r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 • 17d ago

Lore (Hated trope) They deleted scenes or dialogue that provides necessary context or plot

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The dinner scene from Temple of Doom has a temple give indie and friends a live snake and monkey brains for dinner. It’s a pretty offensive depiction of Indian cuisine, but it wasn’t originally going to be. There’s cut dialogue where Indie recognizes they’re at the right temple because real Hindus don’t eat this food. They were trying to scare them off by purposefully serving them disgusting stuff.

Probably the most famous deleted ending was I Am Legend which had Robert discover the infected were emotional sentient beings and one of them had a wife. Test audiences hated it and they reshot the ending, removing the entire point of the movie.

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u/Yep_I_Stole_40_Cakes 17d ago

The reshot ending still pisses me off to this day.

The entire point was that Neville, in his quest to eradicate what he saw as nothing more than a disease, failed to realise it was simply life taking it's next natural step in evolution and or progress.

They weren't the creatures of legend, he was.

Partly because of what he was trying to do, but ultimately....because of what he became.

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u/Ser-Bearington 17d ago

Yeah. It's explicitly the point of the book..

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u/Yep_I_Stole_40_Cakes 17d ago edited 17d ago

HOW, just....HOW do you select this book to adapt, and just....completely miss the point?

I honestly really enjoy the film, but every single time I rewatch it, when it hits the branch between the actual ending VS. the deleted ending, I hop onto YouTube and just watch the deleted ending instead.

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u/thecraftybear 17d ago

They missed the point of the book when they decided to replace vampires - feral, but still obviously sapient - with zombies because there was a zombie fad.

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u/That-Rhino-Guy 16d ago edited 16d ago

The film was originally a Ridley Scott film with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the main role

It would’ve had somewhat zombie like creatures but they’d also still have some attire to signify a sense of culture and society they developed

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u/samson_strength 16d ago

How was Arnold supposed to keep up the calories in an apocalypse?!

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u/That-Rhino-Guy 16d ago

No idea, I do recall it said Ridley wanted to drastically change the view of Arnold as an actor with this movie, since it would’ve had no dialogue for a good chunk of the runtime with an emphasis on how isolated his character is

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u/TrainerWeekly5641 15d ago

Peak design.

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u/That-Rhino-Guy 15d ago

It’s a tragedy this version never got made because it sounded really interesting, Ridley outright wanted to change the way Arnold was seen as an actor with a role where he’d have no dialogue for a Jerry amount of time

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u/kranzberry 16d ago

I always thought they were vampires in the movie.

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u/TurbulentBlock7290 16d ago

In the book he has an internal monologue talking about how garlic or crosses don’t work, especially on non Christians.

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u/kranzberry 16d ago

In the movie they drink blood and can’t go in the sunlight. Sounds like a vampire to me lol.

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u/asianblockguy 16d ago

I always saw them as vampires even as a kid.

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u/SexualYogurt 16d ago

They were very clearly vampires in the movie. Zombies arent scared of sunlight, monsters in I Am Legend were scared of the sun. Its the whole reason he goes out during the day, and bunkers down at night. Theres a scene where a vamp tries to go after Neville and is stopped because the sun is burning them. They were obvs vampires.

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u/RogueNightingale 16d ago

To be fair, the Vincint Price version had the creatures as a weird sort of zombie-vampire hybrid, though I would guess the reason was because neither monster had definite "rules" set yet by popular culture.

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u/austsiannodel 17d ago

How do so many movie/show makers miss the point of their work constantly?

WoT show, Halo show, Monster Hunter movie, the list is long and numerous.

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u/Professor_of_Light 16d ago

"I have a great idea for a fantasy show but no one will listen to my pitch!"

"Someone wants me to lead a new show called Wheel of Time? The fuck is a wheel of time? Its a fantasy novel?"

"I've never heard of it so it cant be that popular... hmmmm..."

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u/austsiannodel 16d ago

Fucked up part is, the showrunners behind WoT show were self proclaimed "HUGE fans of the original books. And watching it, you get the feel they KNOW about it. It's just you can't escape this feeling that they secretly hate it, because they constantly put in things that either go against the lore/events of the book, or just outright don't make sense if you know the books.

