An alternate ending for Edge of Tomorrow almost added an extra layer of time travel complication for Tom Cruise's hero. Christopher McQuarrie wrote a bunch of Tom Cruise movies before becoming the director he collaborates with the most. McQuarrie has directed every Mission: Impossible movie since 2015's Rogue Nation, in addition to acting as screenwriter and producer on projects like Top Gun: Maverick. Another of their key collaborations is Edge of Tomorrow, a sci-fi thriller where Cruise's character Cage is doomed to repeat the same day over and over after becoming infected with some unique alien DNA.

Despite a positive critical response (it currently stands at 91% on Edge of Tomorrow's ending and time travel rules have both inspired debate too, with some feeling the story wraps itself up far too neatly. This finale sees Cage blowing up the Omega alien and saving the world, though he's the only one who re what happened.

What Happened In Edge Of Tomorrow's Alternate Ending - Changes Explained

McQuarrie wanted to add a dark twist to Edge of Tomorrow's finale

The movie's story kicks into gear when Cage is killed by the Omega - only to become infected with its time-altering blood. This means that each time Cage died in Edge of Tomorrow, the day would automatically reset. It's only when he is unwittingly given a blood transfusion that he loses this ability, so during the finale, he and his comrades only have one shot to find and destroy the Omega. Speaking with Film School Rejects back in 2014, McQuarrie revealed an alternate finale for Edge of Tomorrow that would have made things even more complicated.

When Tom loses the power, and they go to Paris, and Tom is preparing the team as they go into Paris where he’s telling them the rules of the movie, he tells the team everything the audience knows. Basically, he told them: ‘Kill as many Mimics as you want but do not kill an Alpha. If you kill an alpha we’ll be right back here having this conversation, and we won’t even know it. The enemy will know we’re coming and they’ll kill us all.’ When they get to Paris there’s the classic horror movie scene where one of them gets separated from the group, and he gets attacked by an Alpha and kills it. As he kills it, you see the Omega reset the day and you see the point-of-view of the villain. We cut to the plane and hear the same speech all over again. This time when he gets to the line, ‘You can bet they’ll have a plan to kill us all,’ the ship gets hit. As the audience, you realize the enemy knows they’re coming. The problem was you were so exhausted by the time you got to that point.

Edge of Tomorrow has to barrel through a lot of exposition to set up the plot, but by the time the final act arrives, the objective is very straightforward: kill the Omega or die trying. McQuarrie's original finale reads like a delightfully dark twist, but it was based on an earlier version of the story that was also darker in tone. When the movie became lighter and funnier, this reveal would have been an unwelcome note of irony just as the end is in sight.

Why Edge Of Tomorrow Didn't Use The Alternate Ending

One thing the Tom Cruise time travel adventure didn't need was MORE exposition

It's almost an unavoidable consequence of any time travel movie that there will be reams of exposition about how the process works. Edge of Tomorrow is terrifically entertaining and well-paced, but it still has the obligatory scenes of characters explaining how the Omega blood works or the almost video game-style rules surrounding the use of time travel. Edge of Tomorrow dropped this alternate ending plan because it required yet more exposition to work, and as McQuarrie said, viewers were "exhausted" by this point.

There's an intensity to Edge of Tomorrow's final chapter because there is now consequence to every single death; there are no more loops or resets.

By the third act, audiences are ready for the story to resolve, so another reset and explanation for why the reset has happened sounds, frankly, tedious. There's an intensity to Edge of Tomorrow's final chapter because there is now consequence to every single death; there are no more loops or resets. Having the Omega restart the mission with none of the heroes being aware would have added more layers to a narrative that simply didn't need it by that point.

How Edge Of Tomorrow's Alternate Ending Made The Movie More Confusing

Edge of Tomorrow's time travel rules have already come under fire

McQuarrie also stated he always wanted the film to end with Cage in the helicopter, and the lingering question of whether he actually experienced the events of the story. The logic of this ending is confusing, since Cage has suddenly reset to days before his previous save point, and the movie offers no explanation as to why this has happened. It's still an emotionally satisfying note to close on, but it feels like the story cheats to get there. McQuarrie's alternate finale would have made the timeline even muddier and harder to track.

One of the reasons Cruise and McQuarrie's films tend to connect with viewers is that they work hard to keep audiences emotionally invested. They would rather have the story made emotional as opposed to logical sense, and having Edge of Tomorrow close with mankind defeating the aliens and Cage reuniting with Emily Blunt's Rita is a crowd-pleasing way to cap off things off. This is despite the myriad plotholes it opens up, and the introduction of an additional time loop late into the third act would have only raised further questions.

Edge of Tomorrow is based on the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.

Edge of Tomorrow's current ending might not be perfect, but as per McQuarrie's thoughts on the film, a "harsh" finale wouldn't have worked either. The ending also leaves the door open for a sequel, considering Cage still has some Omega blood inside him; whether or not it ever happens is another question.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes, Film School Rejects