One of the best things about special features on DVDs and Blu-rays is the litany of deleted
scenes.
But sometimes, omitting those scenes creates pesky plot holes that would've been sealed
if only they had just stayed in place.
Here are some deleted scenes that would've fixed some of cinema's most pesky and confusing
plot points...
Aliens
Aliens is one of the best movies ever made, but it does have one weird issue.
It seems like Ripley is barely affected by...anything.
She goes through the whole movie showing about two emotions: kill, and kill with fire.
But that's a little weird, right?
After all, she comes back after a hundred years of sleep, her whole family and life
have passed away, and she basically shrugs it all off.
It just seems like she's being a little too cavalier about it all.
But that wouldn't be the case if this deleted scene was left in.
We see here that her daughter's death of old age really did have a profound effect on her.
In addition to making Ripley not seem like, you know, a robot, it also makes her bond
with Newt at the end of the movie make a ton more sense: she's trying to replace the daughter-sized
hole in her heart.
Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
If you've only ever seen the two Deathly Hallows films and never read the books, you probably
think it's weird that the Death Eaters managed to always find Ron, Harry, and Hermione.
Were they wearing some kind of tracking beacon?
Did they forget to turn the GPS on their wands off?
What the heck?
Well, the actual reason is simple: Voldemort put a curse on his own name so that whenever
anyone says it, he and his Death Eaters can detect them and find them.
Which isn't a problem for most people, because they all call him "You Know Who."
But then there's Harry, who refuses to.
So every time he says Voldemort's name in an attempt to puff up his chest and say "I'm
not scared of him," he's actually shining a huge spotlight for all the guys who want
to kill him.
Of course, eventually he learns better … because Ron tells him.
"That's how they track people now."
"How do you know that?"
"Overheard some bloke at the ministry talking about it."
But the filmmakers deleted that scene, so it suddenly goes from Death Eaters knowing
where Harry and the gang are 24/7, to them never knowing.
It's not worst plot hole in the whole series, but that scene probably could have cleared
up a whole lot of confusion.
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is one of the best film trilogies ever, but there's always been one
weird part in it: Boromir.
He alternates between heroism and villainy, seemingly at random.
It all comes to a head when Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo at Amon Hen.
Most of us assumed that the Ring's influence corrupted Boromir, but there's a much sadder
explanation, as revealed in one of the deleted scenes that made its way into the Extended
Editions.
As we know from The Return of the King, Boromir's father, Denethor, is a cruel, unforgiving
man.
He's the guy who sends Boromir to the Council to claim the One Ring to bring glory to Gondor.
"You must go.
Bring me back this mighty gift."
So when Boromir seems lustful over the Ring, he's really just trying to be a good son to
please his overbearing prick of a father.
"I trust this mission only to your brother.
The one who will not fail me."
The guy's a total buttface!
This also means his dad has been one of the most destructive forces in the entire saga
since the first movie.
Seriously, this guy is worse than Saruman.
Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day easily ranks up there with Bill Murray's best films.
Murray's character relives one day in his life, for seemingly no purpose, over and over.
"Then put your little hand in mine, there ain't no hill or mountain…"
Due to the lack of explanation in the finished film, people have argued for years about just
what the heck the point of it all is.
And while some might argue that's actually one of the movie's high points, that doesn't
make the explanation's absence any less confusing.
What's making Murray so death-proof?
"Phil!"
"He might be ok."
While still in development, the filmmakers had a simple, and kind of dumb, explanation
in mind: an ex of Murray's character cursed him until he could learn how to actually love,
at which point the curse would end.
Fortunately, this scene was cut before it was even filmed, because, honestly, a clear-cut
explanation like that would have just taken away from what makes the movie so great in
the first place.
"Phil?
Hey!
Phil Conners!"
"Ned?"
Star Trek
If you don't remember who Nero is, we'll catch you up.
He's the Romulan bald bad guy in J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of Star Trek who screams "Fire
everything!"
