Not the original ending at all. Just a couple of minutes from a minute or so after the theatrical ending, but a clip which stops quite a bit before the originally shot ending (which ties in with the book's ending). I'd add more but it would be a spoiler and anybody who is familiar with the books will know what's missing.

Thanks for that Ian. I was unsure where it was going and with not having seen it I didn't want to watch it!

Dear lord, what a mess the makers and writers made out of this film.

It started off interesting with hope then very quickly it descended into a mess of re-written scripts TOTALLY different to the book. The scenes themselves looked beautiful but everything else after that was a complete mess. Plots were left unexplained, the reasons for many, many characters existents and actions were not even explained or touched on

as well as their very actions being completely changed or invented

totally from thin air! You were left wondering many a time "why is this happening" - "who did that happen?" - "what has this got to do with the story" - what the heck is going on?" and "would someone please explain why ALL of the characters are doing what they are doing? And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

The makers of this film TOTALLY took a meat cleaver to the story. Cut huge and I mean HUGE chunks out, totally twisted scenes around to an unbelievable extent, let characters live that actually die, NEVER explained backgrounds of anything! Leaving out the fact that they rewrote the whole book and made a complete shambles of it, just as a non-reader, many have commented to me in the cinema, on the way out and afterward to this present day (June 2008) the equivalent of "you could tell they pulled the good guts out of it".

Dear god, if your going to make a film from a book, stick with the book or make up one of your own completely. Don't waste our time and your own by buying the rights to a book and then ripping it to shreds and sticking it back together again in an unintelligible mess. What is the point of buying the rights to a book in the first place if your going to totally re-write it (and screw it up in the process too to boot)?

I understand that the makers were spineless and cowered to the religious nuts by removing anything that made any intelligence to those with brains. The effect of this cowardice left behind a film that was a total waste of time, an insult to the original writer of the book and a waste of talent that should have been used better in a greater film than this mixed, unexplained unmitigated disaster.

If there is going to be sequels and going by this film, I hope to all heavens there is NOT - can we the audience have a change of makers, scriptwriters and a producer, a director with a brain and at least someone with guts to stand up against the zealous religious right.

To sum up: what a complete mess and waste of talent.

This film could have been so, so so much better.

Rating: one out of ten.