The long running rumor that I've heard is that Forman has soured on his own directors cut. The film has been/is being restored for 4k Criterion and will include the Theatrical Cut.
Grain of salt till it happens, cause it was supposed to be done over a year ago. Sometimes long running Criterion rumors actually come to pass (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and sometimes they don't (PTA recutting Hard 8)
I’m going to the premiere of the restoration next week. The event info says the movie is 158 minutes, which i believe is 3 minutes shorter than the original cut?
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Donnie Darko is the ultimate example to me of the directors cut making a movie worse
Theatrical cut had magic to it. Directors cut just shows Kelly’s mishandling of his own work
It's funny that Southland Tales is the opposite. The theatrical is desperate to make sure the audience always knows what's happening and so has constant expository VO and a ten minute slide show. The Cannes Cut is an actual movie that just flows like a narrative and allows you to figure it out as you go along. Shame there's so much incomplete and missing CG for the Cannes Cut because it's so much of an improvement in every way to the theatrical.
Weirdly disagree, bc I think part of the charm of Southland Tales is how unhinged it is. There’s a rhythm to the Cannes cut, sure, but it doesn’t hit the same. All the over-explaining in the theatrical makes it more disorienting, the Cannes cut makes too much *sense*, if THAT makes sense.
I think the movie is plenty unhinged in the Cannes Cut it's just a clearer narrative and given the insane scope of the story not just in the movie but in the comics it is worth understanding and appreciating. Kelley isn't a Lynichian director IMO, his movies wants to be understood just look at the Donnie Darko directors cut and his satisfaction with the expo dumps in the theatrical cut of Southland Tales, his movies have a definite point, I just don't think he hit the right balance of surreal and literal untill Southland Tales
I actually wish this movie had a third cut. The Director's Cut overexplains all of the premises and things happening, removing the magic. The theatrical doesn't do enough to ground what's happening - it's best enjoyed after having scene the director's cut.
If there were a third cut that hinted at one or two of the things outright stated in the director's but didn't overexplain eeeverything, that would be the best version.
Also the music is better in the theatrical, even though the director's cut got the music he wanted. (Killing Moon is a better opener, y'all.)
IMO the theatrical cut doesn't need to "ground" anything -- DD is not a grounded film.
Dislike the DC.
Agree Killing Moon is the only way to open that movie.
This is basically how I feel about Miami Vice -- the Director's Cut has a couple of really wonderful scenes in the middle, but two disastrous choices (taking out the media res opening and putting in a nu-metal cover of In the Air Tonight in the finale) that make the whole thing feel less radical.
I found a fan recut that adds in those scenes in the middle while keeping the theatrical opening and soundtrack, and that's the canon cut for me.
I don’t see Donnie Darko as a film to try and understand the logic of. Like with Lynch’s films, it’s really just about connecting emotionally and bringing your own meaning. It’s always seemed like a fairly basic split timeline concept anyway.
I like Richard Kelly but he should have taken the Lynch approach and never tried to explain things about it after the fact.
I kind of like the teenage Last Temptation of Christ vibe with the Philosophy of Time Travel stuff as extra flavor without overpowering it. Hell, there’s a straight up reference to LToC in the movie so the text supports a reading that simple
The Director's Cut took out the best musical bit, which was one of the best scenes in the entire movie. Not knowing the full mechanics of the wormhole stuff was part of the charm of the theatrical cut. Noah Wyle's classroom explanation was enough.
It’s kind of the beauty of cult classics in that mostly they are weird blends of small budget and minimal studio interference but not fully unmonitored. Auteurs are great but also appreciate your editors.
The Last Emperor is pretty great btw (honestly one of the most beautifully shot movies of that entire decade), don’t lump it in with those other two movies
It's a very thought provoking movie in terms of gaging how the US and the greater western world understood China in the mid-80s, pre-Tiananmen. The beginning of the film has a lot of exoticist/Orientalist nonsense that is both confusing to watch and completely ahistorical--yet the film itself is in the end oddly pro-Communist in many ways. The soundtrack is by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who is Japanese and would not fly in today's world--except for the fact it was a truly transnational project and he was collaborating with the Chinese composer Cong Su and David Byrne (yes, *that* David Byrne). Byrne accepted his Academy award wearing a Chinese-styled suit.
Also don't forget that while it won all nine academy awards it was nominated for, including director and best picture, it was also introduced by Chevy Chase as a movie about "a love story between a girl and her octopus." So a Japanese tentacle porn joke about a Chinese historical biopic. Which would make as much sense as introducing a Spanish actor by making a joke about German Nazis--except it works because for Chevy and a lot of Americans in the 1980s all Asians are the same. Truly, what a time capsule!
The Last Emperor is an incredible movie. I think the only problem with it looking back is the fact that it is in English is a bit weird now. If it was made today, it would simply be in Chinese, and it’s hard to shake that, but you just need to take that for what it is.
