There’s actually a campaign to digitally erase the rat from The Departed

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Martin Scorsese's crime-thriller THE DEPARTED deals with an Irish Mob boss by the name of Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) who plants Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) as a mole within the Massachusetts State Police. Simultaneously, the police assign their own undercover state trooper, Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), with infiltrating Costello's group. Naturally, both sides soon realize that they have a rat in their midst and rush to discover the other's identity before they're found out.

In order to drive that rat metaphor home, the final scene of THE DEPARTED depicted an actual rat crawling across a railing. A little on the nose? Perhaps, but one DEPARTED fan apparently despises that oh-so-brief scene with such a passion that they've started a Kickstarter campaign with the goal of digitally erasing the offending rodent from existence. Where's Thanos when you need him. "It's always bothered me that a movie as good as The Departed has such a cheesy ending," said campaign creator Adam Sacks, "and I recently realized it could be fixed by digitally erasing the rat from the last shot."

Adam Sacks is seeking $4000 in order to bring his dream of a rodent-less DEPARTED to life, and broke down exactly how that money will be spent, which includes $18.91 to buy a copy of THE DEPARTED on Blu-ray as well as $141.54 for a Blu-ray player as he doesn't own one. Most of the cost would go into hiring a visual effects artist to digitally remove the rat and have the altered scene re-printed on 35mm film. Even if he does make his goal, Sacks is thankfully aware that Warner Bros. could come down on him with a cease and desist at anytime.

All ambitious projects have risks and this one is no exception: mainly Warner Bros. owns the copyright to The Departed and may not appreciate me fixing their movie. But if I don't receive a cease and desist letter and hit $4,000 it will happen. So please give me money so that together we can digitally erase the rat from the end of The Departed.

Somewhat surprisingly, the campaign has already received (at the moment I'm writing this) $2701.96 of its $4000 goal, and with 28 days still left to go, that goal may very well be met. A lot of people really hate that rat. What do you folks think? Do fans have the right to change the art of others if it's not to their liking?