The Crow Film
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Shelly and Eric were very much in love. But no one gets married on Halloween, not in Detroit. Shelly is raped and beaten by city boss Top Dollar's thugs, only to die 30 hours later in a hospital. Eric is shot and pushed out a window. A year later death is no longer what it was as Eric Draven, accompanied by a Crow and gifted with new powers and a world of grief and pain, is brought back to life to avenge his love's death. After all, love is forever. And some of us Believe in Angels.
Because of Brandon's tragic death, some of the scenes had to be altered/created using
computers and a type of "cookie-cutting" technology.
Most of the scene of Brandon's resurrection was filmed, however, they did not have any
scenes of him actually entering his apartment. So they filmed some shots of only a hand
taking down the police tape, and a few shots of the door. Then, using some of the footage
from him walking through the alley, they removed Eric ( cookie-cut ) and pasted him into a
scene from the doorway of his apartment. They added some rain effects with a computer
and viola, he's in his apartment.
You'll also notice that there are few actual facial images of Eric when he's in his
apartment. (when he finds Gabriel, the cat, and sees the pictures of him and Shelly) Well,
that scene was also created. They used a cut-out of Brandon with the face paint on, and
put it on what looks like a cracked mirror, to do the scene where he breaks the mirror.
(When you hear The Cure's song Burn) Similarly, when he runs out of the window and
swings back in, you can only see his face for a few moments when the lightning flashes.
That's a body double, but Brandon's face for those few seconds.
Another added scene, which in my opinion was not done well, but probably as best as they
could, is the second roof-top running scene. When he's running from the police, it's a body
double. (Just before he jumps down and gets into Officer Albretch's car, which was real.)
Somehow, that scene looks quite fake to me. I don't know why. (The first roof-top scene w/
Nine Inch Nails' song Dead Souls was Brandon.)
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The Skull Cowboy is seen only 3 times in the
graphic novel, but it was decided to make him Eric's
first source of information. He acted as Eric's guardian angel, and told him
exactly why he had been brought back and what he must do. At first he just tells Eric
to "Follow the crow", but appears later to explain
more including that Eric will bleed if he works for
the living. In the script he was to play an
integral part of the storyline. According to the original script the reason Eric lost his
powers in the final scene of the film was because he had finished what he had been
brought back to do, get revenge on his death. The Skull Cowboy actually tells him this
when he returns to his grave and warns him before he enters the church that he is now
vulnerable.
However, they eventually decided to cut the character and put more emphasis
on the bird giving him the powers. As it is explained in the film, the bird is his link
between the land of the living and the land of the dead.Director Alex Proyas cut the Skull Cowboy for a
variety of reasons, but mostly because his scenes
became somewhat redundant. Alex was also not
entirely happy with the effects used to create the
character. Michael Berryman, who played the
character, is said to be disappointed that his
performance did not reach the big screen.
The scene where T-Bird and Skank set out on another arson run was originally longer. T-Bird sends Skank to get "Smokes and road beers.", and Skank obligingly goes into a store to purchase them. As originally filmed, two pre-teens enter the store with automatic weapons and appropriate Skank's .45. When Skank runs out of the store to see why T-Bird's driving off, he gets shot in the leg with his own gun; you may notice he is limping before he gets hit by the guy in the small red car. However, the limp doesn't look at all odd after that as you assume it's from the car accident.
In the movie as we know it, the actual bird, as Myca puts it, is "his link between the land of the living, and the land of the dead." Well, this is partly right, but according to the original screenplay, the reason Eric lost his powers is because he had finished what he came to do: get revenge on Shelly's and his own death. The Skull Cowboy tells him this when he returns to his grave, and stands on the steps of the church before he enters warning him he is now vulnerable. However, they decided to cut the character, and put more emphasis on the bird = power link
The scene when Eric deals with Funboy had a second fight at the end, where Eric is wounded. In the scene , Eric shoots Funboy in the leg and drags him into the bath, turning on the shower. Eric then talks to Darla, and we see the straight razor she was holding fall to the floor. Darla runs out of the apartment and Eric pauses to look at one of Funboy's syringes as the scene cuts away. As originally filmed, Funboy sneaks up behind Eric at this point (see picture) holding the razor that was dropped on the floor earlier. According to Jeff Imada (stunt coordinator), the fight went like this:
"The fight begins at the door when Eric picks up the hypo. Funboy slashes him across the back, driving him down to his knees. Eric is stunned, in shock, showing a lot of pain; Funboy grabs a big bag of coke and just inhales it, just going for it." It seems surprising that Eric's wounds aren't healing - this is because of the Skull Cowboy's warning (see above) - he had been 'working for the living' in helping Darla. "Funboy - now totally jacked up, coke all over his face - jumps on Eric and starts slashing him some more. Eric rolls over on his back, fending off Funboy's attack with his arms, which are getting all cut up. Funboy tries to slash Eric's face and neck, but Eric knocks him away and they struggle on the floor. Eric finally knocks Funboy back against some furniture, tables and lamps and stuff, and the straight razor goes flying. He goes after his gun, which Eric has left on his bed. This gives Eric a little bit of advantage, he does his throw, and knocks Funboy down to the ground, groggy. Then Eric reaches reaches for the hypo again.
It was as a result of this fight that Eric used black electrical tape as bandages. You should notice the tape from this point onwards in the film. The tape helps define Eric's look - it comes straight out of the graphic novel. However, in the graphic novel, Eric carvs up his own arms out of despair and it is because the wounds are self inflicted that they don't heal. (I am uncertain as to whether the scene showing Eric applying the tape was shot or not.)
There is a very short shot of T-Bird's gang breaking stuff in the
Arcade. The original scene was much longer, including their
attacking (potentially raping) a young girl which would show their
propensitity to such violence, as they did to Shelly.
After Sarah is kidnapped, near the end of the film, the Skull Cowboy (see above) appears to Eric and tells him that his work is done and he must return to the grave. Eric, knowing that Sarah is in trouble, refuses to abandon her. "Then choose and be damned!", the Skull Cowboy replies, and crubles into dust (this special effect was not filmed, though the rest of the scene was). This is why Eric gets hurt at the end (in the church) - the idea of shooting the crow was brought in later, when the Skull Cowboy was cut.
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Early versions of the script described an Asian menace who wanted to steal Eric's powers for his own evil use. This
character was dropped, at the request of Brandon Lee himself. Top Dollar's role was then expanded and his
half-sister/lover Myca was invented to keep some of the mystic elements.
Of Course as mentioned before this character was cut from the movie due to Alex Proyas' disbelief of this character's role within the film. See Above for more info!
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In the original script, T-Bird and his gang arrive at Eric and Shelley's apartment by mistake - they'd gone to the wrong
place. This was to help show how random the violence was in the city, and to coincide with the graphic novel; in the
graphic novel, the two are killed by joy riders, on a random basis.
In one scene, Eric was supposed to tie a spent shell in his hair after killing an enemy - as per the graphic novel. This scene
was not filmed, but the shell can apparently be seen in Eric's hair if you look close enough.
Top Dollar, like Myca, also had some impressive tribalistic tatoos on his body. The scenes where these would have been seen were not filmed due to time constraints.
the crow vhs/dvd - 1993
city of angels vhs/dvd - 1996
the crow soundtrack - 1993
city of angels soundtrack - 1996
the crow score - 1993
city of angels score - 1996
salvation score - 2000
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