The original release of 1776 cut the best song from the stage musical; “Cool Conservative Men”, but it has been restored in recent decades. Not sure if you’d call that a director’s cut; but it’s certainly an improvement.
There are a few other changes - there’s at least one short added scene, and they changed the opening – as released, there were credits over Adams descending the staircase. But the original cut had the credits at the end. The released soundtrack reflects that, with the credit music at the end. But it wasn’t until they released the proper version on DVD – with the restored cuts and the “Cool Considerate Men” number – that we saw all of that.
Leon: The Professional. Actually, there’s a directors cut, and an extended edition, which was originally only released in Japan. You tend to get Extended edition nowadays (though I think some DVD editions held both).
The problem with that film is that people guessed the plot wrongly in advance, and assumed the worst. The Extended cut has a bunch of scenes which might have reinforced it, so they didn’t want to effectively ruin the reputation of the movie in advance, by a bunch of lunatics who had not seen the film (like Life of Brian).
The extended edition is kind of for fans though, you wouldn’t lose a lot if you saw the straight directors cut (which is better than the theatrical), the extended is kind of for fans and doesn’t flow as well, with 20 odd minutes more.
It’s like the LOTR movies. I’d tell people to watch the theatrical first, and if fans, watch the extended cut.
On a different vein, some films, like Eraser was cut to ribbons for a UK release for a better rating. You can get a european dvd with the full amount (like the crocodile scene was cut out). Not a directors cut, well, kind of, just the UK one wasn’t called that.
Mentioning the Donner cut of Superman II because I am a bit shocked it hasn’t been dropped yet.
In this age of streaming, I really miss DVDs/Blurays with lots of extras. My wife and I would watch the movie, she’d go to bed, and I’d be up til the wee hours devouring Commentaries, Director’s Cuts and Extended or Deleted Scenes.
So I’ve had that experience of “Well, I can see why they left THAT out. It would’ve hurt the pacing/characterization/whole movie.”
THIS was the first DVD I watched with a commentary… by Roger Ebert*. One of the first things he said was to fast forward through the spoiler and “start watching when the lightbulb is swinging over the bathtub.”
So glad to learn that Alex Proyas got to do a Director’s Cut. I’ll be watching that ASAP.
*side note: I watched Ebert’s commentary (with a lot of history of film, especially film noir) on my first laptop. At 2am on a red-eye flight over Canada with the northern lights ribboning around the plane. The flight was almost empty, so when I whispered “This is like Film School In A Box”, there was no one hear.
…the director’s cut of Daredevil makes a definitely not good super hero movie into a decent super hero movie. I think it’s worth it if you wanted to like the Daredevil but just couldn’t, this will make it easier.
I’m going to disagree, that scene was maybe the important addition. It gives a very concrete motive for Mozart’s wife to despise Salieri. In the theatrical cut her open animosity when they are working together seems a bit disconnected from anything that had gone on before. I’d even argue the nudity, while uncomfortable, added to it because the very discomfort drives home Salieri’s humiliation of Constanze Mozart.
I wonder how many of you who prefer later versions of Bladerunner saw it upon the original release. I did. And I didn’t know anything about it, but it had Harrison Ford on the poster and he was prime hero at the time. I didn’t know it was based on the PKD book (which I hadn’t read, but I’d read others by him)
I hate all the tinkering and retconning Scott has done to this movie over the years. It cheapens my experience, which was amazing. It’s as if he’s saying: Oh, but that’s not what I really meant. Here, buy this VHS/DVD with extra special everything but no narration, for the full and true Bladerunner experience.
And to address the two most common complaints. The narration is perfect for the tone of the film. It’s made as a classic film noir (check Rachael’s hair-do), if film noir had been invented in the early 21st century. The shadow play, the light streaming in bands through blinds, the woman in the center of the mystery. Who is the bad guy, really. And as with any film noir, a voice over from the jaded detective is de rigueur. If this wasn’t Scott’s intention, why all the nods and winks to classic film noir?
As for the ending? Sappy, happy? Ambiguous if you ask me. I walked out of the theatre not thinking about a happy ending. It was left unresolved. As for Deckard being a replicant. Bullshit. More retconning.
I can’t help feeling all these other versions have simply been cash grabs. The movie was not a success on release.
The director’s cut of Bladerunner is a much better Work of Art. But if I had not seen the theatrical version, I am not certain I would have understood what the heck was going on. For us rubes, the narration helps.
I’ll second this one, too. The released version of Superman II is far inferior.
This is what I came in to say. I enjoyed The Abyss but was slightly confused by parts of it. The DC cleared it up nicely.
I’ve mentioned this before here, but I saw a version of Bladerunner that was even more unique. The projector broke down, ate a few feet of film, and by the time they got it running again, we’d missed a big chunk of Tyrell’s conversation with Deckard…
… the part where he reveals that Rachel is a replicant.
So a hundred of us left the theater wondering, not if HE was a replicant, but if SHE was. The final voiceover saying that none of us know how much time we have together was much more intriguing… do they have forty years together? Or a tenth of that?
We actually got coffee afterwards and talked about how human she was… or wasn’t she? There were clues pointing each way.
So, yeah, I saw an alternate cut that Ridley Scott didn’t even know about…
I am surprised no one has mention the Special Editions of the original Star Wars trilogy.
OK maybe I am not because I know how polarizing they are among hardcore Star Wars fans but I actually enjoyed them.
There are some things I like about them (e.g., the improved, more dynamic (CGI) spaceship shots in the Death Star battle), but there are enough things I don’t (e.g., Greedo Shoots First, too many additional background critters running around in Mos Eisley, swapping out Ghost Anakins at the end of RotJ) that I didn’t mention them as “worthwhile” for this thread.
And how about the ghost Kenobis? I mean, seriously, a cat!? When was he ever a cat? That crazy old George Lucas…
He was always a cat…from a particular point of view. 
I saw Bladerunner in it’s original release and the most stunning thing about it was what great performers Hauer and Hannah were. Surely, they had bigger careers ahead of them than old stone face Harrison Ford.
I enjoyed them because it was another opportunity to see the original trilogy in a movie theater. None of the changes (even who shot first) got me riled up, nor did they particularly excite me.
True, my kids got to see the original trilogy on the big screen!
And it was great to see land speeders hovering normally without clay-colored blobs underneath them (I originally pictured them blurring out Luke’s feet as he piloted them like Fred Flintstone).
No strong recommendations. Directors cuts that I have seen:
Terminator 2
Added a scene where they removed a chip from his head that suppressed his emotions. However, the special effects in the scene simply didn’t look good and detracted from the storytelling. Likewise, they had some extra special effects of the bad guy turning into various things, unintentionally, that - again - didn’t look realistic and detracted from the storytelling.
In general, the extra story element wasn’t strong enough to balance the second rate special effects.
Leon / The Professional
Adds a fair number of scenes of Leon and Mathilda, where she tries to seduce him and some others of them having fun together.
While interesting, it wasn’t clear to me that the seduction scenes really changed anything and they felt more like scandalousness added for the sake of scandalousness than anything. Portman was too young for it to really make sense in the story and, for just that reason as well, nothing really happens. It’s not clear that it should make your interpretation of the movie any different than it already was.
The happy fun stuff, to me, just seemed to clash with the tone of the movie.
Overall, I’d put it as a bonus edition of the movie, for fans, rather than the best version of the movie. I like that it exists and appreciate having seen it but it’s not the version that I would show a person who had never seen the movie.
Bladerunner / Dark CIty
Narration at the beginning of the movie.
No narration at the beginning of the movie.
I’m not sure that it really makes a large difference either way.
Das Boot
Longer is better.