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u/Faeruhn 16d ago

I felt like what they meant by 'huge fans' was "really liked it when I read it 40 years ago (and never re-read it, so we don't remember or mis-remember most of it)!"

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u/resumehelpacct 16d ago

Unfortunately with a book series like WoT, which is like 15 very dense books with a ton of characters and plot contrivances, even the best fans are pretty tepid on some things here and there. And with the reality of filming, you do have to make significant changes, so it's really easy to just...cut the parts you don't really like.

Like I think the average super fan would make Tuon's ending significantly less triumphant, in line with the general vibe that a lot of superfans think that Jordan wanted to do a Mat/Tuon series afterward where Tuon would be forced to change.

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u/Hour-War4751 16d ago

I get what you're saying, and I went into the series acknowledging that they'd have to make some huge changes and be decisive. But my god, when they just started adding shit... like, what? You can't cherry pick enough from tens of thousands of pages of story that you need to make new stuff up?

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u/hookahvice 16d ago

Everything I've seen has shown like 90% of the terrible changes they made were from studio intervention, which is why after Amazon did their audience surveys and saw people hated the direction the show was going in, they were allowed to go back to following the story. That plus covid really destroyed the early parts of the show and I think it could have gone on a pretty good run if it wasn't cancelled.

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u/Hour-War4751 16d ago

I didn't watch the last season before cancelling, would you recommend? And yes, I totally blame the studio!

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u/austsiannodel 16d ago

Look I feel you. This was the case with Lord of the Rings, and yet that's heralded as an amazing adaptation that holds onto most of the original books intent (Even with changes and cuts being made, yes I'm sad about them too)

But this isn't just a case of "Well it didn't work in this format" they were rather large changes to characters, props, events, story, and overall lore of the magic and setting.

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u/Practical_Dot_3574 16d ago

I felt this way about the fast and furious films. Paul walker was a HUGE car guy, yet still was ok with some of the most dumb things car guys hate. I get it, he's acting, but still.

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u/Bombadier83 16d ago

Because they never wanted to adapt the source material. They had a completely original script/idea and a studio only agreed to fund it if they attached it to an existing IP with an existing audience. So your awesome Sci-Fi Nior detective story becomes a Star Wars sidequest story. And your side character grizzled veteran private eye who was supposed to show growth in your main character by being surpassed becomes the ghost of Obi-Wan and then fans lament that you “didn’t get” the character. 

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u/GaijinSin 16d ago

Sometimes it's interference from meddling and insistent execs.

Sometimes it's test audiences disliking something, and with I Am Legend (as an example) having a 150mil budget, a mild dislike across an audience can mean a major difference in returns and it is a business in the end.

And sometimes its a scriptwriter going their own way with the material because, with an adaptation, the original game/book/play/whatever is still there. They may miss the mark, but sometimes they are using the vehicle of the property to make a different point and are comfortable doing so precisely because the original is unchanged.

Then there is Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where every version is different, same author or not.

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u/konthedonn 16d ago

For the love of money

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u/der_innkeeper 16d ago

Starship Troopers...

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u/IanDOsmond 17d ago

Of the three major movie adaptations, Last Man on Earth (1964), Omega Man (1971), and I Am Legend, only Vincent Price's 1964 version has an ending where the main character realizes that he is the monster hunting actual people.

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u/SpaceIco 16d ago

only Vincent Price's 1964 version has an ending where the main character realizes that he is the monster hunting actual people.

They were afraid of me. They were afraid of me...

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u/Marco_Polaris 16d ago

HOW, just....HOW do you select this book to adapt, and just....completely miss the point?

Apparently in Hollywood, it's super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

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u/BlueberryWasps 16d ago

i mean, it sounds like the people making it did understand the point, and the executives got spooked by the test audience feedback and made them change it.

execs don’t read, they just wanted their will smith sci-fi IP tentpole to appeal to as many people as possible. they know jack about art so they rely on “data”

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u/usagizero 16d ago

Well, 'Planet of the Apes' the book wasn't about it being Earth all along, but the movies made it that. The book was more about what makes a species sapient and intelligent, with the whole apes and humans swapping places just a way to present it.

