Logan is a masterful piece of cinema and a beautiful send-off for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine.
Still, some interesting scenes and ideas ended up cut from the final movie including a reunion
with Sabretooth, mutant cameos, and a tragic flashback.
Yippee-ki-yay movie lovers, it's Jan here, and in this video I'm going to talk about
some of the scenes and concepts rejected or cut from the final Logan movie.
Just before I get into those, I've got a cool giveaway for a second set of Logan merchandise.
For a chance to win, all you have to do is subscribe and leave a comment about Logan
or the deleted scenes on this video.
The prize includes a T-shirt, shot glasses, a dog-tag bottle opener and a metal notebook.
And for bonus ways to enter, check out the Gleam link in the video description below.
Of course, there are spoilers in this video, so if you haven't seen Logan yet check out
my spoiler-free review and come back here when you've had a chance to watch the movie!
An idea that was rejected early in script development was a flashback scene that would
have shown exactly what happened during the Westchester incident.
In the final movie, we get various allusions to the catastrophe, such a news report stating
that an incident similar to the one we see at the casino in Oklahoma City occurred about
a year previously and that 7 mutants were killed and over 600 people were injured.
The original idea was that the flashback would explain what happened with Professor X and
Wolverine in Westchester and it was actually going to be the very first scene in the movie;
however, the filmmakers thought it would be more powerful if the audience was left wondering.
Screenwriter Michael Green says he's interested to see what fans theorise about the event,
but that knowing exactly what happened doesn't matter; it's the "emotional effect" that the
incident had on Logan and Charles that's important.
Flashbacks were also considered for other moments in Logan's past, for example, there's
some beautiful unused concept art of Alkali Lake by designer Shae Shatz.
And there was another idea for a flashback scene featuring the location where the movie's
villains lived, a residence which included a pool, a helipad, and a killer view.
The unused concept art also reveals an alternate design for The Tank where Charles was being
kept by Logan.
And curiously, in some early sketches, it looks like Logan originally had a little canine
companion which might have given him more of a Mad Max vibe.
And it was in Oklahoma City where we might have seen a reunion between Logan and Victor
Creed, aka Sabretooth.
As the Logan movie was being developed, Liev Schreiber expressed interest in reprising
the role of Sabretooth one final time, and an early idea was mooted that Logan would
seek out his half-brother and former nemesis Sabretooth for help.
It was never to be though and the idea fell by the wayside.
But would you have liked to have seen the pair back together before Hugh Jackman's retirement
as Wolverine?
I've gotta say I loved the tone they went for in the movie and various mutant cameos
might not have fit so well with that pared down story.
Still, although the Wolverine clone X-24 was played by Hugh Jackman himself, I did get
a slight Sabretooth vibe when X-24 first appeared during that brutal fight scene at the Munson
family home.
The dinner conversation that Logan and Charles have with the Munsons could have been much
darker as an alternate version of the scene was filmed where the Munsons ask Logan if
he's married.
Charles replies that Logan was married, but that he killed her.
Mangold explained that he didn't use that version of the scene because it just felt
too dark at a moment in the film that was meant to provide a little levity, especially
with the events which happen later at the Munson's farm.
By the way, if that scene had made it into the final film, it's unclear what exactly
that would have meant for the X-Men timeline which, after Days of Future Past, appeared
to invalidate the timeline of the first three X-Men movies at the end of which Wolverine
killed Jean Grey.
Early in the story, director James Mangold also toyed with the idea of Logan meeting
a group of other mutants on an underground railroad during his journey.
The mutants would probably have been cameos by characters that fans would recognise, however,
Mangold decided that including them would have felt forced given the movie's tone and,
ultimately, they would have undermined "the loneliness of" Logan's world.
One character that fans have been desperate to see alongside Wolverine and, for a long
time, was rumoured to appear in Logan is Deadpool.
It would have been great to see Wolverine and Deadpool on screen together, you know,
in a good film, not just X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but as Ryan Reynolds explained the Merc with
a Mouth wouldn't have mixed with the tone of Logan.
Wade Wilson and Deadpool did get a little teaser for Deadpool 2, complete with a cameo
by Stan Lee, in the short "No Good Deed", but given the way the movie Logan worked out
in terms of mood and storyline, for me, it was better that Deadpool wasn't part of the
main film.
The supervillain Mr Sinister, aka Nathaniel Essex, was teased in the X-Men: Apocalypse
post-credits, with Bryan Singer stating that the third Wolverine movie would introduce
the villain properly.
However, later James Mangold decided not to include the flashy supervillain in Logan as
he wanted to keep the film very grounded and a step away from the huge spectacle of the
other movies in the X-Men franchise.
Mangold wanted the audience to feel as if they could "run into Wolverine" on the street,
so he made the choice to avoid including larger-than-life villains in brightly-coloured costumes like
Mr Sinister.
But don't despair if you're a fan of the Mr Sinister character as Simon Kinberg has now
said that Mr Sinister will be introduced in a future X-Men movie.
It was certainly a great choice to make Logan a very different type of movie within the
superhero genre, however it does mean we never got to see Hugh Jackman in Wolverine's classic
canary yellow costume.
We did see the suit once, but only in an alternate ending to Mangold's 2013 The Wolverine movie.
Actually, before Logan was released, Hugh Jackman teased fans when he tweeted a picture
of a Wolverine action figure in the original costume.
The bright yellow costume wouldn't have fit in neatly with the tone that the Logan movie
went for though, so in the end the closest we got was via an easter egg to it at Logan's
funeral when one of the mutant children was holding a Wolverine toy dressed in the classic
costume.
Mangold has explained his decision not to include the costume by stating that, for him,
"Logan is the least narcissistic of all the superheroes" and that "the desire to put on
a trademarked outfit ... and ... prance about doing good deeds'" while people recognise
him for them seems very unlike Wolverine.
In fact, in the final movie, Logan himself tears in to the way events from his life are
depicted in the comics and has no time for 'self-promoting' people in leotards.
As for Mangold, he believes that Wolverine's costume works best in the comics, but not
so much on screen, or at least not on Hugh Jackman in the Logan movie.
So, how do you feel about the deleted scenes and characters?
Do you think James Mangold got it right with his final cut or is there anything you wish
he'd included?
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Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers.