Now that a deleted scenes selection is pretty common on DVD releases of movies, how many movies do you esteemed dopers think were adversely affected by editing decisions.
I am between assignments and bored to death and thus I bought the entire Star Wars Limited Edition and been watching it (which explains the deluge of Star Wars related posts made by this long time fanboy), and will start with that since its fresh in my mind.
Attack of the Clones
Looking at the deleted scenes in it, the extended Padme, Anakin interaction, the meeting with the family etc make the the romance actually believable, the romance being the main flaw in the relased cut. It thus improves the movie exponentially. And the scenes I allude to only increase the lenght by about 5 minutes. You would’nt even need to increase the overall lenght, just the culling of a few unimportant shots would do.
Revenge of the Sith
They could have kept the sub plot about the origins of the rebellion in; would have enhanced the movie, especially since in the cut scenes Anakin seems quite torn between the polictial directions being taken by Palapatine and Padme.
When I think of editing indignities, I always think of Orson Welles first. Examples abound of studio re-editing of his work, but one of the most egregious was in “Touch of Evil.”
Welles created a two or three minute long tracking shot, which is the opening scene of the movie. The camera never cuts, but fluidly moves about a variety of scenes and characters, brilliantly cluing the viewer in on all he needs to know about the story.
The studio left the shot in… but they printed the opening titles over it! Bastards. The film was hardly “ruined” but it certainly was a distraction from a major tour de force…TRM
Well, I’ve rarely seen a film where the deleted scenes were any improvement. The only one I can think of is Singin’ in the Rain. The deleted scene has Kathy Selden talking about how despite pretending otherwise, she was a devoted fan of Don Lockwood before she met him. Then she sings “You Are My Lucky Star.”
The intro is a bit corny, but the song is perfect, and ties in with the final scene, when Lockwood sings a line from “You Are My Lucky Star” to keep her from fleeing the theater.
I have to agree with RealityChuck; almost all deleted scenes are well gone. Director’s Cuts usually suck.
One film that was clearly over-edited, though, was the Orlando Bloom vehicle “Kingdom of Heaven.” The theatrical cut seemed to careen through the story like an ambulance with the brake lines cut. The version with deleted scenes restored provides a much fuller, more satisfying story.
One horrible cut is the “Love Conquers All” TV version of Brazil, produced by the studios, which among other things pulls out a full-blown happy ending (and I don’t mean the kind the original comes with).
It had no particular cadence to it. It was just like scenes strung together like a beaded necklace as opposed to having it’s own musical time. I haven’t seen it since the theater, I just remember thinking how truly horrible the editing was, that it would’ve been a good movie if it had better editing, but that the editing was so bad as to make it a bad movie. Strung together with no thought to overall composition is the best I can do.
The “director’s expanded edition” of The Last of the Mohicans is an example, and unfortunately it is the only version available on DVD in the U.S. Mann’s additions and deletions (!) mess with the flow of the story and result in a lesser film. I’m hoping they’ll release a blu ray with the theatrical version.
I agree that Attack of the Clones was ruined by over-editing. They completely cut out the scene where Natalie Portman rubs oil all over her naked body and then sucks me off, and then cooks me a Porterhouse steak with creamed spinach and German potatoes and pours me a glass of Mexican Coca-Cola, the kind made with cane sugar, and then there’s a giant battle between the Rhodesian army and the ZANU guerrillas, and King Edward IV comes back from the grave to lead the Rhodesians to victory, and then George Lucas, Hayden Christiansen and Jake Lloyd all get tied to an ape and thrown into a furnace.
The cuts in Sean of the Dead came at such a blistering pace that I thought for the first few minutes it was some sort of meta-joke.
Ditto the actions scenes in The Dark Knight, except I knew that time it wasn’t a joke. They were edited beyond comprehension. I guess perhaps it could’ve been the director’s fault if he didn’t actually shoot any action scenes and the editor pieced together a bunch of nonsense (which was the impression it gave), but if this wasn’t the case, Chris Nolan should be pissed at whoever mutilated his film.
Not really ruined as such, but once you notice how extremely short the clips of Armageddon are, it’s pretty dstracting. Especially once the action scenes in space come into place, then it’s just chop chop chop.
Okay, before you think I’m strange for bringing this up, remember I have kids. OK?
Right.
Herbie: Fully Loaded.
Bear with me. In the movie as shown, Maggie wants to race but her father, Ray Sr, doesn’t want her to. His motivation, as revealed in the movie, is that she reminds him of his dead wife and he can’t bear to see her killed. (Son Ray Jr, on the other hand, doesn’t look like his mom and therefore is more expendable? :dubious:) Okay, not the best motivation, but it’s a kids’ movie, so standards are lower. And the viewer can understand Maggie’s motivation for wanting to race: she’s a thrill-seeker. But why doesn’t Ray Jr want to continue the Great Payton Racing Dynasty? All we’re left with is the fact that he sucks at it. Ray Jr looks like a total loser.
I watched the deleted scenes on the DVD with my younger son, and lo and behold, Ray Jr was a musician in the original cut! He wanted to try to make a living with his band but thought it would break his father’s heart. Um, yeah. To me at least, that completely changes the movie. Instead of Winner Sibling/Loser Sibling, it becomes a story of two young adults who are struggling to find a balance between pleasing their father and being themselves. Apparently someone, somewhere along the line decided that was too complicated for the kiddies and it was better to turn Ray Jr into a wimpy slacker.
DOGMA, which I love, is even better & makes more sense when you see Bethany asking the abortion client if she’s thought her decision through and tells her own story, AND the ‘Fat Albert’ segment in the strip club.
Watching the director’s cut of Aliens is always a mixed bag. I like the scene with Ripley’s kid and the sentry gun test. The bit with Newt’s family traveling out to the crash site always struck me as plodding and ruins the pace despite being the most explanatory of the cut scenes.
The Director’s Cut of Cinema Paradiso was appalling - extended post-love love story that really didn’t matter to the movie at all. The original studio version was a much better film.
I haven’t seen this, so I can’t comment, but I definitely would agree the latter scene sounds pointless. The nasty but heartbreaking and honestly scaryiest moment in the whole film comes when you realize that Newt ran and survived while her whole family was killed and eaten (from the inside or outside). Newt isn’t really important to the plot as such - she’s there to remind everyone that this empy colony was a place with real people who died horribly. It sets up why Ripley is perpetually pised off at the Aliens. It’s personal, but it’s not just personal.
But… showing that too obviously would tend to ruin it. It works much better when the audience makes the ugly inference for themselves.
They cut a couple of good bits out of Gladiator. There’s one right after Maximus reveals his identity, where Commodus goes downstairs into the Imperial basement or whereever and confronts a bust of his father (whom he had murdered). He starts angrily whacking at the bust with a sword and then breaks down sobbing hysterically as he cradles his father’s image in his arms. I thought leaving that in–horror and guilt at his parricide–would have given a bit more depth to an otherwise one-dimensional moustache-twirling villain.