Quentin Tarantino admitted there was one scene in Kill Bill Vol. 2 he would have cut from his original release plan. Kill Bill is Tarantino’s revenge movie, following The Bride (Uma Thurman) as she hunts down her former ᴀssᴀssin colleagues who tried to kill her, including her former boss and lover, Bill (David Carradine). Kill Bill‘s timeline follows Tarantino’s typical non-linear structure, making for an epic and bloody saga. However, Tarantino’s vision ended up being too big for just one movie.
While Kill Bill was originally planned as one movie, Tarantino eventually decided to split it up into two parts, with Kill Bill Vol. 1 released in 2003 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 released in 2004. The decision has added some confusion in tallying up Tarantino’s 10-movie plan, but it ultimately worked, making for two excellent action movies that combine for one wild experience. However, Tarantino was originally against the idea of splitting up his movie, and he was prepared to cut some very notable moments from Kill Bill.
Quentin Tarantino Said He’d Cut The Esteban Vihaio Scene
Tarantino Called The Scene “Mesmerizing” But Admitted It Wouldn’t Have Made The Final Cut
Nearing the third act of Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Bride has crossed all the names off her kill list save for Bill himself. As expected, he is the hardest one to track down, which leads The Bride in search of a man named Esteban Vihaio. Through narration, The Bride explains that Bill acquired a number of father figures throughout his life, with the Mexican pimp Esteban being one of them. The memorable sequence finds The Bride tracking him down, hoping he will know where she can find Bill.
The scene is an entertaining one, especially thanks to the performance by Michael Parks, with this being one of two roles Parks plays in Kill Bill. However, in speaking to IGN about his initial plans to release Kill Bill in theaters as one long and epic movie, Tarantino admits that Esteban’s scene would have been one that was cut out. He reveals:
“The Esteban Vallejo scene wouldn’t be in the movie. If you’re trying to tell your story in three hours or so, you don’t need that scene. I think that’s one of the most mesmerizing scenes in the movie… You always have to make those kind of choices like that.”
It is not hard to see Tarantino’s reasoning here. The Esteban scene is a long dialogue scene that suddenly introduces a new character at a time when the audience is ready to see the long-awaited showdown between The Bride and Bill. However, it works in the movie because Bill is the character who needs more of a build-up to The Bride finding him. The scene also wonderfully sets up the climax of the movie, with Esteban suggesting the Bill would want him to tell The Bride how to find him, because “How else is he going to see you again?“
Despite His Words, Quentin Tarantino Kept The Scene In The Whole Bloody Affair
Tarantino Released A Four-Hour Cut Of The Kill Bill Saga
Quentin Tarantino did ultimately go wrong with his initial release plans for Kill Bill when he re-edited the movie as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. The four-hour cut combined the two stories into the long saga he originally envisioned, with alterations made to the previously released footage. However, Tarantino did not follow through on his plan to cut the Esteban sequence, nor did he add back in the famous Kill Bill deleted scene with Michael Jai White.
It is likely that Tarantino had considered cutting the Esteban scene simply because he was trying to find a shorter version of the movie that could theoretically be released in theaters as one movie. At a certain point, he realized that wasn’t going to be possible and split the movie in two. However, The Whole Bloody Affair no longer had to take that into consideration as it was a version made for fans who simply wanted to see how Kill Bill was originally meant to be seen, including the Esteban scene.
