I noticed that the movie Seabiscuit has been playing on TV a bit the past week. I loved the book by Laura Hillenbrand and really enjoyed the movie, which was wonderfully adapted. But there's always been one thing about the movie that's always bugged me -- and almost bugged me enough to be bothered by the movie. Not that it's important to the plot -- the film works fine without the omission -- but it's an omission so utterly inexplicable, and something so incredibly wonderful if it had been kept in...and would have been SO easy to include, simply as part of the "end scroll" at the end of the film, updating what happened to the people after the movie is over, that I am just completely boggled by why on earth it was left out.
If you haven't seen the movie, or if you need a refresher, there is a point near the end of the movie when Seabiscuit is finally about to run a hugely significant race, and jockey Red Pollard has an accident and breaks his legs so badly there's a question as to whether he'll ever walk again, let alone survive.
He does survive, and we see Pollard getting some physical therapy with his nurse and eventually builds up enough strength to not only walk again, and then ride again. And he finally re-mounts Seabiscuit, wins the rescheduled race, and history and glory is made.
All fine and well and good. And then the terrific movie ends, and we're updated with that final scrawl that explains what happened to everyone involved in the story.
But it leaves out one thing. One joyful, wonderful thing.
And what it leaves out is that Red Pollard and his physical therapy nurse...got married!!!
I truly don't understand how you leave that out??! It wouldn't require filming a new scene or restructuring the story or affecting the pace of the film or costing even, literally, an extra penny. You just add a line to the already-existing scrawl. That Red Pollard and his nurse Agnes Conlon got married, which lasted for 42 years, and they had two children. It's such a joyous revelation at the end of the book that's its omission at the end of the movie is always such a let-down to me.
It's still a wonderful film, but that sense of euphoria at the end just has a slight let-down, which for the life of me I don't begin to understand why it's there. Maybe there's a reason. I've just never been able to figure it out.
If you haven't seen the movie, or if you need a refresher, there is a point near the end of the movie when Seabiscuit is finally about to run a hugely significant race, and jockey Red Pollard has an accident and breaks his legs so badly there's a question as to whether he'll ever walk again, let alone survive.
He does survive, and we see Pollard getting some physical therapy with his nurse and eventually builds up enough strength to not only walk again, and then ride again. And he finally re-mounts Seabiscuit, wins the rescheduled race, and history and glory is made.
All fine and well and good. And then the terrific movie ends, and we're updated with that final scrawl that explains what happened to everyone involved in the story.
But it leaves out one thing. One joyful, wonderful thing.
And what it leaves out is that Red Pollard and his physical therapy nurse...got married!!!
I truly don't understand how you leave that out??! It wouldn't require filming a new scene or restructuring the story or affecting the pace of the film or costing even, literally, an extra penny. You just add a line to the already-existing scrawl. That Red Pollard and his nurse Agnes Conlon got married, which lasted for 42 years, and they had two children. It's such a joyous revelation at the end of the book that's its omission at the end of the movie is always such a let-down to me.
It's still a wonderful film, but that sense of euphoria at the end just has a slight let-down, which for the life of me I don't begin to understand why it's there. Maybe there's a reason. I've just never been able to figure it out.
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