5. Malekith's Backstory - Thor: The Dark World
Some of the biggest criticisms thrown at this year's Marvel sequel Thor: The Dark World were in relation to its underdeveloped villain, who proved to be about as memorable as that bowl of cereal you had for breakfast two weeks ago (you can't remember what you had, can you?). Yes, Malekith (as played by the wonderful Christopher Eccleston, who didn't get a chance to shine) had all the complexity of a Scooby-Doo baddie, which is a shame, when you consider that a ton more scenes were shot for the purposes of fleshing out this character. And all of them, according Eccleston himself, were thrown out to ensure the movie wasn't running too long: "There was a scene where Malekith was in a certain area of Svartalfheim and remembering his children, his wife and children bathing there, and they had been lost to him. And some of the actions of Odin's father, Bor, also. There was an extended scene with Anthony Hopkins where they discussed what had caused this ancient grievance between The Dark Elves and themselves. That kind of material. More character-related."
Should It Have Stayed In The Movie? A scene with Malekith remembering his dead family? That's exactly what we needed, given that we learned almost nothing about him! It would have helped to improve the entire freakin' movie, actually, allowing us to further understand his motivations. Without any of this - as Eccleston puts it - "character-related" stuff, the whole story feels pretty "meh." Leaving all of us these moments in could have imbued Thor: The Dark World with some added weight, and subsequently helped it to be a far superior picture. Big mistake, Marvel.