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Deleted Scene

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"One of my favorite parts of a DVD is the part where you get to see all the best scenes in the movie that weren't in the movie."
Daffy Duck (in the Deleted Scenes featurette on the Looney Tunes: Back in Action DVD)

How Did We Miss This One? Don't worry, it'll be included as an extra on the TV Tropes DVD.

A scene made for a work (in part or completed), but not included in the final release. These are often put back in special editions or included on the DVD release. They are also sometimes included in heavily-cut broadcast TV versions of films to stretch them back to a reasonable length. A Novelization often includes scenes that end up cut from the final film, as adaptations are often based on shooting scripts to ensure that the novel will be ready for release in conjunction with the film. Due to the nature of animated works, any extra scenes in these productions are usually removed during the storyboard or animatic phase, though rough animation hitting the cutting room floor is common. A scene with completed animation being cut is almost unheard of, but can still occur depending on why the scene was cut.

Scenes can be cut for a number of different reasons. Often the scenes are of much lower quality, so they were deleted for good reason. Yet some may contain details that appeal to audiences. Among the reasons include:

  • Reducing the overall running time, especially for theaters where a lower running time means an increased number of showings.
  • Improving the pacing and story by cutting out the excess fat.
  • Getting rid of what turned out to be a bad scene or a poorly executed sequence.
  • A change in the productions aim to ensure a different rating. Quite often it is because of the desire to include the PG-13 crowd from an R rating. More rarely it is an angle to make it Darker and Edgier and appeal to the R crowd. More generally, scenes may be removed to change the tone of the movie, regardless of the desired rating.
  • A change to make the work more popular with test audiences, either the inclusion of a scene to clarify an obscure scene.
  • A massive change to the ending.
  • More cynically, some works might be suspected of having "Deleted Scenes" just so they can be included in the Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition or adding extra sex and violence for an Unrated Edition.

If the scenes are included into the flow of the work, then its a recut and usually marketed as a "Directors Cut" or "Extended Edition". More commonly the scenes are included in the Special Features section of a DVD release as a bonus feature.

In terms of 'cutting out excess fat', many directors will point out, via DVD commentary, that a particular scene worked just fine as it was filmed, but when viewed in the context of the film overall, the scene in question simply dragged on too long or ruined the desired emotion of a moment, and was thus cut to keep the energy of a particular sequence up.

This isn't limited to films though. All works, be they television shows, comic books, or even pieces of literature are subject to this trope thanks to the very fact they all usually go through an editing process that have the creators re-evaluate how they're telling the story. The general public is just more likely to hear of examples in films due to the expectations that come with a DVD/Blu-Ray of those products, while similar releases for other works usually scrape by with their bonus features being more general ideas and vague descriptions of What Could Have Been. The slower production cycle of a film also lends itself better to having more "substantial" deleted content to throw onto the disc, as opposed to the faster schedules of television. However, it is becoming more and more common for TV series DVD releases to include the same sort of special features DVDs have, including deleted scenes.

The canonicity of a deleted scene will vary from case to case. Especially for material that was simply cut due to time constraints, the story elements at play in those scenes may still be part of the overall storyline. This is where an apparent Plot Hole can occur, because the deleted scene may have held necessary information for a sub-plot or even the main story. Although the reverse can also be true, with the scene being deleted because it created a plot hole. In such a case, and in others where a story's feel is changed by the removal of a scene, the removed content has probably been decanonized.

A Super-Trope to Too Hot for TV, DVD Bonus Content, Unrated Edition, Edited for Syndication.

Compare Deleted Role, Cut Song, All There in the Manual, Missing Trailer Scene, Dummied Out (for video games).

Not to be confused with Cutscene, which is a non-interactive sequence in a video game (i.e., a scene that "cuts" away from the action of the game).


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Other Examples:

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Plot Hole Fixing Deleted Scenes

    Anime & Manga 
  • D.Gray-Man: Due to a magazine change and timing issues, Hoshino could not include some scenes of the Alma Karma arc in the original weekly magazine releases. The absence of Fô in Alma's flashback was creating a plot hole that caused some sorrow to the author so she included an extra chapter only in the volumes: Twi had ordered to not protect them in order to put an end to the second exorcist program forever and pay for their sins. Fo stayed there watching her masters being slaughtered while not being able to do anything . She note the cruel irony of the situation afterwards: "asking a guardian spirit to not protect...how stupid".

