Director's Cuts

[Havok]

Are there any out there that really make a movie better?

I just read up on the Troy DC and while reading and putting it into context, I do remember it being considerably different, but better?

Bladerunner is another that immediately comes to mind. Better? Different tone for sure, but better?

Then there is Star Wars, the only DC that I can think of that actually makes the movie worse.

So anyway, what else is out there and what are your thoughts on the various DCs and different levels and varieties of them.

[DaveJB]

Touch of Evil is probably the most famous case I can think of where a director's cut was noticeably better, though that's largely because of how horribly the studio butchered the initial cut. The director's edition of Star Trek TMP was also quite a bit better than the original theatrical version, even if it still wasn't really that good overall.

[Stark]

I think there's a big difference between a good movie being changed (maybe for the better) by new or changed clips, and a crap movie being 'saved' by one. If Aliens had sucked would a few shots of huge 80s laptops have made it all ok?

It's just a marketing thing now anyway, because the needs of theaters and home viewers are different.

[Lord Revan]

The director's edition of Star Trek TMP was also quite a bit better than the original theatrical version, even if it still wasn't really that good overall.

that probably cause the Orginal Cut of the Motion Picture was an insomnia cure, while the Director's Cut just has dreadfull slow pacing.

[Flagg]

Well there are also 2 kinds of directors cuts. The Peter Jackson 7 hour long version made by self indulgant assholes and the "totally changes what the entire movie is about" made by directors who got pissed at studio dickery. Look at 'The Abyss' DC for instance.

[Stark]

Once upon a time directors cuts were cuts made by directors, and not another DVD to buy. Stuff is sometimes cut for length or tone or whatever (like the Aliens stuff, or the T2 stuff) and sometime's putting it back can be good. Sometimes it can be bad.

Other times its just a need to release another Blade DVD to make money. :v

[JLTucker]

All I can think of are extended cuts that directors don't consider their better cut. So, I can't say I've seen any that are better than the theatrical cut.

[Havok]

Touch of Evil is probably the most famous case I can think of where a director's cut was noticeably better, though that's largely because of how horribly the studio butchered the initial cut.

Oh nice call. Yes, this one goes in the + column.

[Havok]

Yeah, Flagg, that isn't a DC, it is a Theater Cut for time vs. a DVD cut for fans with lots of time. Not that same thing.

[Thanas]

The Troy DC was a lot better because it had a lot less "RAH RAH TOUGH GUY" emphasis and put the emphasis more on baser human motives, which I liked. It also tried to fix a lot of the saga butchering.

A great DC is Kingdom of Heaven. It probably is the DC par excellence for me as it transformed a somewhat middling movie into a great one. it added a lot of character work which actually helped explain the different motivations.

[FaxModem1]

Daredevil, it took what was a fairly weak movie and made it quite salvageable and showed a much better and deeper story.

[Rogue 9]

I second Kingdom of Heaven. The theatrical cut removed a lot of establishing scenes, so actions taken by the characters later seem completely without reason, the major examples being Sybilla's mourning and self-imposed penance (since her son was completely cut from the theatrical version) and Godfrey's nephew's behavior towards/attack on him on the road at the beginning (since all reference to them being relatives was similarly removed). The director's cut is just an overall better film.

[xt828]

Kingdom of Heaven's DC completely changed the film for me. IIRC the DC of Gladiator added a fairly decent political plotline in, too. The other ones which spring to mind is the DC of Lethal Weapon, which adds a sequence of a shootout in a schoolyard which establishes Riggs as both wanting to die and movie accurate, and the DC of Chronicles of Riddick, which makes it a watchable popcorn scifi.

[DaveJB]

I remember a lot of people saying that the director's cut of Donnie Darko "ruined" the movie, though in truth I didn't think it make the flick better or worse. From what I recall it was pretty much the same movie with with a few new scenes added and other scenes shuffled around.

Once Upon a Time In America was another film that got chopped up and butchered by the studio and had to be re-released later on in its proper form... though in that case I think Sergio Leone's cut was actually released in Europe first, then had its running time practically chopped in half for the US release, so I don't know if it really counts.

Part of me wants to see Paramount finally give William Shatner money to fix the effects and produce his director's cut of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, just so the world can say to him, "Nah, this film's still a shit sandwich, you just absolutely suck as a writer and director."

[Stark]

DD DC added yknow, stuff that made the plot exist... but the plot was stupid so it didn't really improve the film.

[Flagg]

Donnie Darko made me want to kill myself. And not because I thought it was a bad movie.

[wautd]

I loved the DC from Aliens, if only to get to see/hear a bit more on Colonial Marine's hardware (sentry guns, nukes and pointy sticks)

[JLTucker]

I loved the DC from Aliens, if only to get to see/hear a bit more on Colonial Marine's hardware (sentry guns, nukes and pointy sticks)

There is no Aliens director's cut. There's the theatrical version and the special edition.

