Nobody tell the Gentle Minions, but the global cartoon blockbuster, Minions: The Rise of Gru, has reportedly received a new ending in China courtesy of local censors.
According to The New York Times, the hit sequel — which premiered in Chinese theaters on Aug. 19 — features an epilogue that alters the fates of two of the film’s main characters: the always adorably-despicable Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) and his mentor, Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin).
Yahoo Entertainment reached out to Universal Studios for comment, but did not receive a response at press time.
The plot of the Despicable Me prequel finds a young Gru is offered the opportunity to audition for the supervillain group that the supposedly dead Knuckles founded, the Vicious 6. But it turns out that Knuckles is still very much alive, and he kidnaps the 11-year-old villain-in-training. Against the odds, they begin to bond and team up to fight the Vicious 6. The movie ends at Knuckles’s funeral, only to reveal that he once again faked his death, allowing him to continue mentoring Gru in the next Minions movie.
At least that’s the ending that the rest of the world saw. Soon after The Rise of Gru‘s China release, one of the country’s major social media platforms, Weibo, was flooded with posts describing an amended finale apparently approved by Chinese censors. In this version, Knuckles is apprehended and given a two-decade prison sentence. Meanwhile, Gru is described as becoming “one of the good guys” and the epilogue jumps ahead to show him as an adult alongside his three adopted daughters from the Despicable Me series.
HA this is new: At the end of the Chinese cinema version of the latest Minions movie, the villain-turned-hero character Wild Knuckles didn’t escape by fake suicide as in the global version, but was caught by police and served 20 years. Also, the “Despicable” Gru became a good guy pic.twitter.com/Wih5pcO5tI
— Zeyi Yang (@ZeyiYang) August 22, 2022
The ending was changed simply by adding a few static scenes with subtitles; photos were collected from Weibo; Extra photo on Wild Knuckle’s destiny, also from Weibo pic.twitter.com/bHKamAmt3A
— Zeyi Yang (@ZeyiYang) August 22, 2022
The Minions case is the latest example of Chinese censors rewriting major Hollywood movies. Earlier this year, it was revealed that a streaming version of David Fincher’s 1999 cult classic, Fight Club, featured a tacked-on title card that described police apprehending Edward Norton’s unwitting terrorist before he could pull off his alter ego’s grand plan of destroying credit card company buildings. (The original ending was later restored following an international backlash.) Other films that have been impacted by local censorship include Back to the Future, Brokeback Mountain and Bohemian Rhapsody.
As in the Fight Club case, many Chinese viewers are expressing frustration with The Rise of Gru‘s new ending where the “despicable” main characters are punished. Reuters reports that one popular movie reviewer on Weibo complained to his 14.4 million followers: “It’s only us who need special guidance and care, for fear that a cartoon will ‘corrupt’ us.” Meanwhile, a university student told The New York Times that even though she didn’t see the need for the revised finale, she was pleased that she got to experience The Rise of Gru at all.
“A lot of movies I was looking forward to watching could not be released in theaters,” she noted. “I personally think that the addition of these ‘special endings’ is still acceptable, though just barely.”
Minions: The Rise of Gru is currently playing in theaters
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