(also, there's a deleted scene explaining that the virus worked because our computers had been reverse-engineered from the Area 51 spacecraft)
Really? Ugh. Ruined my day (hellfire not withstanding). Not that the movie was great anyway, but... Really?
I think my biggest movie pet-pieve is when I find out a director or editor has cut a piece out of the film that actually would have made it better, usually for stupid reasons like
pacing or
momentum.
Like in The Terminator where Sarah runs away from Reese and they end up by a creek, establishing the only scene in the film that would have taken place in a non-urban setting, and Michael Biehn gets a monologue about what's really at stake
and a crying close-up that probably could have helped his non-Cameron career.
Or even in Star Wars, there was (what I think is) a much better introduction to Luke that showed him in his natural habitat and what type of person he was when interacting with
non-androids-or-space-adventurers. That scene also had a set-up for Biggs (that dude on Yavin that Luke gets all hot in his pants to see, then who dies a few minutes later and you're left thinking "Was I supposed to care about that guy? Could have used a pre-third act introduction.)
Also, that scene in The Sixth Sense where Bruce Willis uses his ghost powers to walk through the walls of a jail to break that kid out, and he has to shoot ectoplasm out of his eyes to fend off the guards, and then they fly over the... k that may have been a smart cut.
Point is, it's critic pandering. Most of your audience does not give a shit about pacing. Half of them probably don't even know what that is. It wasn't worth the trade.
I wonder if that's a boring opinion.
Opinions are like assholes... just full of shit.