Extended Editions and Director's Cuts

Oh the documentary is awesome!

__________________
Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

I still reckon The Warriors has one of the worst director's cuts I've ever seen. Walter Hill said the movie's style was originally inspired by both Greek mythology and comic books, so the new cut takes that inspiration and makes it jarringly literal. There's the prologue that explicitly compares the titular gang to ancient Greek soldiers but it feels completely redundant. That could be ignored, but then a large number of scene transitions get stylised to look like comic book panels, as seen below.



The addition of all these flashy effects that look like they were made by running the film through a basic Photoshop filter just help to trash the film's gritty low-budget vibe and they ruin some otherwise taut editing. The fact that it's the only version of the film that's available on DVD anymore is especially annoying.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I would love to see director's cuts from more comedies. You so rarely see director cuts of comedy films for some reason. I did see the director's cut of THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and it sucked, but I can't believe they would all suck...I would love to see director's cuts of:

FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH

BLAZING SADDLES

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF

THIS IS SPINAL TAP

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

BEST IN SHOW

SMALL TIME CROOKS

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

STEP BROTHERS

I hated Donnie Darko's director's cut...it pissed me off even more that it's the one I bought on DVD instead of the original version (stupid me). It was really dumbed down and gave too much away - didn't trust the viewer to do their own research or go through multiple viewings to figure out what the movie was trying to say.

__________________
It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...

Completely agree. I own that version too and it was mediocre in comparison to the haunting mystery of the original. What was originally an enigmatic and poignant combination of John Hughes-esque teen angst and humor with quirky sci-fi thriller elements exploring serious questions using themes of mental illness, faith, free will and personal responsibility, parallel worlds and smurf sexuality was altered in the DC to emphasize an explicit and silly superhero-saves-world story. Whereas in the theatrical cut that interpretation was exactly that: an interpretation, one of many that should have been left to viewers to decide.

I cared far more for the DD of the original who was alienated, struggling with emotional (mental?) problems, and the film was focused more on that rather than absurdly over-emphasizing the "Superman/Jesus" metaphors and literalizing them. It essentially made official canon out of things that worked best when merely suggested, thus destroying the major appeal of the film for me.

__________________
#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

I thought the Redux version was interesting but the scenes were ultimately unnecessary and even overkill when considering AN as a whole. They'd be better as separate deleted scenes to be watched apart from the film itself.

Really enjoyed Tropic Thunder and will look for the DC version.

DONNIE DARKO was aggravating enough in its original version, I don't know why anyone would want to see a director's cut.

I'm going to a screening tonight of Apocalypse Now, the original theatrical cut. I definitely prefer it to Redux. Some of that additional footage was fascinating to see, especially in Hearts of Darkness, but re-inserted into the film, I don't think it really adds anything, and just winds up slowing down the narrative.

Attachments

 

__________________
"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Has anyone bought the special edition, criterion cut, 89 disc super-cut, platinum book, gold disc, ethereal edition silver cut of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King extended super-mega-cut edition...cut?

In general, most of these so-called "director's cuts" are completely unnecessary. It became a marketing angle after the popularity of DVDs really exploded.

A true director's cut is necessary only if there was interference, for some reason, that caused not just compromise but drastic steps be taken. If a disgreement with the stuido, a distributor, or with a ratings board had a film significantly altered against the director's wishes, yeah, obviously a "director's cut" would be restoring it to the original vision. Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, and Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time in America are all prime examples of movies that legitimately needed director's cuts. Peter Jackson designed the Lord of the Rings films to play in shorter cuts that the distributer and theater managers could live with, knowing, in the age of DVD, the fuller adaptations he was going for could be presented afterward. OK, that's legit. But when every other film added a deleted scene or two for the DVD release and called it a "director's cut", I mean, that's just dumb. "Extended version", yeah, fine. Still it was almost always unnecessary, but at least properly labeled.

I'm all for deleted and alternate scenes being included as supplemental material, but when they go back, especially if it is many years later, and change it simply because they can then call it a "director's cut", nah, I hate that.

The only recut or extended version of a film that I think wasn't any good is oddly, the first Hobbit movie. The LOTR original extended versions added a lot to the movies, making them better. The extended Hobbit though, was a just a few extra lines of dialogue and it's far too easy to tell why they were removed, they added nothing.

I thought for a bit I might not like the fast and furious 5 or 6 extended films but they were great when I finally watched them.

I don't think director's cuts really work all that well when it comes to comedy. The main purpose of comedies is to make an audience laugh so it's better to keep them relatively short and consistently funny rather than space the jokes too far apart and drag the whole thing out. There's also the question of quality control. If the filmmakers don't reckon a joke is worth putting straight into the theatrical cut, then is it really good enough to be shoehorned into a director's cut?

That being said, I do kind of want to see the four-hour-long bootleg version of This Is Spinal Tap I heard about.