Here's The "Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness" Alternate Ending That They Didn't Wind Up Using And The '90s Sci-Fi Show It's Very Similar To
It should go without saying, but if you haven't seen Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness, here's your warning that there are spoilers below.
OK, let's get right into it. Do you recall how the later part of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness went?
Remember the Doctor Strange we've come to know got into a fight with Sinister Doctor Strange from the incursion universe?
He was the evil one who opened his third eye:
Well, eventually Doctor Strange knocks Sinister Strange out of the Sanctum Sanctorum and he falls to his death, impaled by a fence.
We know it's Sinister Doctor Strange because his third eye opens as he dies.
Well, in the original ending, writer Michael Waldron said the plan was for Doctor Strange to get "trapped in" the incursion universe...
Waldron said in the other ending, Sinister Strange "turns around, and the third eye opens" as the film concludes. The movie does end with a third eye opening in its final moments, but it's a result of the good Doctor Strange using the Darkhold. At any rate, Sinister Strange winning their battle, trapping Doctor Strange in the incursion universe, and returning to Earth-616 (our world) would've been DARK. I noticed the concept sounded very familiar to something else I've seen...
Quite possibly my favorite show of all-time is a sci-fi series from the '90s called Sliders (it's streaming on Peacock, please watch, you'll love it). The show revolves around a group of four people who are lost in the multiverse, traveling from parallel universe to parallel universe, trying to find their way back home. It's brilliant. Anyway, in the pilot episode of Sliders...
...when the main character, Quinn Mallory, enters a wormhole to a parallel universe for the very first time, it looks very similar to our Earth. So, Quinn doesn't realize that on this world, red lights mean go and green lights mean stop.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness, in the first parallel universe he goes to, Doctor Strange almost walks into traffic because he doesn't realize that there, red means go and green means stop.
And in reference to the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness alternate ending that never was, I'm reminded of another episode of Sliders (WARNING: Spoilers from a series that came out in 1995 ahead). On that show, there's a character named Professor Arturo. In Season 2's "Post-Traumatic Slide Syndrome," the good Professor Arturo who we've come to know fights his evil doppelgänger from a parallel universe. We lose track of who is who, but one breaks free from the other and jumps into a wormhole with the rest of the group. The other is stunned as the vortex closes and they're left behind. It's implied that the evil Professor Arturo is the one who joined the friends, leaving the original stuck on some random Earth.
(This storyline never actually played out on Sliders, as John Rhys-Davies, the actor who played Professor Arturo, left the show late in Season 3.)
What do you think, should Doctor Strange in the Multiverse Of Madness have used their alternate ending, or did you find the cliffhanger conclusion satisfying?
