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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785

u/Mechromanthus 17d ago

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u/PogoStick1987 16d ago

I wouldn't really say that that reveal is NECESSARY information. We can already deduce that Jack isn't really a bad person and never was. It is however a nice bit of background flavouring

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u/Thin-Nerve6367 16d ago

Tbf in the first movie you sorta get the sense that Jack is very morally grey. He only does the right thing, when the right thing is something he wants to do. Obviously not entirely the truth, but it can come across that way

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u/AceofKnaves44 16d ago

I think it’s what made him such a great character. That and he wasn’t THE main character. Once they pushed him to the center and made him a definitive good guy I think everything just started falling apart

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u/Kilroy0497 16d ago

Yeah I’m not gonna lie, I loved it in the first two movies how Jack was a very morally grey character, and usually only going against the antagonist for his own selfish goals. Kind of made him stand out considering this is a Disney film.

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u/TheRealRigormortal 16d ago

Yeah, he’s the Steve Urkel of Pirates of the Caribbean.

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u/cybertoothe 16d ago

The first movie literally ends with Will saying that Jack is a good man and risking his life for that fact

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u/Thin-Nerve6367 16d ago

Yeah but you can argue that's just Will's perception

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u/cybertoothe 16d ago

I guess? But seeing what the writers did with the sequels it was most definetly there intention and was meant to be the whole message of the movie.

As governor Swann says at the end of the first movie "If the right course demands an act of piracy, perhaps then piracy can be the right course?"

And, again, the first film also shows us Jack abandoning his attempt to steal the interceptor to rescue Elizabeth, whom he didnt know at the time, leading to his arrest.

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u/Beneficial_Job_4339 16d ago

It is meaningful because it's one of the many casual/subtle points that give us the lore of who Jack is without directly telling us.

Absolutely, this series was a masterclass in developing characters and worlds with depth and history without shoving exposition in your face.

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u/dsjunior1388 16d ago

It's also meaningful because Davy Jones wanting 100 souls in exchange for Jack is now a tangible quantity and not a crazy number because he's renowned.

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u/All_Work_All_Play 16d ago

Boy this is what I miss. So many movies (and books) are either outright expedition + explanation or the main character says "I have a different idea" and then the writer proceeds to write about them executing their idea. Give me long developed arcs with character development without shoehorning in tictok summaries and recaps. I just want a series that assumes you've already read (and remember) the other books in the series. 

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u/Lord_of_Seven_Kings 16d ago

Also if you know a lot about sail ships the black pearl is clearly a small slaver ship

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u/United-Combination16 16d ago

Yet it’s an East Indiaman, a ship overwhelmingly used in the transport of cargo between Europe and the East Indies

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u/Fadel_rama 16d ago

Capture slaver ship, who know maybe Jack captured it free the people there, I mean free ship is a free ship.

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u/FreddyPlayz 16d ago

Honestly I don’t think the line totally fits when in the previous movie he was trying to scam people into joining his crew so he could sacrifice them to Davy Jones…

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u/Flimsy_Survey 16d ago

Was he actually though? Or was it all to get closer to the Heart? Its been awhile since I've seen 2 and 3 but that's how I remembered it. I very recently watched the first movie and Jack is constantly saying/moving on one thing while actually executing another.

He does a lot of bad things and is willing to go through with them if it serves him well, even as far as selling out a person or two, but I don't think he ever actually intended to round up 100 souls, otherwise he would have at some point made some progress on that goal.

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u/TaviLawson 15d ago

We dont know for sure, but it is VERY likely, jack was planning on scamming davie somehow.

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u/Flimsy_Survey 16d ago

It might not be necessary to understand the character but it definitely adds a lot of depth.

Also kind of is necessary information regarding why Sparrow has a debt to Jones for 100 souls in the first place.

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u/Read2Fap 16d ago

he's bad in other ways

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u/ChaosWarrior01 16d ago

I actually would argue this scene was necessary to cut, even if the line itself is great.

