in pain. I would have sworn up and down that this was in the film. NO, it wasn't.
What actually happened is that the elf removed Bumble's teeth after he was knocked out by a rock falling on his head, so that Bumble couldn't bite anything. No tooth ache ever mentioned. When I rewatched the film as an adult, I couldn't believe how I had misremembered this for so many years, I was
so certain
the Bumble had a toothache.
In hindsight, what my mind had done was to confuse the old fable of the lion with the thorn in his paw, with the abominable snow man's teeth, and somehow reasoned that the snow man was kind after the "aching tooth" was removed, just as the lion was friendly to the mouse after the thorn was removed. It seemed logical, so I believed it was true and convinced myself that it had happened in the film. But, it hadn't.
I believe what's happened with Cat's Eye is a similar trick of the mind. We, the audience, are totally set up to believe it will happen. First of all, somewhere, you may have seen a film in which a cat actually does steal someone's breath. Then add to the fact that the mom mentioned earlier in Cat's Eye that cats are supposed to steal kids' breath, and it set you up to believe this might happen. The troll who actually did steal the girl's breath is a memorable visual, as is the end scene where it freeze frames, so even though the cat never actually stole her breath, we have that imagery from the troll and the misdirection at the end with the cat sitting on her chest before the freeze frame, and voila, we would swear on a stack of bibles that the cat stole her breath and then it went to freeze frame.
But this didn't happen
.
Mental, isn't it? Despite all the gains of knowledge in the last 100 years, the mind is truly undiscovered country.
"I'm sorry, but.." is a self-contained lie.
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ussfantasy — 9 years ago(May 10, 2016 07:31 AM)
I once saw a horror movie called Man's Best Friend, about a genetically engineered murderous dog. There's a scene where the titular dog is chasing a cat, which climbs a tree to escape. The dog climbs up right after the cat and swallows it whole.
Only, as a kid I distinctly recall seeing this movie on TV and the scene went differently. The cat jumped out of the tree and escaped with its life. I clearly recall seeing the cat jump from the branch, land on the sidewalk, shake its head as if dazed, and run away.
I've done online research and asked in several movie forums, but there's no evidence this alternate scene ever existed, on-TV or otherwise. I've come to the conclusion I was remembering incorrectly and I had made the whole thing up. Over the course of my research I've come across other people who have been surprised that movies go different than they remember from childhood. One person even told me he clearly remembers an alternate ending to T2 where Arnold never gets lowered into the melting vat!
My point is, human memories are very much in flux. As other people have pointed out in this thread, the set up to this ending is supposed to make you THINK the cat might be a villain, so it's not a surprise more than one person is recalling this scene that never happened.
In the 80's it was very common to have a 'twist' ending in horror movies. Remember the endings to the first Freddy and Jason movies? Cat's Eye was subverting the trope. You're supposed to think there's a twist, but at the last moment they denied what you expect and give you the norm instead.
Having listened to the DVD commentary by the director, I fully suspect if there was ever a plan to make an alternate ending (for TV or otherwise) he would have mentioned it in the audio commentary. Whether he had a hand in developing it or not, I feel he would have talked about it. Directors can be very protective of their work, and if some company had completely changed his intended ending for a TV-release, he would have had something to say about it!