He's also the one who kills Captain Kirk's dad, Thor, while Kirk is too busy being born
to save him.
But after the opening scene Nero just conveniently disappears until Kirk's all grown up.
What was he doing?
Taking a vacation?
Actually, he was being held prisoner, off in Deleted Scenes Land.
The film needed about 20 years to pass so that Nero could face off against an adult
Captain Kirk, so J.J. Abrams and company had to give him something to do in the meantime.
Their idea was that Nero was captured by Klingons and held prisoner for years, until he could
finally break free.
Listen to the voice of everybody's favorite Star Trek character, Exposition Man:
"It's been more than 20 years, Nero, since we captured your ship."
The filmmakers ultimately cut this scene out of the movie, leaving a big, gaping question
mark in the plot that no amount of lens flares could cover up.
Return of the Jedi
One of the biggest questions in Return of the Jedi has annoyed fans for years: why didn't
Obi-Wan just tell Luke that Darth Vader was his father in the first place?
He started out as a pretty cool old guy, showing him fancy laser swords in his creepy desert
hut.
But then he straight up lied to Luke about who is father really was.
Well, guess what?
Turns out it wasn't Obi-Wan's fault.
It was Yoda, who confessed the truth on his deathbed.
Here's how the final cut of that scene went:
"Not ready for the burden were you."
"I'm sorry."
But the original version had an extra line that took all the blame off Obi-Wan:
"Not ready for the burden were you. Obi-Wan would have told you long ago had I let him."
Yoda purposefully kept the secret from Luke, even forbidding Obi-Wan from telling Luke
out of fear of what Luke would do if he knew the truth.
And while we're on the subject of confusing Jedi dad-issues, this one's a doozy.
Revenge of the Sith
In The Phantom Menace, we find out that Anakin has no father.
But that's a little silly.
Even Jesus had a dad.
So who was Anakin's?
The Phantom Menace never tells us, but a deleted scene from Revenge of the Sith reveals the
truth.
The scene, which George Lucas outlined, but never filmed, explains that Palpatine's master
taught him how to manipulate midichlorians to create life.
In an attempt to create the perfect pupil, Palpatine created Anakin, saying that, from
a certain point of view, he was Anakin's father.
The scene was still in script phase when Lucas cut it, but it adds extra weight to Return
of the Jedi: Anakin, as Darth Vader, tries to draw his son to the Dark Side, just like
his own "father" did.
It's a cool backstory — but it still wouldn't have made Revenge of the Sith suck any less.
Independence Day
Remember Independence Day?
Of course you do!
It's a great, silly movie about humanity fighting against aliens and defeating them with the
combined powers of inspirational public speaking and also … hacking?
Hold up.
How exactly did Jeff Goldblum get a computer virus onto the alien ship?
It's hard enough getting a PC to play nice with a Mac.
Well, you guessed it: a deleted scene has the answer.
Remember how Goldblum found out when the aliens were going to attack by decoding the messages
they were sending through Earth's satellites?
He used that information like a Rosetta Stone to figure out the computers on the crashed
alien ship at Roswell.
"See these patterns here they're repeating sequentially.
Just like their countdown signal.
They're using that frequency for computer communications.
See?
That's how they're coordinating their ships."
From there, he figured out how to write a virus specifically for the aliens' computers.
Which still doesn't make a bunch of sense, but it's a step up from magical hacking.
So, uh, take that, aliens.
"Welcome to earth."
The Goonies
Remember at the end of the Goonies when the kids are screaming at their parents about
all their adventures?
Out of the blue, Data starts talking about an octopus:
"What happened out there? Were your lives in danger?"
"The octopus was very scary."
"Octopus?"
And no, you didn't forget about the epic scene where the Goonies fight an octopus, because
it was taken out of the final cut.
But the scene did survive.
When the Goonies are swimming through the lake to the pirate ship, they run into a giant
octopus that tries to eat them all, because what's more pirate-y than an octopus-infested
lake?
Nothing, that's what.
So get your truffle shuffle on, because this mystery is solved!
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