Dirk's Family Dies: Left out scene.

[kassius]

Reading a script tonight of "Boogie Nights" (don't know what version) but one scene that really stuck out to me was one that PTA didn't leave in.  It was, after the encounter at Rahad's house and Dirk rolls his busted car up to his parents house but inside he finds they are no longer live there and his girlfriend had bought the place. It turned out, that his mom and dad were killed in a car accident; we cut to the actual crash where we see that it was Johnny Doe who hit them head on.

It may have made the film too long but I think it was a great piece or do the rest of you agree with just showing Dirk end up at Jack's house and accepting his life for what it is?

It would have ultimately been the end either way.

[soixante]

I think having Johnny Doe kill Dirk's parents is the sort of coincidence that belongs in Magnolia, not Boogie Nights.

It is a delicate issue when a movie introduces characters and then drops them entirely one-third of the way through, but in Boogie Nights dropping Dirk's parents again works in the movie's favor, as Jack Horner and Amber Waves become surrogate parents for Dirk.

[Finn]

Hmm...glad they took it out of the movie.

[BrainSushi]

I really liked the idea of his ex-girlfriend raising a family in the house he once lived in, and perhaps her mentioning that his parents had been killed in a car crash could have stayed too...

But I didn't really like the idea that Johnny Doe killed them, or that we even had to see the crash (or was it just after the crash that the script says we see? you know, the two smashed cars, mutilated bodies, etc.)

[grand theft sparrow]

It reads better in the script than it would have played in the movie.  It would have come off very hokey in the finished film.

And like soixante said, that sort of thing belongs more in Magnolia.

too many things... too many things... too many things...

[Jeremy Blackman]

Hmm...glad they took it out of the movie.

Was it ever filmed?

[Weak2ndAct]

Hmm...glad they took it out of the movie.

Was it ever filmed?

I want to say yes, I believe the shot of Dirk pushing his car into frame ther morning after the Rahad incident is the discovery of his old house.

The look on Dirk's face is not apprehension of talking to Jack, but more of "oh shit, this is where I grew up."

[Alethia]

it sounds great on paper and i think it actually woulda worked great but maybe PTA just fucked it up during the shooting and ultimately didnt use it cuz of that

[depooter]

it was filmed. part of it made the workprint.

http://www.ptanderson.com/featurefilms/boogienights/workprint.htm

tons of stuff was originally included in pta's first draft which aren't in his script book.


http://www.ptanderson.com/featurefilms/boogienights/deletedscenes/main.htm

[sickfins]

speaking of whichhh

[mogwai]

niiiiiice.

[meatball]

Damn shame.

[mogwai]

oh yeah, we have a representative from the mpaa and don't we all love to hear what he has to say about the nc17 material?

mr mpaa, what's the story?

[Duck Sauce]

If there is one thing about this sites, it is its ability to dig up anything on PTA possible

[Find Your Magali]

I think it would have just seemed like piling on. The Rahad sequence is so powerful, you don't need anything after that. After all, it is "ONE last thing..."