Tragically, Reign of Fire did not deliver on any count other than the Star Wars fight scene. The dragons were meh and never fought directly against helicopters, plus all efforts at creating a credible post-apocalyptic world are thrown out the window in a scene where Bale brews coffee with an electric coffee maker. Really, now - you think these dragon-menaced weirdos in a castle are going to have electricity for making coffee, but won't have a DVD player to show the kids Star Wars?

I love how Bale says he created the Star Wars story too - no fear of copyright violations after the fall of civilization, I guess!

Also I will confess that Reign of Fire is worth a watch, if only for the "so bad it's good" factor. And because this flick has the distinction of being the only science fiction film to feature dragons (at least that I am aware of).

Thanks for the tip, Esther!

Reign of Fire via Intertubes

Why do the studios decide that scenes are strong enough to make it into movie trailers, but not strong enough to show up in the finished product? It's a mystery, but it shows how much last-minute editing and tweaking goes into movies nowadays. We're not the only ones to notice this — when I was almost done writing this post, I came across this discussion over at Cinematical.

Here are some examples from giant films of the past decade or so:

Incredible Hulk:

Star and co-writer Edward Norton famously clashed with Marvel over how long this movie should be, and a couple of scenes were featured prominently in the trailers but didn't make it into the theatrical release. There's this fireside chat between Bruce Banner and "Doc" Samson:

And then there's the whole opening sequence where Banner goes to Antarctica to try and kill himself, which supposedly includes a glimpse of Captain America's frozen body:

And also, the same trailer includes a bit where Bruce Banner argues with General Ross, saying there's only one thing that can fight the Abomination and "it's in me."

Terminator Salvation:

There seems to be a lot of stuff that was cut from the final print of the movie, where John Connor obsesses about how the future has been altered by all the time traveling in previous installments. "This is not the future my other warned me about," he says in one trailer.

In another trailer, his wife Kate says, "If you saved us in another future, you can save us in this one," or words to that effect. I get the impression all of Kate's stuff got cut out of the final print of the movie. That scene is included in this four-minute trailer:

Also, I can't remember Connor actually saying, "Win or lose, this war ends tonight" in the actual movie. Did he say that, and I just missed it?

We're also pretty sure that Connor putting his hand on his wife's pregnant stomach wasn't in the movie. (In fact her pregnancy hardly comes up at all.)

And there's a glimpse of a naked figure (or at least barelegged) reaching down and grabbing a Terminator's arm gun to blast the hell out of someone or something. Could that have been a rejected sequence featuring Arnie's T-800? I bet they shot a lot of stuff with Roland Kickinger, the bodybuilder whose naked body stood in for Arnie's:

Star Trek:

We know they filmed a decent amount of stuff for this movie, including some more of Kirk's childhood and the reasons he decided to trash that Corvette. But the main thing that shows up in the trailers is the birth of baby Spock:

There's also a sequence where Nero says "The wait is over," which is in a bunch of the trailers but not in the movie. I think this is right after he busts out of the Klingon prison.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine:

Actually, this doesn't seem like it would have been such a great scene, but one trailer includes a sequence where we meet Storm as a kid:

Wanted:

A poster at Cinematical says the whole great scene where James McAvoy asks Angelina Jolie "Are we gonna bond now?" and she says, "Would you like to?" isn't in the movie. I don't have the movie on DVD, and can't remember off-hand if they're right:

Armageddon:

As a commenter at Cinematical pointed out, the trailer for this film includes a whole inspirational speech from Bruce Willis, which never turns up in the movie:

I Am Legend:

This IMAX trailer (and some of the other trailers, I think) include some snippets of the film's original ending, which was replaced at the last minute. It's the bit where the plague mutant hisses right next to Will Smith's face, at around 2:20 in this video:

2046:

Another one the Cinematical commenters noticed. Apparently this film's trailers include a ton of futuristic scenes that aren't in the movie, including Maggie Cheung as a robot:

Reign Of Fire:

Annalee has been annoyed for years that this movie's trailer featured dragons fighting helicopters, but it didn't really happen in the movie:

True Lies:

And finally, reaching back quite a bit further, here's a trailer for True Lies that includes a number of scenes that aren't in the movie, or even in the DVD:

Time travelers hunted them to extinction:

"Big game hunters from the future may have wiped out the dinosaurs," suggests Arthur C. Clarke, in the course of explaining one theory of time travel. (That you can travel millions of years in either direction, but not any closer to your own time, because then you run into your own timeline.)

