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Lethal Weapon movies 1-4 ~ Which were your favorites? [Poll inside]

Which Lethal Weapon movies were your favorites? Choose a maximum of 2.


  • Total voters
    77
Had no idea this was a deleted scene, this was the version I had on VHS as a kid
Director's Cut.


  • The Director's Cut (not actually a true director's cut, but a marketing promotion by Warner Bros.) features seven minutes of additional footage. In a new trailer scene, Riggs smashes his TV with a beer bottle; later he buys a new one. Murtaugh, before partnering with Riggs, goes to practice at the firing range. Riggs, before the dope shoot out, answers a call in a school yard with a sniper. Riggs walks out into the line of fire and kills the sniper, emptying his clip into him. Riggs, after leaving Murtaugh's house, goes out to solicit a prostitute. The aftermath is not shown, but Riggs says he wants to take her home to watch The Stooges with him; for this he pays her $100.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
1 has the best deleted scene of all time.


Well, this might help the fact that movie 1 is the top in the polls with 2 trailing close behind.
I doubt the scene would have been cut if the sniper shot was not based on a schoolyard. There had already been four school shootings in 1986 which was the year this was being filmed and it was a controversial thing that had been growing since the 70's. Shame though, this scene would have fit well.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Director's Cut.


  • The Director's Cut (not actually a true director's cut, but a marketing promotion by Warner Bros.) features seven minutes of additional footage. In a new trailer scene, Riggs smashes his TV with a beer bottle; later he buys a new one. Murtaugh, before partnering with Riggs, goes to practice at the firing range. Riggs, before the dope shoot out, answers a call in a school yard with a sniper. Riggs walks out into the line of fire and kills the sniper, emptying his clip into him. Riggs, after leaving Murtaugh's house, goes out to solicit a prostitute. The aftermath is not shown, but Riggs says he wants to take her home to watch The Stooges with him; for this he pays her $100.
This explains my questions in the OP. So, I didn't imagine the deleted scenes being in the movie. I have the blu-ray and it's not this version. However, the VHS recording I had used all the scenes you mentioned above. I vaguely remember the sniper scene being in the movie. This was not an official VHS, it was one that an acquaintance recorded for me from HBO. The scenes are still included on the blu-ray but they are separated to a deleted scenes menu.

This one makes for a fun watch too.

 

Gp1

Member
Man how awesome is that? Fathers, show this movie to your sons if you want them to grow up to be based men instead of emasculated girlie-boys.

And curiously at the time, one of the themes of the movie is the duality between the "hard/macho" man of seventies (Murtaugh, family man, hard and brute, stone carved face, with a .357 magnum revolver) and the "sensible" man of the eighties (Riggs, "baby face", a crazy man that have feelings and cry alone, with a new high tech wonder 9mm)

Even one of the cops in the first act tell something about it

I can't even thing how this would give us a good script now, given the current times we are living.
 
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Happosai

Hold onto your panties
And curiously at the time, one of the themes of the movie is the duality between the "hard/macho" man of seventies (Murtaugh, family man, hard and brute, stone carved face, with a .357 magnum revolver) and the "sensible"man of the eighties (Riggs, "baby face", a crazy man that have feelings and cry alone, with a new high tech wonder 9mm)

Even one of the cops in the first act tell something about it

I can't even thing how this would give us a good script now, given the current times we are living.
There are still great directors, writers, and actors in Hollywood. The problem is that they're not working as a team anymore. Everyone wants to be the ego behind the picture and this allows producers to take over the film. Script writing was never a done deal for even some of the greatest movies that came out in the 60's, 70's, or 80's. Many scripts were rewritten or passed onto other writers for final draft revisions. In the case with the Lethal Weapon films, it has been revealed in some of the featurettes that the performance was a result of Richard Donner's subtle direction cues, actor improvisation, and the latter being script reading. The team work dynamic would not work for dynamic writing right now. Like I said, there are still talented people out there but due to their creative differences...we likely won't see any of the old film teams come back together. There's a lot of friction between cast and crew during the process of filming and that's why sequels almost never have the same crew as the first film.
 
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Reactions: Gp1

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Interesting poll results! Looks like Lethal Weapon 1 & 2 nearly tied, 4 was in third place, and 3 was voted on the least. 70 votes! I agree with the majority...movies 1 & 2 were what made it for me. Thanks for participating. The poll will close Monday but I figure it will still look mostly like this.
 
I raise you
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Quasicat

Member
I love all of them, but Jet Li really made Lethal Weapon 4. He is such a bad ass, and I don’t think he ever says anything in the entire movie
 

TaroYamada

Member
Great movies. It's tight between 1 & 2 I rewatched them all just last year. Even the worst one is better than the cape trash that's by and large replaced action films of this type.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
I love all of them, but Jet Li really made Lethal Weapon 4. He is such a bad ass, and I don’t think he ever says anything in the entire movie
He does speak but it's in a native Chinese dialect (I don't know which one because I can't speak Chinese). He never speaks to the protagonists in the film; that might be why it seems like he never speaks. He simply stares at them. It was creative to put a martial art fight at the end of the movie (which is what they did with Gary Busey and Mel Gibson in the first). The only disappointing part is that with each Lethal Weapon sequel, Riggs uses less to no martial arts. So, the fight with Jet Li was mostly throwing, pushing, and punching from Mel. Still was nice to see that whole cast together the last time.
 

Breakage

Member
51! Wow!

For comparison, this is the actress I was talking about ... Here she is dancing with her nieces...
Yeah, the lady you've posted has aged better. Alcohol and drugs are not a good combo if you want to keep your looks, among other things. Patsy Kensit became addicted to both substances after getting involved with Liam Gallagher from the English rock band Oasis in the late 90s/early 2000s (he ended becoming the third of four husbands she has had).
 
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Happosai

Hold onto your panties
First two are classics. The third is okay, but the fourth was garbage.
The 80's action vibe didn't last into the 3rd. I don't have anything against 3 and 4 but they were clearly never as impacting as the first two. The focus changes between 1 and two for the writer. The first is primarily character based, whereas the second is heavily plot based. It's hard to replicate the first of any movie without changing the atmosphere toward sequeling.
 

Nymphae

Banned
The 80's action vibe didn't last into the 3rd.

By then it was firmly "This is the 90's now girlfriend" territory, the scene where Murtaugh and Riggs stand back and watch Renee Russo take down 5 thugs by herself in hand to hand combat is laughable, and there's another scene where Mel and Renee need to use a computer and Mel is basically scratching his head going "What dis box for" while Renee shows off her leet skills. Cringey 90's feminism.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
By then it was firmly "This is the 90's now girlfriend" territory, the scene where Murtaugh and Riggs stand back and watch Renee Russo take down 5 thugs by herself in hand to hand combat is laughable, and there's another scene where Mel and Renee need to use a computer and Mel is basically scratching his head going "What dis box for" while Renee shows off her leet skills. Cringey 90's feminism.
Yeah, my wife even pointed out that she couldn't stand Rene Russo for this (and the fact that she kinda looks like a man). 3 did start getting P.C. in certain aspects that they would have never done with the first 2.
 

Nymphae

Banned
Yeah, my wife even pointed out that she couldn't stand Rene Russo for this (and the fact that she kinda looks like a man)

Totally looks mannish lol, but I'm not afraid to admit there was a brief period where I thought she was sexy in the Thomas Crown Affair.
 
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