Basic Trope: A famous plot twist is altered in an adaptation of the work.
- Straight: A remake of Citizen Kane changes The Reveal of Rosebud being Charles Foster Kane's sled. In this remake, it's the name of his wife.
- Exaggerated:
- Many noted movies are remade by this studio or director, and all have their famous plot twists altered.
- "Rosebud" is never even mentioned in the remake.
- Which "Rosebud"? In the remake he had dozens of things by that name. Which of them did Kane long for: his sled, his first car, his first house, or something else again?
- The remake starts off as a fairly close replica of the original film right down to shot-for-shot mimicry of its iconic opening scene ... until it turns out "Rosebud" was the code name for the secret weapon Kane was developing with newspaper profits to stop an Alien Invasion, at which point it pulls a complete Genre Shift and Halfway Plot Switch and starts going in directions that never crossed Orson Welles' mind.
- Downplayed: Rosebud isn't the name of his childhood sled, but his childhood dog in the remake.
- Justified: In this version, Charles Kane never had a sled.
- Inverted: For some reason, a completely unrelated movie has the plot twist of Rosebud being the main character's sled.
- Subverted: It seems that Rosebud is Kane's wife in the remake, but when his life is presented Once More, with Clarity it turns out he was referring to a sled all along. He was remembering their last happy moment together, riding their sled, Rosebud.
- Double Subverted: ...which they named after her.
- Parodied: It looks as though the remake is going to keep The Reveal as is, showing the sled Rosebud about to be burned in a fire as in the original movie's famous last shot. But then a Canon Foreigner salvages it, albeit calling it a different name than sled.
- Zig-Zagged: Rosebud was a nickname she asked Charles to call her. Her real name was Alice; the sled, on the other hand, never had any name other than Rosebud.
- Averted:
- There is no remake.
- The remake keeps the famous plot twist.
- It Was His Sled
- Enforced:
- "Everybody knows that this movie ends this way, why don't we have the remake subvert expectations and surprise audiences?"
- A comic book story is being adapted for an episode of an animated series intended for children, but the defining plot twist in the comics involves something that wouldn't fit the show's family-friendly tone (death, grievous bodily harm, rape, substance abuse, etc.). Naturally, the writers have to take a few creative liberties.
- Lampshaded: After Rosebud is revealed, someone says, "I half-expected it to be his sled."
- Invoked: Bob writes a script that explores such different themes from Citizen Kane that the famous twist would make no sense. For all intents and purposes it is an original story, but because it's about a powerful person named Kane, it gets renamed to Citizen Kane thanks to Executive Meddling.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob the screenwriter wants to change the twist to distinguish this version of Citizen Kane from the original, but Alan the director insists it won't work any other way, so they keep it as it is.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "I was so sure that the movie would end this way, given how we all know how it ends." "Maybe fans knowing how it ends is why they changed it in the remake."
Back to Not His Sled
