Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: the scene where:
The kid who dies when Khan attacks is introduced as Scotty’s nephew. It makes the scene where Scotty is carrying the dying kid onto the bridge (why he actually does this, I don’t know) more poignant.
For the record, I liked the “Dark Road” ending of T2. It felt right. The “happy future” one was so-so. But if I had to choose between that, and T3, well…I’d go with the happy-future one.
Anyway, I’ll suggest some (not all) of the deleted scenes from X2. Namely, the ones about Xavier’s “mind whammying” by Jason. It makes the story a heck of a lot more intriguing.
I had always loved It’s a Wonderful Life but when I saw the alternate ending I was disappointed that it had not been used in the final cut. I’m crossing my fingers hoping for a future DVD release that incorporates the cut footage.
After I saw Fatal Attraction at the movies my ex-wife remarked that she thought the movie was going to end differently. She explained what she had seen in the scene at Alex Forrest’s place and how she thought it would go from there. I thought her idea sounded great and said that is how they should have ended it. When the DVD came out it turned out that her idea was the original ending. I preferred it.
There’s an extra scene from The Sixth Sense in which Cole is playing with some toy soldiers, telling some really rich back stories about the soldiers, their families, and the circumstances of their deaths. It’s a very emotional scene that conveys the pain that the Cole character suffers, and I think that if it were in the movie, Haley Joel Osment would have been a lock for an Oscar that year. Shyamalan said he cut the scene because it revealed too much too soon. That may be true, but it would have packed quite a punch in context.
I think Aliens 3 would have been much better had the whole theatrical movie been deleted.
voguevixen- I was going to cite that DOGMA scene (Bethany counseling the abortion client) and also how Silent Bob gets out of trouble with the gang at the strip bar (Serendipity inspires him to sing the Fat Albert theme, which the gang loves) and Jason Lee’s Demon character (Azrael) describing the nature of Hell.
Also, I forget- does the scene where Serendipity & Rufus note how much Bethany resembles her ultra-Great Uncle make it to the final cut? (“She looks so much like Him- the hair, the eyes…” “The nails.” “Blasphemer.”)
bienville- Two weeks before that SNL skit aired my brother asked me “Do you think they ever figured out what happened to the money?”
In the first Austin Powers movie, there is a deleted scene with Cheri Oteri as a flight attendant on the freaky Power’s plane:
(paraphrased)
Austin: Yea, bring on the sexy stews!
Oteri: Umm, yea ah you know we’re called flight attendants now.
Austin: Oh right. That’s a bit like calling a whore a sex-worker.
I also have to disagree on the alternate T2 ending. It wrapped it all up too neat and tidy for my tastes. These movies are fraught with time paradoxes – to have one particular future spelled out just seems wrong. Plus, as was mentioned, that old-lady makeup was horrible.
Anyone ever see the three or four hours of extra footage from This Is Spinal Tap? A lot of it is very funny, but quite a bit is actual character development, back story, and drama. The characters don’t seem quite so parodic and one-dimensional. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Besides, the whole T series was a slew of time travel and apparent paradoxes. If they’d wanted to they could have used the happy T2 ending, and then pretended that was changed for T3.
I doubt that the inclusion of these scenes would result in a watchable movie. However, in Dungeons and Dragons there were two key scenes that answer such key questions as, “Why the hell can’t this guy shut up about how much he hates sorcerors?” and “How the hell does he know where to go and what to do?”
The first scene was a slog throught the sewers that was presumably cut for time. A questionable move, given that it is the only scene that in any way explains the main character’s motivations.
The second scene was clearly cut because the special effects budget ran out. In it, a dragon explains to the guy where he has to go and what he has to do to accomplish his quest thingamajiggy. If you can lay hands on the DVD, it’s worth watching because a) You get to see what the dragon actually said, rather than just hopping out of the magical map and saying, “Yay, verily, the dragon told me what to do.” and b) The scene consists of the actor talking to a scrap of paper with a dragon drawn on it, popsicle-puppet-theater style. It’s a riot.
How could we omit the Director’s Cut ending of Blade Runner from the list. IMO, that should be at or near the top. When you see that ending juxtaposed with the ending of the theatrical release, you realise just how painfully fucking stupid movie execs really are.
Ugh, those extra scenes in the Abyss were so didactic and preachy and practically ruin the movie. I much prefer the original version.
I can’t believe that this has gone this far without mention of the most universally reviled alternate scene in movie history. It can be summed up in three words:
Han.
Shot.
First.
I prefer the theatrical release.
Yes, good thread idea.
In Back To The Future Part 2 when Marty and Doc are in the Future town, there was the scene where Doc Brown and Marty leave the Delorean and Old Biff steals it, travels back to November 1955.
the thing is, it is an AMAZING coincidence that of all years and months, he travels back to the same time that Marty had been sent back to in BTTF 1
The deleted scene was way earlier where Old Biff is talking to another Veteran town member and they bring up the time Young Biff crashed his car in to the manure truck. This scene provided motivation for old Biff to go back to that time, and there was no explanation as to why it was deleted for the main release. This scene explains to the audience how such a coincidence is even likely to happen.
I don’t know if this was a deleted scene or rather a never-filmed scene, but in the first (ep. 4) Star Wars, originally we were going to see Luke racing through Begger’s Canyon, and later talking to Biggs, who tells Luke that he’s joining the Rebellion.
They did include that scene in the radio dramatization, Lumpy.
I’ve seen that scene with Biggs and Luke. I think I have it around here somewhere…