Discuss: Trailers Full of Deleted Scenes
Filed under: Action, Animation, Comedy, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Disney, Warner Brothers, Fox Searchlight, Trailers and Clips
Last year, when I interviewed Kimberly Peirce for Stop-Loss, I asked why a relationship played up between Ryan Phillippe's character and Abbie Cornish's in the trailer seemed absent from the final film, not to mention a confrontation between Phillippe and the senator he's driven cross-country to reach coming to a close over the phone and not in person. She explained that about as soon as they had to start editing the film itself, they had to turn over the footage to the promotional department for them to work with simultaneously, and that things don't always match up as a result.
Now, every once in a while, usually in regard to Apatow's oft-tested and whittled-down comedies, absent jokes and alternate takes come as a little surprise. But the year-old teaser for Terminator Salvation capped itself by showing Christian Bale facing off against a robot hiding underwater -- a scene that should appear early on in the film, but doesn't. In Disney/Pixar's Up, our geriatric hero doesn't blow a raspberry as he departs with his house (perhaps for the best), and in 500 Days of Summer, Joseph Gordon-Levitt does not in fact board a bus filled with Zooey Deschanels (certainly for the worst).
What's the most striking occasion you can think of where a scene regularly flaunted in the trailers or TV spots was nowhere to be seen in theaters, and was clearly part of a scene and not a one-off teaser like Pixar themselves so often indulges in?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
5-24-2009 @ 12:30PM
ElevatorHappyFun said...
Rorschach was not in 300.
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5-24-2009 @ 12:30PM
Jake said...
Star Trek -> In the trailer Nero says "The wait is over" which works great in the trailer, but never says it in the actual film
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5-24-2009 @ 12:40PM
LordPaul said...
Spiderman - for obvious reasons!
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5-24-2009 @ 12:43PM
Peter Hall said...
As a kid I remember distinct disappointment that the line, "Say hello to my stinky little friend" was not in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.
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5-24-2009 @ 12:45PM
David Harley said...
The Strangers comes to mind (alternate ending in the trailer?), as does the Black Christmas remake (entire death scenes were changed, though I have heard the UK theatrical release retained these sequences).
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5-24-2009 @ 12:48PM
timmyb28 said...
Major League Trailer:
"That ball wouldn't have a home run in every park."
"Yeah, name one."
"Yellowstone"
Good joke. Didn't make the movie. HOWEVER, the same joke made the sequel. They honest to goodness put it in there. Yack!
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5-24-2009 @ 4:11PM
Mike said...
In the trailer for the sequel there was a scene where Charlie Sheen's agent/girlfriend asks him if he's thinking about his career and he tells her no, he's thinking about her legs. Not in the movie.
5-24-2009 @ 12:56PM
Sean036 said...
The trailer for Can't Hardly Wait features a scene where a character displays a watermelon that he has filled with vodka, only to accidentally drop it on the floor.
Not in the film, but I always remembered it because my friend was inspired to make his own vodka watermelon by that scene.
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5-24-2009 @ 12:57PM
Joe said...
The huge tractor that comes crashing at your face that was in every trailer for Twister, and then when the movie comes around, no tractor!
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5-24-2009 @ 4:12PM
Mike said...
Is it a tractor or is it a tire? I remember a tire, for sure. And I know that wasn't in the movie.
5-25-2009 @ 1:11PM
Wayne said...
The cow that fies by in the trailer wasn't in the movie.
5-24-2009 @ 1:35PM
delzey said...
On a semi-related front I remember there are scenes in the preview for Hoffa that weren't in the final film. This wasn't such a big deal, but a local reviewer only referenced scenes that were in the trailer and no others, preferring t spend more time showing off how much they knew about union history. I wonder how many other critics have similarly reviewed films based on their trailer.
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5-24-2009 @ 1:36PM
Troy said...
The one that I still remember vividly to this day was one from the Who Framed Roger Rabbit trailer, where Bob Hoskins has a pig's head animated over his own head, his face visible in the pig's mouth. Years later, there was a network showing of the movie that re-inserted the scene back in (in which those evil weasels paint the pig's head on Hoskins to discourage him from snooping around).
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5-24-2009 @ 1:52PM
nh332 said...
Jurassic Park - Laura Dern picks a leaf from the tree in the jeep. The film actually shows her studying it afterwards, when they meet the first dinosaurs
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5-25-2009 @ 5:45PM
L.G. said...
I distinctly remember this scene from when I first saw "Jurassic Park" (at a drive-in, no less) as a child. I recall that Laura Dern's character, Dr. Ellie Sattler, a paleobotanist, picks a leaf from a shrub on the side of the road as they drive by, examines it closely, and then comments upon it being an ancient, long-extinct plant of some sort.
For some reason, this scene always stuck in my head and it still bugs me to this day that, for some bizarre reason, it was cut from any and all subsequent home video releases of the movie. I mean, the moment couldn't have been much more than like 15-20 seconds long. Why cut it?
5-24-2009 @ 2:00PM
sarahalyse said...
In the trailer for Hocus Pocus, the witches fall in a pool. In the movie, NO POOL-FALLING.
God, I can't believe that's the only one I can think of...
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5-26-2009 @ 10:40PM
hayson said...
There were several deleted scenes in the Hocus Pocus trailer .... some bit between the sisters where Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy point at each other and simultaneously shout "She did it!" ... and others I can't completely recall. LOVE that movie, though!
5-24-2009 @ 2:26PM
Nick said...
The trailers/tv-spots for The Golden Compass.
They choose to cut the ending out, and yet they advertised with the footage.
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5-24-2009 @ 4:05PM
The Film Yap said...
In "Star Trek: First Contact," in the teaser trailer Capt. Picard delivers his famous "The line MUST be drawn here," in that fashion, with that normal stoic Picard way, but in the final film, it's the much angrier "The line must be drawn HEAH!"
I personally thought the former was much better.
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5-24-2009 @ 9:27PM
Chelsea said...
Pineapple Express.
"Wanna go see Phantom?"
"'-of the Opera'?"
It was, however, in the unrated version on DVD.
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