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Top 10 Cut Movie Scenes that Should Be Put Back In

byDannyGallagher   May 09, 2011 at 10:00AM  |  Views: 8,305

Test audiences are supposed to tell studios the kind of movies real people want to see. But judging by some of the scenes that were cut out of our favorite movies, it seems like either the studios are raiding nursing homes for test audiences or the entire nation consists of whiners who call the police when they see more than an inch of cleavage.

Source: Columbia Pictures

10. The bums scene from Ghostbusters

It’s hard to think that a film so perfect could have so many scenes that didn’t make it into the final cut. It’s got everything that makes a film a masterpiece: Armageddon, funny material, and Sigourney Weaver on all fours barking like a dog in a loose, shoulder-free dress.

One of the most noticeable scenes missing from the print features Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, not as their respective main characters but as two bums debating everything from the U.S. decision to rebuild Nicaragua and who could kick whose ass in a fight between a kickboxer and a regular boxer. Both of them engage in such a ridiculously detailed conversation with equally ridiculous voice inflections that it’s only something the two of them could have pulled off.

Why Should It Have Stayed?: Playing multiple characters in a movie wasn’t a big trend in the 1980s and this was just a great way of playing with the convention. It also would have prepared audiences better for the onslaught of Eddie Murphy movies where he’s playing three to six characters at a time.

9. The killer octopus scene from The Goonies

Source: Warner Bros

The great thing about this staple of the ‘80s is its rebelliousness. The whole film is about kids rising up against all the evils of the world, overcoming great odds to win the day and finding new and interesting ways to humiliate the fat kid in the clique.

One scene that didn’t make it featured the kids fighting a giant octopus that almost kills Stef. Data defeats it by shoving a Walkman in its mouth to teach it the awesome power of ‘80s pop music. The octopus even gets a mention in the final scenes of the film, even though the regular cut of the film didn’t even feature a fight between the Goonies gang and a moaning mollusk (unless you count Anne Ramsey).

Why Should It Have Stayed?: Nine kids fighting a giant octopus screams awesome and it’s probably the only thing that could have made this great movie greater, short of a Kerri Green truffle-shuffle.

8. The War Room pie fight from Dr. Strangelove

Source: Columbia Pictures

Just about every Stanley Kubrick movie ever made has been about making the establishment look like a drooling bunch of mindless simpletons. Nothing screams that better than a good ol’-fashioned pie fight.

The lost ending to the iconic Cold War satire features the Americans and the Russians flinging tasty desserts at one another in the underground War Room. The President takes one right in the kisser and promptly falls down in an attempt to mirror his falling as a leader, but the assassination of John F. Kennedy prompted its pulling from the final release.

Why Should It Have Stayed?: Kubrick once remarked that he removed the scene because he felt it was more farce than satire. However, it’s hard to make a better metaphor for the concept of war.

7. The plants overtake the world in Little Shop of Horrors

Source: Warner Bros.

Frank Oz’s original cut followed the original story of the musical it was based upon that not only included the death of Seymour and Audrey, but also the destruction of the entire human race as its leafy tentacles reached out for the audience. In the movie, Audrey II multiplies across the world and begins going on a global buffet run as his minions take over each continent with a final shot of a plant crawling on top of the Statue of Liberty and busting through the screen of the theater.

Why Should It Have Stayed?: Nothing makes for a downier ending than a happy one. It screams, “Hey, we’re not gutsy enough to let you enjoy the darker side of life, so here’s one with happy trees and a white picket fence and a house in the country to help keep your mind off of the fact that the world is a really rotten place sometimes.” That literally describes the last scene in the movie that the studio decided to go with.

6. The time traveling scene from Army of Darkness

Source: Universal Studios

Having a upbeat ending in a horror movie is like having a massive gun fight at the end of Remains of the Day. The two just don’t go together.

Sam Raimi’s tail end of the Evil Dead trilogy featured just such an ending that included cherry happiness and a mega f***ton of guns. Ash magically returns to our time and picks up right where he left off in the housewares aisle at S-Mart when a Deadite follows him and almost kills his latest pile of tasty-looking sugar. Ash defeats the evil, wins the girl, and a 30-piece orchestra plays him off the screen. It made me wanna puke in my popcorn.

Why Should It Have Stayed?: The deleted scene features Ash accidentally taking too much of a sleeping potion that transports him way too far into the future into a post-Apocalyptic wasteland. It not only provides a better, funnier ending to a great horror movie, but it also sets up the inevitable sequel in which Ash has to fight off a mutated army of radioactive, undead, flesh-hungry, brain-eating Reform Party candidates (or some variation thereof).


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