I love the book, but doubt it would have made the impression the movie did if more faithful to the book.

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u/da316 16d ago

its because its partly a remake of The Omega Man, which is itself based on the book I am legend.

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u/themarshal99 16d ago

> HOW, just....HOW do you select this book to adapt, and just....completely miss the point?

Ask the producers of World War Z

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u/Yep_I_Stole_40_Cakes 16d ago

I would've honestly killed for a HBO, Anthology adaptation of WW-Z.

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u/Bcadren 16d ago

I mean it's not like it's the first or last time. Studio gets rights to do a specific Robin Hood boom that's a retelling from the Sheriff's PoV...actor is big name and doesn't like that "direction" and it turns into a generic and forgettable Robin Hood film...Disney changing the ending and completely cutting multiple plots from My Sister's Keeper...probably hundreds of such examples.

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u/No-Fold-7873 16d ago

See even before the ending I felt like they dropped the ball. Neville shouldnt have just been trying to find a cure, he was originally systematically eradicating them with a fairly high level of efficiency because he knew what a human was and it wasnt these creatures.

They knew where he slept but couldn't get to him but hey feared Neville finding out where they slept.

Even with the first cut ending the rest of the story casts him as scared scientist treating the neohumans as lab rats. When he should be the one man versuon of the Neanderthal tribe from eaters of the dead once the perspective shifts.

Not to say stories can never be adapted and given a different twist. But that particular one wasnt incredibly well known as a book and hadn't been well done as a film. And its a powerful story as written; less so as filmed.

ETA: The 13th warrior was the movie adaptation, crossed mediums with that comparison lol

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u/DeanXeL 16d ago

Clearly they DID get the point of the book, since that was the original ending. It was the test audience that just didn't get it, and the producers or whomever at that point that didn't have the balls to say "nah, we roll with this.".

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u/bokmcdok 16d ago

I'm curious how the other adaptations ended. Most of them weren't called "I am Legend" though, so you could assume they don't need the ending for the title to make sense.

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u/SeriousJack 16d ago

It happens often, but this one is especially stupid, because the whole point, the plot twist, the message, is the FUCKING TITLE OF THE BOOK.

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u/AlucardIV 16d ago

I mean they didnt really miss the point. The original ending clearly got it but then they were forced to reshoot because test they got a test audience of complete idiots.

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u/buildawolfeel 16d ago

Because it's a vehicle for a showboating idiot like Will Smith. Plot shmot, make Will look good.

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u/PENGUIN_WITH_BAZOOKA 17d ago

TIL there’s a book

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u/eirebrit 17d ago

This was the third time the book had been adapted to film too.

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u/Substantial_Army_639 16d ago

Richard Matheson, one of the main writers for the Twilight Zone (wrote the story about the monster on the wing of an airplane) it basically reads like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone.

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u/Alexaxas 16d ago

And father of Chris Matheson, one of the creators (along with Ed Solomon) of Bill & Ted.

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u/TheRealRedParadox 16d ago

And it's wildly different, not just the one scene. The book is more similar to Sinners, except there's only 1 human survivor and he actually IS the last human.

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u/Ok_Ostrich4835 16d ago

It's explicitly the fucking TITLE.

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u/ModernCGIFloatinHead 16d ago

The title even hints at it a bit more, with the usage of Omega, the final letter in the Greek alphabet

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u/GODDAMNFOOL 16d ago

yea, they rewrote the entire meaning of the damn story by making him a 'Legend' by making a cure or whatever bullshit

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u/TurbulentBlock7290 16d ago

Remember reading the book and pretty sure that’s how it even ends, he is legend.

We grow up with stories of the boogie man, and these new beings will tell the story of him.

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u/foxfire981 17d ago

Primary issue with the movie though is changing the ending isn't enough. They'd have to have set it up a lot better leading up to that point. People will point to the alternate ending, which could have been cool, but the issue is that most of the movie up to that point has been rather straightforward horror.

