CUT! A discussion of films with different cuts on blu-ray... (1 Viewer)

[bigshot]

I generally like the original theatrical cut. Brazil, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now... I like the restored Hammer Dracula, but those restored scenes are very brief.

 

[larryKR]

Payback (1999) starring Mel Gibson is a unique example of two different cuts of a film. The director Brian Helgeland was taken off the film by Paramount and Mel Gibson who was also the producer, and then years later they gave Helgeland the opportunity to construct a new director's cut. There are many differences including dropping characters,different scenes and takes,different score, and a different color grading. It's been many years since I've watched this film, but I think I prefer the director's cut over the theatrical. Actually both versions are good.

 

[cinemiracle]

Films are often 'cut' for cinema release in order to get a lower classification. Generally they are uncut when released onto dvd.

 

[Les Mangram]

There was a time when British films suffered massive cuts when released in the US. For example, the well regarded "Ice Cold in Alex" (1958) which ran 132 minutes became the 79 minute "Desert Attack" when it crossed the pond!

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Films are often 'cut' for cinema release in order to get a lower classification. Generally they are uncut when released onto dvd.

I'm not sure what percentage of films are cut after submission to a ratings board. I'm sure there are some but these days probably far fewer than there were in the past. There seem to be far fewer attempts to make R rated films now than there was in the past. Now I think the goal is more to shoot for PG-13 because those films tend to bring in more traffic than R rated material. In a sort of strange set of circumstances it seems you can portray all kinds of violence in PG-13 rated films but little sex or nudity and I think they actually do a word count on naughty words and only allow you so many. Most of the PG-13 films do not even attempt any nudity or sexual situations because they don't care about that. They want to get away with blowing up as much stuff as they can.

When they prepare a cut to send to a ratings board now they know exactly what they can have in it and what they can't. So, I don't think there is any issue with films being cut for ratings these days and the truth is probably 98% of the films released today are not attempting any sort of boundary pushing. Huge difference from say the 1970s when so many films were attempting to push the boundaries with what they were showing or portraying and making R rated films was a normal occurrence.

It's funny I have seen some recent discussion about what Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk is rated, it got the preferred PG-13 rating which I guess upset some folks, but I sort of laughed wondering what 13 to 16 year old children would be looking forward to seeing a WWII film about a British incident probably most adult Americans are not even aware of. It does not seem like a film 13 to 16 year old kids are going to want to rush out to see. I guess the concept is parents with kids that age can now drag their children with them to see it...probably while they complain they would rather see the new Marvel movie.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

The overwhelming number of films that have been made available with more than one cut are films made from the 1970s going forward. It does seem many directors active in the 1970s have gone back to change their films. They seem to really enjoy going back to tinker.

Micheal Mann has now done at least three cuts of his film Ali. The most recent blu-ray being his shortest but now preferred cut of the film.

So, another question I have is with films you enjoy do you collect all of the different cuts or just stick with your preferred cut if you already own it?

 

[Jimbo64]

I liked the recut "54" much better than the original

 

[David Deeb]

Generally, I'm fine with a movie's original version. For the most part, all the other versions do is lengthen a film.

"Donnie Darko" was one of my favorite movies for a while. When the Director's Cut showed up years later, I couldn't even finish watching it. Very important songs & music were completely replaced. It totally changed the feel of these scenes & not for the better. Additionally, many other scenes were just completely shuffled around, while other, bizarre (RE: indulgent & artsy) scenes were added. I stopped watching halfway through because it was ruining what I had enjoyed. If the director really felt this other, terrible cut was his preference, then I started to wonder if the original film was just a happy accident.

The Donner Cut of Superman II is an interesting viewing experience. It's worth it for the sheer bulk of previously unseen Reeve & Brando footage. There's so much, it felt like a totally "lost", unreleased movie. It falls apart in the end, but I'd still recommend any fan to watch it at least once. But I'll always reach for the original, theatrical Superman II when I will watch this film in the future.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

There seem to be two almost mutually exclusive groups of Donnie Darko fans.

One group has people who love the theatrical version but despise the director's cut. They feel that the value of the movie comes from it having open-ended questions and being able to bring your own interpretation to the story.

