10 Deleted Scenes That Explain Movie Character Backstories
These scenes will completely change the way you see certain characters.
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00:00 Now, to many, the characters of a movie are the single most important part. I mean, what
00:04 good is a thrilling plot, spectacular visual effects, or heart-racing music if you don't
00:08 give a hoot about the people on screen? A good character is an audience's way into
00:13 a film, their avatar in the fight, the one that they either want to see get the big victory,
00:18 or get utterly obliterated.
00:20 But building characters isn't such an easy job, especially not within the constraints
00:24 of a two-hour film. And this might explain why some characters in huge movies can feel
00:28 a little incomplete. But as it turns out, they're not actually all incomplete, some
00:32 have just been lightly shaved. Because after trawling through the editing room trash can,
00:37 we've pulled out 10 bits of deleted footage that would have added whole new layers to
00:40 the backstories of some of cinema's most famous characters. So let's take a look
00:44 at them as I'm Jules, this is WhatCulture.com, and these are 10 deleted scenes that explain
00:49 movie characters' backstories.
00:51 10. Andy - Dawn of the Dead
00:54 An often overlooked but essential part of Zack Snyder's 2004 remake of Dawn of the
00:58 Dead is Andy. As a gun store owner, Andy is trapped in the same mall as the other survivors.
01:04 He exchanges distance messages with the group via whiteboards, and builds up enough goodwill
01:08 with them that they will try to take him with them when they leave. But spoiler alert, it
01:12 doesn't end well. Andy ends up being bitten by a zombie and killed by the very people
01:17 who were once trying to save him. It's a tragic ending for the local businessman, but
01:21 it would have been even better, and even more heartbreaking, had we gotten to know him a
01:25 little bit better.
01:26 But the DVD release of Dawn of the Dead actually contained deleted video diary scenes from
01:30 Andy's point of view. In them, he explains more about his predicament, but what's more
01:34 telling is the footage that Andy has taped over. Brief glimpses of the tape's original
01:39 content show Andy interacting with a woman and a young girl. Though this is never explained
01:44 explicitly, it's heavily implied that this is his family. This would have added way more
01:48 humanity to Andy's character, and made it even more tragic when he lost his life.
01:53 9. Billy Bean - Moneyball
01:55 Moneyball combines two of America's greatest pastimes, baseball and maths. Or should that
02:01 be math, if it's American? Here, Brad Pitt plays Billy Bean, manager of the Oakland Athletics.
02:07 The team is in a financial pit, so Bean uses an experimental form of mathematical analysis
02:12 to scout out the best players for the lowest price. It sounds really boring, but it's
02:16 actually not. Billy is presented as down on his luck, still recovering from a divorce.
02:21 However, eagle-eyed viewers may notice that he's seen wearing a wedding ring throughout
02:25 the movie. This means two things. One, yes, you have way too much time on your hands.
02:29 And two, Bean is still definitely hung up on his ex-wife, right? Well, wrong. Because
02:34 in a deleted scene, we find out that Billy actually got hitched a second time to a woman
02:38 played by Katherine Morris. Who was this woman called? No idea. Morris' Wikipedia page simply
02:43 lists the role as 'Billy Bean's wife'.
02:45 Morris' inclusion in the film might have added an extra edge to Bean's character,
02:49 showing that he had moved on from his first marriage. Instead, audiences were left feeling
02:53 sorry for Billy, as they thought that he was just enamoured with his ex.
02:56 8. Rinaldo - Hannibal
02:58 The 2001 movie Hannibal serves as a decent, if rather unnecessary sequel to Silence of
03:03 the Lambs. Here, Anthony Hopkins is back as Hannibal, whilst Clarice Starling magically
03:08 transforms from Jodie Foster to Julianne Moore. Maybe she's the one wearing the skin this
03:12 time around.
03:13 A brand new addition to the fold is Chief Inspector Rinaldo. A police officer working
03:17 in Florence, Italy, Rinaldo joins the hunt for Hannibal after learning of the significant
03:21 bounty placed on his head. But what the film left out was what Rinaldo was doing before
03:25 he became embroiled in Lecter's web. Through deleted conversations with the killer, we
03:30 find out that the inspector was previously assigned to catch the serial murderer known
03:34 as 'Il Monstro'. This is mentioned fleetingly in the film itself, but never becomes important.
