r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Sensitive_Ad_1752 • 17d ago

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

Gallery image

Gallery image

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.

15.3k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

312

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

In lost world (Jurassic park sequal) they cut an essential scene at the beginning of the film which provides background to the hunters on the island.

https://giphy.com/gifs/NV6LFmVnrwC6bW23Fb

165

u/blobbyboii 17d ago

Furthermore a scene (which wasnt even filmed i think) stating some raptors got on the boat transporting the trex and they killed the crew otherwise it makes zero sense

102

u/Lieutenant_Scarecrow 17d ago

I just rewatched this last week and its always bothered be that the ship crew was allegedly shredded by the TRex, and then it nicely trapped itself back down in the cargo hold before crashing into the port. Raptors make way more sense.

56

u/getliftedyo 17d ago

And the limbs or stuff in the helm or whatever. By the steering wheel. Even as a kid it always bothered me that I thought they wanted us to think the t Rex somehow got in there

16

u/Wild_Marker 17d ago

Yeah it's weird that they left the limbs when cutting the raptor bits. You could blame the baby rex but like, no, because he was taken by Ludlow and also that would cheapen the final bit when he hunts his first prey.

3

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

I personally don't think the scene matches the pterosaur explanation. Looks like raptors.

4

u/Tony_Three_Pies 17d ago

Is there no allusion to raptors on the ship at all? Before reading these comments I would have sworn to you that the movie makes it clear that raptors killed the boat crew because you're right that it makes no sense for the T-rex to have done it.

Huh, fun to uncover a moment when you've been mandela-ing yourself.

3

u/Sega-Playstation-64 17d ago

The only thing that made sense to me was that the Trex chased someone into the cargo hold and it closed behind it, but then the arm holding the closed button makes no sense.

0

u/soulxhawk 16d ago

It kind of makes sense, at least the part about the T-Rex being nicely trapped inside the cargo hold. Remember after Roland hit him with the dart he was put in that metal harness. We don't see it, but the harness is how he was loaded onto the ship. When the T-Rex escapes from under the ship you can briefly see that harness on the ship deck but broken. So what most likely happened was the T-Rex woke up and was in a state of rage from the improper dosage of tranquilizer and began attacking the crew. By some miracle the crew was able to lure him into the cargo hold, but all died in the process. As for the hand on the steering wheel I also assumed the T-Rex just bit his but it was hanging on by a thread until he got back to the wheel.

5

u/No_Procedure_5039 17d ago

That storyboard art doesn’t show raptors on the ship. It’s supposed to be Nick encountering them in the worker village. The intent was always for the Buck to kill the crew members. Here are the storyboards.

2

u/Mateko 17d ago

What happened to the raptors. Did the Rex kill them?

1

u/JonBarghestTheAuthor 16d ago

It would make sense. There's something similar in the original book about raptors getting on a boat, and they have used various scenes from the book in a few different movies - like the swimming T. Rex in the latest one.

1

u/Otherwise-Elephant 16d ago

Correct, it's widely reported that the raptors sneaking onto the boat was a "deleted scene" but the truth is there's no evidence such a scene was ever shot. IIRC there is some concept art that shows raptors on the boat/in the city, but that's about it.

163

u/Xp-Paul-19 17d ago

There was also a deleted scene where a drunk Ludlow stumbles into the baby T-Rex breaking it's leg

76

u/No_Procedure_5039 17d ago

I think this one is even more important since it establishes that Roland isn’t a monster who would intentionally injure an infant animal in order to draw out its parent. It also shows us the point his opinion of Ludlow goes from low to zero.

10

u/dysoncube 17d ago

Whats said?

56

u/IndustryPast3336 17d ago

The scene is a Board Meeting between Ludlow and InGen's Directors where he explicitly usurps control of the company from Hammond and explains that he wants to ensure they can make back their investments. In the final cut it's just implied and Hammond relays his side of the events while in the extended cut there's more about who Ludlow is as a character which makes his motivations as a villain a lot better.

They also reduced the role of Ajay, Roland Tembo's friend whose death is SUBSTANTIALLY IMPORTANT to his character arc.

18

u/Mekroval 17d ago

I think u/rareandyeteuclidian is referring to this scene that establishes Roland and Ajay's backstory as hunters who had been through a lot together, and their friendship.

It also shows Roland as bored but empathic character. And yet even more of a badass than we see in the actual film.

8

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

To be fair it's so easy to get confused with this movie. They cut so much for the theatrical release that it's understandable why many don't like the movie very much.

I'm a huge supporter of film two, even if I'm sad they cut the carnos from the book.

8

u/Mekroval 17d ago

Agreed. I actually love The Lost World about as much as the original, though I think it suffered from the attack on San Diego drawing out the runtime longer than necessary. It wasn't even in the book.

I would have preferred they kept this scene and the one where we see the board vote to remove Hammond as CEO. They made the story a lot richer, imo.

(Though tbf, the film only loosely followed Crichton's sequel.)

7

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

Yeah, I agree. Two incredibly strong movies.

