The Tragic Death of Brandon Lee
Brandon Lee died during a mishap on the set. A scene required a gun to be loaded, cocked, and then pointed at the camera. Because of the close-range of the shot, the bullets loaded had real brass caps, but no powder. After the cut, the propsmaster (not the armsmaster - he had left the set for the day) dry-fired the gun to get the cock off, knocking an empty cartridge into the barrel of the gun. The next scene to be filmed involving that gun was the rape of Shelly. The gun was loaded with blanks (which usually contain double or triple the powder of a normal bullet to make a loud noise). Lee entered the set carrying a bag of groceries containing an explosive blood pack. The script called for Funboy (Michael Massey) to shoot Eric Draven (Brandon Lee) as he entered the room, setting off the blood pack. The cartridge that was stuck in the barrel was blasted at Lee through the bag he was carrying, killing him. The footage of his death was destroyed without being developed.
The following scenes were created after Lee's death:
When Eric Draven first enters the apartment after digging himself out of his grave: footage of Lee walking through an alley in the rain was digitally composited into the scene where he walks through the doorway. Computer technology added drops of water to the door frame to make the water on his back not seem out of place.The shot of Draven falling from the window was made by digitally compositing Lee's face (complete with simulated
blood) onto a body double.
The scene where Draven puts on his make-up was filmed using a double. The face in the smashed mirror was indeed computer-augmented by superimposing Brandon's face on to a body double.
The image of Draven walking towards the window with the crow on his shoulder was cut from another scene, with a computer- generated crow added.
When Sarah visits the apartment, we never see Draven's face as it is a double.
Scenes featuring Michael Berryman as the Skull Cowboy were cut. When Eric is dead, he is visited by the skelatal character. In early scenes, he merely tells Eric to "Follow the crow", but later he
explains why Draven is "alive", namely, to kill the bad guys and
reunite with Shelly. A problem: "You work for the living and you bleed." After Sarah is kidnapped, the Skull Cowboy appears to Eric for the final time and tells him that it is time to return to the land of the dead and give up the concerns of the living, Eric refuses, and Skull Cowboy tells him. "Then choose and be damned!!!" This is why Eric gets hurt at the end, not because the crow was shot. The entire character of the Skull Cowboy was removed from the movie after Lee's death...apparently, O'Barr felt it would be in poor taste.
Other changes that were made,
perhaps not as a result of Lee's death:
A scene was cut in which T-Bird and his gang blow up Arcade games and victimize a young girl. Eric finds her as he
stumbles home, reminding him of what had happend to him and Shelly. Eric gets clues as to who did it and who they were through the girl because he has his first flashbacks by touching
her, as he does many times in the rest of the movie.A scene was written in which Eric ties a spent shell in his hair after killing an enemy, but it did not appear in the film. However, you can see the shell in his hair if you look close enough. This symbolism was portrayed often in the graphic novel.
When Eric helps Darla he opens himself up to injury (remember the warning of the Skull Cowboy). Funboy got up from the bathtub, inhaled a large amount of cocaine, grabbed the razor that Darla had dropped and attacked Eric. Because of his intervention with Darla his wounds did not heal (Note: scene of Eric pulling Funboy from the bathtub was a body double).
The scene of Skank getting munchies and cigarettes at a convenience store was edited. The shop is robbed by two youths, who shoot Skank in his leg as he runs out after seeing T-Bird take off. That would mean the limp that he had after the car chase was due more to the bullet wound than to the constant car accidents.
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