Learnings from Abroad
Hey folks! Remember me? No? Well if you don't I wrote the slightly funny Pop-Ice article almost a year ago. Well, it was that article that launched me to fame a fortune and a year of traveling the country learning amazing secrets. Secrets that I will share with you, for free! Yes, I am truly amazing.It was about 2:30 in the morning when I stumbled into some hipster bar in east LA. I was watching some a band called The Lion Tamers play, when a drunken Philip Seymour Hoffman slid up next to me at the bar.
"You a journalist?" he asked me.
"No, I'm just a man searching for some truth in this world," I replied.
"Truth? Ha, I'll give you some fucking truth," he chuckled.
Then he began ranting about hundreds of dramatic changes that the so called "5 Fat Jewish Men" had made to movies over the years. I was able to get out a pen and capture a few of these changes on the magic of paper.
Star Wars
Scene: Apparently, the original ending to A New Hope was a scene where Darth Vader meets face to face with the Emperor to tell him that the Death Star was destroyed. The Emperor gets so upset that he takes his cowboy hat off and starts chasing Vader around the room. Benny Hill music starts playing as the Emperor pursues Vader into a hallway of doors. Hilarity then ensues as the duo runs after each other in and out of doors in a very special tribute to Scooby-Doo (the show that Lucas says inspired the original trilogy).
Reason it was left out: Unfortunately, Lucas felt in that the now famous ceremony ending would be more appropriate. Also, the Harlem Globetrotters (who were to appear riding a moped in and out of doors) would not let "our black asses being all shot up into outer space and shit."
Citizen Kane
Scene: A 20 minute scene in which Orson Welles spreads pornography on the floor and then rolls around atop it, giggling like a mad man.
Reason it was left out: Since the scene pushed the movie to over five hours, studio executives thought the movie would be a "tad too long."
Trivia: The scene has found its way onto the soon to be released Citizen Kane: The 4:20 Edition special release DVD.
Donnie Darko
Scene: Instead of dying at the end of the movie, Donnie wakes up and reveals that it was all a dream. He is still alive and well, except now he is in a dimension where everybody is a clown. His mom is a clown, the mailman is a clown, even the dog is a clown. Then he laughs. Then "Mad World" starts playing.
Reason: The director decided that this ending gave the movie too much closure and made a bit "too much sense."
Scarface
Scene: Not as much a deleted scene as it was a change, but originally all the blood was going to be green, and all guns would shoot flowers instead of bullets. Also every time Tony Montana would swear he would cover his mouth with both hands and giggle a little.
Reason: It was revealed that Brian de Palma was allergic to the color green and flowers. Also, Al Pacino lost his hands in a fight with Oliver Stone.
Three Men and a Baby
Scene: During the scene where the "ghost boy" can supposedly be seen, Ted Danson was supposed to scream "Oh my god, a ghost!" He then would jump into the air with his legs spinning and have his eyeballs pop out of his head.
Reason: After the first take, Danson's eyeball rolled under the couch where it got "icky and full of hair". The cast and crew decided it would be best to move on and never try the eyeball thing again. Instead they simply had Danson scream "G-G-G-G-Ghost!" and throw the baby at the apparition.
Note: To this day Ted Danson still has only one eyeball and will let you look into his empty eye socket for a quarter.
Anchorman
Scene: Fifteen minutes of Will Ferrell yelling random unfunny things into the camera while the words "Will Ferrell" flash on the screen.
Reason: Executives felt that they could simply stretch this seen out to an hour and a half, throw in "that Napoleon Dynamite kid", and release it as Blades of Glory.
War of the Worlds
Scene: During the final scene, Tom Cruise was to smother Dakota Fanning with a pillow and then slowly eat her.
Reason: Actually, that one is still in there.