    Live-Action TV 
  • A deleted scene from late in season four of Oz shows Chris Keller moving back into Tobias Beecher's cell, thereby explaining why he is suddenly there again in a later episode.
  • The scene where Pippa's mother kills her was ultimately removed from the finale of Dead Set in order to give the scene where Space sees her zombified form more impact.

    Western Animation 
  • The final episode of Beast Wars had a short deleted scene where they put the original Megatron's spark back into his body, resolving what seems like a pretty big oversight in the final cut.
  • A deleted scene in the episode "Kill the Alligator and Run" from The Simpsons depicts a funeral being held for Captain Jack at the Six Toe County Courthouse (one of the funeral attendees is Kid Rock), which would explain why Captain Jack emerges from within the courthouse at the end of the episode.
  • A deleted scene in the episode "Parasites Lost" from Futurama, depicts Hermes explaining that the plates are missing, so now they will have to use alternatives to eat off of which includes a Jai-alai scoop, which would explain why Hermes is shown scooping some of Amy's popcorn with a Jai-alai during Fry's colonoscopy.
  • An early South Park episode had Shelly lighting Stan on fire and then putting him out. This was cut because of an outcry Moral Guardians had made claiming (incorrectly) that Beavis And Butthead had encouraged an accident involving fire. This results in a scene where Stan is laying in a pool of water for no reason.

TV Screening Additions

    Anime & Manga 
  • The movie versions of Yu-Gi-Oh!: Capsule Monsters had several scenes cut for time included as bonus features, which were restored in the episodic releases on the Season 5 DVDs.

    Western Animation 
  • Mumfie's Quest had a few cut scenes from when the movie was originally a set of episodes. Britt Allcroft has intents to bring these cuts back.

