Script to Screen: HOME ALONE and HOME ALONE 2: LOST IN NEW YORK (The Versions You NEVER Saw!)

script — 20/10/2022 · 48 Comments



In this installment of “Script to Screen,” we’re looking at the different early drafts of Home Alone and its sequel, Lost in New York.

0:00 Home Alone
25:59 Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
40:31 Closing

48 Comments

  4. I was right!!! Even as a little kid, I thought Old Man Marley was a reference to Jacob Marley, as he intervenes in a major way to get the main character to start appreciating things he has scorned.

  5. With 1&2 you can’t go wrong but, the last 4 sequels they’ve got to go in the dumpster! Home Alone is a film that don’t even have to be watched during the Christmas time only. I watch during the summer or an ordinary day.

  7. At the very least, it would've been nice of them to keep the Frank and Buzz redemption stuff in the sequel. Simply because those two got off WAY too easy. Like… seriously, Buzz especially, so it would've been niced to see him admit he was a butt-head to Kevin.

    Though I guess it's nice they kept Frank's cheapskate stuff to a minimum.

  10. Fast fact, in another marriage, and under a different name, the mother also had another child named "Lydia Deetz". Butapparently after a failed art career, and scandal involving her daughter being engaged to a ghost, she left the family and became a part of the McCallister family. Sadly, after several years with this family and losing her son twice, she became a ragdoll of her former self, and began hanging around a thin and tall guy named "Jack", where she helped in a kidnapping/Santa-napping plot. Despite her part in the crime, she became involved in law, and became a judge, until a 'A Series of Unfortunate Events', when she tried to marry a 14 year old girl to a 42 year old guy. Last I heard, in 2021 her status had been changed io "Extinct".

  13. I think the unused plot point of Old Man Marley/Skeleton knowing about Kevin's situation also would've caused another plot hole.
    Because he could have easily just written a note to Kevin and hung it on his door or something.

    "Hey Kevin, I know you won't talk to me because you're afraid of me (the rumors about me aren't true by the way), but I just want to let you know that you're family is trying to get back home to you as quick as they can. If you ever need anything, just knock on my door and I'll help you." – Marley/Skeleton

    So yeah, I think it was for the best that they cut that part out. As it kind of made Marley/Skeleton look shortsighted.

  16. Worst Idea Ever: For April Fool's day one year, you should do a retrospective on this youtuber called Colin LooksBack. They do a lot of similar content to yours, mainly banger video after banger video about various rankings, retrospectives, and lost media. I'd really recommend it! It's a great channel.

  23. That Jerry Seinfeld clip at the end reminds me of something. That being that Jerry Seinfeld is kind of an ignorant asshole about other media.

    He often really tries to crap on other media with really bad generalizations that prove he never even watched the thing or doesn't even know what it is… just that he has disdain for it because, someone else talked about it I guess, and people liking things annoys him. There's this scene where Seinfeld worked in that "diss" jab at Home Alone even though it's a very impactful and emotional movie, but there's ALSO the time that Jerry, in the show, took a few shots at Tiny Toon Adventures, believing it to be some kind of Barney the Dinosaur or Teletubbies level educational show for preschoolers that sing "The Wheels On The Bus" over and over. (But hey, maybe he just thinks that because he's on the Motion Picture Academy and they all seem to hate animation, there)

    The thing is, it's only with the power of hindsight that we really realize that Jerry Seinfeld is basically "that guy" like randos on the internet that hate and bash things he hasn't seen and doesn't even bother to learn the name of a single character or watch 5 seconds of it, and that kind of thing always slipped into his "comedy routines" kinda making him one of the most despicable kinds of annoying internet trolls we all run into at some time or another.

    If you really go back and get his thoughts about literally anything pop-culture related, there's this repeated motif of him just being a sour curmudgeon that thinks everything ever made is somehow beneath him and people that like things other than him are somehow stupid for liking it.

  26. I can relate to the bit with the Good Son picture. I once bought a framed picture of Jake Lloyd's Anakin from a garage sale and hung it up at my parents' house. My grandma saw it and said she didn't remember me having a jacket like that.