03:39 Had this subplot stayed in the movie, we might have found out that Rinaldo has a less than
03:43 stellar record when it comes to dealing with mass murderers. This would have only added
03:47 to the tension when he faced Hannibal down and made his death at Lecter's hands even
03:51 more tragically obvious. Poor guy, he should have asked for traffic duty instead, right?
03:55 7. Nala - The Lion King
03:58 So Nala, as we all know, is Simba's childhood friend and eventual love interest in Disney's
04:02 The Lion King. After his dad takes a big old tumble into some wildebeest, Simba is forced
04:06 to flee Pride Rock, opening the door for his evil uncle Scar to become king. After mucking
04:11 about with a meerkat and a warthog for several years instead of, you know, actually saving
04:15 his family, Simba's past catches up with him in the form of Nala. The lioness informs
04:20 the prince of what Scar has done to his beloved homeland, eventually leading to his return.
04:24 But what was she doing in the middle of the jungle?
04:27 In a scene that only made it to the storyboarding stage, Scar decides that he is missing a queen
04:31 to rule by his side. Nala walks in moments later, in a moment that would have been comical
04:36 had it not been so utterly sinister. The tyrant propositions the young lioness only to be
04:40 sternly rejected. He snaps and banishes Nala from his kingdom for daring to defy his rule.
04:46 So there we have it, she wasn't just in the jungle by chance, she was exiled as well.
04:50 6. Harry Waters - In Bruges
04:53 In Bruges is a great film about very terrible people. When the heroes of the story, and
04:58 I use that term very loosely, are contract killers, you know that you're in for a wild
05:01 ride. Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson play the two hitmen Ray and Ken, who are hired
05:06 by the unhinged comedic genius that is Ralph Fiennes' Harry Waters.
05:10 A foul-mouthed gangster with a Cockney accent so aggressive it should well be muzzled, Harry
05:14 orders his employees to hide out in the titular city before travelling there himself to tie
05:18 up loose ends. In a flashback scene cut from the theatrical release, we see a young Harry
05:23 comforting Ken on the night of his wife's murder. After being told what happened, Harry
05:27 goes to the police station to deal with the detective who led to the death. He calmly
05:31 walks into the station, takes something out of his pocket, and decapitates the detective
05:35 in one fell swoop.
05:37 This scene would have made Harry even more dangerous than he already was, knowing that
05:40 he was willing to commit such a rash and violent act, even at a young age. Also, young Harry
05:45 is played by Matt Smith. That means in this timeline that the Doctor grew up to be Voldemort.
05:49 5. Tex Richman – The Muppets
05:52 The villains from the two most recent Muppets movies were called Tex Richman and Dominic
05:56 Badguy, and if they ever make a third one, expect there to be a protagonist called something
06:00 like Johnny 'Actually Hitler' in disguise. In the reboot film from 2011, Tex is a greedy
06:05 oil tycoon who wants to buy up and close down the Muppets' theatre in order to get the
06:09 liquid gold that lies underneath it. This sounds like a pretty basic villain motivation,
06:13 but a deleted scene adds another, more human layer to Tex's scheme. A large part of Tex's
06:18 musical number 'Let's Talk About Me' was left out of the final version of the film.
06:22 In an extended cut, however, the Magnate reveals that the Muppets were actually performers at
06:26 his 10th birthday party. Alas, Richman suffers from a condition that renders him unable to
06:30 laugh, which the other kids ridiculed him for. On that day, he swore vengeance on all
06:35 of Muppet kind. A film like this did not need a more convoluted backstory for its antagonist,
06:40 but it would have been nice to have a more fleshed-out villain for our heroes to go up
06:43 against. Plus, the full version of 'Let's Talk About Me' is actually really good.
06:47 4. Nero – Star Trek
06:49 From one soft reboot to another now, it's this time we take a look at J.J. Abrams'
06:53 first foray into the final frontier. The 2009 Star Trek movie was Abrams' attempt to revitalise
06:58 the series, and his nerddom paid off big time as the film was so successful it spawned two
07:03 sequels.
07:04 The baddie in the first movie is Nero, a Romulan played by Eric Bana. Nero is from the future,
07:10 having been sucked backwards through time by a supernova. He's already pretty upset
07:14 that his home planet was destroyed by Spock's well-meaning plans, but scenes that were removed
07:18 from the final film show that he has even more reason to be grumpy.
07:21 When the Romulan ship got caught in the black hole, it ended up in Klingon space. Nero and
07:26 his people were held captive by the evil race, forced to toil in their mines until eventually
07:30 they escaped. To say the Romulans had a rough go of it would be rather an understatement,
07:34 and it makes total sense as to why they're so bent on revenge against Starfleet and why
07:38 they were so willing to wait so long in order to get it.