General

    Animation 

    Anime & Manga 
  • When The Vision of Escaflowne was first aired in Japan, Sunrise made too much animated content for the show's earlier episodes to fit in it's TV time slot. As a result, some scenes having nothing to do with the advancement in the show's plot had to be cut for time. The deleted scenes were restored in Japanese video releases. Said deleted scenes have not made it to the US DVDs, even in the 2009 re-release for some reason, so No Export for You.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The first season of 24 had several deleted scenes that, until the release of the special edition DVD set, could only be seen during the A&E syndicated airings of the show. They included many character moments cut for pacing, as well as an extended shootout in the final episode between Jack and the Drazen brothers.
  • According to this, the Bear in the Big Blue House episode "Call It a Day" was created as a result of a contest to make an episode out of material from deleted scenes, hence why there are a total of six different writers credited for it. The episode's plot involves Bear hosting a sleepover at the Big Blue House and recalling stuff that happened involving the various characters earlier in the day.
  • Doctor Who:
    • The commercially available cut of "The Time Meddler" is restored from a poor quality 16mm telerecording found in Nigeria. The Nigerian censors removed a scene in the episode "Checkmate" in which two Vikings get stabbed to death for being too violent, and no visuals of the scene are known to exist. The soundtrack of the 'missing 12 seconds' does exist, and the DVD special features contain the audio, accompanied by portions of the script. The American syndication version of "The Time Meddler" cuts the scene in the first episode where Vicki finds Steven stowed away in the TARDIS, as it's a direct continuation of the previous story ("The Chase") which doesn't make much sense if you haven't seen that too.
    • "Inferno" has a scene of the Doctor and the Brigade Leader listening to a radio broadcast talking about the apocalypse about to destroy the world. The scene was cut due to the fact that the radio announcer was played by Jon Pertwee, and although he was doing a 'voice' the director decided it was too obviously the same actor. Seeing as the plot involved a Mirror Universe in which the Doctor is conspicuously absent, this had the potential to get extremely confusing, and the scene was ditched. It's still viewable on the DVD.
    • "The Ark in Space":
      • Had a scene where, in the final stages of larval infestation, Noah's head splits open and cracks in a torrent of acidic goo, that was cut because it was too graphic. There are conflicting reports on if the scene was ever filmed, and if it was, the scene was lost. (Probably for the best.)
      • A scene was filmed where Noah confronts Vira and begs her to kill him to end his agony, that Philip Hinchcliffe decided to cut as it was too dark. The scene as in the aired episode cuts from a shot of the Doctor looking on to a shot of him glowering and looking harrowed from a similar angle in a different room, with the door shut and no indication how they got away from Noah. Kenton Moore, who played Noah, expressed his opinion that he was furious about the scene going because it was crucial to the whole story. The missing scene is lost.
    • "Terror of the Zygons"'s TARDIS arrival scene was cut from the original broadcast and VHS versions due to difficulty getting the TARDIS splitscreen effect to work. This ends up leaving the Doctor inexplicably dressed in a tartan Tam-o'-shanter tracking something with a gadget. The scene was restored from black-and-white footage and recolourised for the DVD version, giving the Doctor time to explain that he's trying to locate UNIT with a receiver (and that he knows he's in Scotland because he's dressed for Scotland).
  • Forever (2014) has a number of cut or alternate scenes on the DVD release, many of them also available on YouTube. An alternate opening shows Henry walking down a New York street as the people around him change era, from modern cars to Model Ts to horse-drawn buggies. Cut scenes mostly show character development, such as Henry telling Jo what "Abe's mother" meant to him (phrased so that everything he says is true but it could be interpreted with her as a parental figure instead of the truth of her being his wife for forty years). One scene has Abe identifying a bullet and showing an example of the type of antique gun it came from, information conveyed much more succinctly in the final cut by a couple of lines from Detective Hanson.
  • Friends: The uncut episodes on DVD tend to have scenes that were cut not just for syndication, but also scenes that also didn't originally air due to content. One example is when Joey is angry at Chandler for making fun of the bracelet he gave him. When Chandler says he should focus on the fact Chandler wore it even though he hated it, Joey tells him to "focus on this" and grabs his junk while the camera cuts to behind Joey. Another extra sequence, in "TOW The Cheap Wedding Dress", seems to be an ad-lib from Matt LeBlanc: After a love interest ditches both Ross and Joey at a restaurant, Ross asks if Joey is hungry, to which Joey replies, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"
  • Have I Got News for You, and more recently QI, have 'extended' versions of their episodes (usually about ten minutes longer) featuring content cut from the original broadcast.
    • Podcasts The Bugle and Psycomedia both construct entire episodes out of such content, known as 'offal' and 'Frankenpodcasts' respectively.
  • House of the Dragon: Season 1 has a few:
    • The wedding scene of Viserys and Alicent was cut from the second episode. There are backstage photos featuring Emily Carey in an absolutely gorgeous hairstyle and wedding dress.
    • Daemon hugging his daughters in consolation in episode 6 after the death of their mother Laena.
    • Additional dialogue recorded just before the grand Targaryen dinner depicts Aemond scolding Aegon for his excessive drinking, to which Aegon responds that in fact Aemond didn't drink enough.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: There is scene that would have revealed Durin IV's name, but it was cut in the last minute because the showrunners later decided the episode's runtime was already too long.
  • Though most of The X-Files deleted scenes were cut for time reasons and have little bearing on the plot, there are quite a few deleted scenes ad-libbed by David and Gillian that couldn't be included without taking the "U" out of their UST. There are at least three deleted kisses, two of which can be seen on Youtube.
    • One of the deleted kisses (the infamous hallway kiss from Fight the Future) seems to have been a joke played on the actors. It was finally released 10 years after the movie came out, presumably in anticipation of the 2008 movie, which naturally caused fans to squee and faint dead away. When interviewed about this deleted scene, Frank Spotnitz said that "Nobody ever called 'cut'" and so the scene proceeded as is. There are definitely other takes of the hallway scene in which David and Gillian are clearly messing around and hamming it up for the camera, however.

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 
  • Red vs. Blue includes any cut scenes from a season in the home video version. They're mostly minor scenes of subplots or characters that were dropped mid-production.

    Web Video 
  • Economy Watch: David shot a scene with Nathan Booth, Stratton's actor, in January 2023, but the scene was cut due to audio problems.

