TV Versions of Films that are Much Different from the Theatrical Versions (1 Viewer)

As many people know back in the past, television versions of films were radically different from the theatrical versions. Anyone have any good examples of this. I'll start.

Halloween II - It is essentially a recut of the film. Scenes are totally re-sequenced, significant amounts of deleted footage is added, most of the blood is gone, a few disapperances of charaters are completely unexplained, different takes of scenes are used, and there is an alternate ending. The old TV version is actually quite a different film.

Poltergeist. It's not all that different in the TV version, but versions shown in the mid 80's had an alternate "face ripping" scene. The first couple of shots are the same when Marty starts to pick at the lesions that appear on his face, but the drops of blood in the sink were recolored to appear brown. At the shot where he would have really started to tear into his face, it is replaced by his face covered in some brownish muck and his eyes are whited out to give him a zombie appearance. It is actually almost equally creepy, but probably not seen since the 80's

I'll add a couple:

"Honey, I Blew Up The Kid" has many scenes that were never in the final cut, but they are mainly extensions (or filler) of scenes that were actually in the movie.

"Spy Hard", the film with Leslie Nielsen, actually changes a great deal with its TV version, with a couple of deleted scenes that end up making the movie almost different, like for instance, Dick Steele always had the chip, and Miss Cheevas, played by Marcia Gay Harden, was the one that stole it from him, which makes the kidnapping of the professer later make a lot more sense.

I'm sure there are more, but they've completely slipped my mind.

The video was about the same, but TBS really messed with the dialogue in The Matrix. "Holy smoke" just does not fit the character or the scene, thank you very much.

Another film that was significantly changed for TV was Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Plenty of scenes were added or extended.

There was a version of The Road Warrior that was butchered, recut, redubbed and scenes switched around for tv.

The best has to be Jay's lines on the TV version of Mallrats. I'd estimate that 90% of his lines are dubbed by a guy that sounds nothing like him. Classic stuff.

Another good(bad) dub was on The Rock a few years back when Nick Cage says "How in the name of Zeus's butthole did you get out of the cell!" The dub was like "How in the name of Zeus's butt-daaaaaar did you get out of the cell!" Definitely not a word

The 1976 version of Two-Minute Warning was about a sniper shooting up a championship football game. In the TV version the sniper was just a diversion for an art heist.

Practically all the Superman movies have had extended cuts for TV. Except I believe the first one.

No, it was extended as well.

The TV version of Cliffhanger eliminates the entire subplot with the hang-gliding teenagers.

Rudy is heavily edited and time-compressed for TV and this version is disowned by the director.

I think the plot of Little Darlings was changed for TV.

That reminds me of the longer version of Dune that David Lynch Alan Smithee'd.

I was watching part of Queen of the Damned on USA Network last night, and they cut out the scene where Lestat first meets his band after he wakes up from his long sleep
and that is the first scene in the movie!

Then they cut out
the scene where Lestat catches Jesse after she takes a flight with Lestat.

Both Back to the Future and Ghostbusters had alternate versions of scenes used to replace scenes where there used to be "swear words".

I know that Michael Mann took his name off the credits of the TV version of Heat. They showed this 172 min masterpiece in a three hour time window with commercials cutting about 30 to 45 minutes of the movie.

I didnt see this but I wouldnt mind just for laughs.

They probably eliminated the whole bank heist and deamed it too violent. Took out the "great ass" scene. And had fun redubing all the naughty words.

So did "Tootsie". When ABC telecast the film they had an alternate version of the scene where Michael/Dorothy chews out the director. The theatrical cut had him/her saying, "Shame on you, you macho s---head!" (which always got a hilarious roar in the audience) but the TV version had him/her saying almost to a whisper, "Shame on you, you... macho man."

Can someone tell me the differences between the TV and theatrical version of Halloween? I've rented Halloween twice, and both times it was the "extended" TV version, because after watching it alone the first time, I wanted friends watching it with me the second time to see the same great movie that I had. I still want to see the theatrical version someday and am wondering if it's very similiar.

Here are the scenes in the extended version that aren't in the theatrical cut:

-a meeting between Dr. Loomis and two doctors from the mental (psychiatric) institution where Michael Myers is being kept
-a scene where a nurse leads Dr. Loomis to Michael's room, telling him who was supposed to have been watching the patients. Once they arrive in Michael's room, she tells him he must have broken the window glass with his bare hands. They then glance over on the wall, and see that he has written in blood the word "sister".
-a shot of Michael Myers sitting completely motionless in his cell
-a scene where Lynda visits Laurie Strode at home and borrows a blouse just as Annie calls trying to borrow the same blouse.

-ripped from imdb.

i caught this on tv a few weeks ago, and noticed that. i only watched the beginning cause i wanted to see max perlich, one of my favorite character actors, especially back then when he had that flattop, and all of a sudden, stallone was at the cabin. i went, WTF?

A number of the Universal/Charlton Heston films of the 70s
have extra footage in it. I'd love to get copies of these on DVD.

Midway's extra footage was adding a romance between Charlton Heston and Susan Sullivan and adding the battle of Coral Sea.

Earthquake added a young couple flying out to LA. The rest was I believe extended scenes in the movie.

Grey Lady Down also had extended scenes added to it.

Superman first ran on ABC over 2 nights. Among the extra footage was one scene that to my knowledge has never been seen again. Luthor had Valerie Perrine's character suspended over a lion's pit. Of course, Superman arrived in time.