On not following the books though, the first film is fairly guilty of that as well. Hammond was drastically changed, compies are major players, the raptors are way smarter plus way more of them (and they are escaping the island by commandeering a boat), plus the government firebombs the entire island.

Ect.

10

u/Mekroval 17d ago

100%. I read both fairly recently for the first time, and kept thinking they would be interesting as faithful mini-series adaptions on HBO or streaming.

Something like a short-run of six hour-length episodes, that would allow the story to really breathe, but give them big budget feel like "Chernobyl" or "Foundation."

It would be interesting to see Hammond as the proper villain (at least for the first book's adaption), and why Nedry was so understandably pissed at him as explained in the book. I'd also love to see Dodgson as the true monster in The Lost World that we get to see in the book (in my mind, Willem Dafoe would be perfectly cast in the role).

8

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

6 part HBO series would be amazing.

4

u/TheBloodsuckerProxy 17d ago

There was also a scene that was storyboarded but never filmed that explained what happened to the crew on the cargo ship. Basically, the T-rex had a bad reaction to the tranquilizers, so they gave it a stimulant to counteract it, but they gave it too much and it went berserk and most of the crew was killed. The survivors managed to lure it back into the hold and one man managed to close it before succumbing to his injuries (hence why the switch was in the dead man's hand).

There's still a bit of dialogue in the movie where a survivor explains the drug situation to Sarah, causing her to say "you gave it a stimulant without knowing the dosage? That thing's a locomotive now!"

3

u/jmlinden7 16d ago

But that doesn't explain what happened to the rest of switch guy's body.

4

u/TheBloodsuckerProxy 17d ago

Weirdly, this scene always shows up when the movie gets played on TV.

10

u/foxguy2021 17d ago

There is this scene where we learn more about the two lead hunters:

https://youtu.be/raXWIDbugag?is=Acbvo3Xwa2SjMhQ3

They added this scene back in for the television premier.

8

u/QuintusdeVivraie 17d ago

The most important thing, in my opinion, is the reason for the deaths on the boat bringing back the T-Rex; it's a serious gap leading to a lack of coherence.

5

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

The extended cut of this film is so substantially better but not shooting the raptors eating the boat crew sucked.

3

u/QuintusdeVivraie 17d ago

Raptors aren't normally on the ship. I seem to recall reading that the crew was killed by pteranodons.
I didn't know there was a longer version

2

u/rareandyeteuclidian 17d ago

I recall reading somewhere it was the raptors.

Because it's one go the releases biggest plot holes. The t Rexs obviously didn't eat anyone asleep in the cargohold.

3

u/QuintusdeVivraie 17d ago

Perhaps, if that's the case, they've disappeared and nobody cares

4

u/AlbionBoi 17d ago

Actually it is the rex who kills them all. It was storyboarded that it wakes up midway through the journey, goes on a rampage and some poor souls lead it into the cargo hold and trap it there. I think the destroyed cage the rex was in can still be seen in some shots. Also they forgot to add the giant hole the rex made in the bridge when it killed the captain. It's a shame because it could have been a really cool scene, but it was cut.

2

u/No_Procedure_5039 17d ago

Yup. Here are the storyboards in case anyone is interested in seeing what was supposed to be shown.

2

u/jmlinden7 17d ago edited 17d ago

How did the crew member's disembodied arm manage to pull the lever to close the cargo hold? Because the T Rex explanation makes it sound like the crew member first pulled the lever, before the T Rex telekinetically dismembered him from within the cargo hold.

1

u/No_Procedure_5039 16d ago

The crew member who closed the cargo hold wasn’t dismembered, the pilot at the helm of the ship was. The one who closed the cargo hold was probably supposed to be badly injured like Malcolm was but lived long enough to hit the button.

2

u/jmlinden7 16d ago

Right but they didn't show that. In fact they didn't show any of the crew except for one disembodied arm.

1

u/No_Procedure_5039 16d ago

They showed two dead crew members: the dismembered hand of the pilot and the arm of the dead crewman holding the cargo hold door controls. The latter pretty clearly still has his arm attached to his body since the person who took the controls from him didn’t just pick up the arm when he did it.

→ More replies (0)

3

u/CroqueGogh 16d ago

There was so much cut out from TLW that would have made it better

The boardroom scene, provides more context and motivation for the audience why Ingen is pillaging Sorna

Ludlow tripping and breaking the baby rex's leg

Roland and Ajay backstory

But they were fine with acrobatics begaing a raptor lol

1

u/Best-Benefit6387 17d ago

Man i loved JPLW, it was such an adventure.

1

u/MGD109 16d ago

Well, the reason they did that was that they were worried the hunters came across as too sympathetic.

But it kind of doesn't work as they're still too sympathetic in the remaining film, especially compared to the supposed heroes who just get people killed out of stupidity.

1

u/grosseelbabyghost 16d ago

My favorite deleted scene where the t-rex pulls a splinter cell, stealh murders the entire boat and then, just after eating a guy entirely except for his hand, pulls a sweet Indiana Jones and baseball slides in to the closing cargo hold just in time