07:42 3. Finn – Star Wars The Force Awakens
07:45 J.J. Abrams, the undisputed king of cutting scenes from popular sci-fi movies beginning
07:50 with the word 'Star'. Remember when everyone thought that John Boyega's character was
07:54 going to be the main hero of the sequel trilogy? Ha ha ha, how we laugh now, eh?
07:58 But when we first meet Finn, played by Boyega, he was nothing but a humble stormtrooper.
08:02 He's part of an assault on Jakku that forms the opening of The Force Awakens, and where
08:06 he gets a healthy dose of trauma after one of his squadmates gets blasted to death right
08:10 in front of him. Another scene was filmed where Finn encountered a villager and her
08:15 baby. After initially pointing his weapon at the pair, the trooper stands down and allows
08:19 them to go free. It's a very human moment from the faceless grunt, because Boyega adds
08:23 a lot to it with his frantic breathing and reluctant stance. Watching this would have
08:27 really helped the audience double down on the whole 'this guy isn't actually evil'
08:30 thing. It would have also provided another instance of Finn actively refusing his mission
08:34 statement as well as showing him save a life in the middle of such a bloody battle.
08:38 2. Boromir – The Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers
08:41 Death count number 29 out of 5,647 here for Sean Bean. And as fans of Lord of the Rings,
08:47 we all know that Boromir plays a key role in the first Peter Jackson's flawless Lord
08:51 of the Rings film trilogy. A member of the Fellowship of the Ring, Boromir accompanies
08:55 Frodo, Sam, and everyone else to Mordor, but not before informing them that one does not
08:59 simply walk there. And if you're Boromir, you don't even get close to that, as he
09:03 got killed by some Uruk-Hai in the first film's dramatic climax. This came after he attempted
09:07 to take the Ring from Frodo, having been tempted by its evil powers of persuasion. To the uninitiated,
09:13 it appears as if Boromir's death was a result of his own greed and poor willpower. However,
09:17 upon closer inspection, there may be other forces at play. In a sequence cut from The
09:21 Two Towers, we see Boromir talking to his father, Denethor. The steward of Gondor orders
09:26 his son to join the Fellowship with the intention of securing the Ring for his own means. We
09:31 could have also included Faramir in this entry as well, as he gets a nice bit of backstory
09:34 from this scene. But you know what, we're gonna pull a Denethor and just leave him out
09:37 entirely. Sorry about that, mate.
09:39 1. The Joker and Harley Quinn – Suicide Squad
09:43 According to the man himself, we'd all have been much bigger fans of Jared Leto's version
09:47 of the Joker in 2016's Suicide Squad had so much of his stuff not been left out of
09:51 the movie. These included scenes of him shooting up a restaurant, interrogating Captain Griggs,
09:56 and emerging from the helicopter crash that was supposed to have killed him. And where
09:59 the clown prince of crime goes, his loved-up sidekick is never far behind.
10:03 Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn also suffered as a result of the cuts, as they chopped out
10:07 giant parts of her transformation. A scene that was left out showed Harley chasing down
10:11 the Joker's car on a motorcycle before committing her first kill in order to impress him, leaving
10:16 all of this footage on the cutting room floor helped condemn Suicide Squad to the fate that
10:21 it suffered at the hands of critics and fans.
10:23 We're not saying that these scenes would have saved it – I mean, the second coming
10:26 of Christ probably couldn't have done that – but we are saying that we might have enjoyed
10:28 it a little bit more were we given any reason to care about so many of its characters.
10:33 And there we go, my friends. Those were 10 deleted scenes that explain movie character
10:36 backstories. I hope that you enjoyed that, and please let me know what you thought about
10:39 it down in the comments section below. As always, I've been Jules, you can go follow
10:42 me over on Instagram @retroj but the O is a zero and you can come check out all of the
10:47 Warhammer miniatures that I've been painting up. But before I go, I just want to say one
10:50 thing. I hope you're treating yourself well with love and respect, my friend. Because
10:54 you deserve all of the best things in life, alright? Like love, happiness, and success.
10:57 And do not let anything or anyone else tell you otherwise. You are a massive, massive
11:02 ledge. As always, I've been Jules, you have been awesome, never forget that, and I'll
11:06 speak to you soon. Bye.
11:07 [BLANK_AUDIO]