Inlay

As an aside, this brings to mind the scene from the movie Transformers One where floating dirt is used to play out a flashback and record it. The two films share a good handful concepts, so if LoMN hadn't cut its own dirt playback scene, it could have been another one.

This was not replaced with a simpler effect in the final film, the scene was simply abandoned. The Troller sequences, featuring a giant beast swimming in sand, would have also happened around this part of the film, likewise requiring elaborate sand effects. That idea was cut too.