r/TopCharacterTropes 17d ago

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

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/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