There’s some characters that pop culture has introduced us to over the last few decades that pretty much everyone knows. It’s hard to imagine these characters as being anything else than what they are – and usually even played by a different actor than they currently are. But did you know that some of the more iconic characters we know and love could’ve turned out very differently?
Indiana Jones
Indiana
Jones has been around for 30 years, but he was sadly almost turned
into somewhat of a pedophile for the third movie. In Raiders of the
Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas got into a bit of a
disagreement about how far back the relationship between Indiana
Jones and Marion should go. Steven Spielberg wanted to keep it at the
acceptable level where Marion was at least 16, George Lucas claimed
that that would make the story uninteresting and at one time wanted
to go as far back as have Indiana Jones date Marion when she was only
11 years old.
Dr. Who
While
the Doctor hasn’t always been the same actor, he was initially
supposed to be a supervillain. His original plotline involved him
trying to find a better timeline than the one he was in and
destroying his original timeline (and everyone in it).
Batman
Initially the Dark Knight was nothing more than a human-sized bird. Or more specifically, a man with bird wings. It wasn’t until they brought on a second writer that Birdman got transformed into Batman, while also gaining his tragic backstory and his iconic nemesis, the Joker.
Harry Potter
Harry
Potter would still beat Voldemort, but original drafts of the story
had Harry’s great-grandson become the new Dark Lord. At this point,
Harry would be 150 years old and the new Headmaster of Hogwarts.
Superman
Even
the most iconic superheroes of them all had quite a different
storyline at some point. In the 1940’s, back when Germany wasn’t
that fun a place to hang out, a storyline had Kal-El reveal his Clark
Kent identity to the world to save Lois Lane, forcing him to scrap
the Clark Kent persona forever. Essentially, this would’ve killed
everything that made Superman human.
Luke Skywalker
Ol’
Luke was originally supposed to have a slightly different ending to
his story. After the defeat of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader, Luke
was supposed to pick up his father’s mask and become the new Darth
Vader. He would become the new Emperor that ruled the galaxy. They
eventually scrapped this idea because it didn’t quite fit the theme
of “movies for kids”.
Commander Riker
One half of one of the earliest bromances to ever grace television, Commander Riker is mostly iconic because of how well his character interacted with Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard. In the episode where the Enterprise crew meet Riker’s angrier doppelganger, the writers seriously considered killing off the original and adding in the angry clone as a permanent character. Just imagine how bad that would’ve been!