The other group might like one version better than the other, but believes that writer/director Richard Kelly was telling a specific story that wasn't really meant to be open to a vast number of differing interpretations, that Kelly had a specific idea, and enjoy the movie for its exploration of that idea. I'm definitely in this group.

The thing about the theatrical version is that it's entirely a compromise. The director's cut represents his original intent, and is very close to what premiered in the film festival circuit before the film was picked up for distribution. The distributor then insisted on cuts and changes, and the rights to certain songs weren't able to be secured, so alternate music choices were substituted. Kelly had a very specific idea of what his movie was about. By removing certain scenes, it obscures the story he's trying to tell, and might make it seem that it's up for interpretation, but it's really not.

But for example, David, when I see you posting that the director's cut has different music which changes the vibe - the thing is - the music in the director's cut were the original choices, and the film was originally shot and edited to the songs in the director's cut. It's only when they weren't granted the right to use those songs that they picked the ones used in the theatrical cut. As far as my opinions go, the song used in the opening montage in the theatrical and the director's cut both work, but one is objectively more correct than the other.

I find it interesting that more people seem to like this movie when it can mean what they want it to mean, rather than it meaning what the director wanted it to mean. (To take an extreme example, there's a critic named Jim Emerson from Roger Ebert's website who has been obsessed for years with the idea that the movie is really about Donnie having an unrequited sexual obsession with his sister, and absolutely nothing will dissuade him from holding and sharing this bizarre opinion as if it were fact.) When the movie is overtly presented as a science fiction story with a definitive beginning, middle and end, with specific plot points having specific meanings, a large percentage of this audience's fandom seems to go away. When the science fiction elements are obscured, more people like it. I don't know if that's a coincidence or a reflection of an unconscious bias against sci-fi that some people seem to have.

 

[Konstantinos]

i generally prefer theatrical cuts but i wanted to say this:
it's a crime when only the extended cuts are available on bluray!!!

(Amadeus, JFK, Nixon, The Patriot etc.)

 

[Dick]

I'm not always sure. Apart from the upgrade from SD to HD, is the cut of Heaven's Gate on the Criterion BD considered universally to be superior to the cut on the DVD?

Oh, God YES! The longer, director-preferred cut makes more sense. Plus, the film has been re-timed under the supervision of Michael Cimino so that, rather than looking yellow and brown throughout, it now has a much more naturalistic color scheme. I can sit through this film on video, finally.

 

[cinemiracle]

i generally prefer theatrical cuts but i wanted to say this:
it's a crime when only the extended cuts are available on bluray!!!

(Amadeus, JFK, Nixon, The Patriot etc.)

The Director's extended cut of LION has just been released in Australia cinemas. Will this be also on the forthcoming bluray release.?

 

[Dick]

None of Spielberg's tinkering has surpassed the original theatrical cut of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. Sorry but I didn't need to go inside the Mother ship. My imagination was far better than what Spielberg showed us.

Agreed. That whole "Special Edition" crap was a waste of my money both in the theater and on laser disc (at the time). Additional millions spent to give us a rather pointless light show inside the ship. Whoop-dee-do! And Spielberg removed a bunch of the funnier sequences from the 1977 release, such as Dreyfuss tossing half of his back yard through a window into his home. I think his eventual Blu-ray is the definitive version. It relegates the worst of the "Special Edition" garbage to the deleted scenes section of the disc and keeps the best intact (the ocean liner in the middle of the desert, the shadow outline of the ship from above as it follow Dreyfuss' truck along the highway, the press conference in which Dreyfuss endures much ridicule, to name some cool examples). It re-incorporates the best of the original cut, re-organizes a few scenes, tightens the pace and flow, and I, for one, hope he never touches it again.

I feel I now own what I personally consider to be the "definitive" versions of a number of films on Blu-ray in the wake of numerous attempts by directors to tweak them for various editions. Among those I now want left alone (except for 4k HD editions) are: Above-mentioned CLOSE ENCOUNTERS; BLADE RUNNER; DARK CITY, DANCES WITH WOLVES, THE NEW WORLD, KWAIDAN; BOCCACCIO 70; ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA; LAWRENCE OF ARABIA; NAPOLEON (unless more "lost" footage is recovered); dozens more.

