Movies- Theatrical vs Director's Cut

[Scepticalscribe]

That sounds interesting. We know in T2, he comes back programmed to protect John Conner. Do you remember what part of the movie this happens? I suppose somewhere in the middle.



Do you recommend this movie? (And why.)



I remember trying to watch this and not liking it's style, although I'm fuzzy on that point.



I can take an unhappy ending, but admit to not preferring them. Rarely if ever do I watch such movies with very unhappy endings multiple times, but It depends on the degree of unhappiness. Some endings are unhappy, but offer kernels of hope. Other's don't, like Rosemary's Baby, but that one is a case of where the ending is undetermined imo. The Empire Strikes Back, downbeat but with hope. Another story, is Stephen King's The Mist where the book ended on a bleak note, but the movie went whole hog tragic. Vertigo, yeah profound, unhappy ending, but I can watch this and The Mist again.

I don't know if I've seen The Third Man, will try to catch it. In the spectrum of unhappy, having someone walk out on you is not that tragic, is it? Which reminds me. I need to watch The Graduate again. No comment on the ending.

The Third Man is one of my all time favourite movies: Everything about it is superb - absolutely everything.

This is what a movie should be about, character, cast, plot, story, setting, music, atmosphere, lighting, script, are all outstanding. I can't recommend it highly enough.

No CGI, no bombast, very little overt violence (but a bleak, pervasive cynicism and a dark plot based on a true story), a superlative movie.

And - for the 40s (the usual fight about endings applied - happily the studios were told to get stuffed) - part of its extraordinary power comes from that bleak ending.

Likewise, with Witness, a movie I thought excellent, and very well told; again, an excellent story, plot, setting, character, acting. It would be less memorable if the ending were different.

 

[jerwin]

I prefer the theater release always over the Directors Cut.

Isn't DC just someone's view ? and the final Cut, is just more editing .... not interested as it's often not intended for mass audience.

Yeah, that someone is the director-- the person whose artistic vision would been shown on the silver screen, were it not for the crass meddling of money grubbing producers.

(For me, a director's cut needs a good story behind it, and it needs to be a realistic vision of what might have been. It can't be a four hour extended cut, as theatres don't show four hour movies.)
[doublepost=1486226162][/doublepost]

In my opinion, the International version of Léon: The Professional is much better than the version released in the US due to 22 minutes of additional footage

Isn't she a little young for that sort of thing?

 

[robotica]

That sounds interesting. We know in T2, he comes back programmed to protect John Conner. Do you remember what part of the movie this happens? I suppose somewhere in the middle.

Here is the scene I am talking about. There was also several scenes with Micheal Bein that were added.

I highly recommend watching it

 

[Nermal]

Do you recommend this movie? (And why.)

That's a difficult question at this time in the morning!

It's certainly a polarising movie; I see that it currently has a 6.1 rating on IMDB. It's full of mindless action but also has parts that make you think. We all sat down and discussed it at work one day, so it can certainly create conversation!

If you liked Zack Snyder's other films like Watchmen or Batman vs Superman then give it a go. If you didn't like those then you probably won't like this one either. But if you do watch it, watch the extended version!

 

[D.T.]

However, in recent decades, artistic expression has sometimes spilled over into pure self-indulgence.

Great point and I totally agree. I'd say there's a number of DC categories:

- original vision decimated by studio intervention, director reestablishes their original through editing/reshoots/etc. (Bladerunner - Scott)
- original cut short due to run length, mostly inline with director's vision, dropped footage provides some improvements in plot, character motivation, continuity (T2 - Cameron)
- theatrical the best representation of the film, director adds back footage that doesn't enhance film, adds indulgent runtime / meaningless eye candy (see below)

I think one of the more interesting DC/Extended Editions to look at is the LOTR trilogy, it's already very long, so making it longer - even when it adds elements from the original source - is always tricky, but even more interesting at least for me, is how much better Fellow o the Rings is in it's DC/EC, and how the Two Towers and Return of the King are better in their theatrical cuts (especially The Two Towers).

The variant on the 3rd item above is in non-DC films where the "deleted scenes" are made available as standalone bits, and so many times (most?) it's clear why the scenes were deleted - in fact, many times where the director is narrating the removed footage, they're pretty realistic about why they chose to drop it.

I can take an unhappy ending, but admit to not preferring them.

In the case of Blade Runner, it goes from a terribly tacked-on feeling "happy ending" (theatrical cut), to something that's not an unhappy ending, just way more ambiguous (vs. spoonfed), heck, maybe the happy ending IS the ending, but that's for each viewer to decide.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

LotR is far the best DC I've seen.

I quite liked a Hallmark miniseries from 2002 on Dinotopia, and it came in a 250m and 360m versions. The former was missing a lot of crucial scenes which made it soo bad. Strangely enough, the DVD version came with 2 discs, with a version on either disc. Quite strange.

 

[AustinIllini]

I don't have a ton of input on the subject. I will say, however that the directors cut of Blade Runner is significantly more meaningful than the theatrical release.

 

[Melrose]

I agree that remastering has value. You mention reshot scenes, did this happen after the theatrical release? I know somewhere in this forum, it's been discussed before, but... my question is, for Blade Runner does the Final cut significantly add meaningful content, changing the feel of the story for the better without losing tightness in editing? I might be compelled to find the Final Cut for viewing. I wonder if streaming sites feature this version, or it might just have to be Bluray.

Well, the theatrical version was way better than the Director's Cut. I can't comment about the Final Cut. If the voiceover is there, I'll definitely watch it. You need the voiceover, Ridley be damned.

 

[jerwin]

I can't comment about the Final Cut. If the voiceover is there, I'll definitely watch it.

Trust me. It's not there. (And the gory bits from the oh so sophisticated "European cut" have also been incorporated into the body of the film. Yay!)

http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=4589

 

[Melrose]

Trust me. It's not there.

Damn!

But the 4-disc set has a ton of background stuff that's awesome anyways. I bought the set, watch edit the Director's and the Theater cuts, and stopped there.

 

[Huntn]

Well, the theatrical version was way better than the Director's Cut. I can't comment about the Final Cut. If the voiceover is there, I'll definitely watch it. You need the voiceover, Ridley be damned.

There is no voice over in the Bladerunner Final Cut. I enjoyed it a lot. The ending was neutral positive.

 

[D.T.]

There is no voice over in the Bladerunner Final Cut. I enjoyed it a lot. The ending was neutral positive.

The lack of the studio forced, tacked on voice over is orders-of-magnitude better, no contest.

Yeah, when you were saying you don't like bummer endings, I figured you'd be OK with the FC ending, I mean, it just ends sooner, leaves a little more to the imagination.

 

[takao]

another Ridley Scott movie: Kingdom Of Heaven
The directors cut is vastly superior in term of character development.
As far as i remember they even changed some motives for the theatric release.


I can't recommend the Das Boot TV Version enough .... if you have the time of course: it clocks in in at 300 minutes. I Once watched the whole thing on one evening on TV. Didn't lead to a relaxing sleep.
For the 1997 directors cut they took some extra scenes from the series version and improved the sound quality for extra subwoofer etc.

edit: oh and thumbs up to the Leon international version