I can't think of a single instance that I've heard of and know some of the details about where a test audience brought about an improved product.
A friend claims that he's the reason I have Stargate: SG1. The ending he saw at the test screening left Ra alive and blew up the stargates. He and his friends suggested killing Ra and leaving the stargates so there could be more travels through it.
I'm sure he's exaggerating his role in bringing me my not-that-secret TV boyfriend, Jack O'Neill, but I don't think that ending worsened the movie at all, and probably improved it.
Oooh. Hadn't heard of that one.
Although, being only "meh" at best on the series, my own take would be that the ending change there was value neutral, especially if you're just considering the movie on its own.
my own take would be that the ending change there was value neutral, especially if you're just considering the movie on its own
Leaving my insane adoration for the series aside, the story that preceded that ending was better served by a victory with some traction, plus a bit of open-endedness, as opposed to the delay of peril feeling I get from not killing the baddie, but just making it harder to get to you--but now he knows you exist, and he's pissed.
Although, being only "meh" at best on the series, my own take would be that the ending change there was value neutral, especially if you're just considering the movie on its own.
HEY! Those are some extremely good-looking people you'd be putting out of work!
And Jessica cuts right to the heart of the issue.
I'm not saying they're not very pretty.... I can appreciate that much about the show.
And it gave RDA something to wash the MacGuyver mullett out of everybody's brains.
I can't think of a single instance that I've heard of and know some of the details about where a test audience brought about an improved product.
That's not usually the goal, though.
I will bet money that lots of bad movies would be even worse without test audiences. But nobody cares, because even improved, they're still bad movies. That kind of process is going to tend to make bad things better, and good things worse.
Do Uwe Boll movies have test audiences? Because if there are movies out there that are worse than the versions of his movies that make it to the theaters, we should all Be Very Afraid.
Oh, oh! Yes, they do, and I hope those poor people got paid. Because originally Alone in the Dark had a different ending, and somehow that led to them adding captions or something that completely contradicted the visuals. And they added that extraordinarily long crawl at the beginning because when they tested it the first time, nobody understood what the hell was going on.
I don't think the crawl helped, really. But it did make the movie even funnier, so that's kind of an improvement.
I'm still holding a grudge against the test audience members who audibly gasped at Ralph Fiennes nude scenes at the end of Red Dragon. It was them that got some of the scenes...um...snipped.
