I know it has probably been done before, but this question by RickJay got me thinking:
So as not to hijack that thread, I thought I’d make this one. 
So, what do you think? Any examples?
For myself, as stated in the previous thread, I think the “international version” of Leon: The Professional is a significantly better movie.
The extended Fellowship of the Ring was better than the theatrical version.
I came to say this one. Also the Daredevil extended version is better, if only in the sense that a toothache is better than a broken ankle.
Me, three. I thought the longer versions of all three LOTR movies improved the experience.
The Hobbit? I’m betting not so much.
The extended version of The Highlander is better, too, if more obscure.
Terminator 2 and Aliens.
I’m of two minds about the longer cuts if the LoTR movies.
On the one hand, it is always nice to have, simply, more of stuff set in this very visually appealing universe.
OTOH, the trilogy as a whole suffers ‘as movies’ from a certain amount of bloat. Adding more makes it even more bloat-y, without changing the actual plot much.
There are two plot-significant extended scenes in Aliens as I recall:
We see Newt’s family were the ones sent to check out the crashed ship (at Burke’s prompting) and her father was the first one to get facehugged. Horrific and all, but the plot significance of the scene is a minor element mentioned in passing - the colony kids like to play hide-and-seek in the ventilation system and Newt is particularly good at it. This helps explain why she managed to evade the Xenos for so long and how she was able to guide Ripley and Hicks through the ducts before the explosion separated her from them.
The Robosentries were a nice bit of gun-candy. Their use explains how the Xenos got cut down from ~150 to a mere dozen or so for the later scenes, cut down even further by Gorman’s grenade, and reduced to the Queen and two guards for the bit where Ripley and Newt find the nest. Ripley kills the guards (and the nest) leaving only the Queen, and apparently one facehugger whose existence won’t be revealed until the next movie, but I’m okay with ignoring that and it looks like the writers of the upcoming reboot are okay with it, too. We don’t need an explanation why the Xenos’ numbers get reduced - we could just assume that ~100 of them are off in the distance somewhere and couldn’t get back in time when the marines arrived - but screw it; the more graphically-splattered Xenos we get to see, the better.
One of the versions of Blade Runner that’s not theatrical. Usually the 2007 cut.
Some people like the Watchmen directors cut, as it adds back some backstory and the Black Freighter.
Alien3 has a “better” version out there, the Assembly Cut.
It also shows that the Xenos are likely intelligent. They stop attacking before the ammo ran out, showing they were aware of the futility of the attack. It shows they weren’t “animals”. And they can cut the power, man!
I agree with the Cameron movies and the Lord of the Rings film. I’m certain that Terminator 2 got edited for time rather than for artistic reasons, and the extra scenes 9especially the “head operation” scene, which was tricky to set up) definitely add something to the film.
Besides Terminator 2 and Aliens, Cameron’s The Abyss works better with the Global Tidal Wave scene intact.
In many cases, the films as the directors wanted them, rather than in line with Studio head’s requirements, are a better conveyor of the vision he had – the release cut isn’t necessarily the best cut. And the Director’s Cut isn’t always longer. Bladerunner, without the voice-overs, is infinitely better. Richard Donner’s original cut of **Superman II ** (which only became available years later on DVD) is better than the studio version.
The “director’s cuts” of the silent films The Lost World and Metropolis have only become available in recent years on DVD, and are infinitely better than the studio-cut versions that had previously been available. But films were stupidly abbreviated in the US, and it’s good to see them in their original glory.
Well said.
Natural Born Killers
I meant to write Watchmen Ultimate Cut…
I also think The Final Cut of Bladerunner is better.
Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven gains quite a bit. The theatrical version certainly felt like it had been edited down too much.
I have to disagree wrt to Bladerunner. I miss the voiceover and I think the movie suffers for its loss.
I was going to say - I have the director’s cut and the separate release of Black Freighter, was only dimly aware that a combined cut existed.
I’d nominate The Abyss. It’s easy to see why the theatrical cut omitted all the evil Russki stuff, but adding it back in along with the greater story development makes a winner. (I just wish they’d release it in HD soon. The non-anamorphic original is substandard.)
Fully agreement on 2, along with Just Asking Questions points.
For point one , I think the limited plot significance / explanation of how newt knows her way around the tunnels is offset by the detraction to the film of explaining up front how everything got to where it is at the colony.
OK we know there will be lots of aliens, it is the title of the film, however in the original I liked how we slowly discovered, along with the marines and ripley, how FUBAR things had become, and how sleezy and criminal Burke really was.
For sure the movie is not exactly a complex mystery with critical plot points given away, but newt knowing the ventilation shafts didn’t need explanation and the movie telling us things the marines and ripley didn’t know up front slightly detracted from the story. In my humble opinion.
Also in Aliens extended, there was a small scene in the very beginning where Ripley is told her daughter grew old and died while she was in hypersleep. It adds a lot of weight to her decision-making involving Newt.