Alternate Original Ending - Detailed

Everyone seems to have the same opinion of Snake Eyes - "It's pretty good...except for that ending." The reshot ending isn't just bad, it's anticlimactic. The whole film builds up to an ending that doesn't exist. Unfortunately, De Palma was apparently pressured into changing the ending but for some reason doesn't want the alternate ending on DVD because people will think he was forced to change it. He even claims that he likes the new ending better (a miscalculation which would explain the films that he's made since).

I did some searching and found a French website with detailed information on the original ending. I've included it below. The original ending sounds better (how could it sound worse?) but it feels like it's missing that 'drowning' element that the screenplay keeps alluding to. Maybe with modern special effects and some creative editing (or an extended shot of Sinise's character trapped underwater and slowly drowning), it could work in a new director's cut. But we'll probably never know.

----------------------------------------

Alternate Ending Description (cut and pasted from website - English Translation)
http://www.colba.net/~jecr/alternat.htm (original website with pictures)

Of all the alternate scenes in De Palma's work, the original ending of SNAKE EYES, the near legendary tidal wave sequence, remains the most mysterious, most intriguing, and to fans, most regretful, loss. Following poor test screenings, and under pressure from Paramount studio head Sherry Lansing, De Palma ultimately agreed to drastically alter the climatic concluding moments of SNAKE EYES. It seems the 'deux ex machina' of a hurricane-spawned tidal wave that hits just in time to save Rick Santoro and Julia Costello from certain death, just proved too much for test audiences. De Palma himself, though he was proud of the sequence, later admitted that "it took you out of the picture". So the current ending of SNAKE EYES is all we have for now, save for a few enticing bits of the original that can be glimpsed in the trailer.

Special thanks to our friend Brett 'BWL' Leitner.
He's one of the very lucky few to have actually viewed this footage, and here's how he tells it:

It starts off the same as we have all seen. Rick Santoro stumbles into the tunnel, bloodied and beaten up, with Kevin Dunne following from behind him, waiting to see where Julia Costello is hiding. Anthea and her cameraman are outside getting shots of the storm and Anthea says "I'd sure like to know what I did wrong to get all the *beep* assignments!" The cameraman yells "Just roll so we can get out of here!" Then Anthea goes into her countdown and says, "Well, it looks like tropical storm Jezebel just may be a hurricane after all!"

Meanwhile, as Rick and Kevin approach the door to the area where Julia is locked inside, Rick sees the shadow of Kevin holding a gun. We cut to a shot from high atop the room where Julia is hiding and see rain seeping in (this is the first shot I recognized as different). Rick turns around and faces Kevin. With his face all beaten up Rick says, "Kevin, am I still pretty?" Kevin tells him calmly to unlock the door and have Julia come outside. Rick says, "No I won't tell her. I won't let you kill her" and covers the door with his body and his arms. Kevin loses his patience and says "TELL HER TO OPEN THE DOOR!"

We cut to Anthea and her cameraman outside on the boardwalk as the cameraman pans his camera off the boardwalk towards the water (not a POV shot) and then it cuts to a huge wave that is gathering steam and headed straight for the boardwalk. We cut back to Rick, who finally agrees to ask Julia to let him in since Kevin is seriously threatening him and yelling "OPEN THE DOOR!" Meanwhile, we cut back out to the boardwalk as the camera zooms in closely on Anthea who says "HOLY *beep* as the tidal wave smashes through a ferris wheel and amusement park on its way towards them.

The cameraman grabs Anthea and pulls her inside the van. Rick tells Julia that it's him and she should open the door. Inside Julia says "Rick is that you?" and grabs the handle to the door. She fumbles with the door handle for a few moments but the door is not opening- it's stuck. What Dunne does not realize is that there are two doors to the room Julia is hiding in. He finally loses his patience and fires a few shots through the door that he THINKS Julia is behind. But it turns out she is behind the OTHER door, and when the bullets pierce through the first door, Julia recoils in fear and let's out a scream- but she is unharmed. Similar to the version we've seen, the shots manage to cause the outer doors that lead to the boardwalk to open up.

Rick and Kevin rush inside the room where Julia is hiding. Rick covers Julia with his body to protect her from Kevin and she stands behind Rick scared out of her mind. Kevin says, "All right, Rick. I'll give you one more chance. Get out of the way or I'll shoot right through you." Rick looks outside and sees the gathering wave. He says to Julia, seemingly out of capitulation, "Sorry baby, I tried."

Then we cut to Kevin's henchmen driving in their van to "pick up the package on the boardwalk" (a scene referenced in the regular version when Kevin radios them and they respond while they're in the middle of putting the dead bodies into the concrete). The henchmen see the large globe detached from The Millennium rolling down the boardwalk by Anthea's news van. One of the henchmen says, "What the hell is that?" (which in the regular version was said verbatim by the emergency rescue personnel). The wave hits the boardwalk and washes over the news van and into the globe (this shot is also in the regular version).

We cut back inside as Kevin is standing in the middle of the room about to shoot Rick, who is still covering Julia off on the side of the room. We see a wideshot of these three in the tunnel when all of a sudden the globe comes SMASHING through the tunnel wall and in an instant it rolls right over Dunne.

Right before Kevin dies, we cut to a shot of him holding his gun at Rick as his head turns and faces the oncoming globe and wave. We see his expression of disbelief right before it cuts to the globe killing him. This shot of Kevin is in the trailer to the film.

The globe is followed from behind by a huge blast of water that rushes over Julia and Rick as they cling to each other and struggle to keep their footing. The water continues to rush in over them, filling up the tunnel, but after a few moments it recedes. Once it is safe the cameraman from the boardwalk comes running into the tunnel with his camera.

As we pan down over the scene we see the large globe stopped dead in its tracks in the middle of tunnel with Kevin's crushed body and dangling from it, apparently impaled by a jagged piece of metal. Rick is lying on the ground coughing up water and still badly hurt from his beating. Julia comforts him by her side as the cameraman rushes over to them yelling to Anthea, "there's people in here!" But he says it less out of concern than out of opportunity. We then see from the POV of the cameraman's camera (as we similarly do in the regular version) a shot of Julia and Rick. Julia says with disgust "Would you just get away!" The cameraman zooms in on Rick's bloodied face and he stares blankly into the camera, and then the scene dissolves to the Mayor's awards ceremony.