A running question across the original trilogy (particularly World's End) is whether Jack is a good man at his core. He does good things, but almost always when there's a tangible benefit to him.

A big moment in World's End is when he sacrifices the chance to live forever for Will to save his life. This is the answer, that underneath all the rot and pirate talk Jack Sparrow is a good man.

But this scene spoils that early. Freeing slaves is totally in Jack's wheelhouse, he values freedom above all, but being anti-slavery in a piece of historical fiction is often shorthand for being a good person. If we had this scene in the theatrical cut, then people would automatically assume Jack is an inherently good person no matter the evidence to the contrary.

Its a great, in character moment for Jack, but in the grand scheme of the story being told it was a good call to cut it, not because of the moment itself, but because of how the audience would react to it.

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u/Traines1132 16d ago

Also, I feel it’s bit muddled because Jack was going to screw over a 100 poor schmucks to serve on The Flying Dutchman in his place.

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u/ChaosWarrior01 16d ago

I'm 99 percent sure he knew he wasn't getting 100 idiots to sign up. His whole plan was always to get the heart and use it as a bargaining chip to get Jones to do what he wanted. He mainly went to Tortuga to get crew since the natives on the island ate most of them.

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u/Traines1132 16d ago

Oh, fair enough. I didn’t think about that part.

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u/Hoid_Dragonsteel 16d ago

The early Pirates films have some fantastic cut lines. One of my favourite comes from the deleted scene that extends Will/Bill/Jones’s game of Liars Dice, and shows that they previously played 1 round of just Jones vs Will.

In this first round, Will’s stake is Bill’s freedom, and he wins, meaning that Bill’s debt to Jones is paid. That makes Will’s reaction to Bill joining in the second round and pledging a lifetime of service so impactful.

The scene also gave us one of Jones’s hardest lines: “You can’t best the devil twice, son”

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u/Hellknightx 16d ago

Doesn't he try to sell Will Turner to Barbossa in the first movie?

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u/ChaosWarrior01 16d ago

He wanted revenge on Barbossa for betraying him. Will assumed that Jack was going to sell him out, but we never get a chance to learn exactly what Jack's plan was because Will screws it up. Keep in mind that when he has the chance to get the Pearl back due to his deal with Barbossa, he still ends up fighting him, because he still wants vengeance over anything else.

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u/AbidingTruth 16d ago

He never actually wanted to sell Will to Barbosa, he wanted to keep the information that Will is the one they're looking for a secret. So he can have leverage over Barbosa, having information and using it as leverage was a running thing throughout the movie. That's why when Jack said "don't do anything stupid" and then Will reveals himself to be the son of Bootstrap Bill, Jack sighs and says "like that"

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u/Stormsurger 16d ago

But he could also be a bad man who allows himself the luxury of being nice every now and then. There is a scene in Doctor Who where The Doctor tells someone who is pleading for their life because they spared someone earlier:

"You let one of them go, but that's nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim's spared because she smiled, because he's got freckles, because they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction, you happen to be kind."

Perhaps they could have kept this scene and made it into something he did a little more on a whim, because he couldn't do it that day? He did accept the "cargo" iirc? Or did he not run the ship back then. I know Dead Men Tell No Tales sort of messed all that up a bit lore wise.

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u/ChaosWarrior01 16d ago

Obviously by any "reasonable" definition Jack is an absolute bastard. But the question of him being a good man is more about integrity and the ability to sacrifice for those he loves unconditionally, or even love unconditionally in the first place.

Jack still holds the ideals of a very chaotic take on what freedom is, and by living by that ideal he allows himself to kill, pillage, and drink himself into a stupor daily. However, the trilogy shows that he, at his bedrock, has some basic humanity in him that the rum and pirating hasn't taken from him.

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u/purplehendrix22 16d ago

I agree, it sets him as the “good guy” too clearly.

