Apocalypse Now shot for over a year, nearly driving director Francis Ford Coppola crazy as well as giving star Martin Sheen a heart attack. The original cut was a whopping five hours long so a lot had to be taken out to make it releasable. This included little character moments in addition to a lengthy sequence where the crew stay at a French plantation following the death of Clean. People became aware of the Plantation scene through the making-of documentary Hearts Of Darkness, where Coppola claimed it was taken out for length, as it clocks in at a chunky twenty-three minutes. After years of growing anticipation and word of mouth he reinserted it alongside many other deleted scenes into Apocalypse Now: Redux. The sequence is intended to be a surreal moment of calm before they reach Kurtz compound; but all it does is drag the movie to grinding halt. Theres a very boring dinner table scene where the French host talks about the Vietnam War, as well as revealing their backstory which adds nothing to the movie. The advantage for Willard is that he gets to spend the night with the hosts daughter while doing drugs. While he might be having fun this whole scene is hard to get through without people constantly checking their watches. Can you think of any other legendary deleted scenes that completely sucked when they were finally made available? Share them in the comments tread.