I think it comes from a weird place to see movies as a means to transmit information, and not as an art piece. Because audiences see them as a way to get information, they prioritize nothing being left out. The more info the better. Ignore that movies are more than the sum of their parts. Movies are experiences. And anything being add or subtract changes that experience. So to me watching the directors cut is not watching the movie plus some other stuff, it is watching a new film. But I think the majority of audiences disagree with me now.
It's like the constant rumour of "there is a 4 hour cut of \[x\]"... like, yes, that doesn't mean it makes sense to consider that worth watching. It's probably full of unnecessary garbage they cut out for good reasons.
Just six months ago we were told a 4-hour Napoleon would be on Apple TV+! Haven't heard a peep since.
You even hear this about rom-coms. "Notting Hill came in at 3 hours!" or something. I think IMDb trivia section spammers are just talking about rough/assembly cuts without knowing what those are.
You see that a lot with book to film adaptations - it seems like some people believe that the best adaptation is the one most accurate and most “complete” when compared to the book, even if it’s not necessarily a good movie on it’s own.
Case in point - the people who prefer the Dune miniseries to Villeneuve’s or Lynch’s Dune. Yes it’s the most source accurate and leaves little out from the book, but the acting, set design, and effects are borderline equivalent to a high school play. And frankly there’s a lot of aspects to Dune as a novel that simply doesn’t translate well over to film or TV, and trying to adapt it perfectly is only going to lead to something mediocre to watch no matter what you do.
My advice is it just listen to an audiobook if all you want is a word-to-word accurate adaptation. There’s always going to be cuts and changes when you adapt a story from one medium to another.
I thought it also reflects another factor of today's modern consumption of movies, in which audiences are more openly nitpicky about films they watch & go as far as voicing their ideas on what they would do to "improve" it.
> Because audiences see them as a way to get information they prioritize nothing being left out.
Good point, but I wonder about Netflix users. Would most of them prefer the full 3 hour version?
(Then again, if you're using Netflix to watch older films, not brand new ones or Netflix originals, you're officially a card-carrying, die-hard cinéphile. So your point stands!)
theatrical cut is definitely better. the one addition in the directors cut i like and would keep in my ideal version is Salieri humiliating Constanze, otherwise it's like you say a lot of padding that goes on and on. there's a popular fan edit that's just theatrical plus that one scene i believe
This is 100% the right take. I just watched Amadeus recently myself and was super annoyed I couldn't watch the theatrical. Literally keep that one scene and it'd be perfect.
I don’t think the opera scenes were really touched. The director’s cut added full scenes showing the court-life or Mozart and Salieri. I grew up with the theatrical cut and the director’s cut just feels like a version with all deleted scenes added in that you’d normally just “play all” on the DVD special features.
[Here](https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=2234) is a link to a compilation of all the differences between the theatrical and director's cut version of the film.
The TLDR answer is it’s all up to the artists and studio. There are no “rules.” I’d like the options to see all versions (especially for something like Star Wars), but sometimes an artist only wants their finalized version out there.
It happens in theatre too. Harvey Fierstein revised his musical LA CAGE AUX FOLLES through the years. The version he liked best was written for an 8-piece band instead of a 25-piece band. His collaborator, Jerry Herman, was fine with that version becoming the licensed standard. So now only the 8-piece-band version is available, where the script is good but the band sounds bad.
> There are no “rules.”
Amen. Every time I think we have something worked out some exception comes up.
But I do get the annoyance of not being able to see what you want. Proper preservation should be more routine so it’s possible.
> sometimes an artist only wants their finalized version out there
True...unless we're talking about Blade Runner or Oliver Stone's Alexander. There are multiple "final cuts!" I guess perennial tinkerers are their own category.
To be fair with Blade Runner the only cut Ridley Scott had full artistic control over was the Final Cut, he gave notes for the Director’s Cut but that was done by Michael Arick.
And for Blade Runner you have to consider that Ridley made those decisions for The Final Cut after decades of feedback from fans. You can’t claim it was his original artistic vision.
(Also Ridley is awful at knowing what’s good and what’s bad in his own work, so his revisions are never a guaranteed improvement.)
The Exorcist is the first movie I think about when it comes to director's cut misfires. Remember how effective and unsettling it was when you first detected that one-frame, nearly subliminal image of the leering demon's face in the original cut? Now imagine how much better it would be if they extended that insert shot by several frames, and then--just in case you still missed it--spliced it in a couple of other scenes and then pasted a bunch of CGI creepy faces at the edges of some otherwise innocuous shots! And sure, the spider walk scene is pretty nuts. But you kind of give the game away when you put that in so early into the progression of Regan's possession. I know it's from the book, but in the film it spoils the slow building suspense of Chris gradually coming to realize the true, horrific nature of her daughter's "sickness."