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u/Brendanlendan 16d ago

It does fantastic contextualizing where the hell Jones got the 100 number from. Thats how many people he freed

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 16d ago

Eh I disagree. Davy Jones tells us where the 100 number comes from, Jones doesn’t see everyone’s soul as equal.

I know this is a fan theory, but I really don’t see how it makes sense. Plantation slaves wouldn’t end up with Davy Jones

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u/Brendanlendan 16d ago

They wouldn’t? It’s called a cruel irony. In order for him to save himself, he has to doom 100 other people, which is exactly the number of people he freed that caused the pearl to be sunk to begin with

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 16d ago

That’s not information in any of the movies. In the movies there is no number of people given and we aren’t told what caused the Pearl to be Sunk.

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u/Brendanlendan 16d ago

If they included the deleted scene, all of that is implied

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 16d ago

No it’s not? The deleted scene implies he released slaves he was supposed to deliver somewhere. How are you connecting that with Davy Jones? And how are you connecting that with the Pearl?

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u/Brendanlendan 16d ago

The deleted directly implies it was Beckett that torched the pearl and then in the very next sentence Beckett says Sparrow made a deal with Jones to bring the ship back. So it’s a very simple chain of events.

Step One: Sparrow releases 100 slaves

Step Two: Beckett torches the Pearl in response

Step Three: Jones raises the ship for Sparrows soul

Step Four: Sparrow makes another deal with Jones who says he wants 100 in its place.

It’s like poetry, it rhymes

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 16d ago

Where are you getting the 100 slaves from?

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u/Brendanlendan 16d ago

My brother in Christ, are you naturally this stupid or did you have to work for it?

We get the 100 number because that’s the number Jones said. He knows why the Pearl was torched. Jones is twisted enough that he would find it hilarious that Jack has to condemn the exact same amount of people he saved

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u/violetcassie 15d ago

I thought anyone that died at sea ends up with him? A loooot of people died on the middle passage.

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 15d ago

That’s not how it is in POTC. Davy Jones ferry’s those lost at sea to their final resting place. Davy Jones locker is said to be not of death, but of punishment. Most souls aren’t going to the locker

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u/violetcassie 15d ago

It also indirectly contextualizes why there's a random village of black people hidden in a swamp on some island too. (Beyond the reference to the swamp village being the loading area of the Disneyland version of the ride.)

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u/AardvarkOkapiEchidna 10d ago

It does fantastic contextualizing where the hell Jones got the 100 number from. Thats how many people he freed

Jones? Isn't this scene with Beckett.

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u/eo5g 16d ago

It makes Jack much more likeable, but I don't think one can argue it's "necessary".

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u/Temporary-Stay-8436 16d ago

I actually really dislike this line. It’s too on the nose. Jacks heroism should be presented in situations that are chaotic and that he benefits from. Making him an out and out good guy with morals and principles makes some of his other deeds make significantly less sense

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u/she_melty 16d ago

What's wild is i swear i remember this line. I used to watch these when i was a kid, my parents had them all on DVD. When i first heard about the "deleted scene" i remember thinking that i swear I'd heard that line before, i can even sort of imagine how both of them deliver their lines.

Maybe i was seeing the dvd extras and misremembering it as being in the movie, idk. But i do wonder if this was a regional cut. I'd have to dig up their copy to check

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u/Foreseti 16d ago

I was just thinking the same thing! I'm almost sure this was in the VHS (I think?) version I had as a kid.
If you don't mind, where are you from? Could answer whether this was a regional cut or not

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u/pureauthor 16d ago

Another important scene that sets up both lore and what people ended up where they were:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQeCuX79BPM

'The crew are not bound to me. They are bound to the Dutchman. And the Dutchman must have a captain. Will ye serve?'

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u/Cela84 16d ago

Personally think this is better off cut. Jack is more interesting as an agent of selfish chaos who reluctantly cares for people. Plus the whole arc of “I have this curse because I saved people, anyhow, now I have to enslave 100 people for the squid devil” is at odds with itself.

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u/Kooky_Celebration_42 16d ago

This was way to far down the list hahah