8 Movie Scenes That Should Have Happened Off-Screen
We didn't need to see it.
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00:00One of the most important rules of filmmaking is show, don't tell, because audiences generally
00:05prefer to see rather than be told, film being a visual medium after all. But at the same time,
00:11not everything necessarily lends itself to the visual treatment, and as Hollywood has proven
00:16time and time again, it really loves to hit viewers over the head with its ideas.
00:21These 10 movies, no matter how great they may have been, couldn't resist the urge to show
00:26audiences things which, if we're being honest with ourselves, we're probably better off just
00:30being left to our imaginations. By not only shooting these scenes, but including them in
00:36the final cut, these filmmakers showed a lack of faith in viewers to use their imaginations and
00:41think for themselves, in turn leaving them groaning, eye-rolling, and maybe even close
00:46to vomiting at the end result. These films would have immediately become more interesting and less
00:51objectionable if these scenes were left on the cutting room floor, but sadly what's been seen
00:56cannot be unseen. So with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture, and here are 8 movie
01:01scenes that should have happened off-screen. 8. Zara's Death in Jurassic World
01:07Jurassic World is far from a great movie, but it at least delivered easily digestible blockbuster
01:12thrills for the masses, which only made the unnecessarily brutal death of Claire's assistant
01:17Zara that much more shocking. When all hell first breaks loose at the park, Zara is picked up by a
01:23pteranodon and then dragged screaming into the Mosasaurus tank. At this point, she's then scooped
01:29out of the water by another pteranodon before the Mosasaurus finally dives out of the water and
01:34gobbles them both. It's an oddly sadistic prolonged death scene for a character who didn't really do
01:39anything to earn it compared to, say, the douchebag lawyer in the original Jurassic Park.
01:44It's ugly enough to rather upset the movie's otherwise firmly escapist tone. Clearly,
01:49just showing her to be dropped in the tank was sufficient enough to get the message across.
01:54Writer-director Colin Trevorrow did later confirm that Zara was depicted as a bridezilla in scenes
02:00cut from the film, which might have made her savage death seem more like a justified comeuppance than
02:05it does in the final film. As it stands, it's a weirdly cruel death which does nothing for the
02:10story or to further audience satisfaction. 7. Fury Loses an Eye in Captain Marvel
02:16Just as most fans expected, Captain Marvel finally revealed the cause of Nick Fury's damaged
02:22eye. And in typical MCU fashion, it wasn't what anyone expected. Ultimately, it turns out that
02:28Fury's eye was scratched by the alien Flerkin, Goose, who takes the form of a cat in the movie.
02:34Given that Fury previously implied he lost the eye as a result of serious deceit, saying,
02:39"'Last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye,' in Captain America The Winter Soldier,
02:43most fans were expecting him to suffer the ocular injury due to Skrull's shapeshifting shenanigans.
02:49Alas, fans got supremely trolled, and a potentially jaw-dropping origin story for
02:53Fury was turned into a one-note joke where Fury didn't even seem particularly bothered
02:58by his life-changing injury. Lame. As with Iron Man 3's Mandarin debacle, this was further proof
03:04that subverting expectations is itself not enough, and that if this is the best they could come up
03:09with, they were better off just keeping the event in fans' imaginations instead.
03:136. The Psychiatrist's Exposition Dump in Psycho
03:17Alfred Hitchcock's masterful horror film Psycho ends with the mind-melting revelation that the
03:22murders have been committed by motel owner Norman Bates, who has a split personality resembling his
03:28own dead mother. It's an all-timer as far as plot twists go, yet one undeniably undermined by the
03:35follow-up scene in which psychiatrist Dr. Richmond prosaically explains the full extent
03:40of Norman's illness in the most listless, unimaginative, and yes, clinical fashion
03:45possible. Though there's an argument to be made that audiences were less savvy to the particulars
03:50of mental illness in 1960, even so, as a piece of writing, the scene is flabbergastingly lazy.
03:56Viewed today, it can't be seen as anything other than an otherwise expertly crafted film telling
04:01the audience something they already know. In an ideal world, this scene would have been left on
04:06the cutting room floor, as we transition directly into the terrific, she-wouldn't-harm-a-fly ending.
04:115. Andy and Red's Reunion in The Shawshank Redemption
04:16It's time to get a little controversial now. The Shawshank Redemption is unquestionably one
04:20of the most crowd-pleasing, heartwarming movies of all time, hinged on an extremely cathartic
04:26ending in which a paroled Red is reunited with escapee Andy on a beach in Zawaterneo, Mexico.
04:33As wonderful an ending as this is, it does also feel a tad excessive in giving the audience too
04:38much of a hard resolution to the story. Originally, writer-director Frank Darabont ended the movie
04:43with Red riding the bus to the Mexican border, but the studio insisted that he at least shoot
04:48the happier ending, despite the filmmaker having final cut privilege. Darabont humoured them,
04:54and after a test screening of the studio ending was rapturously received, he agreed to include it.