Blu-ray is and has certainly been a boon for purists and general film aficionados for many years, and, although catalog titles are lately migrating from their studios of origin to "boutique" labels, I don't see any end to this on the immediate horizon.

 

[Dick]

I'm not sure what percentage of films are cut after submission to a ratings board. I'm sure there are some but these days probably far fewer than there were in the past. There seem to be far fewer attempts to make R rated films now than there was in the past. Now I think the goal is more to shoot for PG-13 because those films tend to bring in more traffic than R rated material. In a sort of strange set of circumstances it seems you can portray all kinds of violence in PG-13 rated films but little sex or nudity and I think they actually do a word count on naughty words and only allow you so many. Most of the PG-13 films do not even attempt any nudity or sexual situations because they don't care about that. They want to get away with blowing up as much stuff as they can.

When they prepare a cut to send to a ratings board now they know exactly what they can have in it and what they can't. So, I don't think there is any issue with films being cut for ratings these days and the truth is probably 98% of the films released today are not attempting any sort of boundary pushing. Huge difference from say the 1970s when so many films were attempting to push the boundaries with what they were showing or portraying and making R rated films was a normal occurrence.

It's funny I have seen some recent discussion about what Christopher Nolan's film Dunkirk is rated, it got the preferred PG-13 rating which I guess upset some folks, but I sort of laughed wondering what 13 to 16 year old children would be looking forward to seeing a WWII film about a British incident probably most adult Americans are not even aware of. It does not seem like a film 13 to 16 year old kids are going to want to rush out to see. I guess the concept is parents with kids that age can now drag their children with them to see it...probably while they complain they would rather see the new Marvel movie.

The 5-person ratings board is about as logical and consistent as a Salvador Dali painting. There is a cool film about these shrouded people entitled THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED. I recommend a Netflix rental.

 

[Richard V]

I think the Director's Cut of Aliens is superior to the theatrical cut.

 

[cinemiracle]

Oh, God YES! The longer, director-preferred cut makes more sense. Plus, the film has been re-timed under the supervision of Michael Cimino so that, rather than looking yellow and brown throughout, it now has a much more naturalistic color scheme. I can sit through this film on video, finally.

I saw HEAVEN'S GATE on it's first day in 70mm in NYC. There were very few people in the audience. I was bored to death and the film only lasted a couple of weeks before it was taken off and later re-edited.I never saw the shorter version so I can't comment on whether it was a better version. I understand that it was only ever shown in 35mm after it's NYC 70mm engagement. I could be wrong.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

I saw HEAVEN'S GATE on it's first day in 70mm in NYC. There were very few people in the audience. I was bored to death and the film only lasted a couple of weeks before it was taken off and later re-edited.I never saw the shorter version so I can't comment on whether it was a better version. I understand that it was only ever shown in 35mm after it's NYC 70mm engagement. I could be wrong.

It played a total of 6 or 7 days in that premiere length in NYC, I saw it on the last day at the first matinee with about a 3/4 full house. The audience was giving it a mixed, though respectful, reaction. 'Critic' Rex Reed was at that same show and when his review was published the next day it was full of lies claiming that people were yelling at the screen and throwing popcorn boxes at the projection booth window. The shorter version was also blown up to 70mm for its April 1981 release at the Astor Plaza in NYC.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

I guess we need a new category for that...

Cut that I was in and then got cut out of! AKA The I was screwed! Cut

That happened to a friend of mine who was working at the Grand Canyon when they shot the movie Grand Canyon. Apparently, they shot a bunch of scenes in and around the place he worked, and he was all excited when we went to the movie, but it ends just as the characters arrive at the Canyon.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Hm, that reminds me, I still haven't watched Donnie Darko. But how will I decide which version to try?!?!?!

 

[Will Krupp]

The shorter version was also blown up to 70mm for its April 1981 release at the Astor Plaza in NYC.

It certainly was, but the Astor Plaza seems like the only venue willing to take the plunge!