Movie Theater Best extended / director's editions

[clyde]

I thought we might profit from a list of extended or director's editions of movies which are worth watching (again) - versions that represent real improvement.

I'll start with:

Exorcist, Blade Runner, Kingdom of Heaven, Troy, the Dragon Tattoos, Gladiator, Dark City, Das Boot, and Donnie Darko.

Clyde

 

[Limedust]

Terminator 2; some of the additions in the director's cut were pretty useful and some interesting. The T1000 examining Wolfie/Max's collar was actually worth seeing, I thought.

 

[SquarePizza]

Leon: The professional

The international/directors cut version shows a LOT more of the dynamic between Leon and Matilda.


Any of the LoTR movies, the directors cut versions add literally hours of extra footage to the story.

 

[Dogtown]

All of Cameron's films are like that, full of entire plot points that were cut from the theatrical version. "Aliens" is a good example, with an entire sequence showing the colonists finding the eggs and the use of sentry guns to fight off the aliens. "The Abyss" is yet another one where the extended version tends to wrap up the entire story much better and fills in lots of gaps that were created in an effort to shorten the film. And PJ is definitely in the same vein. I came back from my post-Hobbit vacation in January to find my inbox full of work emails relating to the extended version of the film we just put out.

 

[k20350]

Kingdom of Heaven.......... Almost an hour longer and completely different story almost. I love this movie. It makes a shit load more sense in the DC. Also it is hard to find but the DC of Payback is almost a different movie than the theatrical.

 

[Sean the Nailer]

The two that stand out for me, are "The Abyss" as well as "Leon". Both of those Extended versions really changed and added to the context of the originally released movie.

This simply tells me that (Editors?) aren't really good at their jobs. Either that, or it's someone else who's making the BAD decisions.

 

[Dogtown]

This simply tells me that (Editors?) aren't really good at their jobs. Either that, or it's someone else who's making the BAD decisions.

Honestly, editors are just doing what they're told. Directors and producers ultimately drive the process, tasking editors with making changes. Some directors are crazy hands-on like James Cameron and Michael Mann, pretty much micro-managing the editing process to get exactly what they want while others are much more "broad strokes" about it, giving the editors more leeway in setting the pace of the film. The movie studios and the producers of the film will generally try to contain the film to meet certain requirements and often can overrule the director in the end. The director's cut of "The Abyss" has lots of little parts added back in, but also profound sequences that alter the film significantly. While Cameron may have wanted his version to be released in Aug 1989, he ultimately couldn't have because the film had would have had a 3 hour running time and the final wave sequence couldn't have been realized in time. It's worth noting the final sequence was completed by ILM (with their new CGI advancements coming off of T2) specifically for the director's cut laserdisc release. So to cut the running time down he trimmed lots of little unnecessary bits but also entire plot points. He did the same thing with "Aliens", feeling the resulting film was more cohesive if he selectively removed entire plot points versus just arbitrary snippets here and there.

Something similar happened with "Leon", in that Besson's cut has too long and the movie studio wanted him to trim it down to a more reasonable length. So instead of lots of little cuts here and there, he trimmed parts that felt redundant, like the training sequence and the first jobs together. It's a general rule that people are turned off by long movies, even though some of the highest grossing films in history have been 3 hour epics. They also eat into the bottom line for the movie studios, with 3 hour movies limited to fewer screenings daily. Of course that hasn't stopped some directors to get what they want, but for the most part unless you're a well established director/producer combo, the two things the movie studio will restrict you on is budget and running time.