Ever once in a while a random mistake, flubbed line, or just a silly phrase ad libbed by an actor, will change the entire dynamic of the scene, turning it from the audience thinking “meh, it’s okay” to the director’s “god dammit, why didn’t I think of it”. No matter how good the script is, there’s always room for improvement. And sometimes random elements just work! Here are 5 improvised movie scenes/bloopers, that made the final cut.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Remember this funny, and sometimes sassy droid K-2SO? Love that guy. So what’s his deal? Isn’t he 100% CGI? Turns out this “anti-C3PO” was voiced by Alan Tudyk, who also provided motion capture. There was a scene where K-2SO is pretending to escort Cassian Andor and Jyn Erso, and at some point he goes too far, and bitch-slaps Cassian on his silly face. That slap right there was not in the script, but it was so good, the director wanted to leave it in. BTW, since this scene was fully improvised, you can see Cassian covering his face after the slap. That’s not because he was hurt, if you look at his reaction closely, you’ll see he could barely hold that laugh in.
Guardians of the Galaxy
When I first watched Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in years, that scene, where Chris Pratt almost drops the Orb with the Infinity Stone, made me giggle a bit. And imagine how surprised I was, when I discovered that that whole bit was totally Chris’s clumsy hands! He actually almost dropped that prop, but that lightning-fast reaction not only saved the prop-master a lot of work, but also gave the scene a bit of that random humor Chris is best known for.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Ah, the very first Lord of the Rings movie. Remember when Gandalf visited Bilbo’s tiny hobbit house, and he had to duck when he moved around, so, of course, he hits the chandelier, which was scripted for a comedic relief. But then Gandalf turns around and smacks into a rafter with all his wizardly might! This was not planned. Ian McKellen thought that this would make for a great scene, and didn’t even tell director Peter Jackson what he had in mind. And now, thanks to Ian, we know just how tiny those hobbit houses really are.
Zoolander
In this insane comedy about the adventures of two extraordinarily dumb male models, trying to stop an assassination. After listening to a very lengthy monologue from J.P. Prewitt, who explains the conspiracy surrounding some of the most horrific assassinations, Zoolander again asks, “but why male models?” Turns out Ben Stiller forgot his line, so he just repeated the question from earlier, that set off Duchovny’s monologue. That repetition perfectly emphasized how stupid Zoolander was, so it didn’t get cut!
Raiders of the Lost Ark
This is one of the grossest scenes I’ve ever seen, but I’m glad it didn’t get the “choppies” (that GameGrumps reference, am I right?). So what happened was, in one of the scenes, before the Ark is opened, melting off everyone’s faces, the evil French archaeologist Rene Belloq gets an unexpected visit from… a fly. Yeah, basically, while the cameras were shooting a face close-up, a freaking fly landed on Freeman’s face, which obviously wasn’t supposed to happen, and then, it walks right into his mouth! Good news is, that “crawling into mouth” thing was added in post, and in reality it actually flew away. I don’t know how he did it, but he’s a real champ for not ruining the shot!