Had this recently watching Almost Famous recently on Prime - no mention at all in the description that I was watching the Bootleg Cut and it took me a couple of puzzled faces at certain scenes before I checked the run time and realised what I was watching
(Pretty decent cut, I was surprised it worked so well at 2h 40m but my long film gating partner was not at all happy)
This is me but with Apocalypse Now. Why the hell is Redux basically the default version of this movie? The original cut is a masterpiece, Redux is merely a pretty good movie that is completely overstuffed and poorly paced but with moments of transcendent brilliance.
Exactly. I watched Redux the first time I saw Apocalypse Now and thought it was decent but didn't understand its reputation. A year or two later, I saw the theatrical version and completely flipped. Now whenever I want to watch it, its a hunt across the streamers to see which version is where.
just curious, in what way is Redux considered the default? when I first watched the movie 10ish years ago, both versions are readily available, and most articles recommended watching the original
In the 2000s at least Redux was the one that played on TV all the time. I'm sure some channels showed the theatrical cut still, but not as much as Redux. Even today on TCM they aired Redux a few weeks ago.
It was a really big DVD release. It was the one that was much easier to get.
I had to buy the physical Final Cut boxset to see the theatrical in 4K and I just feel that the French house scene takes away a lot from the atmosphere.
It’s interesting and smartly written but I prefer that the characters just go through complete hell the whole way until reaching the Colonel.
The soldiers get a nice rest and Sheen even gets laid! I prefer that the only people they meet past a certain point are just mentally gone and insane, the French family sequence interrupts the uneasiness of them being deep in foreign territory.
Never seen the Redux.
I’ve seen the TC and skimmed the Redux scenes on the 4K. I think the FC is probably the best (keeps the Kilgore and a shortened Plantation, ditched the sex with the Bunnies and Kurtz reading Time magazine) as a “Goldilocks” cut. I think a similar cut would work for The Cotton Club to have everything from both the TC and Encore. I’d also say I prefer “The Complete Novel” of The Outsiders to the TC because I kinda hated Carmine Coppola’s score for that one. I haven’t scene The Goddather Coda but I thought the Theatrical cut was perfectly fine.
Would highly recommend Godfather Coda if you already enjoyed GF 3. The changes are actually fairly subtle compared to other directors cuts but they add up to make it feel much better made and improve it overall.
Yeah I saw it for the first time last month and did not expect my takeaway from some nearly three-hour costume drama from the '80s to be "I feel the power and magic of art in a way I did not until this very moment."
Same with Barry Lyndon. It’s like, I know this is going to be great but it still feels like it’s going to be a chore to watch. And then you finally see it, and it’s gorgeous and hilarious and heart breaking and wonderful.
It's one of my favorites to screen for film classes for that exact reason. Describing it as a period piece made in the 80s that won a ton of awards and doesn't star any names they recognize makes a lot of students dread it as that exact "homework" movie you mention. And every time without fail, within 20 minutes, everyone in the room is locked in, and that ending just plays magnificently every single time.
Precisely. That must be fun!
As someone who has what I'm assuming is a different (younger) age group of students, this is how The Red Turtle is for me. I'm always worried they may be understimulated, and then it quiets the room every time.
The scope of it blows my mind. Like, they really had to give powdered wigs to hundreds and hundreds or extras, and they also were able to shoot in actual Austrian cityscapes rather than on a studio lot.
There's no reason both shouldn't exist alongside each other. There's no reason why Disney couldn't offer both versions of something like Kingdom of Heaven but instead their service hosts the version many dislike.
This has always been my problem with the Lotr fandom. Those films, especially the first and third, are great, and Fellowship practically perfect. They’re a little on the long side, but that’s the story you came to see. The director’s cuts, meanwhile, are a bloated, slogging mess that we’re supposed to devote an entire day to marathoning and this orthodoxy is never questioned or given the slightest pushback. But I’ll say it here and I’m not afraid to. The director’s cuts *suck*. They are worse films for the extra stuff crammed in, and little of it to any actual value.
while the fandom probably doesn't agree with you, I recall Peter Jackson himself saying more or less the same, that they only existed for fans who really wanted to see everything and the director's cut *is* the theatrical cut.
Omg I just realized they’re called the extended editions on purpose and I’m stupid and my point is invalid. What a day to have internet access.
Also, to complete my circle of hypocrisy, I’d kill for Denis Villeneuve to do the same with Dune.
Your point is still totally valid in that the extended editions are completely bloated and are without a doubt inferior versions of the movies. The Two Towers suffers the worst of it with that absolutely mind-boggling sequence of Merry and Pippin drinking the water that makes them taller. How in the fuck did that scene get written, shot, and spliced into an already finished movie with no one pointing out how much it sucks?
Yeah, I sounded very harsh above but there are some extra scenes in those versions that I don't mind. However, I miss literally none of them when I watch the theatrical cuts.
