For better or worse: 10 deleted movie scenes that changed everything
No movie is set in stone from the second cameras stop rolling, with post-production a fluid process that allows filmmakers to hone, refine, and fine-tune their vision before settling on their final cut.
In plenty of cases, the decision has been taken entirely out of their hands, with studios regularly assuming command after a troubled production and mandating that the film in question be edited to their liking and nobody else’s.
Sometimes, though, a single scene has the potential to change everything. Whether it’s vital information, a death, or character development, scissor-happy auteurs and overzealous editors carry the potential to alter an entire feature simply by removing a few seconds of footage.
The following ten films are all memorable, and several of them are stone-cold classics, but in each case, adding one scene back into the picture could have resulted in a completely different experience.
10 infamous deleted movie scenes:
10. I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007)
For the first hour, I Am Legend is a solid post-apocalyptic thriller with Will Smith in tremendous form as an isolated man who believes he’s the last soul left alive in New York, but things go downhill when the Darkseekers appear.
The weak CGI completely shatters the suspension of disbelief in an instant, but what really sticks out as the film’s biggest point of contention is the ending, where Smith’s Robert Neville sacrifices himself to save the day and guarantee the survival of humanity.
However, the deleted ending saw the protagonist realise the Darkseekers were simply trying to save one of their own, which made him aware that he’d been the real monster all along. It was much more powerful and profound, which explains why the sequel will be the first franchise film in history to treat a deleted scene as canon.
9. Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)
Kickstarting the erotic thriller boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Glenn Close turned bunny boiling into a staple of the lexicon when she made Michael Douglas‘ life a living hell in Fatal Attraction.
The movie ends with Close’s Alex Forrest being gunned down by Anne Archer’s Beth Rogerson Gallagher after a home invasion that was threatened to end in violence one way or the other, but the movie would have concluded on a serious downer had test audiences not rejected the initial finale.
Originally, Alex slashes her own throat with the knife she wields to terrorise the Gallaghers, getting the last laugh by going out on her sword and having Douglas’ Dan face a murder charge. Close spent two weeks refusing to shoot it until she was convinced, and Fatal Attraction would have been a drastically different film had the filmmakers stood their ground and avoided an ending that was a little too neat.
8. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986)
As more time passes, an increasing number of people have started to believe that Matthew Broderick’s comedy favourite, Ferris Bueller, is a bit of a dick, which obviously wouldn’t have been ideal for the audience to think the first time around.
There’s a theory that’s been doing the rounds for a long time suggesting Ferris is actually the villain of the piece all along, which would have been lent even more weight were it not for a wisely snipped deleted scene.
In the excised exchange, Ferris gets his father to tell him where he keeps the bonds in his home office, which he then subsequently steals to help fund his trip to the city. It could have easily turned people against the so-called hero of the story, even if it ended up happening in a way eventually.
7. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991)
Director’s cuts have given filmmakers the opportunity to add extra footage to enhance the overall experience, which only underlined that James Cameron deleted one of the most important moments from his seminal sequel.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cyborg explains to Edward Furlong’s John Connor that when Terminators are mass-produced, their CPU is set to a default setting that prevents them from learning. Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor doesn’t care, robbing the movie of some integral character development along the way.
In one fell swoop, it explains how the Terminator could change its ways, establishes John’s growth into a leader, and intimates that Sarah is willing to trust a machine under the right circumstances, only to be cut in the name of time constraints.
6. Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983)
Popular franchises often expose themselves to intense scrutiny from their most dedicated fans, and few have exemplified it better than Star Wars.
One of the longest-running questions surrounding the original trilogy is why Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t bother to tell Luke Skywalker that his father wasn’t only alive but Darth Vader. Fortunately, Yoda offered an explanation, even if it wasn’t in the original cut.
The little green guy explains that he instructed his own protege to withhold that information so it wouldn’t affect Luke’s destiny and prevent the reputation of the Jedi from being tarred by association. If that had been laid out in the open, then it would have shined even more light and added extra depth to the spacefaring father/son duo at the heart of the original trilogy.
5. Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2017)
Test audiences have much more power than anyone in Hollywood is willing to admit, as Jordan Peele discovered when his feature debut began screening.
He didn’t plan on sending crowds home happy, with Daniel Kaluuya’s Chris set to be apprehended and arrested by the police after finally escaping the malevolent clutches of the Armitage family.
Instead, the bleak finale was vociferously rejected, spurring Peele to round things out on a high note. Get Out ends with vindication and triumph, but it very nearly culminated in the bleak reality that would have inevitably emerged from Chris’ actions.
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984)
Wes Craven unleashed a new icon when Freddy Krueger struck fear into the hearts of millions in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but he almost had a very personal connection to the ‘Final Girl’.
Of course, Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy has plenty of motivation to stop the dream-lurking killer when her friends start getting picked off one by one, especially when it’s revealed everybody’s parents were fully aware of the child murderer who was released on a technicality and then burned alive for his sins.
And yet, Craven opted to pull a pivotal scene that added even more heft to Nancy’s situation. She’d grown up thinking she was an only child, but she discovers she had a younger brother who Freddy killed, information her parents actively withheld to try and spare her the trauma that eventually came back to haunt them.
3. Clerks (Kevin Smith, 1994)
Kevin Smith pulled out all the stops to fund his directorial debut Clerks, which almost ended the filmmaker’s View Askewniverse before it had even started.
As it stands, Jeff Anderson’s Randal throws the ‘I Assure You We’re Open’ sign to Brian O’Halloran’s Dante, but Smith continued the story for a couple of additional minutes that would have changed everything.
Before he was advised to remove it, Dante was shot and killed by a robber and lay dead as the credits began to roll. Cooler heads prevailed, and Smith ended up building his entire career off the back of Randal and Dante’s survival.
2. Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)
Another deleted scene from a James Cameron classic that would have been much better off remaining in the theatrical cut, so much so that Sigourney Weaver based her entire performance around it.
The relationship between Ripley and Newt – and by extension, the Alien Queen – established motherhood as one of the key motifs in Aliens, although little explanation is given as to why Ripley suddenly decides to effectively adopt a surrogate child and takes to parenthood so well.
As it turned out, she had a daughter of her own, who was ten years old when she headed off on the Nostromo. After spending 80 years floating around in space, she’d missed her only child grow up, get old, and ultimately die, injecting even more pathos into her Academy Award-nominated work.
1. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
The Shining had already been playing in cinemas for a week before Stanley Kubrick changed his mind, hastily ordered for all the prints to be recalled, and cut a climactic scene that drastically altered every preceding moment of the movie.
The classic psychological horror thrives on its unanswered questions, and tying everything up in a neat little expository bow was the wrong call. Kubrick was smart enough to realise that, even if it took him so long to realise that his film was in the midst of screening nationwide.
It shows Wendy recovering in hospital following her ordeal when Overlook Hotel manager Mr Ullman turns up, explains that Jack’s body was never found, and hands young Danny the very same tennis ball his father had been tossing around during his descent into madness. Some things are better left unsaid, and what happens after Jack catches a deathly cold is definitely one of them.
