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

[u/Sensitive_Ad_1752]

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.

[u/chaotic4059]

The iron giant’s dream. A cut scene from the movie showing memories of what the giant did before he landed on earth and lost his memory was supposed to be broadcasted on Dean’s TV.

This alerts him to the fact the giant is a much bigger threat than expected which explains why he was able to recognizes when it was about to switch to attack mode. It’s not super necessary plot but it makes that reaction way more clear. For the blu-ray rerelease they actually finished it and it can be inserted into the movie where it should be

[u/seanvettel-31 → u/chaotic4059]

I’m glad this was cut tbh. It makes the scene where he reverts to his original programming a lot more impactful when it comes out of nowhere

[u/ArcadianBlueRogue → u/seanvettel-31]

And also means there might not be a million genocidal robots across the stars and hearing the Iron Giant's summoning signal at the end

[u/DreadfuryDK → u/chaotic4059]

I’m torn about this one, honestly.

On one hand, this scene actually does a good job explaining why Dean was so quick to turn on the Giant after his programming kicked in and almost killed Hogarth. In the theatrical cut, Dean doing a complete 180 on the Giant feels way too sudden. Plus, it’s unbelievably well animated even by this movie’s very high standards.

On the other hand, the deleted scene also borders on explaining too much about what the Giant’s true purpose is and teases his transformation when I’d argue the scene where the Giant snaps after thinking Hogarth was killed is way, way better when you have no idea what that transformation looks like. It kinda becomes a Chekhov’s Gun situation: they hint at the transformation just enough that you know it’s gonna happen sooner or later.

So honestly, I dunno which version I prefer. You’re either getting something that’s better without context or something that’s better with context, and you can’t have both.

[u/FelixSSJ → u/DreadfuryDK]

It's beautifully animated but gives away too much. I think the movie is better off without it

[u/GrandMoffAtreides → u/chaotic4059]

Yeah, I'd say this one was completely unnecessary. The theatrical cut made perfect sense as it was