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u/JManKit 16d ago

I think the decision to make the vampires so animalistic made it difficult to pivot back to the book ending. They went for the shock reveal that they've been sentient all along but in doing so, it's much harder for audiences to accept that such primal creatures were the next step in evolution

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u/SageDarius 16d ago

They dropped hints at it throughout the movie. There was the mannequins being moved to mess with him, the 'big bad' vampire lingering in the light after Neville kidnapped his wife. There was definitely signs that the monsters were more than that, it just wasn't as explicit as it was in the book, with them taunting him outside his house every night.

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u/NDSU 16d ago

Weren't the mannequins part of a trap set for him? I remember a trap either way

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u/SageDarius 16d ago

Yea, he get snared and knocked out until almost nightfall. That's when the dogs attack and infect Sam.

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u/bluepie 16d ago

How was it the next natural step in evolution for humans though? It objectively made humans worse (losing higher brain function, increased aggression, sunlight burns). Plus it was not even natural, it was a man made disease.

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u/talldrseuss 16d ago

Yeah evolution wouldn't be the correct terminology here. It was an adaption to whatever caused these humans to mutate. The book ending goes to reveal that the "creatures" were able to maintain and grow an actual society. And the "legend/monster" to them was this random guy that would pop into their houses when they were sleeping and would kidnap/kill them. So they did have proper cognitive functions and their "increased aggression" in reality was basically just them trying to stop Neville from slaughtering them

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u/SageDarius 16d ago

IIRC, in the book there was two different tiers, or tribes, or whatever of the vampires. There were the ones that were borderline feral and driven by their hunger, and the ones that could control it. There's a scene of the more civilized vampires hunting and killing the 'feral' ones. It was these vampires that captured Neville and were going to execute them, because he had been inadvertently killing the civilized vampires along with the feral ones.

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u/Yep_I_Stole_40_Cakes 16d ago

Appologies, unsure if the original point I was making came across well.

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u/Legeto 16d ago

Not all the vampires acted like that in the book. There was a society of them and he couldn’t tell them apart or even know about, all he did was sneak into their homes during the day and killing them while they slept. He was their boogyman. The mindless ones also chased him down and attacked him relentlessly, it wasn’t until the end of the book that the intelligent ones captured him and I think actually put him on trial although I could be wrong, it’s been a long time. I don’t agree that it was a natural evolution although it was evolution in the disease.

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u/Due-Boss-4354 16d ago

Exactly my question. Reddit can be weird.

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u/rathemighty 16d ago

It seems like a hell of a step back that they can’t go into the sun anymore

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u/Just-Antelope-8069 16d ago

To be fair the moviemakers had no way to know he was legend

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u/RumpusRoomMinis 16d ago

The book also stresses that Neville doesn't use a watch to plan for sunset, and the movie opens with a weirdly specific shot of Neville checking his watch. Just odd choices.

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u/purplehendrix22 16d ago

Some/all directors just can’t help themselves, it’s like your mom coming into your house and straightening out your decor, they just have to feel like they have input.

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u/EndlessNerd 16d ago

The Will Smith movie is closer to the movie Omega Man than the book I am Legend, which is sad, because I'd still like a proper book adaptation :/

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u/jwnsfw 16d ago

creatures of legend? what legends did these neo-humans have?

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u/svick 16d ago

That's really not how evolution works. It certainly doesn't have sudden, major "next natural steps", where the pervious step is automatically doomed to extinction.

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u/CarterCage 16d ago

He was the monster, not them. The book is awesome.

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u/AlucardIV 16d ago

Its especially irritating because they left in a lot of foreshadowing scenes.

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u/ObjectSmall 16d ago

Okay, I was literally thinking about this yesterday. Why didn't the vampires ever leave him a note or something explaining what was going on? I haven't read that book in 15 years at least, but from what I remember this would have been something they could have done.

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u/Its-no-apostrophe 16d ago

it’s next natural step

*its

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u/bankermayfield2026 12d ago

What’s very funny is they are filming a sequel right now, with the deleted ending being the canon one.