Also in the early Isaac Asimov story "Big Game," aka "The Hunted," an explorer hears a drunken story about time travel and what really killed the dinosaurs off. A similar idea plays out in A Gun For Dinosaur by L. Sprague DeCamp and "A Sound Of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury, but I don't think it actually results in the dinosaurs' extinction in those instances.

There's a weird-as-heck twist on this idea in the story "One Giant Step" by John E. Stith. In an alternate future, the super-intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs invent time travel. So they travel back in time 65 million years to meet their dinosaur ancestors. "That's one small step for a reptile, one giant step for Reptilia." But one of the three travelers, Ektor, has smuggled back some bombs, which he uses to wipe out all his own ancestors, because of all the suffering and mass extinction of other species the reptile overlords have caused. "Reptiles were not meant to rule the Earth... let some other species take over," he announces before detonating.

And commenter QuantCoates points out that 2000 A.D.'s strip Flesh demonstrates conclusively that stegosaurus-riding cowboys from the future actually killed the dinosaurs.

Aliens did them in:

The Cybermen, Doctor Who's second worst enemies, turn out to have killed the dinosaurs - and the Doctor's math-whiz sidekick Adric - in "Earthshock." It's all because Adric wasn't quite fast enough with those logic puzzles, actually.


In Animorphs, Megamorphs #2: In The Time Of Dinosaurs by K.A. Applegate, the Animorphs travel backwards in time to the dinosaur era. There, they meet two warring alien races, the Mercora and the Nesk. The Nesk divert a comet so that it slams into the Earth, aiming to destroy the Mercora. But instead, the comet merely wipes out the dinosaurs, and provides power for the Animorphs to return to their own time again.

That's also the premise of the story "The Dreams A Nightmare Dreams" by Harlan Ellison. (And in the essay "Revealed! What Killed The Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself," Ellison also suggests it was actually television and other mass culture that wiped them out.)

And then there's the Futurama episode, "The Why Of Fry." Fry asks the Giant Brain at the center of the Infosphere what killed off the dinosaurs, and it replies, "Meeee!"

Cthulhu, an alien from way back, takes credit for wiping out the dinosaurs in Neil Gaiman's short story "I, Cthulhu." (Thanks to commenter m_faustus for pointing this out.)

A superior species emerged:

The classic movie Reign Of Fire explains everything. Dinosaurs died out because dragons evolved as a superior life form, and the poor dinos just couldn't compete. If only the dinosaurs had had Christian Bale on their side.

Writer Jeff Hecht also advances this theory in his story "Extinction Theory," which ran in Asimov's Science Fiction in 1989. It postulated that "the evolution of intelligent dinosaurs was the real cause of the mass extinction at the K/T boundary."

They did it to themselves:

In the Jim Henson Productions show Dinosaurs, which is basically The Simpsons starring dinosaurs, we follow a whole dinosaur civilization... but the show ends on a downer note. The dinosaurs abuse their own environment and cause the extinction of several species they need to survive... so they try to cool the planet down, seeding some clouds with special rain-causing bombs. This overshoots and causes an Ice Age, wiping the poor dinos out.

A similar fate befalls the advanced dinosaur civilization in the novel Toolmaker Koan by John McLoughlin, according to commenter EllenRose.

They didn't die out after all.

Once again, Doctor Who comes to our rescue. In the stories "The Silurians," "The Sea Devils" and "Warriors Of The Deep," we learn that some of the dinosaurs had a super-intelligent civilization, which left no trace. The super-smart dinosaurs went into suspended animation, bringing some of their regular dinosaur brethren with them.

The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle has explorers visiting a hidden land where dinosaurs still survive. Which, presumably, helped to inspire King Kong, Land Of The Lost, and countless others "dinosaurs still hanging out" tales.

And then there's the always-reliable Star Trek: Voyager, which introduces the Voth, a race of super-intelligent hadrosaur descendents in the episode "Distant Origin." Before the extinction happened, the dinosaur people left Earth and wound up in the Delta Quadrant. Here's the end of the episode, with TOS music added randomly:


The cartoon DinoSquad, according to Alasdair, tells of two Velociraptors who decide to wait out the dinosaur extinction by hanging out in a cave... for 65 million years. Just, you know, chillin'. At some point, they develop telepathic powers (like one does) and when they finally emerge, they have the power to convince people they're actually human. Oh, and one is good and the other is evil.

