New Alternate Ending for Reese Witherspoon's 'Election' Reportedly Found at Flea Market

I'm sometimes a sucker for the "What if . . .?" game.

You know that at some point or another, you have been too.

I get particularly excited anytime a great movie comes packaged for home viewing complete with alternate scenes or endings that show me what almost once was.

Sure, those alternate moments are sometimes completely inconsequential except that some might prefer this shot over that one, that line of dialogue over another. Others, they can be downright pivotal: the "Fight Club" special-edition DVD includes an alternate line that 20th Century Fox pleaded that director David Fincher remove -- along with Fincher's side of the story that he agreed he would reshoot that moment only if he could keep whatever he reshot in the movie, followed by Fox execs seeing the revised scene and begging that he take the new line out and switch it back.

By the by, Fincher declined. And no, I'm not printing the line here. This is a widely "PG" website.

Other times, we realize what was cut actually should've never been left out. Watch the original "Donnie Darko" cut, then watch director Richard Kelly's extended edition. What Kelly left on the cutting room floor actually made the movie much more simple, coherent and in the eyes of the movie's detractors, maybe a little less pretentious. One can only hope that was actually the only problem with "Southland Tales" but the things wrong with that movie? Far too long to know where to begin.

The 1999 dark-ish high school comedy "Election" ends with chaos and personal destruction.

Omaha, Neb. high school teach Jim McAllister resigns after being outed attempting to rig the student body presidential election against over-achieving senior Tracy Flick, who is ultimately accepted at Georgetown University after winning the election regardless. McAllister later sees sleep-to-the-top Flick climbing into a politician's limo, which incites him to vengefully fling a soda at it and run away.

That wasn't what director Alexander Payne apparently had in mind at all.

A VHS labeled "Working Cut" found at a flea market contains what is apparently an early cut of Payne's intended ending, which reverses the movie's ultimate tone entirely, and has now surfaced via YouTube. Thus far, this isn't available via any known legitimate DVD release.

So watch it, then let us know which you prefer: Payne's original vision, or what theatrical and home video audiences have seen up to now?