The original ending of ‘Pulp Fiction’ was much more violent: “I shoot his ass and kill him”
Just as Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda rode into the New Hollywood era on their motorcycles, leaving the old way of American cinema trailing behind them, and as Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty stood with guns blazing, themselves a symbol of destruction, the 1990s followed suit as a revolutionary time for Hollywood, paving the way for films like Pulp Fiction.
While the late 1960s and 1970s gave us some of Hollywood’s most groundbreaking films – blending the artistry of arthouse and indie cinema with mainstream appeal – by the 1980s, Hollywood had turned in on itself and reverted to franchises and blockbusters galore. It was a messy time for an industry that had done so well to move away from such staggering studio domination, but now, it felt like Hollywood was heading in an increasingly capitalistic and depressing direction.
But then a few indie films emerged among this bleak landscape of sequels and remakes, which just seemed to hit the mark. Quentin Tarantino was yet another of those fortunate filmmakers who managed to strike it rich, despite being at odds with a highly capitalised industry. For a couple million dollars he made his signature feature film, Reservoir Dogs, and soon had critics eating out of his hands. Who was this wildly talented filmmaker who seemed to be less a product of the industry but was in a sense translating and keeping an ethos as related to the golden age of New Hollywood as to the new century?
Pulp Fiction was his biggest hit, though, with an $8million budget spawning a multi-million dollar success. With its non-linear narrative structure and its ensemble cast of unusual characters – hitmen, pimps, gimps, and robbers – paired with this stylish sense of cool that made you want to immerse yourself in this seedy world of criminality, people were obsessed.
There might have been enough violence in the film that it could keep censors busy for a day, but Tarantino wanted to go further. Tarantino even had a climax that would have been more contemptible than it was. He and the film’s producers ended up arriving at an ending that was completely different from the climax.
So why did Tarantino change and create a decidedly less violent conclusion? Did Tarantino buckle under the weight and pressures of a Hollywood culture that would endorse a more upbeat conclusion than the nihilism that coursed through much of the films of the 1970s? Not exactly.
Talking to GQ, Samuel L Jackson explained how the film was meant to end. “In Pulp Fiction – in the original script – in the diner when Tim first comes over and he asks about the briefcase, he opens it up. And when he opens it, I shoot Honey Bunny off the bar. And then I shoot his ass and kill him.”
Of course, in the film, we see Jackson recite a bible verse and prevent the situation from turning bloody and ultimately tragic. He walks away from the scene with his partner in crime, John Travolta’s Vince, and there is no death and no suggestion that violence is the ultimate answer.
By ending the film this way, Tarantino perhaps shocks audiences more than if he had decided to finish with a dramatic shooting. The curtain closes on Pulp Fiction by playing with people’s expectations, and that’s really what makes it such a unique film, loved all these years later by a new generation of cinephiles.
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