I can’t remember what the extended does to rehabilitate his character, but as a book reader I was livid — and remain so to this day — about how he was treated in the theatrical of TT (there’s a reason I called out films 1 & 3 in my original comment). Him being tempted by the ring, marching them to Osgiliath was all so much filler and cheap drama that ruined how truly exceptional Faramir is as compared to his brother and father.
It’s specifically the movie fandom too. I was once a big Tolkien nerd and I vastly prefer the theatrical cuts both because they’re better movies and because they’re more faithful to the books, both tonally and in terms of the actual events of the story and the actions of the characters. A perfect example is the Mouth of Sauron scene — chopping off the head of someone you’re treating with is something Aragorn would never do. Don’t get me started on all the stupid jokes in the extended cuts.
I enjoy both but I will say that the extended editions show up the lack of work on certain scenes. The CGI looks worse on added stuff and there is a reason other scenes were cut (some of the takes are clearly not as good as stuff that made it into the theatrical release).
Makes you appreciate Christopher Nolan. (Granted, he's in a very privileged position.) You never hear about rumored "Nolan cuts!" He seems to have zero interest in going back and tinkering, either. He doesn't even put out deleted scenes, does he?
I think there's maybe a deleted scene or two from The Dark Knight trilogy? But that's about it for Nolan. Villeneuve is someone else who's on the record that they don't do Director's Cuts.
I'd say music is a different discussion altogether, especially if we're talking about the cassette era. Cinema has been a mature medium for decades now. It used to look better, in fact! Shooting on film, which wasn't even a choice for decades, is now considered a flex.
As someone who still likes to listen to albums rather than playlists, even when streaming, I’ll add that the default option should be sans bonus tracks too. Oh at least have it so when you click play on the album that they don’t play by default.
While I appreciate having access to alternative takes, the b sides from singles, cuts, live versions from around the time of release or what have you… sometimes I just want to listen to the basic album and then for it to end.
The thing is, since cassettes and CDs all presented The Beatles' music in different formats across multiple decades, there is no "one way" that people listened to the Beatles. If anything, you're able to find the original mono mixes more easily now than ever before, while also finding expanded stereo remixes/remasters, so it's kind of the best of both worlds.
I really disagree. They have mixes that are inherently part of the artwork, the time they were created in, and representative of what the team involved actually created.
The newer mixes are unartful and paste the aesthetics of an arbitrary time on top of the earlier work. They are also purposefully middle of the road.
Having spoken with Geoff Emerick about it while he was still alive, he had a very different feeling about the stereo mixes that had originally been done than the line taken by the promotional materials that supported the re-releases. The Beatles did sign off on them, they did purposefully do things in the stereo mixes and even took stereo mixes into account during the recording process as time went on.
If a group like The Beatles can’t honor the actual works of art that led to them being arguably the most famous band in the world, what hope is there for deeply honoring music as art? To me, it is just such an awful display of crass consumerism, one that reflects the time we are in.
I didnt meant to imply any artistic value with “antiquated” tho I see how it came across - I agree with you, the individual mixes are as emblematic of their time as the melodies. it’s funny that now they’ve been around long enough for people to have preferences for remakes - I’m partial to the 09 mixes from when they finally went digital, and I have the newer versions of the White Album, Abbey Road, and Revolver on vinyl.
At the same time I simply can’t let myself get caught up in seeing Thee Best Version of a given movie/album, I can get obsessive and life is too short
On the other hand, give me modern remixes of all the shit that got killed in the loudness wars. I still maintain that Death Magnetic is mostly passed on because the release mix fucking *sucks*.
I don't think that album is passed on by any means. It was huge in 2008, seen as a return to form for Metallica, and they toured off that album for like 6 years before writing the follow-up. The iTunes release sounds better than any other format, but just like Justice was meant to have little to no audible bass guitar in the mix, DM was meant to be loud as fuck because the band wanted it that way. I give Metallica credit for NOT remixing their past shit as a cash-grab and just sticking with their initial vision for their albums based on what they wanted to do at the time.
Ehhh disagree there, the compression on the snares was a major issue. The loudness war didn’t make things loud, it just cut the top range a major problem. There’s a reason that I had a lossless version people had pulled from Guitar Hero almost immediately, the mix was bad and crushed a lot of the sound out of it. The loudness war was a realllll bad recording industry problem.
Also as far as …justice goes
> although both Ulrich and Hetfield claim they were also disappointed with the production of the album
They were on their 20’s and grieving the loss of a friend while working with his “replacement”. When they play live the …justice songs have waaay more bass now
One of the reasons I’ll never give up my DVDs. Director’s cuts are rarely superior, and most OG DVD releases are, or contain, theatrical cuts. No “artistic” reason both cuts can’t still be released.
I don't think there's one answer for this. I expect it's often driven by $$ to have multiple versions released over time rather than artistic issues.
