10 Movies That Should've Scrapped Their Opening Scene

from deathly dull openings to supposedly exciting superhero epics to needlessly vulgar establishing scenes in Prestige dramas and everything else in between these 10 opening scenes should have absolutely been left on The Cutting Room floor so with that said I am Gareth this is what culture and here are 10 movies that should have scrapped their opening scene number 10 The Amazing Spider-Man 2 it should have been clear from its very first scene that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was in big old trouble given that it kicks off with a dreadfully boring and overlong flashback to the day that Peter Parker's parents died the sequence in which Peter's parents are on board a private jet which is hijacked and crashes vastly overestimates how much the audience gives a damn about the mystery of the Parker's deaths just get on with it already considering this mystery subplot is the most uninteresting part of the entire movie director Mark web would have been smart to cut this opening entirely he drags on for seven tedious minutes and if web wanted to start his movie in actual exciting fashion he should have just skipped straight to the decidedly more entertaining second scene where Andrew Garfield Spidey swings through the streets of New York City and takes on Rhino played by a deliciously hammy Paul gamad more gam in a rhino suit I say and with that in mind I want to know who do you think is the best superhero villain in movie history my vot's for Gman cuz I like horny rhinos what about you number nine The Disaster Artist James Franco's dramatization of the the making of Tommy Visa's disaster piece the room is a generally terrific movie though you'd scarcely know it from its rather pointless tacked-on opening scene the film opens with a series of generic talking head interviews with celebrity fans of the film including the likes of christen Bell Ike Baron Holts JJ Abrams Adam Scott Kevin Smith and Lizzy Kaplan these fluffy testimonials feel like they were ripped from a documentary about the room rather than a dramatic feature and a basically an incredibly artless way to not to the film's Legacy before the movie even even really starts if the attempt was to lend some context to help onboard those who have no idea what the room actually is one does have to consider well why bother the percentage of people who decided to watch The Disaster Artist without being at least somewhat aware of the room must be tiny surely it wouldn't surprise anyone if Franco was encouraged to add this opening scene in post-production by producers because it sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the dumb movie how weird number eight for your eyes only the pre-title sequence is a Cornerstone of the James Bond franchise yet in the case of foror eyes only it's so bloody God awful you would have forgiven the filmmakers for just scrapping it and cutting straight to the opening credits the scene begins promisingly enough with 007 visiting his late wife Tracy's grave but once Bond hops into a chopper which is remotely piloted by villain blofeld well it all truly goes to hell firstly due to a legal disputes regarding various aspects of the bond IP blow feld's name couldn't be mentioned and secondly the the action that follows is just toe curling goofy Bon manages to get control of the helicopter and then uses it to scoop up a wheelchair bound blow Feld and just drop him down a chimney stack killing him yep that's it everything about it typifies the worst instincts of the Roger Mo era perhaps best punctuated by blofeld's utterly nonsensical oneliner as he begs bond for his life I'll buy you a delicate tassin in stainless steel yep not a clue it was a lousy end for the most iconic Bon villain and just a thoroughly naff way to kick off the movie really number seven Babylon if nothing else Daman chazelle's Babylon begins with a scene which immediately lets the audience know they're not in for a classy look back at Hollywood's golden age but at the same time it's it's it's a poo joke you can't really polish this turd hey babylon's opening scene sees protagonist Manny attempting to help transport an elephant to a debauched mansion party climaxing with the elephant taking a massive dump right over both one of the laborers helping move the animal and the camera lens itself again it's a signal for perturbed audience members to immediately take their leave but beyond being eye rolling the crude it simply outs further bloat to an already over long 189 minute movie cutting this scene and beginning with the Ribble Shenanigans at the Mansion makes for a far punchier opening while also trimming 4 minutes off that elongated runtime much as Babylon is one hell of an ambitious big swing from chazelle it's also ultimately a testament to post Oscar filmmaker Indulgence as is made abundantly clear by that opening elephant bow movement number six Dune 1984 David Lynch's Dune is one of the most disappointing films of all time and it doesn't waste much time making that fact crystal clear the film opens with an almost hilariously awkward narration from Princess Ulan who makes intense eye contact with the audience as she reels off two minutes of clunky Exposition about the world of Frank Herbert's scii Opus while Virginia madson's staggering Beauty makes it a little more tolerable than most of the scenes on this list it's still a painfully dull way to open such a lavish epic of a movie doing the inverse of show don't tell as such it won't surprise many to learn that David Lynch was actually forced to add the sequence in re-shoot to clarify the plot the scene itself even seems vaguely embarrassed of how verose it is as a rulin briefly Fades out halfway through the monologue only to return and mention that she forgot to tell us all this other stuff cutting this and just kicking off with those gorgeous shots of the araus deserts would have definitely been the right way to go oh yeah yeah you know you you know you sitting right there wherever you are yes you my friend thank you very much for checking out this video right here today and if you're enjoying yourself then hit that subscribe button down below for more of this walk culture stuff in your life now back to the video number five Skyline 2010 sci-fi disaster film Skyline isn't very good but at least it's short at just 94 minutes right well it could have been even shorter of the filmmakers cleaved away that utter nothing Burger of