“Why did you make me do that?”
“When I lose control, bad things happen … but it feels good.”
“Are you threatening me? Because that would be a bad idea.”
Those are Jean Grey’s three most memorable lines from the advance trailers for Dark Phoenix:
But none of those lines appears in the actual movie. The scenes for which they were originally intended are recognisable, but the lines are weirdly absent.
That strikes me as a serious mistake. Not just because in themselves they’re good lines, well delivered – though they are that – but because they illustrate Jean’s arc from rejecting her new powers, to being tempted by them, to reveling in them. Removing them undercuts both Jean’s character and Sophie Turner’s performance – especially since the latter two lines are the closest we get to seeing the Cool Evil Dark Phoenix most of us were probably hoping to see a great deal of in the movie.
A lot of viewers are already complaining, with some justice, that Dark Phoenix treats its title character as though she were merely a supporting character for other characters’ angst. Cutting those three lines simply compounds that problem.