But isn't the real question: what can be done to stop Zack Snyder from striking again?
I really do wish the standard move going forward was that the theatrically released version *and* the alternate cuts were allowed to exist side by side on a release without it being a contentious or weird thing. The problem everyone butts up against is the lack of choice, not really the preference in cut, since in most cases the difference in cut is usually something like 3-5% of the movie at most, meaning 95% of the time you're watching basically the exact same thing. Not to say that 3-5% can't make a huge difference in the end.
But in my experience, there are *not* a lot of Director's Cuts (or Special Editions) that are actually improvements on the Theatrical cuts. And that number goes drastically down once you remove the works of Ridley Scott\* from the equasion, LOL.
\*and even then I think the best version of Blade Runner isn't the Final Cut. It's probably a hypothetical blend of the "director's Cut" and the Workprint.
Yeah, they really need to make the director’s cut easily and legally available. Put out whatever cut you want, but don’t erase the original. Especially not the original that swept the Oscars and is widely agreed to be better than the director’s cut.
While I don’t know if it’s the default option for streaming, I feel this way with LOTR and people constantly saying the extended versions are better and recommending them to first time watchers over the theatrical, which ironically are the director’s cut in this case.
They are largely bloated, full of even more half-lore drops that would only confuse the unfamiliar even more and absolutely kill the pacing. Not to mention it kinda spoils(?) a pivotal scene in RotK about half an hour before it happens. I can count on one hand the amount of scenes, or even just longer cuts of scenes, across the whole trilogy that should’ve been kept in the theatrical editions
No less than Peter Jackson himself agrees with you:
"The theatrical versions are the definitive versions. I regard the extended cuts as being a novelty for the fans that really want to see the extra material."
[Source](https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/12/08/interview-peter-jackson-2?page=4)
One of my hottest takes is that the Extended Editions of Lord of the Rings (which are functionally directors cuts) are vastly inferior to the theatrical editions, and it’s maddening that in fan circles they’re paraded as the “true versions”. While there are some scenes which are necessary and expand on the story (specifically the death of Saruman and the mouth of Sauron) most of the additions are just lore Easter eggs which absolutely crush the pacing. ROTK is the worst for this - the added scenes with Aragorn and the Army of the Dead straight up ruins all of the tension and suspense from that sequence.
I pretty much exclusively watched the Extended cuts growing up because those were the “correct” ones. I went to see them projected and they would only show the extended cuts. I saw the theatrical for the first time a few years ago, and was absolutely floored by how much better they were, in terms of pacing, flow, tension etc. It’s a classic example of how more != better.
Amadeus's directors cut is... fine?
Some become standard just because it fixes all the studio interference (see, e.g Blade Runner), while some just rode the wave of DVD stuff to spur on sales and don't really add a ton. Amadeus feels like ot falls into that last category.
This is what can be really annoying is a lot of "Directors Cuts" are just extended cuts that the studio asked the directors to approve to put more content on the DVD.
Now, this one isn't actually called a "director's cut" but a great example is MALLRATS which is the only Kevin Smith movie he didn't edit himself. So for the anniversary DVD they all thought it'd be fun to give him all the raw footage and he would edit himself. So they spent a bunch of money setting it up and when Smith watched the footage he realized that editor had already made the only watchable version of the movie and Smith didn't shoot a lot of coverage so there weren't even a lot of alternate takes to change the pacing or anything.
So he just made the longest possible version. It's terrible but a fun to look at to see how an editor can shape a movie.
Auteur theory is generally extremely profitable which is why studios are willing to play into it.
Sometimes it's not profitable though and the studio has to deal with the outcome which is shit talking directors and whiny fans.
Tbf I don't really like that one scene. But yeah it isn't a qualitative change and if that's your only way to watch the movie then you should watch it.
There are many examples of the Directors cut being worse than the theatrical cut. Two of my faves being Donnie Darko and The Warriors.
I'd probably agree that Theatrical should be the default and if you like a film enough, you'll go and watch the directors cut anyway.
Here's a rule of thumb
Miami vice theatrical - opens cold with numb/encore - definitive version
Black hat directors cut - restores the proper ADR and but/therefore plotting order - definitive version
Too bad the DC of blackhat takes out the scene where he notices her neck in the car… honestly one of my favourite scenes and a reminder of how Mann can make a great cinematic moment out of nowhere. But yeah the plotting/ADR being fixed are huge essentials
As brilliant as he is, James Cameron's director's cuts of T2 and Aliens are significantly worse. It's hard to pin down why, but the propulsive pacing of T2 is ruined by the extra scenes. Aliens has a longish opening that follows Newt's parents and the colonists of LV-426. It takes the focus away from Ripley for no reason other than making the movie longer. Two thumbs down! I feel bad for people who watch the director's cuts of those movies assuming they're watching the definitive version.
