April 18, 2022

Five Deleted Scenes That Shouldn't Have Been

Whenever I see deleted scenes from a movie, I usually get the reason. Either the scene is redundant, or drags the movie down, or was so stupid you wonder why they ever thought it would work. However, once in a while you see deleted scenes and wonder, why weren't these scenes in the damn movie? Not only were they cool scenes, but they explain away plot holes from the theatrical release! I know sometimes it's simply a matter of running time, a problem movies these days stopped caring about apparently, but why cut something that literally hurts the movie? I mean in Lord of the Rings they cut seeing Saroman get killed, and people complained that they never saw what happened to him! Just leave it in! Yes it was restored later.  In Superman Returns one of the big complaints was that we have no idea what happened to Superman after he left Earth. There's a whole five minutes scene that explains it (at least a little)!  Screw that put two lines of text on the screen that's enough. Or how about Titanic when we see David Warner all bloodied and beat up with no reason why...yup that's explained in a deleted scene. 



Anyway here are five deleted scenes that never should have been, in my opinion. And I'm not saying deleted the scenes ruined the movie just there was no reason for them not to be there. 



Star Trek II

These scenes have been restored in various versions, so this is probably not the best example. But I will never understand why the cut the line that explains that the young cadet is Scotty's nephew. It makes that scene of Scotty carrying him t the Bridge that much more dramatic. By the way a lot of people wonder why he did that, and I think he was just in shock.




Back to the Future II

When I saw the deleted scenes for the first one, they made sense. Most of them were just scene extensions and the scenes worked better as they were. In the sequel we kinda get the same, but scenes like Marty seeing his burned down school or seeing his Bumb brother could have stayed. A lot of the McFly family stuff was lost, or how Biff was reminded of that date in 1955, for no reason. But the big one was seeing Biff, after returning from the past, fade away as the time line changes around him, and he's experiencing some kind of heart attack. Why the heck was that cut??





Santa Clause II

This one nearly ruins the movie for me, I'm not kidding. At the end when Scott arrives at the North Pole and is rescued from the tooth fairy, there was supposed to be a moment before they go chasing after him. In this cut scene Scott frees the elves, who are now sad and angry. So Scott gives a big speech apologizing for letting them down and inspiring them to help save the day. This was a great scene! The worst part is the edit is so obvious, suddenly the elves are running after the toy Santa with Scott with no explanation at all. I think the director even regrets this one, but its one of the dumbest scenes to be deleted ever. 





Independence Day

No I'm not talking about the scene where Russell flies in on a crop duster at the end. That was moronic. However, one of the big criticism of the film was how could David connect his computer to the alien one? There was a scene that tried to explain it. Yes you could argue that it's still stupid but at least with that scene the issue was addressed. And yes the scene was restored in the extended cut which I recommend over the theatrical version,



Superman IV-The Quest for Peace

Ah, the big one. This movie is infamous for how badly put together it is. Literally thirty minutes of footage was cut from the movie making it a cobbled mess. Would these scenes have made the movie better had they been included? Better but it still would have been an inferior product with its story and effects issues. But we missed out on the first nuclear man not to mention other things which would have at least made the movie feel more complete. And yes Batman V Superman's deleted scenes were so foolishly deleted that they were restored in the expanded edition or whatever they called it. They also helped the movie but not that much.  


Superman IV is 35 years old this year, maybe I can find something good in the final product......



There are actually a lot more out there, let me know if I missed your favorite.

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