MovieChat Forums > Jacob's Ladder (1990) Discussion > What's the real reason for deleting so m...

What's the real reason for deleting so many scenes and plot parts?

posted 11 years ago by Nick7080
5 replies | jump to latest

Director Adrian Lyne said that he deleted 20 minutes of horror scenes because test audience thought that they were too disturbing, right?

Although i saw many similar examples of directors and studios cutting down their movies after negative test screenings, i think that real reason why so much scenes were cut from Jacob's Ladder is this; pacing issues.

Theatrical version is 115 minutes long. If there really were 20 + minutes of scenes which were cut, then it would mean that original cut was like 140 minutes long. There is no way that movie like JB, no matter how good it is, will be released in theatres with that running time.

Just like many other fans, i sure would love to see new special edition with original remastered director's/original cut or at least with more deleted scenes included as bonus feature.

Three deleted scenes from special edition DVD/ Bluray are nice to see, but i think that they could add some more. Clearly the deleted scenes were lifted from some low quality print, probably workprint or something, so there has to be more of them which they could include but they didn't. I really don't see the reason for that.

And about three deleted scenes; Even though i understand that he had his reasons for cutting them out of the movie, i think that Lyne shouldn't cut so much scenes from last part of the movie. I am huge fan of Jacob's Ladder, but even when i first saw it years ago, i always thought that ending was kinda anticlimactic. But seeing all of the stuff that was cut really improved the ending for me, even though some more scenes are missing from it (Jacob going into Michael's lab and finding his severed head).

Also, i wonder how Lyne felt when he realized that all the trouble that went into filming the scenes which he eventually cut was for nothing. I mean, "The antidote" scene really looks like it took long time to film and plus it has great effects, then there is one missing and never released scene where Jacob burns down Army HQ building or something.

Another thing; I have very roughly made fanedit of the movie that includes all three deleted scenes from special edition, but i was told that there is another fanedit version available for download somewhere online, but i can't find it. If somebody here knows where i could get this fanedit please let me know cause i promised one other fan of this great movie that i will try to get extended fanedit version for him.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] CinemaNaut 11 years ago

Had no idea these scenes existed.
Thanks for highlighting this!
Now I've got something new to discover and I'm also lookg forward to a new release with more material.

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] drgnndblls88 11 years ago

that's interesting, I kind of want to see these deleted scenes. when I finished watching the movie I thought the ending was a little too neat and clean.

[–] swr2777-1 10 years ago

This touches on a few points that I've noticed are common threads about Lyne's direction of a film.

Let it be known up front that he is one of my favorite directors, and is rather underrated, having never gotten the respect he has deserved from his contemporaries and the film industry at large. In certain genres and via certain subject matter...he's very, very good at certain things.

However, I think one thing that's safe to say is that he is the kind of director who admittedly needs to work with a lot of money, and a lot of producer support. With the exception of perhaps FOXES, literally every film he's directed has been a highly ambitious, highly anticipated, large and expensive production. While many of his films have also made back their budget exponentially and been some of their given years' biggest hits...his school of direction and overall vision really do require much of and the best of everything.

I've noticed this matter of "deleted scenes" and/or "changed or excised endings" in just about every one of his major, mainstream successes. While I think he's a wonderful director, he may also have a bit of a shortcoming in that he lacks the intuition up front to determine if a scripted scene is really necessary or critical to the narrative. The principal of "shoot everything, plus some, and then scale it back if necessary" makes sense in theory...but sometimes, such directors falter when realizing way too much material that clearly won't work for the narrative in the end.

In the case of JACOB'S LADDER, which is his finest film in my opinion, I think this subject matter really excited him, as did many of the techniques he was using and their respective end result. But that being said, these "deleted scenes" as they were, while very compelling and effective, are probably best left as such...as novelties for film buffs rather than being cut back into the film. I will agree that there's something slightly awkward about the ending in the theatrical cut, but I also don't know that the closure would have been successfully achieved had these other bits and otherwise "disturbing revelation scene" been added.