Top 5 Episode V: Deleted, but not forgotten

Deleting a scene from a movie can serve many purposes: cutting down run time, streamlining the plot, removing unnecessary filler, and appeasing the censors.  Directors and editors have been chopping up their work for years, and sharing the scraps with us in the form of bonus content on special edition DVDs/BLU-Rays.   Not often, but every once in a while, something so great/crazy/amazing/completely bonkers gets cut out and almost forgotten.  Fear not.  I have watched many many many many movies, and i know of a few gems that were left on the cutting room floor.  for example...

Number 5: The Goonies fight a giant Octopus...with music

You may have seen this before.  When they show "The Goonies" on TV, they add this scene for time reasons.  I was taken back the first time i saw this.  I remember watching "The Goonies" all the time growing up, and i could not for the life of me remember this ever happening.  After they slide down the inexplicable water slides built into a pirate cave, they land in a quiet lagoon and see One-Eyed-Willy's ship for the first time.  As they wade through the lagoon, a giant octopus attacks them by letting them thrash around in the water while holding it's lifeless tentacles (alright, I'm not here to make fun of the terrible effects.  I'll move on).  Data, being the quick thinker that he is, stuffs his walkman (for those of you young enough not to know what a walkman is, it is an ancient device used to listen to cassette tapes, and equally ancient device used to store music files in analog format i.e. "tape") into the octpus' mouth.  Then the octopus dances away.  It freaking dances away.  this is literally the first large meal that this poor trapped creature has had in centuries, and it dances the fuck away from it.  To the tune of "Eight Arms To Hold You" by the Goon Squad (I see what they did there!).


Number 4: Carl Spackler makes a guest appearance in Ghostbusters

Warning: No matter what the video tells you, this is not very funny

I have no real idea why this scene would have been in the script in the first place.  That is, I had no real idea, until i found out that the original script for "The Blues Brothers" was the size of a phone book (for those of you young enough not to know what a phone book is, it is like if someone printed out a large chunk of the Internet for you to use to make phone calls).  I guess Dan Akroyd likes to flush out every single scene with context and speaking lines, even if it is just Louis Tully running past some bums as he is being chased by a giant demonic rat dog.  

Number 3: Why the face?

Yeah.  That was Arnie with a southern accent.  Wonderful job on the ADR there, guys.  They should have left this scene in the movie, if only to reinforce it's status as a comedy.  After seeing this, i realized that I liked this scene much more than the rest of the movie, and now I only watch this scene, and pretend that the rest of the movie was cut instead.  

Number 2: Ace Ventura fights a couple thugs...with music

Shortly after the "Is that the red, or the white" clam chowder scene, Ace has to escape from his pursuers at a death metal show.  In order to keep the crowd moving, and thus, physically battering his enemies for him, he begins to sing (read: growl).  He then goes into a bunch of different stage moves: The "pull my mouth open" made famous by no one ever, the "fall on the ground and flop like a fish" made famous by the theme song to spongebob squarepants, and the "weird crotch dance" made famous by Axl rose/Scott Weiland (honestly, he pulls that one off pretty well).  He then states that he has a date with everyones mothers.  Obviously, the writers of this scene have been to many, many death metal shows, because this is exactly what happens at all of them.  

Number 1, With a Bullet: All of the star was.  all of it.

Greedo needs target practice.

Seriously.  George Lucas has butt humped this once amazing story into the ground with his unnecessary changes and pointless prequels.  I get it.  You didn't have the technology to do everything that you wanted to in the originals.  Greedo could have easily shot first in the originals.  There was no lack of technology that made you change that. 

Comedian Patton Oswalt has a bit about the prequels that i whole-heartedly stand by.  Couldn't have said it better. In order for me to watch the Star Wars that i remember from my childhood, i would have to find a VCR (For those of you young enough.... you know what? Nevermind) and find my old VHS tapes of the original, unedited trilogy.  I know that this whole post is about deleted scenes, and this really does not apply to the entire series, but i wanted to get to that before i got to this:

This scene was from Episode IV.  That fat Scottish dude is Jabba the Hut. I like to think that in the time between Episodes IV and VI, Jabba Just really let himself go.  I guess it is only fair to mention that, according to Lucas, this scene was shot only as a place holder for the large, wormlike Jabba that we know today.   Yeah, whatever you say, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy lookin nerf herder.  A pox on your house, Lucas.  Oh, you want to re-re-re-re-release all of the films, re edited in Digital 3-D?  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

-J.