Cut, deleted, scrapped.

[rogueslayer452]

Have you ever watched the deleted scenes from a movie or television show and wondered why they were cut in the first place, especially if it gave more context for certain things?

I mean, obviously it is to save runtime, or during post-production editing there's nowhere those scenes would've fit for the flow of the storytelling, maybe a scene was filmed awkwardly and they cannot afford reshoots so they scrap it, and sometimes they are forced to cut them by TPTB for one reason or another, some even try to fight tooth and nail for certain scenes to be kept in only to lose that battle. But more often than not, those scenes tend to feature a lot of quiet character moments that would've been majorly beneficial to the story, giving better insight to relationships or motivations later seen in canon. And let's not forget the cut scenes that were filmed but never released, those ones will haunt me forever, even more so when there are set pictures of them instead of just stories told by the cast and creators. I think most people who are curious about them, such as myself, would've loved to have seen them and not really care whether it was unfinished. Interestingly, there have been some fans who have put in a lot of work to splice the deleted scenes into the final product of a movie or show, some which have been quite successful and even mainly preferred by its fanbase.

(This post brought to you by me rewatching the deleted scenes from Girl, Interrupted and from The Craft, seen here and here, leading me to think about all of the other unseen, unused and deleted scenes from the media I enjoy.)

Additionally, a question for you all: do you consider deleted scenes to be part of canon? This has been a lot debate among fandom, and from my observation the answer is more or less: "only the scenes that I liked".

Comments

[autumndaze]

I've definitely asked why certain scenes were cut, but I know there tend to be a lot of reasons (like you mentioned), usually it's down to allowed runtime for the venue it's aired on, although sometimes it's censorship, sometimes it didn't work with a rewrite or something. It's one reason I'm a bigger fan of miniseries or series treatment over movie treatment for adaptations, though turning something into a longer production doesn't save that, and it obviously doesn't help for things that aren't adaptations.

The "Nimona" movie had a number of deletions of really interesting things people really wanted after watching it. I believe a lot of the decisions were made because it's a PG-rated movie and something longer likely wouldn't hold the attention of children who can view PG-rated movie. A lot of explanation and backstory was cut out, unfortunately, and a lot of it is really wonderful character moments, and some really neat world-building. The first (or second? I forget) Deadpool movie also notoriously cut a scene that would have solved a lot of issues with plot and characterization. What we lost when "The Owl House" had to get cut will always haunt me. You can tell watching it that a lot of stuff was meant to carry a whole season, but never got the chance because of Disney shenanigans forcing it to be shorter. And of course, "Gravity Falls" notoriously had a lot of stuff that got cut to make it more palatable for Disney's target audience (RIP cute lesbian couple you are missed :/). There was also an entire framing device in the first "Avengers" movie that was cut that I felt solved a lot of issues, including giving female characters more screen time and agency. A lot of great stuff gets cut from Marvel movies that humanized the characters and made plots made sense, honestly. And then there's the "Lilo & Stitch" deleted Lilo dealing with tourists scene, which I think was wonderful and would have been great to keep.

I also have written so many thoughts about anime adaptations that cut out a LOT of context in the manga to save time. I personally feel "The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window" is a particularly egregious example of it, but I think it still works well enough without the cut bits. It's just unfortunate that they cut so much. Funnily enough, "Demon Slayer" is almost the reverse of this effect: Ufotable ADDED needed context for certain stories in the anime adaptation, making plot actually make sense and adding some emotional depth even with relatively minor changes.

I don't tend to consider deleted scenes to be part of canon unless they are later added officially in some way to canon, e.g., a director's cut, extended edition, short story edition, novelization from original script, or whatever. "Deleted scenes" come in various forms, whether it's just written script, storyboards, fully acted scenes, or half-animated things. Thus you'd have to define what counts as a deleted scene and what doesn't, and generally to be inclusive, you'd essentially have to include almost everything that gets cut. If everything that got cut from a story counts as canon, no story would ever make sense, because that could potentially count scenes that are complete plot rewrites, regardless of whether what was lost was good or not. For the sake of fanworks, though, I like deleted scenes as fodder for fun and plot bunnies. I'm currently using some storyboards from "Nimona" for scenes that weren't kept for the final movie as fanfiction material, incorporating them into stories that make sense. I also think deleted scenes are wonderful when creators use them for later works (e.g., new movies, shows, books). Fascinatingly, this is apparently how we got the TV series "Andromeda".