When it comes to Netflix, the grass is always greener on the other side. Other countries have access to different movies and TV shows, and it hardly ever seems fair.
But instead of feeling jealous of the UK’s Netflix, we’re actually feeling kind of sorry for them.
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See, they uploaded The Notebook to Netflix, but they were apparently supplied the version with an alternate ending.
You can probably imagine how people reacted to this. It wasn’t good.
Assuming you’ve seen the original ending to “The Notebook”, it was probably the first time you ever sobbed at a movie.
…And probably continued to sob long after the movie was done, and every time you think of it for the rest of your life.
But if you’ve been living under a rock, sheltered from the heartbreaking demise of Noah and Allie, I’ll explain.
If you haven’t seen the ending, that probably means you haven’t seen any of the movie.
I’ll try to sum it up!
It’s a love story, everyone already knows that.
It’s one of the most, if not the most romantic movie of our time.
It blows When Harry Met Sally and Titanic right out of the water.
Allie is a high-class city girl, with strict pretentious parents, and Noah works for like, 10 cents an hour doing intensive labor.
But against all odds, they fall crazily in love over the course of one summer.
But when summer’s over, Allie’s parents force her to go to school in another state.
Anyway, the years go by, they end up reuniting and growing old together in a house that Noah built with his own two hands.
They get married, have kids, the whole nine yards.
But then Allie gets falls ill to dementia, and completely forgets who Noah is.
They move into a nursing home, where they live separately — since Allie can’t remember who Noah even is.
But every day he re-reads her the story of how they met, fell in love, and ended up together, in the hopes of her remembering who he is, even if it’s just for a moment.
Oh, that’s not even the sad part BTW. I’ll get to that.
One night, Noah sneaks into Allie’s room while she’s asleep.
When she wakes up and sees him, she doesn’t panic (suggesting that she recognizes and remembers him). So he lays down next to her.
The two hold hands, fall asleep, and die together.
A nurse finds them dead the next morning, still holding hands.
And that’s how the real ending goes.
I’ll give you a moment to cry and gather your composure before we move on.
I get it. It’s emotional.
I’m on the verge of a meltdown just thinking about it.
Okay, so that’s the version that we all know and love, and it should never be messed with. That’s the unspoken rule.
But it turns out there’s another version that basically none of us had ever heard about until now.
And for whatever reason, that’s the version that the UK’s Netflix got their hands on and tried streaming to the public.
I’d like to speak to a manager, please? This is outrageous. Who is your distributor?
The version they provided shows two birds flying over a lake together instead.
Public outrage seems like a totally appropriate response to this madness.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Why does this alternate version even exist?
The ending that we expect when we watch The Notebook is the thing that makes it a staple in romantic film history.
Not these two birds flying over a lake together.
If I wanted to see two birds flying over a lake, I would just drive out to my cottage.
I’m not paying $14 a month for this garbage. Show me two old people dying, holding hands!
Give the people what they want!
Better yet, give them what they are subscribed for.
If Netflix is going to be going around switching up endings to our favorite movies, I’m hitting that unsubscribe button!
Some people are taking this ending swap very seriously — tweeting at Netflix, threatening to cancel their subscriptions.
Who am I kidding? I would do the same thing.
Go big or go home, amirite? The internet is the ultimate place to voice complaints. Utilize that!
The whole reason anyone watches “The Notebook” is solely because they want to cry.
Whenever I have some pent up emotional energy and I need something to trigger an outpour of tears, I watch The Notebook .
How dare they try and take that away from us!
We’re all asking ourselves this question.
I want to know why an alternate ending even exists .
There was literally never a time in history where there was a demand for that. We were happy with the ending we were given.
Now I’m considering taking my rage out on whoever made this movie.
Whoever the person was that had the authority to agree to an alternate ending is the one we should be channeling our complaints to.
If another ending didn’t exist, this would never be a problem.
But we’re all too upset to think rationally right now, so let’s just blame everything on Netflix!
This is so true.
Death is a scary thing. But when I go out, I wanna go out right next to my one true love. That’s the ideal way to die, if I had to choose.
Then Netflix swoops in and takes that away from us.
Here’s a useful tidbit of information!
Looks like The Notebook with the alternate ending will be making its way to American Netflix in less than a month.
Hopefully, by then Netflix is able to resolve this issue!
After receiving an overwhelming number of complaints, Netflix tweeted this:
Okay, so it’s not really their fault.
Or so they say…
I don’t know what to believe right now.
It’s a good thing a large percentage of us own this one on DVD. The only place where it cannot be tampered with!
I mean, unless you scratch the back of the disk…
But other than that, the original ending is protected for all time. The way it should be.
