Director’s Cuts

Topic

Let’s see how far we can go before the movie re-shoot that rhymes with Rider Butt is mentioned in here

So … alternative cuts of movies. What are the best? What are the worst? (I mean, apart from the Star Wars edition where Greedo shoots first, I think that’s universally agreed.) On a favourite movie re-watch, would you always watch a director’s cut in preference?

I’ll kick off discussion with the most unnecessary director’s cut ever: Aliens. The extended version doesn’t add anything essential to the story, and I’d argue that is dilutes the suspense by explicitly showing the scenes with the colonists right at the start. Rewatching Aliens now, I would never pick the director’s cut.

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It took me far too long to figure out what rhymes with Rider Butt. For a minute there I was wondering what was going on with Elmer Fudd.

I think most director’s cuts become an exercise in adding more for the sake of adding more, leaving the movie bloated and a less interesting watch. The Donnie Darko cut is a prime example as the ambiguous paranoia of the original release is diminished by ham-fisted attempts to explain what’s going on in a rather ham-fisted way. Hell, it even made the soundtrack worse.

There are a few exceptions, I suppose, like the Daredevil movie. It has been a while since I saw it but I remember the director’s cut feeling more like the Frank Miller comics, downplaying the Jennifer Garner romance scenes and establishing the character of Matt Murdock far better than the original release. Still not a great movie but certainly a far better version of it.

DavidM wrote:

I’ll kick off discussion with the most unnecessary director’s cut ever: Aliens. The extended version doesn’t add anything essential to the story, and I’d argue that is dilutes the suspense by explicitly showing the scenes with the colonists right at the start. Rewatching Aliens now, I would never pick the director’s cut.

I agree about the scenes on LV-426, but I like the sentry guns. Is “doesn’t mean we’re engaged or anything” in the original cut? There’s definitely a new scene between Ripley and Hicks, I seem to recall. And I like that we find about about Ripley’s daughter, too, but you’re right in that none of the new stuff is essential.

I’m sure someone will argue in favour of the Watchmen director’s cut, but they’d be wrong – anything that adds more Snyder to the world is a Very Bad Thing.

I often find with Cameron’s movies that I enjoy the Special Editions (I think he avoids the term “director’s cut”) a lot, but more as an expansion of the world that we have already seen in the regular editions.

They’re often less tight and focused than the regular additions, but after watching those and loving them and wanting to learn even more about the characters and story, I enjoy the expanded versions.

So in T2 for example, you get scenes that are not essential but which I like seeing – the Kyle Reese dream, the chip reset, the expanded scenes in Sarah’s hospital, the Max/Wolfie bit, more of the Dyson family, the T-1000 glitching.

And I like all that extra material. But at the same time it’s not necessarily the “best” version of the movie, and it does kill the momentum in places (there’s a stretch in the middle of the Special Edition where the T-1000 drops out of the movie for about 40 minutes).

I could say similar things about Aliens, The Abyss and Avatar. If I was sitting down to watch them now, I’d choose the longer versions, but I wouldn’t necessarily have enjoyed them as much if they had been my first exposure to these movies.

I would probably say the same for the likes of the LotR Extended Editions, or the longer cuts of Donner’s Superman films, or many others.

Some director’s cuts are shorter, though. I think that with Alien, Ridley Scott actually tightened it up a little. I don’t think I really noticed the difference, which probably means he did a good job.

One of the few films that I think is just a better movie in the revised version is Alien3, and even then it’s not quite a full Director’s Cut but a best-guess assembly of a movie that was messed with by the studio, so not quite the same thing.

Brazil is another similar situation – the Director’s Cut is an attempt to bring it back closer to the director’s original vision for the movie. Blade Runner and The Shining too.

Maybe the lesson here is that the best director’s cuts are the ones where it’s more about the director being able to undo interference in their movie by others, rather than second-guessing their own original cut and thinking they can improve on it (see also Star Wars, Donnie Darko, and countless others).

Steve Sensible wrote:

And I like that we find about about Ripley’s daughter, too

I must have seen the Director’s Cut of Aliens only once, because in all subsequent viewings of the film I was haunted by the vague remembrance of a scene acknowledging that Ripley had a daughter, which explained her attachment to Newt. Glad to know I didn’t imagine it after all.

Dave wrote:

I would probably say the same for the likes of the LotR Extended Editions

The LotR extended editions are the reason why DVDs and Blu-Ray were invented. One of my fondest holiday memories is of watching the entire collection in one 10-hour marathon with my adult daughter the day after Christmas.