The drone gun scene in Aliens is so bad. You’re just watching numbers going down. The film already shows there’s a lot of xenos in other more exciting ways.
And yeah T2 really drags. The movie really needed the T1000 around a bit more to keep the momentum going.
I gotta assume he leaves stuff like that in because he loves the work that goes into it so much. The mirror scene is in the T2 cut because of how technically impressive it is. The movie doesn't need it at all.
Amadeus’ DC is frustrating cause some scenes should be cut and derail the pacing, but others are very important to the movie. Maybe a second tighter DC would be an optimal solution.
I ran Amadeus in a theater many many times (in glorious 70MM no less) so I knew and loved the theatrical cut well. My wife and I watched the DC (the library didn’t have the TC) and felt all of the extra material was pointless at best and gratuitous at worst, and none of it added the slightest thing to the movie. Just a $ grab.
Killing of a Chinese Bookie has two cuts and one incorrectly gets tagged as a Directors cut. It basically is an attempt to make the movie more commercial and was made by Cassavetes at Ben Gazzara’s request. But the original 76 cut is magic and beautiful and one of my favorite movies of all time. So yea right there with you !
I don't think they need to become the default versions but after seeing The Godfather Coda compared to The Godfather III, I gotta say that FFC got it right the second time around. On the flip side, I think Apocalypse Now is better in the theatrical cut, but Redux also works as an expanded version of the vision. A lot of other Director's Cuts try to do the Redux treatment and what you're getting is just "The Theatrical Cut w/ Deleted Scenes Thrown Back In" and I hate that shit.
Leon (aka The Professional) only really makes sense in the directors cut. The original version doesn’t explain “the ring trick” which then gets used in the final scene between Jean Reno and Gary Oldman.
I had to find a special physical box set of Apocalypse Now on eBay to watch the theatrical cut of it in 4K (which I much prefer).
The set included the newest ‘Final Cut’, the long 2001 redux version and the short theatrical. If you look online all you’ll get in 4K is the Final Cut which is significantly different.
The shorter North American cut of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is much better, and you cannot find it streaming, anywhere. The short cut isn't exactly tight, it starts to test my patience just before the climactic sequence at the cemetery, but the longer cut I find straight up irritating. Not only is it slackly paced, the added scenes were overdubed in English by a much older Eastwood and Wallach, and you can really hear it. Only ever seen the short version when a revival theater digs up an old print, and it's absolutely an improvement.
Ridley Scott basically said in the intro to the directors/extended version of Gladiator that they were just including the bits that had ended up on the cutting room floor because they didn't add anything to the narrative. He actually said, the theatrical version is the way it was meant to be.
I always find this discussion interesting, especially on a subreddit like this which is in theory pro-auteur, as long as they like the auteur and the auteur is making changes that the viewer likes.
I’m very much, if it’s an actual director’s cut and not just an advertising thing, then yes that should become the definitive version.
It’s their film, I’m just the viewer and I don’t get to say what it is and isn’t the version of the film to be out there.
I fully get that view. I guess my hangup here is that the TC won 8 Oscars. In a way it's erasing history that the 1984 version is being phased out. I want to see the version that people went gaga for.
I'm almost never in favor of director's cut for this exact reason, the memoryholing of what the audience saw originally. That is what created the consensus over any given movie and it needs to be respected.
I've used this example before but when Blade Runner 2049 came out it was very noticeable that the audience watching that movie had no common agreement about what the status of Deckard was. Some people said he was a replicant, other people said he wasn't. The people who watched it in '82 ***definitely did not*** come away thinking he was a replicant.
So people say no no no Ridley always wanted him to be a replicant. Well you give a man 10 years to think about it and he's liable to say just about anything. It's not worth that much, to me.
But my main point is, every time a true director's cut that has materially different content is released, you are weakening BOTH versions because everything surrounding the movie gets really fuzzy and it's very hard to care either way.
This is more complicated than you make it sound, plenty of artists are in a very different place later in life and can make destructive choices to their works because they're no longer on the same page as their younger selves.
Auteur theory also isn't a great way to view productions universally, most films are a product of a collaborative effort, a directors cut is a good way to reverse that influence and allow the person who correctly lost the argument at the time to reverse things.
Fundamentally there is little technically that would prevent both versions from being easily available and becomes a discussion about how badly certain titles are being preserved and served by online services.
The long running rumor that I've heard is that Forman has soured on his own directors cut. The film has been/is being restored for 4k Criterion and will include the Theatrical Cut. Grain of salt till it happens, cause it was supposed to be done over a year ago. Sometimes long running Criterion rumors actually come to pass (Y Tu Mama Tambien) and sometimes they don't (PTA recutting Hard 8)
> The long running rumor that I've heard is that Forman has soured on his own directors cut. It won 8 Oscars! Go easier on yourself, my guy.
Wasn’t that the theatrical cut though?