04:59Even so, there's such a thing as giving audiences too much of what they want. Great art is often
05:05born from the anguish of restraint, and having Shawshank roll credits as Red takes a hopeful
05:09ride to Mexico, with that poetic monologue about the Pacific Ocean's blue sea, would have been a
05:14flawless heart-stopper of an ending. Instead, it overstepped on the crowd-pleasing front by a
05:20measure, even if it's still tough to rail against the ending too much, given the arduous journey
05:24these two men have been on. End the movie a minute earlier, though, and it's practically perfect.
05:304. Lincoln's Death in Lincoln
05:33Steven Spielberg's terrific Abraham Lincoln biopic reaches its natural conclusion about
05:38four minutes before the end credits actually roll, when Lincoln prepares to head to Ford's
05:43Theatre where he meets his untimely end. The shot of Lincoln walking down the hallway of his home
05:48to leave for the theatre would have been a beautiful note on which to close things out,
05:52but Spielberg indulges himself by actually taking us to Lincoln's deathbed as he expires.
05:58Though the subsequent flashback to Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address makes
06:02for a stirring ending, showing Lincoln's actual death just feels totally unnecessary given how
06:08inevitable it is, though Spielberg at least stops short of showing the fatal gunshot itself.
06:13Nothing is gained from seeing Lincoln expire on screen, when fading from the hallway of Lincoln's
06:17home to his iconic speech would have made for a far more dignified ending.
06:213. Midichlorians in Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace
06:26Though some fans will argue that large swathes of the Star Wars prequels should have never been
06:31committed to film, most will agree that one of the prequel trilogy's major mistakes was
06:35in straining itself to explain the Force. In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn explains to
06:40a young Anakin that the building blocks of life, and therefore the Force, are midichlorians,
06:45a sort of space bacteria naturally occurring in the universe.
06:49It was a blatant attempt to handwave the inconsistencies in the Force from the original
06:53trilogy, yet beyond being rather silly, only made things even more unnecessarily complex.
06:59Plus, there was much charm and intrigue in the mystery of how the Force worked,
07:03and lifting the veil on that was a major mistake.
07:06Granted, numerous references are made to the midichlorians throughout the prequel trilogy,
07:11but it's Qui-Gon's straight up explanation which proves the most egregious.
07:15At least if midichlorians as a concept weren't something so clearly defined,
07:19by removing this scene from The Phantom Menace, fans would have one less thing to complain about.
07:242. The Epilogue in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
07:30Harry Potter mostly wrapped up in style with the thrilling two-hour finale that
07:34was the Deathly Hallows Part 2, except for that widely ridiculed epilogue sequence.
07:39The scene in question takes place 19 years after Voldemort's defeat, with Harry,
07:44Hermione and Ron watching their own kids leaving for Hogwarts at King's Cross Station.
07:49It's a cute idea, and certainly gave J.K. Rowling's books an incredibly satisfying ending,
07:54but as with any big screen adaptation, it's all about the execution.
07:59Ultimately, the inexplicably ropey makeup effects to try and make the
08:02principal actors look almost double their ages renders the scene unintentionally hilarious,
08:08more akin to a thrown-together SNL skit than the final scene in a $250 million blockbuster.
08:14If the effects weren't up to snuff, David Yates probably should have just nixed the scene and left
08:18it to the audience's imagination, but inevitably Yates would have been raked over the coals by
08:23fans for excluding it, so he was certainly damned either way.
08:271. Bruce Lives in The Dark Knight Rises
08:31The ending of The Dark Knight Rises has been tirelessly dissected and debated by fans,
08:36especially the revelation that Bruce Wayne didn't die in Banes' fusion reactor explosion,
08:41but rather rejected himself to safety and started a new life in Florence with Selina Kyle.
08:46Many fans were miffed, quite understandably, that Christopher Nolan went as far as to show
08:50Bruce living it up in a Florence cafe when he's spotted by Alfred.
08:54This obviously paid off an earlier scene in the film where Alfred expressed hope he might one day
08:59see such a sight, but given that we all knew what Alfred was going to look up and see, did we really
09:04need to actually see it? The visual of Bruce at the cafe just highlighted how absurd it would be
09:09for him to go anywhere without being recognised, while at least if Alfred simply nodded happily to
09:14another table, we'd know that Bruce lived without being invited to consider how daft it all was.
09:19You can argue that Nolan had earned such an indulgence after three largely terrific movies,
09:24but even so, an absence of Bruce would have been the more artistically watertight way to go.
09:29And that concludes our list. If you can think of any other examples, then do let us know in
09:34the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe and tap
09:37that notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found
09:41across various social medias just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with What
09:46Culture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.