    Western Animation 
  • Amphibia: The storyboard artist for "The New Normal" posted sketches for a scene where Anne is watching a TV show with a scene unnervingly similar to Marcy getting stabbed, and in the middle of her discomfort, her father complains that it's contrived.
  • The Animaniacs episode "Potty Emergency" had a scene cut from the final broadcast and DVD version where a man watering flowers in the park turns his hose towards the camera, and Wakko acts squeamish at this sight. This version was only shown at an animation convention back in the 90's before the show's debut. However, there are reports that this scene was shown on Teletoon Retro broadcasts.
  • BIONICLE: Mask of Light had a number of fully rendered scenes or shots cut. These included a quick scene of Takua stumbling over and losing his mask; a long scene in which Makuta references past stories with an alternate introduction to his Rahkshi servants (it was too slow and revealed the Rahkshi's full bodies too early); a shot of the blue Rahkshi stepping on a sports ball and breaking it (the production team apparently felt it was too mean); and several other brief shots that didn't impact the plot.
    • Legends of Metru Nui had at least two. One of Vakama's early visions showed Metru Nui destroyed and the Coliseum exploding and crumbling. Though rendered, this shot was cut and replaced with a shadow simply engulfing the city (taken from a later scene). There was even a fully cut scene where a group of flying serpents called Lohrak attack the six Toa and Lhikan, prompting the latter to demand that someone take charge, which would have spurred the hesitant Vakama into stepping up as a leader. Models of the Lohrak were created but the scene didn't got past storyboard stage.
    • Three short bits from the final battle in BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn were storyboarded but cut from the end product: Gresh uniting his tonfas to use as a surfboard, Kiina and a Bone Hunter acting out the famous "shoot the swordsman" scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Tarix punching a ridiculously overarmed and overgrown Skrall soldier. All three were cheap gags that didn't impact the story, though with their deletion, Tarix the champion fighter doesn't appear at all in the completed battle scene.
  • At the request of the country's state television, the 2018 Hungarian adult comedy cartoon Candide had to remove or redo certain gags that referenced Christian imagery and poked fun at Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's obsession with football stadiums and personal railways. Even after these changes had been made, state media still refused to air the show.
  • Ed, Edd n Eddy: From "Take This Ed And Shove It", there was a scene cut where Eddy finds out he and the other Eds are married to the Kankers, honeymooned in the junkyard, and had lots of kids.
  • In Here Comes Garfield, while on his way to rescue Odie from the pound, Garfield encounters a female cat on a fence post and wonders what she's thinking about. The scene was apparently animated and voices were recorded but for whatever reason it was cut, possibly for time or to not feel like padding. The song accompanying the scene can be heard on the soundtrack.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic has had a few: two scenes from "The Ticket Master", a minor shot from "Suited for Success", and a major scene from "Luna Eclipsed".
  • The Spongebob Squarepants episode "Just One Bite" was originally aired with a scene where Squidward sneaks into the Krusty Krab and finds out that their security is a bucket of gasoline that's set on fire (two in fact). This was deleted presumably because it was deemed an imitable act, and several countries (most notably the United Kingdom) have laws against showing imitable behavior in children's TV shows.

    Unsorted 
  • Rent contains a prominent example of a Deleted Scene; the director mentions in the commentary that a particular sequence (in which the antagonist and one of the protagonists mend fences and make ironic jokes) projected the wrong tone. The sequence was re-shot to maintain its dramatic impact.

Other

    Fan Works 
  • Dragon Ball Z Abridged occasionally uploads "Alternate Takes", which are sometimes this, and othertimes throwaway jokes that wouldn't fit into the actual episode's continuity. Episode 51's stinger, especially, is an alternate take where Krillin accidentally kills Android 18, something that would have ended the arc right there and then.

