Not so Despicable: China changes ending of ‘Minions’ movie

The most recent movie in the “Despicable Me” franchise premiered in China on Friday – although with a different ending, as local audiences discovered.

“Minions 2: The Rise of Gru” follows antihero Gru in his teenage days and sets up his evolution into a supervillain later in the series.

Warning: There are plot spoilers ahead.

But unlike the original movie, the Chinese version does not end with Gru and his coach Wild Knuckles operating off into the sun.

Instead, Wild Knuckles is jailed whilst Gru “becomes one of the good guys”.

Articles and screenshots of the film, shared upon Chinese microblogging site Weibo, showed censors had added a number of subtitled still images into the credits series.

In it, they will explain that Crazy Knuckles was caught and locked on with 20 years after a failed heist. He also discovers a “love of acting” and sets up a theatrical troupe.

Gru, in the mean time, “returned to his family” and being a father to their three girls grew to become his “biggest accomplishment”.

The change had been derided by many within China.

“The real story is in a parallel universe, ” one person published.

Others stated Gru’s alternate closing conveniently promoted China’s three-child policy , because the country tries to raise its birth price. The subtitled photos were also widely compared to PowerPoint display slides in quality.

DuSir, a well known movie blogger with more than 14 million fans on Weibo, called the changes “outrageous”.

In an article, he questioned why just Chinese people needed “special guidance plus care”.

“How weak and inadequate judgment do they think our audiences are? ” this individual asked.

Regardless of this, the movie – the fifth instalment within the series – went on to find success on the box office, apparently grossing an outbreak record of about 21. 74m yuan ($3. 2m; £2. 7m) on its opening day in The far east, according to entertainment web site Deadline.

It is not the first time a popular foreign film has had its closing altered for China and taiwan, which has some of the planet’s strictest censorship rules.

Earlier this year, a version associated with 1999 cult American film Fight Club released on Chinese language streaming platform Tencent Video had the original ending – where the protagonist blew up several skyscrapers – removed and replaced with a message saying that authorities experienced won and preserved the day.

The changes sparked a backlash, even prompting responses from director David Fincher and author Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote the particular 1996 novel film production company was adapted through. Human Rights Watch described the new ending as “dystopian”.

Tencent later reversed most of the changes, just retaining cuts of scenes featuring nudity.