[DaveJB]

The special edition is the director's cut, for all intents and purposes. It's the one Cameron wanted to release in cinemas, but the studio thought it was too long and chopped a bunch of footage out to create the theatrical version.

[JLTucker]

The special edition is the director's cut, for all intents and purposes. It's the one Cameron wanted to release in cinemas, but the studio thought it was too long and chopped a bunch of footage out to create the theatrical version.

Well, I'm going by what's on the BD case for Aliens. It says "Special Edition" while Alien says "Director's Cut." It's not a DC in my book. Cameron worked on the remaster of the BD. If it was his director's cut, he would have made sure the BD advertised it as such.

[Zeond]

I have to agree that director's cuts are good things. Yes, many of them are released years later to make money out of a film that gained cult status but they mostly do what they say they do and let the director release their version of the film with less studio meddling. For example, lets take a look at films like Brazil and the already mentioned Blade Runner.

The theatrical versions of both films suffered heavily from studio interference to the point where they are cut for time and the endings are changed to happy endings. In the case of Brazil, it ends with Sam and Jill driving off into the sunset to live happily every after but Gilliam always intended for the ending to be a sad one with Jill dead and Sam basically brain dead but lost in his happy fantasies after torture information retrieval. The Battle of Brazil: Terry Gilliam v. Universal Pictures in the Fight to the Final Cut goes into much detail over the various versions of the film and the cuts made by Universal to shorten and change the film completely.

Same thing with Blade Runner. Studio meddling led to the insertion of horrible voice overs which spoiled the film and took out most of the drama and the ending voice over changed the ending from ambiguous to positive. The voice overs are so bad that the general perception seems to be that Harrison Ford intentionally botched them during recording which he claims is completely false and he read them as given and to the best of his ability.

In the end, studios will not change their practices since they want to maximize sales and they mostly go by what their tests audiences show them which leads to changes made to improve the film from the studio's perspective. Until those practices end, director's cuts will be necessary.

[Melchior]

Depends on the level of butchering that happened in the original release. I think that you americans originally got a pretty terrible version of The Leopard, for example. The theatrical cut of Wenders' Until the End of the World was very disjointed while the revised one is a vastly better movie, if extremely long.

[Omeros]

The Wicker Man DC (the 1973 original with Christopher Lee, not the Nicolas Cage comedy version) is a huge improvement. The cinematic version is just an incoherent mess; the DC is a quite watchable, if somewhat eccentric, horror/suspense film.

[Elfdart]

I'd recommend the restored version of Major Dundee. Strictly speaking, it's not a Director's Cut since it was released almost 20 years after Sam Peckinpah died. However, the movie was reassembled based on what he fought with the studio over before he was fired and the film was taken away from him. Best of all it has a new score more in keeping with an epic Western/Civil War film.

It's the last Peckinpah movie that doesn't feature his trademark slow motion bloody squibs. It also includes his usual stock players: James Coburn, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, Warren Oates, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor et al, and surprisingly good performances from Charlton Heston and Richard Harris, who for once don't overact (compare the Chucker's performance with the godawful one he did a year later in Khartoum -if you dare watch that Cleveland steamer of a movie!).

This site has a good review of the film, though I don't agree with some of it. It includes this synopsis:

Sitting out the war as the jailer of a Union prison stockade in Eastern New Mexico, Amos Charles Dundee (Charlton Heston) seizes upon a local Apache massacre to ignore his assignment and launch a search-and-destroy mission into Mexico. Having already lost many troopers to the the Indian chief Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate), Dundee is forced to augment his command with local thieves and drunks, promote his black cavalrymen to active status and make a deal with the leader of his Confederate prisoners, the cavalier Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris). It's an all-or-nothing gambit; Dundee will either find his Apache quarry and come home a national hero, or return empty-handed and face the wrath of military superiors who already see him as an untrustworthy glory hound. Either way, he'd be wise to avoid the thousands of French troops that are also in Northern Mexico, harshly suppressing the revolution of Benito Juarez.

The restored footage adds more emphasis to the tension among the different factions under Major Dundee's command, an important plot point. It also emphasizes early on that one of the reasons Dundee, a cavalry officer, was made a warden of an Army prison is because he's willing eager to get his own men slaughtered for his own glory.

Unfortunately a good chunk of what Peckinpah wanted to include can't be restored because it was never filmed: Columbia slashed the schedule by a third and the budget by two-thirds after Peckinpah started shooting. I despise remakes in general, but this is one that might work.

[Connor MacLeod]

Highlander 2: Renegade version. Best remake ever.