The Best Movie Scenes That Didn't Make The Final Cut

Movie making is a messy business. There's hundreds of people in casts and crews to wrangle, thousands of hours of work to get done, budgets that stretch into the hundreds of millions — so much has to go right that it's a minor miracle when a stressful production process results in a real a work of art.

So it's not surprising or unusual that the average movie leaves a lot of footage littering the cutting room floor. The shocking thing is that some of these left behind scenes are really, really good, but for one reason or another, they just couldn't make the final cut. Here are some of our favorite examples of the best scenes that ended up deleted.

Logan, the swan song for Hugh Jackman's interpretation of the mutant Wolverine, is one of the strongest single movies to come out of the comic book media boom, a tragic, melancholy story of a reluctant hero's good deeds during his last days.

It's a bummer of a narrative, fixating on death, decay, and the inevitability of sad endings, with the only moment of levity being a dinner at the home of a kindly family when, for a brief moment, it seems like things are going to be alright.

Originally, this scene too was a downcast one, with Professor X bringing up Wolverine's lost love, the dear departed Jean Grey — whom if you recall, Logan was forced to stab to death during X-Men: The Last Stand. The scene was well-done, but removed to give the audience a break. It was a wise decision, and lets the movie stand outside its continuity in a way that only improves it.

Poor Faramir can never catch a break. Faramir, portrayed in the films by David Wenham, is the younger brother of Boromir, and in the books, he's much more noble. He treats Sméagol with kindness, and shepherds the hobbits on their journey.

He's a good man, which is why many fans of the books cried foul when he was interpreted in the films as a jealous, spiteful power monger whose purpose is mainly to get in the good guys' way. This scene, deleted from The Two Towers, shows Faramir and his brother in better times, on-screen as brothers following a great victory, and demonstrates the roots of Faramir's jealousy lay with the real villain, their abusive father Denethor. It's a strong scene that makes Faramir a better, more sympathetic character.

One established aspect of Jedi lore that was introduced somewhat clunkily in the original trilogy is the Jedi apprentice building his or her own lightsaber, something that Darth Vader comments on when he and Luke meet for the last time. The fallen Jedi compliments his son's handiwork, but this small scene left out of the final film shows Luke actually in the process of constructing it — a small little grace note that nonetheless fleshes out the world of the Jedi, and the deeper spiritual meaning of that all-important laser sword.

It's not often that an "alternate" ending really gives you what you ask for. As a viewer, you want real change, radical alterations that fundamentally transform how the movie lands. No movie gives you your money's worth on that count like Little Shop of Horrors.

The original cut ends on a note of ambiguity — "the threat is dead...or is it?" But the director's cut, released over a quarter-century after the film's release, includes a full-on, 10+ minute extravaganza where Audrey II destroys the entire world. It's a legendary long-lost sequence, one of the most expensive and gorgeously-produced deleted scenes of all time — and it rules.

Kill Bill, a film in two parts, follows the story of Uma Thurman's warrior character The Bride as she slices her way through a kill list of her nemeses, the legendary fighters of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, who betrayed her and left her for dead.

But no warrior is more legendary than Bill, played to perfection by the late David Carradine. At least, that's what we hear. For such a proficient fighter, viewers mostly learn to fear Bill through the strength of his disciples, and the final encounter with Bill and The Bride is a more muted, tragic affair. You get the sense that he could kill with ease, but only see him in action in the smallest of ways.

Not so in this deleted sequence, when he takes on Michael Jai White. It's debatable if seeing where The Bride got her moves from makes this a better movie — what's not in question is that this scene on its own is really freaking cool.

The first two Terminator movies are classics of action and horror, perfect character pieces, superbly directed, with fantastic special effects. Not much needs to be said about the movies that came after, beyond that they are increasingly-pale imitations of what made the first two work.

With that in mind, why not include this utterly bonkers deleted scene from the third one showing Arnold Schwarzenegger as the campy, cheesy, human Chief Master Sergeant Will Candy? There's nothing we can say about this scene that it doesn't say for itself. Intentionally or not, it's pretty hilarious.

Oh man, did they ever almost screw this movie up. Zootopia, a surprisingly-nuanced metaphor about race and prejudice, shows a fantastical world where all animals live together in harmony, both predator and prey alike. But in the original conception of the story, the premise had a tortured explanation — the only reason predators didn't eat prey with impunity was fear of penalty and pain.

This deleted sequence, the collar scene, shows a young predatory animal being equipped for life with a shock collar, of all things, that would activate if ever he tried to harm a prey — which has pretty awful implications in that race and prejudice metaphor. If only to see how badly this movie almost ruined its own premise, this work-in-progress scene is a must-watch.

Ferris Bueller is a sociopath, but his movie does a pretty good job of disguising that fact behind a tone of youthful whimsy. It's remarkable how different this movie could be with just a few changes, going from a carefree romp around Chicago to the story of a guiltless monster ruining the lives of everyone around him for the sake of his own selfishness.

The latter movie doesn't sound nearly as fun, but it's interesting to imagine how it would've felt if they had actually filmed a scene, written in the original script, where it's revealed how Ferris funds his great vacation — by cashing in his father's saving bonds, and robbing his family blind. The scene, in which he manipulates a kooky bank teller into doing his bidding, is vivid enough that you can imagine Ferris doing it — it'd just make you like him a whole lot less.