10 Deleted Movie Scenes That Explain Confusing Moments
8. What Does The Hummingbird Clue Mean? - National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
The Confusing Moment
National Treasure: Book of Secrets features a scene where Ben Gates' (Nicolas Cage) kidnapped mother Dr. Emily Appleton-Gates (Helen Mirren) manages to covertly inform her son that she's in trouble.
She speaks a coded riddle to her ex-husband Patrick (Jon Voight): "Find where the moon touches the earth and release the hummingbird."
In the film we then see Ben and company catch up to Emily and her villainous captor Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), but it's never explained how the clue let them know what was up.
The Deleted Scene
There's a deleted scene which explains the significance of the hummingbird. Ben quizzes his father about the riddle and realises that his mother was referring to a myth she told him when he was a child, of the maternal hummingbird who sacrifices herself to save her family from destruction.
Reading between the lines, Ben realises that his mother is in trouble and quickly calls her, only for Wilkinson to answer the phone and confirm that she has indeed been kidnapped.
According to director Jon Turteltaub, the scene was cut for the sake of pacing, given the film's eventual 124-minute runtime. Even so, considering it's a pretty fundamental aspect of the narrative logic, it's a totally ridiculous exclusion.