10 Awesome Deleted Scenes That Should've Been Restored
5. Stairway To Heaven - Almost Famous
The Scene: Young William Miller (Patrick Fugit) is trying to convince his concerned mother Elaine (Frances McDormand) to allow him to write for Rolling Stone magazine. To argue that rock music is intellectual, he plays her a record of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven, as writer-director Cameron Crowe cuts to the reactions of William, Elaine and everyone else in the room for the song's entirety. It just scarcely convinces her to give him permission.
Why It Was Deleted: Though Led Zep did allow Crowe to use several of their songs, Stairway unfortunately wasn't one of them, and so the scene couldn't be included in the movie. Instead, Crowe included it as a deleted scene on some home video versions of the film, complete with a cue for viewers to line up their own copy of the song to where it would play in the film.
Why It Should've Stayed In: While one could argue that an eight-minute scene of people listening to music is self-indulgent, it's an extremely powerful, superbly edited sequence and would no doubt have been immensely discussed and dissected, assuming the studio would've ever actually allowed it to end up in in the film even if they got clearance for Stairway. Here's the entire 12-minute exchange.