The dinosaurs survive the rise of homo sapiens - who start killing them off, in the Anonymous Rex series by Eric Garcia. So the dinosaurs live amongst us in secret, wearing fake human suits, and carry on their dinosaur culture in secret. (Thanks to ItMoons for pointing this one out!)

And of course, the novel Dinosaur Wars: Counterattack tells the story of what happens when the dinosaurs come back from outer space - and they want their planet back.

Or maybe it really was an asteroid:

That's the theory advanced in Armageddon, where a similar fate awaits humans. Or the novel In The Shadow Of Omen, where an asteroid is directed to smash into Earth on purpose. Or Shiva Descending by Gregory Benford and William Rotsler. There's also the Night Of The Comet explanation, as commenter Se7a7n7 points out: a comet turned the dinosaurs to red dust... and it's coming back.

Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Leeloo from The 5th Element:

Milla Jovovich's character is the savior of the whole planet, and you can tell just from looking at her wrist. And of course, her dotted markings also match the markings on the movie's ever-important stones.

Tattoo From Elektra

Chris Ackerman's character's colorful belly buddies could come alive, off of his skin, and do a lot of damage. Obviously he's not the only tattoed man with powers. There's a Green Lantern villain, the Tattooed Man, who's a classic. We may actually be seeing Abel Tarrant the Tattooed Man in the Green Arrow's new flix Supermax

Fox from Wanted

Even though Angelina Jolie was pretty tatted up before playing the role of hottie assassin in Wanted, she added on even more wordy tattoos to her arms, hands and back. Guess which ones are real.

The vampire tat from Blade.

I think that if I ever saw someone with the familiar tattoo from the Blade movies we would become fast friends. While Wesley Snipes had some pretty serious shoulder markings around his upper half, nothing could beat the secret society "friends of the vampires" sign.

Enola from Waterworld

When the world is flooded and you spend your days on a boat drinking your own urine, look for the girl with the map on her back. The Japanese tattoo, that was NEVER explained, apparently held the key to dry land.

Scully from X Files

Scully gets a tattoo because she went through a thing, oh admit it Scully you're a bad girl at heart. Before finding out that her buddy's tattoo controlled his actions (photo above voiced by Jodie Foster no less) she got a Celtic Ouroboros slapped on her back. Here's video of Scully getting all inked up:

Lana Lang from Smallville

Lana's witchy tattoo connected her, not only to a bad lady with evil intentions, but to the Krypton Stones as well.

Jessica Sanders from Heroes

The symbol which plagues all the super humans is tattooed onto Jessica's back, and is half of the symbol of the evil company Pinehearst. Will the tattoo get its own plot line on Heroes?

Darth Maul from Star Wars : Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Before Darthy became an evil Sith he was just a red little fella, and then Sidious got his hands on him.

Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager

Noble Chakotay's face markings aren't explained until the "Tattoo" episode where you learn that others have the same style and design. Chakotay's tatts are to honor his father.

Rico Dizz And The Rest Of 'EmStarship Troopers

Because you're not really a bug killer unless you have a ridiculous tattoo, best part is during the futuristic laser branding scene they throw alcohol all over his freshly zapped skin, ha.

Denton Van Zan from Reign of Fire

Matthew McConaughey ridiculous dragon fighting attitudes were eclipsed only by his body armor of dragon tatts, he totally stole Clooney's look from Dusk Till Dawn.

Snake from Escape From New York

Fantastic character, terrible, horrible "snake in my pants" tattoo. How many times do you have to make the "do you want to see my trouser snake" joke, just for getting that tattoo?

Battlestar Galactica Love Tattoos

If I wasn't such a total wuss I would get Starbuck's and Anders' awesome "we're in love" tattoos tomorrow. Besides the fact that they are pretty beautiful, I love that they supposedly got them around the time of their wedding to represent love. The tattoo on the left however is from Gaeta! Who knew he had it in him.

The Doctor from Doctor Who

Jon Pertwee sported a cool tat in his first appearance as the Doctor — now do tattoos stay after you regenerate?

