5) “Satellite Storm Shelter” in Mystery Science Theater 3000: The MovieIn its ten years on the air, Mystery Science Theater 3000 was known for two things: expertly mocking awful films and getting fucked over by executives. Clueless studio mistreatment extended even to the MST3K movie, which had scenes yanked and endings changed, all in the name of appeasing test audiences who probably didn’t even exist.
While MST3K: The Movie’s target of ridicule, 1955’s This Island Earth, and its attendant quips were cut down, it was even harsher to pull out host sequences with Mike Nelson, Crow, Tom Servo and Gypsy. The film gave the MST3K crew a higher budget than usual, letting series fans see more of the Satellite of Love than a single set.
The best of these host scenes involves a meteor shower that sends Mike and his proverbial robot pals into the Satellite’s cellar. As they huddle among shelves of Tom’s precious canned hash, the air supply shorts out, leaving Mike unconscious and Servo and Crow ineffectually panicking. The bots’ attempts to resuscitate him, including a rocketing Servo and mouth-to-mouth from Gypsy, are perfect extras for any MST3K nut. They’re apparently not on the upcoming MST3K: The Movie DVD, but here’s a YouTube clip.
4) “The War Room Pie Fight” in Dr. Strangelove
Stanley Kubrick’s made film nerds cry many times, partly because of his penchant for destroying footage of deleted scenes from his movies. Yet we’re hoping that the most famous of his unused footage survives, even if it’s not on DVD.
Kubrick’s original ending for the satirical Dr. Strangelove was far more elaborate than the nuclear bomb montage he ultimately used. Instead of debates about mine-shaft gaps, the Russian and American delegates ended their meeting with a massive pie fight, with President Muffley (Peter Sellers) taking one full in the face while Dr. Strangelove (also Sellers) stands from his wheelchair and then falls over, starting a scene-long wormlike struggle to get back in the chair. The whole sequence was cut because it was actually too much fun for the actors, who were supposed to be serious about it. Kubrick hated the scene, but we’re betting it’s a lot more entertaining than, say, the entirety of Eyes Wide Shut.3) “Wesley Crusher’s First Alien Encounter” in The Last Starfighter
Wil Wheaton’s done a lot to defuse the enduring hatred Star Trek fans have for Wesley Crusher. For starters, he’s stayed close to nerd culture by writing about ancient arcade games for The Onion, releasing a few books, and maintaining a blog that we find hard to hate. And it would probably help if we could see more of Wheaton’s less annoying old roles, including his turn in The Last Starfighter.
Young Wheaton’s scenes were mostly inconsequential; he’s one of the trailer-park friends of the hero’s little brother. Though he’s visible in the background here and there, his speaking roles were edited out and never appended to any DVD release. It’s not quite the rumored Jawa village footage from Star Wars, but any hidden scenes from The Last Starfighter have geek cred galore.
Another snipped scene we’d like to see: the original ending, which had the film’s heroic arcade jockey Lance Guest congratulated by the bizarre alien leaders of the planets he just saved.2) “The Flaming Nips” in Blue Velvet
David Lynch’s weirdness doesn’t end with his movies; for example, the director seemingly dislikes releasing deleted scenes, even though headtrips like Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me spawned lots of them.
For Lynch’s trend-settingly odd Blue Velvet, the best we have are stills showing some lost scenes, including one bizarre little episode originally planned when the psychotic Frank (Dennis Hopper) drags Jeffery (pre-Showgirls Kyle MacLachlan) off to a pool hall. Their trip normally ends shortly after Frank’s now-famous endorsement of Pabst Blue Ribbon, but in Lynch’s extended version of the scene, Frank wanders among the bar’s patrons, meeting a woman who diligently removes her top and sets her nipples on fire. Let’s see Roger Ebert hate Blue Velvet with that added in.1) “Burke’s Baby” in Aliens
If there’s one disappointment in James Cameron’s masterful Alien sequel, it’s that Paul Reiser gets off way to easily. As Burke, the oily Weyland-Yutani rep whose corporate greed kills an entire town of settlers and half a battalion of Colonial Marines, Reiser is last seen fleeing a Xenomorph-Marine firefight and running straight into the double jaws of H.R. Giger’s greatest creation.
It seems too swift a fate for the man responsible for hundreds of deaths and half of My Two Dads, and Cameron apparently agreed. His original draft for Aliens included a shot of heroine Ripley finding Burke, cocooned and with an alien chestburster gestating inside him, during her frantic search for surrogate daughter Newt. Burke, true to character, whines about the alien fetus kicking inside him. Disgusted on two counts, Ripley hands him a grenade, puts his thumb on the primer, and keeps on walking.
The scene, shown only in still shots on DVD editions of Aliens, was reportedly cut because Cameron just didn’t like it, but there’s another reason: it doesn’t fit. By Aliens’ internal logic, Burke would still be wearing one of those face-hugger crabs. And while that might’ve marked Reiser’s most disturbing on-screen kiss until Mad About You, it would lose that all-important air of comeuppance.1 | 2
excellent article on top 10 deleted movie scenes that really should've not been excluded...
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