  29. “You got divorced in a church?”
    “No. My wife died in this church. ”
    I may have changed some details about this part, but, to me, this should have been one of the scenes kept. Just take out the part where Kevin is told that his “folks” are okay.

  30. while the first one was fun and Kevin was really free of blame, the second one he annoyed the hell out of me. He was unneccesary whiney on the airport and instead of keeping up with his family who was clearly in a rush, he complained about some batteries for his walkman (afair, its a while since I saw them). And then in New York instead of going to the police or aircraft staff, he rents a suite in an expensive as f**k Hotel. I am sure that, after the first movie, his parents would set up a lesson for all kids how to behave if you are separated by your parents. But Kevin was selfish, wanted to have holidays on his own. And so he lost my sympathies for the whole movie which made me sour the whole deal for me. He could ruin his whole family with this selfishness; with his age he MUST have gotten some Pocket Money to make sure, that he has at least a sense of money.

    And that may be the whole point. Kevin is being a stupid brat who hasnt learned anything by now and does damage to his parents either by neiglect or by will just because he feels entitled to do it. At this point I was cheering for the Wet Bandits to prevent him getting a third movie

  32. Personally I can't stand Home Alone 2. By going out of its way to show that the characters didn't learn anything and that the exact same thing will happen again, it destroys the emotional arc of the original, as well as any emotional arc it might set out to achieve itself. Home Alone 3, on the other hand, is an underrated gem that perfectly captures what an 8-year old boy would imagine happening if he were left to defend his home on his own. Either way, great video as always!

  33. Interesting. I too looked a lot like Macauley Culkin as a kid, only I've never worn glasses at any time. My dad had the general build and personality like John Candy in The Great Outdoors (1988), and my older brother, when he was a kid looked like Squintz from The Sandlot (1994) only he didn't wear glasses. I think it was those three movies from my childhood that got me to spot resemblances with people in my family that I still do to this day. Overall, I liked this episode of Script to Screen.

  34. This is so fascinating, how movies change as they're written and rewritten before finally being filmed. And I'm glad that elaborate nightmare sequence was left out of the first movie. That would have absolutely terrified me as a kid and probably scared me away from watching the rest of the movie, and honestly I don't think I'd enjoy it now, either. ^o^;>
    So, I'm happy we got the final movie that we got with Home Alone.

  36. There’s also an alternate version of the checkout scene that was filmed with the manager asking Kevin questions instead of the girl. It can be seen in the original trailer for the film.

  40. To be honest, I like the second movie more. For one thing, it felt a LOT more Christmas-y. The Christmas backdrop in the first movie feels kinda arbitrary, to me at least. Whereas, the second movie is just LOADED with Christmas imagery and themes.

  42. I’ll be honest I saw home alone 3 before the other movies I saw them on TV because I saw them on TV I love them and I love that movie I don’t know why it’s just and the fact that the main character is definitely more heroic I mean let’s face it I think we all know there are more than a few fan Stories about Kevin growing up to be a sociopath

  45. Geez the first draft of the first movie had some weird/strange deviations from the final product, especially the nightmare sequence when you read it I was completely in shock because I would never imagine this movie to have a effects driven sequence like that, if that actually got filmed and was in the final film then I bet it would’ve made many top 10 scariest moments in kids movies lists. I can think of two examples to use this weird nightmare sequence one is the Doug episode Doug On His Own when Doug goes into his basement to turn the power back on everything in the basement comes to life and start attacking Doug and Porkchop with even a vacuum grabbing Porkchop with its cords but it turns out it was all a fantasy, and the second is funnily enough in another Macaulay Culkin movie The Pagemaster when his character slips and falls onto the ground and when he wakes up the paint on the ceiling pours out onto the floor and starts chasing him until he is turned animated.

  46. I've always wondered about the traps Kevin set. Would they result in in serious injuries or death? I mean… its pretty hardcore smashing and crashing, they make me squirm every time. However, Harry and Marve don't seem to be fased, they get up every time.

  47. Originally, Frank had hired Harry and Marv to rob the McAllister home.

    And I remember bring terrified of Kevin's… interactions with the hookers and hobos…and the taxi driver, who honestly felt a little… empathetic with Kevin?

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