Squid Game Season 2’s Unused Footage Reveals How Team Thanos Performed In The Six-Legged Race, & There Are More Iconic Moments From The Player

While the wait continues for the final episodes of Squid Games, Netflix drops more behind-the-scenes footage, which now includes longer footage of Team Thanos’ performance in the six-legged race. Thanos (Choi Seung-hyun) became one of the standout new players in Squid Game season 2, thanks to his bizarre and energetic performance during the games. This has led to the character having several viral moments in the series, which have since been replicated or have become memes online. While the series showed lots of Thanos in red light, green light, and mingle games, there was only brief footage of his team’s performance during the six-legged race.

Now, Netflix Korea has dropped another behind-the-scenes video, showing the filmmaking process for season 2. While the video shows how several key moments were filmed, there is also longer footage of Team Thanos’ performance during the six-legged race. The video consistently shows Thanos hyping his team during each round, with Choi, at one point, giving pointers to his cast mates. Towards the end of the game, Se-mi/Player 380 gets angry with Nam-gyu/Player 124 when he fails in an attempt at the spinning top, while Thanos stands and smiles. The character is then seen encouraging Nam-gyu in English. Check it out below:

It Would Have Been Repetitive

While the new footage shows that there could have been more iconic Thanos moments from the six-legged race, it makes sense why only a few snippets were included in the final cut. Season 2 illustrated this game three times, with the first team that failed, Hyun-ju’s (Park Sung-hoon) team that first completed it, and the final team with Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae). To avoid being repetitive, the creative team likely cut the remaining footage to just a quick summary of the remaining teams and their performance, which includes a brief moment with Thanos doing Jegi.

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It’s also worth noting that despite dedicating hours to filming a sequence, it’s common to see only a few seconds of footage make it to the final cut. This, again, comes down to the creative decisions in the editing process, which may require using as much of the filmed material as possible or using only snippets of it that best fit a narrative. Sometimes, these unused materials become a part of a deleted scene or get included in featurettes as is the case here.

On the other hand, the never-before-seen filming video does showcase the dynamic between Thanos’ teammates during the six-legged race. While Thanos is encouraging his teammates to succeed in their respective games, there is one key moment that sheds light on Se-mi and Nam-gyu. With Nam-gyu struggling to pass with the spinning top, Se-mi starts to get impatient with him. While this could just be simply in the moment of frustration, it gives more context as to why Nam-gyu targeted and killed Se-mi specifically when the “O” voters attacked the “X” at the end of Squid Game season 2.

It Brings More Appreciation To The Filming Efforts

Gi-hun looks shocked while Hyun-ju and her team cross the finish line in Squid Game season 2 — Custom image by Fariba Rezwan

While it’s unfortunate that more Thanos scenes weren’t used in the final cut, I understand why this had to be done. In any case, I have been keeping track of many behind-the-scenes videos, and it continues to fascinate me how much work was put into filming each game. The six-legged race is no exception, as each cast and crew try to get all the best footage that can be used in the final cut. Furthermore, the video shows some of the filming details and blunders that many cast members spoke about, including Park slapping Seon-nyeo and Jung-bae star Lee Seo-hawn hitting his face on the camera.

So, while these materials were not in the final cut, at least Netflix was kind enough to include them in the featurette so that audiences can appreciate how much work was put into these games. Plus, it helps to pass the time until Squid Game season 3 comes out sometime this year.

Source: Netflix Korea