And no as much as I wanted to talk about Constantine, From Dusk Till Dawn and Harry Potter tattoos, they ain't scifi my friends. (Dusk Till Dawn's Clooney tattoo wins in that group btw). What's your favorite science fictional tattoo?

Monday

It's not too late to ditch work and sit through the Threshold marathon all day today on the Sci Fi Channel. Who needs paperwork when you have sexy Carla Gugino and her incredible brain to save the world from a crashed alien spaceship? Go Red Team!

The Middleman is back, showing M.M. fighting injustice and helping his twenty-something sidekick Wendy sort out her crazy life. In this episode, Wendy goes undercover as a sorority sister to investigate a haunted sorority house, which spells pillow fight! The Middleman airs at 10 PM on ABC Family.

Casper Van Dien (or, as I will always know him, Johnny Rico) will be on Chelsea Lately on E! with the rest of the Starship Troopers 3: Marauder cast at 4 PM.

The Japanese shōnen mecha anime Gurren Lagann, about an underground future society, is on twice on Monday once at 11 and again at 11:30 PM on the Sci Fi Channel.

A sad and scruffy retired cop becomes a crusader against fascism in an alternate future. New episodes of the scifi cop drama Charlie Jade air on 3 AM on the Sci Fi channel.

Movies:

In Reign Of Fire, sad humans fight dragons with the help of Christian Bale, pre-Batman voice, and Matthew McConaughey, tonight at 12:30 AM on TBS. Plus, you can almost get to the Moon by watching Apollo 13 at 2:30 on AMC. Deep Impact, the armageddon movie that time forgot, is on soon after the dragon hotness, at 2:30 AM on TBS. And lastly, who needs Star Wars when you can watch a spoof instead? ABC Family is airing Spaceballs tonight at 8 PM.

Tuesday

There's an all day Monster Quest marathon on the History Channel starting at 8 AM. Nova will bring us another inside look at "Cars Of The Future" at 12:30 AM on PBS.

An all new Eureka is coming your way on Tuesday night. The second episode of the new season is adorably called "What About Bob." Follow the sheriff as he hunts down Global Dynamics' own Creature from the Black Lagoon. Eureka airs 9 PM on the Sci Fi Channel.

Wednesday

Eliza Dushku will be on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC at 12 AM, and hopefully she'll spill some Dollhouse dirt.

The History Channel will delve into the infamous 70s UFO sightings for you, in UFO Files: UFOs of the 70s at 11 PM. Turns out the 1970s were the most active period of UFO sightings ever. (Who knew?)

Movies:

Wrong Turn is on Fox FX at 10 AM, in case you haven't gotten enough Eliza Dushku on Jimmy Kimmel. Watch her get lost in the woods and discover a sinister secret: the people in the mountains have mutated into crazy cannibals, and Eliza's on the menu.

Friday

From 8 AM to 4 PM, the Sci Fi Channel is running a marathon of Doctor Who in case you need to catch up on the tail end of season two.

Movies:

Follow Tom Cruise as he tries to save his ungrateful kids from attacking aliens in War Of The Worlds 8:30 on ABC 10:30 AM. Hang out with Big Red in the first Hellboy at 8 PM on Fox. Escape from a boring Friday night with Snake Plissken, in Escape From New York at 11:30 on AMC. Batman Begins is on at 8 PM (and many other times throughout the night) on Sci Fi.

Saturday

Find out why almost all the aliens we hear about are little gray men with big heads, in the UFO Files: New UFO Revelations: the Grays' Agenda, at 10 AM on the History Channel.

The space and time continuum opens up for another monster series Primeval. Follow the zoologist Professor Nick Cutter as he searches for his missing wife and tries to wrangle the occasional monster that steps out of the show's space and time rift. The creepy creature show is in its third season on the BBC, and the first season premieres on BBC America at 9 PM.

Movies:

Out Of Time airs at 4:30 PM on TNT. And there are back-to-back Flubber movies on TCM. Follow the original Absent Minded Professor as he discovers flubber, at 9 AM. Then follow up with The Son of Flubber at 10:45 AM.

Sunday

If you're up early (or late) feast your eyes on Ghost In the Shell at 4 AM on Adult Swim. Plus, the Venture Brothers will have a new episode for fans on Sunday at 11 PM at Adult Swim.