On several occasions, viewers have been heard giving feedback which implicated that studios were far too eager to include the origin story into a movie when it is not needed. But it’s not all the time that the origin stories are not worth it, sometimes these origin stories work wonders for the narrative. Still, on rare occasions, we have found that the planned character’s origin story, often gets erased in the production phase. It may happen because of many reasons, some of which may be the director does not feel the need to have one, or maybe during the rewrites, the story may have evolved. The reasons may be endless, but here is a list of origin stories which the viewers almost got to see, if it wasn’t for the unexpected executive cut.
The Dark Knight
In the movie we witnessed the Joker (Heath Ledger) tell the fourth wall, how he got his facial scars while just running by a few details of how he did it. However, some executives in the studios wanted Christopher Nolan to include the origin story about the Joker. But, somehow Nolan and story writer David S Goyer was able to convince these executives to stick to the narrative.
Godzilla (2014)
The origin story of the return of the Alpha was a highly speculated one. With the original narrative revolving around the plot of finding Godzilla frozen in the Siberian Tundra. But Warner Bros., however, reworked the entire narrative, because earlier that year the fortress of solitude from the Superman arc was also found in ice.
Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker
In the Rise of the Skywalker, of a number of plots that fans complained about, this has got to be the most important and popular one. The entire origin story of how Palpatine returned to the story, was edited from the movie. The directors believed that too many plots within the story might complicate the whole movie.
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Django Unchained
Django’s wife Broomhilda was scripted to have a very complex origin story in the narrative. Which saw her being lost by her original master in a game of cards and her second owner (Leonardo DiCaprio) dragging her through the streets whipping her naked. These origin edits never made it to the final cut, as it was already too dark for the character’s role. And may have ridiculed the character’s portrayal as a prized possession as she was a slave.
Justice League (2017)
According to Snyder, the origin story of Cyborg (Ray Fisher) was the heart of the entire narrative. But according to Joss Whedon’s edit, the entire plot missed out on the origin and made the cuts to keep the movie to a 2-hour time interval. The origin story of Cyborg was left on the floor of the editing room.
The Thing (2011)
The narrative surrounding “The Thing” was certainly the result of meddling by the top executives of the studios. As the entire movie missed out on the most basic origin story of the entire storyline, of how did ‘The Thing’ manage to reach earth in the first place.
Prometheus
The movie was a massive transformation from Jon Spaihts’s original script to Ridley Scott’s least alien-centric narrative. The plot which Scott wanted to portray in the movie, was that Jesus was an engineer, which led to his crucifixion. Luckily this plot never made the final cut and saved it from a lot of heat by the so-called followers.
Avengers: Infinity War
The plot which revolves around Thanos watching his planet come to an end never made the final edit. According to Joe Russo, the writers had drafted a plot that witnessed the origin story of Thanos during the time his planet was destroyed, the plot was intriguing but wasn’t related to the movie. Thus, Joe Russo said that the plot never made the cut.
Tomorrowland
The origin story of Tomorrowland was purposely salvaged by the director. The plot revolved around the greatest minds of our time create a utopia, free of Corporate giants trying to make money off their inventions. But the inclusion of the plot would supposedly shorten the rest of the movie by almost 30 minutes. Thus, the decision to make the edit was taken.