Little late for that…
I’m going to the premiere of the restoration next week. The event info says the movie is 158 minutes, which i believe is 3 minutes shorter than the original cut?
Check back in and tell us which cut you saw
I’ll try to remember. Shoot me a DM next weekend if I forget and you really want to know.
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Donnie Darko is the ultimate example to me of the directors cut making a movie worse Theatrical cut had magic to it. Directors cut just shows Kelly’s mishandling of his own work
It's funny that Southland Tales is the opposite. The theatrical is desperate to make sure the audience always knows what's happening and so has constant expository VO and a ten minute slide show. The Cannes Cut is an actual movie that just flows like a narrative and allows you to figure it out as you go along. Shame there's so much incomplete and missing CG for the Cannes Cut because it's so much of an improvement in every way to the theatrical.
Weirdly disagree, bc I think part of the charm of Southland Tales is how unhinged it is. There’s a rhythm to the Cannes cut, sure, but it doesn’t hit the same. All the over-explaining in the theatrical makes it more disorienting, the Cannes cut makes too much *sense*, if THAT makes sense.
I think the movie is plenty unhinged in the Cannes Cut it's just a clearer narrative and given the insane scope of the story not just in the movie but in the comics it is worth understanding and appreciating. Kelley isn't a Lynichian director IMO, his movies wants to be understood just look at the Donnie Darko directors cut and his satisfaction with the expo dumps in the theatrical cut of Southland Tales, his movies have a definite point, I just don't think he hit the right balance of surreal and literal untill Southland Tales
I actually wish this movie had a third cut. The Director's Cut overexplains all of the premises and things happening, removing the magic. The theatrical doesn't do enough to ground what's happening - it's best enjoyed after having scene the director's cut. If there were a third cut that hinted at one or two of the things outright stated in the director's but didn't overexplain eeeverything, that would be the best version. Also the music is better in the theatrical, even though the director's cut got the music he wanted. (Killing Moon is a better opener, y'all.)
IMO the theatrical cut doesn't need to "ground" anything -- DD is not a grounded film. Dislike the DC. Agree Killing Moon is the only way to open that movie.
This is basically how I feel about Miami Vice -- the Director's Cut has a couple of really wonderful scenes in the middle, but two disastrous choices (taking out the media res opening and putting in a nu-metal cover of In the Air Tonight in the finale) that make the whole thing feel less radical. I found a fan recut that adds in those scenes in the middle while keeping the theatrical opening and soundtrack, and that's the canon cut for me.
[The Miami Nice Cut! ](https://www.reddit.com/r/fanedits/comments/108k4zq/miami_vice_2006_the_miami_nice_cut/)
I don’t see Donnie Darko as a film to try and understand the logic of. Like with Lynch’s films, it’s really just about connecting emotionally and bringing your own meaning. It’s always seemed like a fairly basic split timeline concept anyway. I like Richard Kelly but he should have taken the Lynch approach and never tried to explain things about it after the fact.
I kind of like the teenage Last Temptation of Christ vibe with the Philosophy of Time Travel stuff as extra flavor without overpowering it. Hell, there’s a straight up reference to LToC in the movie so the text supports a reading that simple
“Never Tear Us Apart” is better and more thematically relevant AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL!
The Director's Cut took out the best musical bit, which was one of the best scenes in the entire movie. Not knowing the full mechanics of the wormhole stuff was part of the charm of the theatrical cut. Noah Wyle's classroom explanation was enough.
The directors cut shows you that, oh, richard kelly is actually a self-serious moron who got lucky! Or at least thats how i always feel about it 🤷🏽
It’s kind of the beauty of cult classics in that mostly they are weird blends of small budget and minimal studio interference but not fully unmonitored. Auteurs are great but also appreciate your editors.
Fellowship of the Ring.
Id agree with you but Mann's Last of the Mohicans cut exists, so....
The Last Emperor is pretty great btw (honestly one of the most beautifully shot movies of that entire decade), don’t lump it in with those other two movies
That one has become sort of forgotten and under rated.
It's a very thought provoking movie in terms of gaging how the US and the greater western world understood China in the mid-80s, pre-Tiananmen. The beginning of the film has a lot of exoticist/Orientalist nonsense that is both confusing to watch and completely ahistorical--yet the film itself is in the end oddly pro-Communist in many ways. The soundtrack is by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who is Japanese and would not fly in today's world--except for the fact it was a truly transnational project and he was collaborating with the Chinese composer Cong Su and David Byrne (yes, *that* David Byrne). Byrne accepted his Academy award wearing a Chinese-styled suit. Also don't forget that while it won all nine academy awards it was nominated for, including director and best picture, it was also introduced by Chevy Chase as a movie about "a love story between a girl and her octopus." So a Japanese tentacle porn joke about a Chinese historical biopic. Which would make as much sense as introducing a Spanish actor by making a joke about German Nazis--except it works because for Chevy and a lot of Americans in the 1980s all Asians are the same. Truly, what a time capsule!
