Just Say No: Deleted Scenes on DVDs

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I have to say that I am virulently against deleted scenes and alternate endings on DVDs. My main beef with them is that, unless you are super-super familiar with the movie, usually you just watch the film, then go to the special features and watch the deleted scenes. And you start to integrate them into your head as a part of the movie. Sometimes you can't remember if it was in the movie or not, and even if you can keep the distinction, viewing whatever was deleted oftentimes colors your perception of other parts that were actually kept in the movie. I'm all for director's cuts and whatnot, but if it was not meant to be in the film at the end of the day, please keep it the hell away from me. I don't want to know.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Saturday, 4 October 2003 23:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Hear hear!

― adaml (adaml), Sunday, 5 October 2003 00:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I agree, for the most part, I think comedies can be an exception though, especially ones that aren't that funny, when there's better stuff going on in the outtakes, like Made.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 5 October 2003 05:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I have mixed feelings about them. I'm definitely cooler with having them on the side than reincorporated like in the special editions of Apocalypse Now and Close Encounters of The Third Kind. Basically it's the same problem as bonus tracks on a CD. People who like to grasp an artistic work as a whole are going to get annoyed when they start fudging around with what we've been lead to consider was that work. I find it more annoying for movies since movies are obviously harder to appreciate DVD chapter by DVD chapter than an album is song by song.

But as Slutsky notes, comedies can be an exception, especially when the film is just a series of one-liners or an extended series of skits.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Monday, 6 October 2003 01:49 (twenty-two years ago)

is this a whole new kind of rockism, preferring "whole" movies over individual DVD chapters?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 6 October 2003 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah whole movies are the albums of movieland

(i was on the fence about deleted scenes until the punch-drunk love dvd let me verify that p.t.anderson is an idiot who leaves key scenes strewn willynilly on the cutting room floor)

(fly-by-m.night shyamalan does this too - I'M LOOKING AT YOU, tilt-o-whirl scene in Unbreakable)

if directors want to subject their work to this kind of scrutiny i'm happy to oblige them

― jones (actual), Monday, 6 October 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

i am generally disappointed w/deleted scenes too - though in christopher guest-type movies they are gerat.

of course, i still think they should be ON the dvd - you just don't have to watch them.

― j fail (cenotaph), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I dare all of you to sit through the extra scene in the DVD of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back....it's probably to most horrendous hour of "entertainment" you'll ever experience....plus, Kevin Smith feels the need to mug and joke in front of the camera for 5 minutes to explain a 30 second clip....God knows why I sat through it, but I did.

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 9 October 2003 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

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