I watched Butterfly Effect last month and found it fairly decent. I have a movie watching ritual where I go to IMDB after watching a film and go through all the Trivia and Goofs, etc and go over the cast to figure out “what else that guy played in.”
Anyway, I was reading through the Trivia for the movie, and it made me think that either the Trivia was written backwards, or I saw an alternate version of the movie.
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[Spoiler]
In the version I saw, the movie ended with Evan going back to the party where he first met Kayleigh and telling her he hated her and if she ever spoke to him again, he’d kill her family. Based on the version that I saw, he says this because she admits to him (in the time frame where she was dating Lenny) that the only reason she stayed with her father instead of moving with her mother was because she wanted to stay near Evan. So he revises the past to make sure that she doesn’t make that decision. Movie closes with a clip of him walking past her in some large city and both of them stopping at looking at the other (but not at the same time) for a moment.
The Trivia section implies that the ending is Evan committing suicide as a fetus, and that there was some other scene thrown in to justify this.[/Spoiler]
So did I see some weird alternate version? It was in South Africa, on a Pay Per View type channel, so I don’t know if that plays into it at all.
IIRC, the one you remember was the one released in theaters. There was another ending, and I believe they changed it after screening audiences reacted badly. I think you can watch it as an alternate scene type-thing on the DVD
The wombicide scene is in the director’s cut of the movie, the standard cut has the first scene. Personally, I liked the alternate scene/cut, yeah it was physically impossible and ridiculous but it seemed to tie up so many more of the endings than the other one. Also I just prefer director’s cuts in general because they’re how the movie is really supposed to look. But to each their own.
I don’t know if I agree with that. I remember an interview with a director where he was commenting on how he wasn’t into the whole director’s cut fad because he felt that getting a movie released in theaters was the pinnacle of making a movie, and all the baggage that is involved in the process plays a legitimate purpose.
I tend to agree with that guy, and would paraphrase the sentiment to liken a director’s cut of a movie to a manuscript of a novel before it goes to the editor. Sure, it might be the artist’s true vision, but editors exist for a reason and serve a useful purpose. I think the whole studio process serves a similar benevolent purpose.
This attitude, of course, was formed when I realized (to my horrible dismay) that my DVD of True Romance – possibly my favorite movie ever – was the director’s cut. BAD BAD BAD!!!
To address the OP, I saw TBE a couple months back on cable and saw the version you saw. When I was talking to my buddy about it, he mentioned that he’d seen it in the theaters, with the goofy fetus ending, and one day a coworker of his rented it. When they were talking about the ending, my buddy thought he was going completely insane, because they both saw different endings and neither had a clue that the ending was changed after the theater release.
Excluding the role of the editor in making a movie is like excluding the roel of the screenwriter, or the actors, or, for that matter, the director. It’s preposterous to state that the editor serves no purpose in the creation of a movie - but that’s pretty much what a “director’s cut” states.
I’ve yet to see a “director’s cut” that wasn’t inferior to the theatrical cut.
That’s my guess. In theory, I kind of like the concept - a little more research has shown me that in the fetus ending, he finds out that not only his father, but also his grandfather, were both thought to be crazy for the same reasons. He also finds out his mother had 2 stillborn births before he was born. Somehow he is able to flash back to being in the womb (he has memories of being in the womb?) and decides to off himself from the get-go. It’s apparently about then where his mother is heard saying that she had 3 stillborn babies before “you”, and it turns out that she’s talking to her daughter - presumably safe from the affliction since she’s female. So the intimation is that Evan had 2 brothers before him, all with the same “gift” who all eventually took the same route and took themselves out of the picture in-utero.
Actually, I guess that is a pretty silly idea too.
Glad to see this thread, as I also just watched this on Starz. I understood the part where he tells the girl he hates her when they both met, but here’s my question:
What’s up with the 7-year old’s picture of him with a knife? Did he have a chance to change the picture by going back in time? What’s its significance? Or is it part of a deleted scene/storyline?
Well from other sites I saw, they said it was somehow related to the later prison cell flashback scene, but it never did make much sense to me. First of all, it seems to me to be a major plothole - if he did something that drastic, you would think it would have seriously altered the course of his life. Why not just use a pencil to poke himself in the hand by accident? I guess it is supposed to be a picture of himself killing Tommy. Because the picture is what started the journal incident, and the blackouts represent periods of time where he is mucking around from the future, maybe it was his way of ensuring that he kept the journals, making it easier to remember the things he needed to remember later?
I dunno, thinking about that too much makes my head hurt. It’s awfully circular.
The version I saw had that ending, him killing himself in the womb. Personally I liked it as it tied up everything nicely and I’m not entirely sure how the other ending would work. Did they leave the scene with the fortune-teller out?
As for it being ridiculous I’ve been asked to accept stranger things in a movie.
Yes, they did cut that scene out in the theater version. And I agree that version ties things up much better, since the “happy” ending saves the girl but does nothing about his “curse” for the rest of his life.
And I hardly think a board of Hollywood fatcats trying to make as much money as possible by appealing to the lowest common denominator is going to make a better movie than a director at least trying to create art. (Yeah, the editor decided to shoot an alternate ending. As if.)
The director’s cut of The Abyss is far superior to the theatrical cut, mainly because the theatrical cut completely eliminates a crucial motivating factor in the whole story. Also the director’s cut of Lawnmower Man was way better, but that’s a damn cheesy movie to begin with.
What? The director’s cut of True Romance is definitely improved. The final scene at the producer’s place is vastly better than what was pictured without it.
I didn’t like the womb ending, I’d seen this movie in the theaters when it was released and again on DVD when someone who was over my place wanted to see it. I think the womb ending is a major let down. When I want to not watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” I just don’t watch it, that simple.