Somewhat related is the Godfather Saga that was composed of the first two films, re-edited with added scenes and re-cut into chronological order to be watched on broadcast television over a series of nights. I remember watching it in that format first and really being fascinated by it. Then I saw the original films in their original format; much better, and deserving of their respective Best Picture Oscars.

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Ben, Todd

njerry wrote:

I must have seen the Director’s Cut of Aliens only once, because in all subsequent viewings of the film I was haunted by the vague remembrance of a scene acknowledging that Ripley had a daughter, which explained her attachment to Newt. Glad to know I didn’t imagine it after all.

Yeah, they basically explain that the last time Ripley saw her daughter she was about Newt’s age, but she subsequently hyper-slept through her daughter’s entire life while she drifted in space. It’s not actually required in order to explain Ripley’s maternal instinct towards Newt, but it adds a little something extra.

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Todd

There are seven versions of Blade Runner.

I like the Final Cut.

[lorcan_nagle]

I’ll definitely go to the mat for The Abyss and Aliens.  In the latter the Hadley’s Hope section at the start reduces some of the tension for when the Marines get there, but I’m pretty sure you don’t go into a sequel to Alien expecting there to be no aliens when they get to the place that’s gone off the net.

In the Alien franchise, Fincher’s work print of Alien3 is far superior to the theatrical cut.

I’ll also second Blade Runner, the work print/Director’s Cut and the Final Cut fix the movie in a similar way to Alien3

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by lorcan_nagle.

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Sean Robinson, Todd

Does the director’s cut of Alien 3 actually make it a good movie? Cos that seems like a pig’s ear/silk purse situation to me.

Steve Sensible wrote:

Does the director’s cut of Alien 3 actually make it a good movie? Cos that seems like a pig’s ear/silk purse situation to me.

If you’re not invested in the overall story, you probably won’t enjoy the workprint, it’s the same plot after all. But there’s a lot of alternate takes and additional scenes that add context, character motivation and better explain what’s going on at points in the movie.

I haven’t watched it in quite some time but I remember really liking it when I did.

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Todd, Steve Sensible

Steve Sensible wrote:

Does the director’s cut of Alien 3 actually make it a good movie? Cos that seems like a pig’s ear/silk purse situation to me.

It’s not a Director’s Cut, as Fincher wasn’t involved, and has probably never even seen it. It just uses his notes to change some things he disagreed with the studio on, like giving Paul McGann a much bigger role and making the animal an ox instead of a dog.

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lorcan_nagle, Steve Sensible

paul f wrote:

Steve Sensible wrote:

Does the director’s cut of Alien 3 actually make it a good movie? Cos that seems like a pig’s ear/silk purse situation to me.

It’s not a Director’s Cut, as Fincher wasn’t involved, and has probably never even seen it. It just uses his notes to change some things he disagreed with the studio on, like giving Paul McGann a much bigger role and making the animal an ox instead of a dog.

IIRC it’s even referred to as the Assembly Cut in the home video releases

DavidM wrote:

Let’s see how far we can go before the movie re-shoot that rhymes with Rider Butt is mentioned in here

Well it’s not out yet, so that’d be hard to talk about it… Oh but, btw, even if it was out, I honestly don’t think it’ll be just a DC in this case… they’re literally turning it into a new project for premium TV, so…

That said, most of Snyder’s DC/EEs are better since he just puts back everything that was cut from the movies for theatrical lenghts’ sake. The one exception would be the Ultimate Edition for Watchmen… it’s probably better to go with the Director’s Cut on that one, because the UE has the Tales of the Black Freighter inserted in, and while the insertion was well made, it honestly doesn’t really add that much to the movie, it just doesn’t fit.

Other than that: Kingdom of Heaven’s DC is REALLY good… it makes it a much much much better movie.

I don’t really watch many films more than once so I honestly don’t think I can make a comparison on a single film. I saw the final cut version of Blade Runner last year but since I hadn’t seen the original since a VHS copy in 1987 I couldn’t really tell you the differences.

I should make a Ted talk with this insight.

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Todd, Dave

Just to provide an example of a bad one, A Good Day to Die Hard Director’s Cut manages to make a bad movie even worse, extending the russian chase scene and cutting Lucy McClane completely from the movie. That is an accomplishment on itself.

 

 

 

 

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lorcan_nagle

lorcan_nagle wrote:

I’ll definitely go to the mat for The Abyss and Aliens.

I definitely prefer the extended/Director’s cut of Aliens, yet it’s a great movie with just what I saw in the theatres.
Either way it’s a top 10 (5?) movie for me.

The Abyss can only be watched in it’s extended form.
I remember my brain hurting in the theatres trying to make sense of what I was watching.
The Special Edition made so much more sense. A vast improvement.

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Dave