The book I'm reading right now is The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. This book has dual main plots; the first one follows New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, who changed football's left tackle position with his disruptive blind side pass rush, and how coaches were forced to adapt to his power. The novel, of course, has been made into a motion picture, named simply The Blind Side. The movie grossed about $310 million, was generally well-received by critics, and Sandra Bullock, who portrayed Leigh Anne Tuohy in the film, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2010. However, the entire storyline of Lawrence Taylor destroying quarterbacks in the 1980's, and how football was forever changed because of it, is cut to a brief monologue at the beginning of the movie. The movie's sole focus is on Oher's story. The reason this was done was that, to become a mainstream movie, they had to remove all the football facts, stats, and historical information, since not everyone enjoys football. Hard to believe, I know.
You are probably thinking, "Well, if the people don't like football, why in the world would they watch a movie about football?" This is because Michael Oher's story is intriguing to all people, not just football fans. Who doesn't like to hear the story of a guy who has absolutely nothing- no parents, no money, not even a stable place to live- secure the one-in-a-million opportunity to overcome everything, do what they do best, and achieve greatness. Rocky had this same kind of story, and was an amazing success. I'm not a boxing fan, but I thought the movie was really good as well.
Essential-to-keep scenes include Michael blocking the air bag from hitting S.J. in the car accident would be important because it shows Michael's strength and innate reflexes, the heartwarming scene where Michael is discovered in the pouring rain with nowhere to sleep by Sean and Leigh Anne, because, not only is it genuinely heartwarming, but it is also crucial to the plot, and the montage of S.J. asking what he's going to get from coaches if Oher decides to play there, which did in fact make it into the film, because S.J. looks cute rather than rude doing so.
The huge thing that should've been cut from the movie is showing Oher not having any clue how to play football. Oher himself has stated that he isn't a fan of the movie because he was so badly misrepresented in that aspect, telling Baltimoreravens.com, "The movie showed me not doing something so well that got me here, something I’ve always understood. Everything else is good, but them showing me not knowing how to play football, that’s what upsets me the most.” As a journalist, the number one thing to avoid doing is ticking off a source. In this case, it was so easily preventable. They could have shown Oher being on top of things in practice instead of being behind. They would have missed out on Leigh Anne's rousing speech, but it would have been worth it to tell a more accurate story. Word will go around quickly that a person was misrepresented, and therefore other sources will be more hesitant if the same director wants to make another movie based on a true story, and real people.
