One of the biggest insights in Cobra Kai is that John Kreese’s teachings were the real fault in his students’ bullying behavior, but a deleted scene from The Karate Kid would have already presented this realization. Cobra Kai is the sequel series to The Karate Kid films and has now entered its fifth season. The heart of the story lies with Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence learning how to get past their decades-long rivalry and work together to teach kids karate to defend themselves.
In the original Karate Kid movie, Mr. Miyagi tells Daniel that there is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher. This is in response to Johnny and the other Cobra Kai students beating Daniel up and Mr. Miyagi trying to find a solution to stop the fighting. Mr. Miyagi's statement is proven to be true in many later situations, including Daniel's training with Terry Silver, Johnny's initial run at becoming a sensei, and certainly Kreese in his leadership of both generations of Cobra Kai students.
What was a throwaway line in the original movie became a major theme in Cobra Kai. However, this conflict was already further explored in a deleted scene from The Karate Kid. In this cut scene, Johnny gives Daniel his registration form to compete in the All Valley Tournament and makes a threat against him. As Johnny begins to walk away, Daniel asks him to explain his bullying: "We both know you can kick my face in, so why do you still bother?" Johnny gives a sarcastic reply but grows very angry when taunted further. Daniel then presses on, "You ever think your teacher might be wrong?" After Johnny leaves fuming, Daniel stares after him with a look of concern and pity. This shows that even back in the day, Daniel took Mr. Miyagi’s lesson to heart and knew that Johnny wasn’t the one to blame for his violent attitude. It was Kreese.
Daniel Tried To Warn Johnny About Kreese’s Teachings
As a "bad teacher," John Kreese being the original problem has since been confirmed in Cobra Kai. Early on in the show, Daniel tells Johnny that he doesn’t blame him for anything that happened back in the day, as he knows it was all Kreese and Cobra Kai. Daniel also questions why Johnny would bring back the lessons of Cobra Kai after being nearly killed by his own sensei at the 1984 tournament. Most importantly, Daniel confirms to his student Robby Keene (Tanner Buchanan) during the Cobra Kai season 1 tournament that Johnny is still not to blame; that it is all Kreese’s teachings and Johnny is just a man with a lot of demons from his past.
With only The Karate Kid in mind, it made sense to cut the deleted scene between Daniel and Johnny, as Daniel pointing out Kreese’s warped teachings to Johnny wouldn’t have added anything to the isolated story of the first movie. However, in hindsight, the scene would have laid the foundation of what Cobra Kai is all about. The student and sensei relationships in Cobra Kai have ranged from harmful to helpful, but this initial diplomatic confrontation between Daniel and Johnny in The Karate Kid would have shown that both characters always knew deep down that neither of them was really the villain.