Retro Rewrites!

Disclaimer: Rewriting scenes from already existing films is a fun writing exercise. It is not meant as a criticism or a statement on the quality of any film. ALL films or TV shows that make it through the endless Hollywood maze to get produced deserve praise for making it to the finish line.

Here’s a callback to a scene I felt needed a little more emotional “umph” from one of my favorite films growing up, Aladdin and the King of Thieves. I especially loved Genie saying, “Brought to you by SAND. It’s everywhere. Get used it,” And Cassim’s line ‘larceny is in the genes.’ Such a fun film!

When I was rewatching it and the movie reached its climax, Cassim confesses to Aladdin that HE was the ultimate treasure, not the hand of Midas. It kind of bugged me that Cassim was still holding the hand of Midas while he was saying that, and I felt like the dialogue just didn’t drive the point home like it should have. It worked…but I thought I’d try tweaking it see how it turned out. The lines that I added are in bold, and the rest is from the original scene. I also included a link to a video clip of the original scene below.

Rewritten Scene:

Aladdin: After all these years, you finally have you treasure.

Cassim: This thing?

Cassim looks at the hand, then looks away, ashamed.

Cassim: No. This wretched thing nearly cost me the ultimate treasure.  Because of this, I’ll never see my wife again.

Cassim drops the hand and hugs Aladdin fiercely.

Cassim: And because of my greed, I almost lost you. 

Cassim pulls back to look Aladdin in the eye.

Cassim: When Saluk was there, I knew that all the gold in the world could never heal the pain of losing you again. You, my boy, you are my ultimate treasure. I’m sorry it took me this long to realize it.

Cassim picks up the hand of Midas and looks at it disdainfully.

Cassim: The hand of Midas can take its curse to the bottom of the sea!

Cassim throws the hand into the ocean.

I really liked having Cassim mention his wife again. He only talks about her once, and I felt like she should have been an important part of his ‘admitting I was wrong all along’ scene. By the way, recording video from a TV screen works okay, but the audio quality is LOUSY. Too echoey and spread out to get picked up by the camera’s microphone. But, remembering that in film school we used sound blankets to soak up echoes and block out unwanted noise, I convinced my family to help me hold up blankets around the TV while my sister filmed the scene. The sound was 50x better! I love it when college degrees come in handy.

https://youtu.be/C5sZFfMD4yA