Spoilers for: Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Road to Perdition, and No Country for Old Men, follow.

Often times when we look at a work, we wonder what the creators could have added that would have improved its pedigree. We're so obsessed as a society with wondering whether or not we've missed something or if everyone else is in on a secret that we can never know. This leads to travesties like George Lucas endlessly changing things in the original Star Wars trilogy with every updated release. It seemed with every edition, Lucas edited something to better suit his vision, no matter the damage it did to the story. The greatest example, is the infamous question, "Did Han shoot first?" Of course he did. It wouldn't be a question if the original scene was kept as it was. If you look at the original scene, it's pretty obvious Greedo had no chance to do anything, being dead and all that. Now take a look at this awkward overhaul that makes Han's character a whole lot less interesting. Now, it's self defense, which is more in line with Lucas' vision of the character. One mannequin-esque head swivel completely changes our interpretation of Han. He's no longer a cold blooded killer, he's a cowboy, and a main character (which is even worse), allowing him to administer mercy because there's no way they kill off Han in his first scene. Everything about that seems wrong, given the seediness of the cantina and criminal underworld of Star Wars.

So what should Lucas have done? Leave it alone, he had it right the first time. But see, he thought he knew more about what the audience should be thinking then the work itself did. It isn't the creator's object to convince the audience of anything. The creator's job is to present things with precision; staying in line with character, circumstances, wants, and story development. The circumstances of the cantina scene, along with Han's selfishness, his survivor's instinct, and the violence he's accustomed too- don't you think if that Han was ever given an inch in a confrontation, he wouldn't immediately take it? That makes his growth at the end of the film, flying through the trenches with the Falcon to help Luke destroy the Death Star, all the more resonant.

But if all I talked about was whether Han shot first in this article, it'd be an exercise in tedium, considering there's plenty of more intelligent folks who have talked it to death, and besides, if you're a Star Wars fan and not a George Lucas fan, then you already know Han shot first.

However, it has got me thinking instead of not what a creator should add to a work, but what they should remove from a work. The developer of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, had a similar philosophy to game development, that he called design by subtraction. Silence is underrated in creation. And silence isn't necessarily just the removal of all sound from a scene in a film or video game. It's the removal of one aspect from a scene that you would expect to be present. Can you imagine if any aspect of King Theodan of Rohan's "death!" speech was removed? The sounds of rattling spears and stomping horses? The music? The sound of his sword running along the wall of spears? His defiant call against impossible odds? This iconic scene simply wouldn't be the same with the removal of any of these aspects. But when they start their charge, when they slam into the overwhelming Orc force, their battle cries are collective. Peter Jackson kept the focus on the heroes (Merry, Eowyn, and Eomer) to a minimum, instead allowing them to be lost in the flood of Rohan horsemen. This isn't just our heroes saving the day; it's a kingdom, a people, laying aside their fear and coming to Minas Tirith's defense. Jackson making the focusing on the entire army instead of the heroes is an example of subtraction by widening, as unintuitive as that sounds.

Another example of this is the rain scene in the film Road to Perdition.Tom Hanks' character seeks revenge on John Rooney (Paul Newman), and we don't hear the screams of dying mobsters, the sound of rain falling indiscriminately and inexorable, not even the sound of gunfire. All we hear is the haunting piano of Thomas Newman. We're given the image of muzzle fire from a shadowy alcove, Paul Newman's back to it, not even flinching as his men fall all around him, keeping his hand on the car door as if that's his final anchor to a reality where he gets to get in the car and go about his night. But he can't, and he knows it, which he finally accepts with Newman's wonderful delivery, "I'm glad it's you." That's the only line of dialogue for three minutes. Then, we only have the piercing sound of gunfire, which is really jarring after so long not hearing a thing, and the rain. The rest is told in the facial expressions of Tom Hanks, the faces looking out from their windows into the body strewn alley. The director, Sam Mendes, removed different parts of what you would expect (music, sound effects, dialogue), both for atmosphere and to tell his story.

But perhaps the best example of removal is in The Coen Brother's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men. That whole film is really a study in what you can accomplish by totally removing one aspect from your film: music. But the scene that stuck with me the most has always been the ending scene, which is hauntingly quiet for the amount of blood spilled over this case of money. Not just technically quiet, but situationally quiet. Bell's retired, trying to decide what he's going to do for the day. He's staring into nothing until his wife, Loretta, tells him he ought not hang around the house today. Then, after some lighthearted teasing by Loretta (one of the few lighthearted moments in the movie), he starts to talk about two dreams he had. Both had his dad in them. Bell kinda passes over the first dream, saying he lost some money his father gave him. The second is much more diaphanous. I'll link the scene so you can watch it, but I obviously recommend you watch the entire film. Anyway, he says he saw his father, wrapped up in a blanket with his head down, carrying fire in a horn, going through an old snowy mountain pass. He passed his son, Bell, without saying a word. Bell says he knew "whenever I got there, he'd be there. Then I woke up." That's how the book ends, but the film gives us a few more seconds. Nothing is said, neither character moves, except for Bell's eyes as he desperately searches for meaning in it, with the clock eerily ticking in the background, a nod to the theme of time in the work. Time being associated with age, hence the title No Country for Old Men, and the seeming agelessness of evil, implying that evil will always win so long as man is constricted by mortality. All of this is done without any music, hardly any sound effects accept the faint wind, the ticking clock, and the lost story of Ed Tom Bell. I don't know what to make of that ending. Does he miss his father? Yeah probably. Is he scared to die? Yeah that seems obvious given his bowing out of the hunt for Anton Chigurh. But death's coming anyway, so what else does it mean? It has to mean something else! It has to have an answer! But like the dream, we'll never know it, we can only interpret it the best we can.

The point is, a work is always more than its parts. To remove a part for the betterment of the entire work is a sacrifice that can have a calamity of effects on the audience: awe, fear, oneirism, totality, acceptance, etc. It works on the audience the way the circumstances of the story are working on the characters. It's one of the most surefire ways to immerse the audience in a work. And when you get it right, you should trust your instincts, and not be a Lucas. Believe in the original vision, and let the work speak for itself, don't make something to celebrate yourself. Don't rear your ugly head, except to amplify the work by removal.