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Add It Or Trash It: Sky Captain |
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Find out if the two deleted scenes on the Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow DVD should have been added to the movie are best left in the trash.
On the DVD of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow you will find two deleted scenes:
Totenkopf’s Torture Room and The Conveyor Belt.
Should these two scenes have remained on the cutting room floor or would they have been great additions to the finished movie? Let’s examine further:
Deleted Scene #1 Title: Totenkopf’s Torture Room.
Description Setup: After the mine explosion, Joe, Polly, and Kaji find themselves in a heavenly monk-like setting, a place that Polly refers to as Shangri-La. Outside there is a voice over of Raji, while Joe, Polly, and Raji are walking – and scenes of Shangri-La are being shown – where Raji explains:
Raji:
The Priest says that Totenkopf enslaved his people; made them work in the mine. But the mine was poisonous. Those that did not die right away were brought here for him to study.
The scene deleted from the movie takes place in place of the voice over.
Deleted Scene Description: The priest leads Raji, Joe, and Polly into a room that looks somewhat like a torture chamber. They slowly walk in and look around.
Polly:
What happened here?
Raji asks the priest who answers in a foreign language that Raji translates.
Raji:
He says that Totenkopf enslaved his people; made them work in the mines. The workers grew sick. The mine was poisonous. Those that did not die right away were brought here for Totenkopf to study… using them for his unspeakable experiments. Mercifully they did not live long.
When Joe asks where Totenkopf is now, the priest says he does not know, but there is one last survivor of Totenkopf’s experiments that can answer the question.
Add it or Trash It? Add It
Why? It’s puzzling why the director decided to trash this scene because the scene is vital to understanding why the only remaining survivor of Totenkopf’s experiments looks and acts the way he does in the final cut. The deleted scene explains this whereas the final cut leaves it a mystery.
Now on to the second deleted scene…
Deleted Scene #2 Title: The Conveyor Belt
Description Setup: Near the end of the movie, Joe Sullivan and Polly Perkins are in Dr. Totenkopf’s fortress when Polly accidentally kicks some rocks, gaining the attention of the evil flying robots. They proceed to chase Joe and Polly and when it looks like all hope is lost, out of nowhere comes Dex (who they thought was dead) in a flying ship. On board the ship are scientists from Unit 11, the team that built Dr. Totenkopf’s fortress. This is how it was in the final film. But in the deleted scene, it was quite different. The deleted scene picks up where Polly accidentally kicks some rocks…
Deleted Scene Description: The rocks Polly kicked gain the attention of robots who start coming towards them. Joe turns around only to be hit in the face by the Mysterious Woman that then zaps him unconscious with some sort of weapon. Polly and Joe wake up chained to a cage on a conveyor belt. Polly speaks:
Polly:
Why does this keep happening to us?
Joe:
At least you kept your pants on this time
Both notice that they are moving towards giant robots that are putting big boxes on the conveyer belt that are then being smashed by another giant machine. They have no way to escape. Suddenly a robot grabs their cage and lifts them up. A shield on the robots head lifts up to reveal Dex! Dex has the robot set the cage down and rip open the top. He then enters the cage and tries to cut loose Joe and Polly. But another robot puts the cage, now with Dex in it to, back on the conveyor belt and all three are about to be smashed when suddenly the machine stops. The camera pulls back to reveal a balcony with unit 11 standing on it. The scientists had stopped the belt.
Add It or Trash It? Trash It
Why? The scene with the conveyor belt, while exciting, goes a bit over the top. What is Dex doing inside one of the general robots on the conveyor belt? It’s much more believable that Dex would be on a ship trying to escape as is shown in the final cut. Also, what was the purpose of the conveyor belt? Why was it smashing boxes? How could a human control the giant robot? And how is it that Dex, a genius, can’t get through the chains holding Joe and Polly in a quick fashion. There were way too many questions left unanswered in this scene. The scene is great to watch as an extra because it is unfinished, thus you get to see what it looks like with characters acting in front of blue screens and you get to see what rough animation looks like for the visual effects. It’s definitely educational in that aspect.
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