In re-watching Last Action Hero and reading about the troubles it had along with watching some reviews on YouTube, I felt that as an Arnold fan I should give this a crack. One of the things that bothered me was that as the movie went along, Jack’s life didn’t seem all that great in the movie, which we saw in his apartment and when he spoke of paying a cashier to call him at work. Also, dog pyramid? I also wanted to try and make things a little more believable in the real world, but that was hard to do with what I had to work with, but why was Death allowed to walk around NYC and retain his powers while Jack was mortally wounded? Anyway, here is my cut list of the edit I’ve done:
-Cut the robbery scene in Danny’s apartment (didn’t add anything to the movie outside of the keys for the cuffs later which has been rectified)
-Cut the reference to Danny being late to the theater since the robbery scene is gone
-Cut Lethal Weapon reference to the cop who dies in the tree 2 days before retirement (no sax riff)
-Cut “I’m a kid” line as Danny lands in Jack’s car
-Cut Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick cameo since T-1000 and Catherine Tremmel don’t exist in JACK’s world. Because it was a moving shot, I cut the exterior as well as Danny looking around because he mentions how he was recently in a police station which calls back to the earlier scene I cut about Danny’s apartment being robbed
-No cartoon cat or mention of him (sorry Danny DeVito)
-Cut the dog pyramid (ugh)
-When Slater is remembering the ending to Slater III it cuts away to him at a news stand and then back to the ending again. It was a bit jarring, so now we will just see the full ending play out and then cut back to Danny and Whitney talking about the son
-When Slater jumps off the balcony, cut the over the top Olympic diving moves. Just not necessary. Jack jumps and we see him coming down in slow motion then we cut back to Danny grabbing the bicycle
-No ET reference. Now Danny will glide off the road and just crash the bike with Jack cringing
-Cut the captains head steaming as he yells as Slater and Danny. Most of the yelling happens off screen with the focus on Jack and Danny
-Cut out the random Bogart cameo
-Trimmed Jack’s apartment scene where he isn’t reflecting on how bad his life actually is. This meant cutting the reference to his ex-wife being happily remarried and he pays someone to call him at work. I always HATED that and felt it was TOO real for his movie world. Now he is just bummed about losing his badge and how Whitney is not the most normal of daughters
-Trimmed the Practice betrayal so it looks like Danny pulling the gun on him saves Slater and doesn’t involve the handcuffs or cartoon cat. The scene itself is great, but the cartoon cat needed to go.
-Cut all scenes of Death (I had a way of cutting it so Danny has a eureka moment and goes for the other half of the ticket without needing Death to tell him)
-Changed title within the credits from Last Action Hero to Action Hero
-Changed music during credits so we start with an AC/DC song then the rest of the credits use some of the very cool score that was composed by Michael Kamen, including Jack’s theme
I wanted to rework Jack throwing Danny while they were hanging from the theater in our world, but as much as I tried different things with slow-mo and reverse shots I just couldn’t get it right, so it had to stay in. Plus, Benedict needed to explode because it was how I explained them losing that half of the magic ticket without showing it falling or leaving it open-ended.
I’d be happy to share this with anyone interested. I need some people to preview and give suggestions.
Original running time: 130 minutes
Fan Edit running time: 120 minutes
Time cut: 10 minutes