    Literature 
  • For a book example, many deleted chapters of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (which was written concurrently with the movie) appear in The Lost Worlds of 2001, which also talks about the process of creating the book and movie.
  • The children's novel BIONICLE: Tale of the Toa had 30% of its content removed before release, mostly to get rid of redundant or slow scenes and to tighten up the continuity (a lot of which was later retconned away regardless). One fully removed scene showed Lewa happening upon his tribe for the first time and Gali first meeting with Lewa, exchanging banter and holding a playful race. Other cut scenes had Tahu and Kopaka receive visions of future events, Kopaka thinking back to a fight against a giant scorpion, and lots of exposition.
  • Discworld:
    • A Blink of the Screen, the collection of Terry Pratchett's short stories, includes at the back a deleted scene from "The Sea and Little Fishes", which was taken out at the advice of Robert Silverberg (who edited the Legends anthology where the story first appeared) for slowing everything down. It later got reworked for Carpe Jugulum. (It also got mentioned in Josh Kirby: A Cosmic Cornocopia, explaining why Josh's first cover illustration for Legends wasn't used — he'd gone for that scene.)
    • Two deleted scenes from Raising Steam were compiled into a little book presented at the 2014 Discworld Convention. One involves Moist trying to find water for the engine and stumbling into a Tomb Raider parody, the other a dwarf writing an angry letter to the Times.

    Live-Action TV 
  • TV series are subject to deleted scenes for much the same reasons as set out for films in the introduction, and just as with film sometimes the restoration of said scenes resolve plot holes. Other reasons for deleted scenes to exist:
    • A series is produced for cable/streaming in one part of the world, but airs on a commercial broadcaster elsewhere, necessitating the removal of scenes with an unacceptable amount of sexual content or violence. (Examples of this include Bitten and Vikings).
    • A series is produced for broadcast on both commercial and non-commercial broadcasters, resulting in deleted scenes existing from the perspective of viewers of the former. An example is Victoria which has scenes included in the non-commercial American PBS showing that were deleted from the commercial UK broadcast.
    • A series is produced for two different commercial markets, but they have very different proportions of commercial-to-show each hour. Forever Knight aired at forty minutes per episode in America but forty-seven minutes per episode in Canada. (This led to a mix of occasionally-plothole-inducing filler being added to some Canadian episodes versus cutting of sometimes-important scenes in the American versions leading to different plotholes.)

    Radio 
  • The Goon Show often overran and had to be cut for timing purposes. Curiously, in the case of a few episodes, the timing cuts in the broadcast versions were omitted from transcription versions, although these had other timing cuts, and so where the broadcast and transcription versions both survive it has been possible to restore all of the cut parts for CD release.

    Theatre 
  • The Death Row scene in The Adding Machine was omitted until a 1956 revival restored it.
  • In Babes in Toyland, the elaborately staged prologue was dropped when the original production spawned a smaller touring company; most revivals after Herbert's death continued to omit the prologue.
  • For pacing reasons, the 2010 touring production of Beauty and the Beast dropped the battle between the villagers and the Enchanted Objects, as well as two of the Broadway production's songs.
  • The 2013 West End musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory originally opened with an animated short designed by Roald Dahl's regular illustrator Quentin Blake, "Creation Overture", that whimsically depicted the making of a chocolate bar. It was dropped upon the show's first major cast turnover in 2014, for reasons unknown (possibly pacing, or even not wanting to rerecord the narration provided by Douglas Hodge, the first actor to play the role of Willy Wonka).

    Theme Parks 
  • Even theme park attractions are prone to this, as the former Back to the Future: The Ride at Universal Studios had a slightly longer ending scene, in which Biff Tannen once again gets covered in manure; but was cut as the ride's producers felt that the gag was too forced. The unaltered ending can be seen in the ride's rough draft footage.

    Web Video 
  • Party Crashers: Different channel edits of the same Mario Party session will have certain moments changed or removed between versions. Case in point, Vernias harnessing the power of Nick's giant dick during their game on Mario Party 1's Wario's Battle Canyon being removed in Brent's edit, but is kept fully intact in Sophist and Vernias' respective edits. Amusingly, Brent states in the latter two that he would not be including this part in his video:
    Brent: I'm gonna remove that from the video!
    Sophist: I'm keeping that in the video, I think everybody needs to hear that!

    Western Animation 

 
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Alternative Title(s): Deleted Scenes

Top

Yo Leela Leela Original Ending

The episode was supposed to end with Abner Doubledeal opening an amusement park on Rumbledy-Hump, and takes a majority share of income due to the Humplings having a terrible lawyer. Leela then complains about the park, but the Humplings announce their joy at being famous. Warden Vogel thanks Leela for providing the orphans with a field trip. Leela begs for everyone to blame her, but is given a bat by the orphans, which she uses to beat up the lawyer. Because the crew felt that ending was a bit too cruel, it was changed in the final product.

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