an opening scene it's not uncommon for movies to open open in medius res by showing a brief snippet from a scene much later in the movie serving as a teaser for what's to come and possibly presenting it in a totally different context but Skyline offers a rather silly take on this idea by showing the beginnings of the alien invasion as Jared and his pregnant wife Elaine are woken up by bright lights flashing into their apartment causing Jared to become hypnotized the next scene then goes back 15 hours earlier and the rest of the movie appears to play out presumably leading back to this moment except we Circle back to this scene just 10 minutes later without much in the way of new context making the whole inmedia res opening feel totally unnecessary like why even bother perhaps the filmmakers were contractually obliged to deliver a movie over 90 minutes long and this was their genius way to make it happen either way it just should have been cut pointless the lot of it number four Terminator dark fate Terminator dark fate obliterated the interest of many fans in a record time when it opened with a flashback sequence where young resistance leader John Connor is shot dead by another T800 sent back in time by Skynet before his mother Sarah can do anything to intervene to take the character around which the entire Terminator franchise revolves and murder him in Cold Blood in the movie's first 3 minutes was a bold But ultimately misguided decision and left a sour taste in fans mouths for the entire rest of the film now granted so much of dark fate is ultimately about Jon's death and the impact it has on both Sarah and the The Wider future but director Tim Miller could have been a little more tactful about how he wrote Jon out couldn't he one option would have been revealing Jon's death much later in the film after which audiences would have hopefully been on board with the overall Vision or better yet having Jon Simply Be Missing in Action leaving his overall fate ambiguous yeah I like that one better instead killing JN in the very first scene ensured that dark fate dripped with cynicism literally terminating its beloved hero and then speedily attempting to replace him with a new future resistance Leader by the name of Danny Ramos while many fans wish the entire movie had been scrapped it didn't have to be this way if the film wasn't so aggressively intense on wiping John Connor off the map silly move number three Uncharted not unlike Skyline the recent Tom Holland starring Uncharted adaptation opens in medius res in spectacularly pointless fashion beginning with a 2-minute midair action sequence as Nathan Drake is ejected from a cargo plane this is pulled from a much later scene at the end of the second act and at a pivotal peak in the action we suddenly cut to a flashback featuring younger versions of Nate and his brother s even accepted that the second version of the cargo plane sequence later in the movie is far more elaborate and offers a different perspective of the action it still feels like the filmmakers weren't confident enough to start the story off with a flashback and so decided to just give the audience a rather lazy Taste of the Mayhem to come though the Uncharted games have also used this Trope most famously Uncharted 2's opening train Carriage sequence the effect is very different in a video game game where you're an active participant in what's going on compared to the more passive experience of watching a movie it just hits different as the kids say these days in cinematic form and really just feels like the movie is wasting our time getting into the meat of the story when it could simply keep this scene where it belongs later on leave this Trope to the video games folks number two dark city in the case of the brilliant sci-fi cult classic dark city it's not so much that the entire opening scene should have been cut but a significant element of it still desperately needed to be cleaved away the theatrical cut aka the version that the overwhelming majority of people have seen opens with a mysterious scene which has all the mystery sucked out of it by a needless expository voiceover narration from kefa Sutherlands Dr Daniel P shraer rather than trust audiences to tease out the meaning of the story themselves it plainly explains who the strangers are what they want and how shraer relates to them as won't shock anyone this narration was actually added to the film at the behest of new line Cinema who were concerned that audiences would be left confused otherwise because we're just so thick aren't we thankfully director Alex prus was eventually able to release a director's cut which deleted the narration and let the scene play out as originally intended as is universally agreed among fans makes for a superior opening and number one John Wick chapter 4 and let's wrap this list up with a possibly controversial choice now oh I embracing myself John Wick chapter 4 is one hell of an action extravaganza orbe it one that starts with its worst most perun action sequence yeah I said it the opening scene sees Jon head off to Morocco where he guns down a fleet of bad guys on Horseback and then confronts the Elder before also killing him it's just what he does for the series standards though it's a relatively latas to set piece there's nothing special about the chase or fight choreography really and it just felt like a bit of an excuse for director chance tosky to do an homage to Lawrence of Arabia all in all a little less would have probably been more in John Wick for in this 169 a minute movie this opening feels like cutting room floor material especially considering how tangentially it's related to the rest of the movie though the filmmakers clearly wanted to give us a brief sliver of keano Reeves kicking ass up front given that there isn't another action sequence for 20 or so minutes the film should have just started instead with the introduction to the villainous Maris played by the Fantastic Bill Skarsgard at this point in the John Wick franchise audiences are on board enough that willing to sit through some action free establishing scenes comfortably confident that the stuff they paid good money to see is coming soon enough and it did of course in the end so chopping this would have been absolutely fine and chop it they should have

Channel: WhatCulture

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Id: 4_6bsaaI8Ig

Length: 11min 43sec (703 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2024