What “Director’s Cut” or “Special Edition” are better than the theatrically released version? And what ones are worse?
For instance, the only DVD I can find of “The Blues Brothers” is a version with added scenes, and it’s painfully obvious why they were cut. They slow the movie down, and pretty much stop the film for a bit. I’d prefer seeing the theatrical cut that moved better, and was much more funny. And Francis Ford Coppola pretty much ruined one of my favorite films “One From The Heart” by re-editing the film for DVD release.
On the other hand, some extended editions work beautifully. The Director’s cut of “Almost Famous” called “Untitled” is wonderful, as are the extended editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Alexander isn’t a great movie in any version. But, the director’s cut released for Blu-ray is the only one that is even remotely watchable. Since the movie uses a lot of flashbacks, Oliver Stone has rearranged many of the sequences in the director’s cut to make the movie easier to follow.
Blade Runner while both were great the DC was a definite improvement
Aliens, the DC added some great footage and background info without really slowing things down.
Hell I saw a DC (sort of) of Alien in theaters that had Ripley find Dallas and another crewman strung up in Alien Goo like we see in the other films I thought that was amazing but havent seen it in any other versions.
There’s at least two extended cuts of Aliens that Cameron oversaw. One isn’t bad, the other completely runs the movie off the rails by revealing the colony almost immediately making the first hour of the film completely pointless. Yes the audience knows the buggers are going to show up eventually but showing us a few ineffective scenes of the colony being overrun and then going back to the marines who spend a lot of time wandering around in the dark saying, “What’s going on here?” undercuts the dramatic tension.
Similarly the extended ending on the Abyss is horrible. It gives me the impression that Cameron is fine when he goes with his first instincts for a theatrical cut but when he goes back he loses sight of the film’s structure.
I’m not sure I can think of any movies where the actual director’s cut was worse. Usually they are better or no worse.
I will agree that versions which include scenes that were removed from the cinema release are usually worse, but an extended cut isn’t the same thing as a director’s cut. For instance, the extended version of Terminator 2 pretty much just added in all the special effects that simply hadn’t turned out realistic looking. Putting those back in detracted from the experience quite a bit.
Would you count the Star Wars special editions as “director’s cuts”? They’re reworked films which according to the director (of two of them at least) are his intended version.
Labeling on releases has muddied the waters quite a bit since the early 90’s (“Now with images too intense for theaters!* *Addition footage is twenty-two seconds in length”).
You mentioned Francis Ford Coppola. I’d like to second his nomination. I felt Apocalypse Now Redux was a much, much worse movie than the original Apocalypse Now. Of course, maybe I just object to messing needlessly with a classic. I’m looking in your direction too, Mr. Lucas.
I could not disagree with you more. The T2 director’s cut added some really interesting stuff. Most crucial was the plotline of Arnie’s chip being set in write-only mode so he couldn’t learn new things, John wanting to switch it, and Sarah wanting to destroy the chip once it was outside his head. This also made other parts of the dialog make more sense (in particular, “See, are we learning yet?”).
The thing you seem to be talking about is that in the factory fight at the end, after the T1000 was frozen and blown apart and reformed, it gets a bit glitchy and starts accidentally copying everything it contacted. That was how John was able to distinguish it from his actual mother. I personally thought the effect of the steel floor with the diagonal hash pattern moving onto and off of the T1000’s legs was fantastic. And there’s a tiny little bit of it left in the regular cut which makes no sense out of context. (Also, I really like the idea that even a piece of technology as impressive as the T1000 suffers SOME ill effect from being frozen in liquid nitrogen and blown to smithereens.)
All of that said, I can see someone making the argument that those scenes, while interesting, are a sideline from the main plot.
In any case, the one director’s edition that I’ve seen of a favorite movie that I really thought make it worse was Amadeus. Basically every cut scene was a boring drag, and whoever cut them all was right to do so.
Han Solo shooting first in the original Star Wars, later renamed “A New Hope” was reedited so that he didn’t shoot first. The reedit is just awful. It decapitates a scene that establishes a character as very dangerous to simply stupid waiting for the other guy to shoot him first.
Kingdom of Heaven was much better as a Blu-Ray DC. It made far more sense and developed the plot and characters more naturally. The subject matter made the long sit tolerable.
I definitely prefer the Director’s Cuts of Peter Jackson’s films (The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, King Kong).
I disagree with the posters about Cameron. I like his extended editions more than the released versions, especially Terminator 2 (which I don’t think has been mentioned yet). I’ll grant that you don’t need the colonist scenes in Aliens, although they didn’t bother me as much as it did the folks above. And I definitely like the other parts that were restored. And I actually liked the added scenes in Abyss
I’d like to see a Director’s cut of David Lynch’s Dune, but we’ll never get it.
I liked the director’s cut of Blade Runner, which got rid of the unnecessary (and terrible) voice-over exposition, and ended right as the elevator doors closed with Decker and whats-her-name in the elevator, among other changes.
I can’t remember- did one of the director’s cuts of Aliens go into Burke telling Ripley that her daughter died during the 57 years she was drifting through space? I always thought her attachment to Newt was stupid without that knowledge.
The extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy were far superior to the theatrical releases.
I like the director’s cut of “Fatal Attraction” better because it’s not the happy ending for Michael Douglas’ character. Obviously Glenn Close’s character is a wackadoodle, but he doesn’t deserve his little happy world to stay intact.
As has been mentioned, the extended versions of The Two Towers and Return of the King were better than the theatrical versions.
I for one liked the theatrical release of Blade Runner better than the Director’s Cut.
Well I’ll go ahead and be the first (or <gulp!> only person to say that Ridley Scott ruined Blade Runner with his DC. The original, which was finally released on DVD late last year, is far superior to the unnarrated DC.
Blues Brothers was ruined, Highlander DC sucks (although some of the added scenes are good, overall they just slow the movie waaaaaaaaaay down), and George Lucas did indeed ruin 3 of the greatest sci-fi films ever made.
But, the DC of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels is slightly better and more coherent than the original, T2 was slightly enhanced, and Ridley Scott made Blackhawk Down an even more compelling and phenomenal movie with the DC.
For the most part, IMO, there are good reasons that stuff is left out of the theatrical version. The scenes are usually not funny (in comedies, eh), slow down the pace of the story, or are so unnecessary that at some point it was obvious that leaving the footage in was only going to appeal to the director (and someone prevailed upon them to leave it on the cutting room floor).
ETA: Oh sure. RikWriter posted while I was typing. At least I’m not alone on the Blade Runner thing.
The Redux wasnt really a DC so much as a chance for us to see all that extra footage that got cut, and I agree that the final cut was a much better movie. in the Redux there was a lot of humor and some really long dragged out scenes that just went nowhere.
Guess I’ll be the first in with Brazil. Gilliam made the movie and the studio didn’t like it and asked Gilliam to go back and trim it to 120 minutes per contract. He sent it back trimmed to 131 from 142 but refused to go further. The studio refused to release it and asked for the footage to recut it. The original managed to get released after a publicity campaign by Gilliam.
The studio (or Sid Sheinberg) had it recut to the complete opposite of the ideals of the film. It’s called the ‘Love Conquers All’ version, and is not very good, but is fascinating to see the difference between the directors cut and the studio cut (94 minutes).
The Criterion release contains both versions of the film.