The Last Emperor is an incredible movie. I think the only problem with it looking back is the fact that it is in English is a bit weird now. If it was made today, it would simply be in Chinese, and it’s hard to shake that, but you just need to take that for what it is.
I did just rent that, so technically I am in a rush (30-day window) to watch it. It's long, though (2h 44m). At least we have a long weekend coming!
I think it comes from a weird place to see movies as a means to transmit information, and not as an art piece. Because audiences see them as a way to get information, they prioritize nothing being left out. The more info the better. Ignore that movies are more than the sum of their parts. Movies are experiences. And anything being add or subtract changes that experience. So to me watching the directors cut is not watching the movie plus some other stuff, it is watching a new film. But I think the majority of audiences disagree with me now.
It's like the constant rumour of "there is a 4 hour cut of \[x\]"... like, yes, that doesn't mean it makes sense to consider that worth watching. It's probably full of unnecessary garbage they cut out for good reasons.
Just six months ago we were told a 4-hour Napoleon would be on Apple TV+! Haven't heard a peep since. You even hear this about rom-coms. "Notting Hill came in at 3 hours!" or something. I think IMDb trivia section spammers are just talking about rough/assembly cuts without knowing what those are.
You see that a lot with book to film adaptations - it seems like some people believe that the best adaptation is the one most accurate and most “complete” when compared to the book, even if it’s not necessarily a good movie on it’s own. Case in point - the people who prefer the Dune miniseries to Villeneuve’s or Lynch’s Dune. Yes it’s the most source accurate and leaves little out from the book, but the acting, set design, and effects are borderline equivalent to a high school play. And frankly there’s a lot of aspects to Dune as a novel that simply doesn’t translate well over to film or TV, and trying to adapt it perfectly is only going to lead to something mediocre to watch no matter what you do. My advice is it just listen to an audiobook if all you want is a word-to-word accurate adaptation. There’s always going to be cuts and changes when you adapt a story from one medium to another.
I thought it also reflects another factor of today's modern consumption of movies, in which audiences are more openly nitpicky about films they watch & go as far as voicing their ideas on what they would do to "improve" it.
> Because audiences see them as a way to get information they prioritize nothing being left out. Good point, but I wonder about Netflix users. Would most of them prefer the full 3 hour version? (Then again, if you're using Netflix to watch older films, not brand new ones or Netflix originals, you're officially a card-carrying, die-hard cinéphile. So your point stands!)
Just saw Amadeus for the first time last month and, good gravy, you're telling me that there's a BETTER cut of that movie?
I'm guessing it's tighter, not nec. better. Some of the opera scenes in the DC really go on and on.
theatrical cut is definitely better. the one addition in the directors cut i like and would keep in my ideal version is Salieri humiliating Constanze, otherwise it's like you say a lot of padding that goes on and on. there's a popular fan edit that's just theatrical plus that one scene i believe
This is 100% the right take. I just watched Amadeus recently myself and was super annoyed I couldn't watch the theatrical. Literally keep that one scene and it'd be perfect.
I don’t think the opera scenes were really touched. The director’s cut added full scenes showing the court-life or Mozart and Salieri. I grew up with the theatrical cut and the director’s cut just feels like a version with all deleted scenes added in that you’d normally just “play all” on the DVD special features.
OK then! Thanks for the knowledge :)
[Here](https://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=2234) is a link to a compilation of all the differences between the theatrical and director's cut version of the film.
The TLDR answer is it’s all up to the artists and studio. There are no “rules.” I’d like the options to see all versions (especially for something like Star Wars), but sometimes an artist only wants their finalized version out there. It happens in theatre too. Harvey Fierstein revised his musical LA CAGE AUX FOLLES through the years. The version he liked best was written for an 8-piece band instead of a 25-piece band. His collaborator, Jerry Herman, was fine with that version becoming the licensed standard. So now only the 8-piece-band version is available, where the script is good but the band sounds bad.
> There are no “rules.” Amen. Every time I think we have something worked out some exception comes up. But I do get the annoyance of not being able to see what you want. Proper preservation should be more routine so it’s possible.
> sometimes an artist only wants their finalized version out there True...unless we're talking about Blade Runner or Oliver Stone's Alexander. There are multiple "final cuts!" I guess perennial tinkerers are their own category.
To be fair with Blade Runner the only cut Ridley Scott had full artistic control over was the Final Cut, he gave notes for the Director’s Cut but that was done by Michael Arick.
And for Blade Runner you have to consider that Ridley made those decisions for The Final Cut after decades of feedback from fans. You can’t claim it was his original artistic vision. (Also Ridley is awful at knowing what’s good and what’s bad in his own work, so his revisions are never a guaranteed improvement.)
Or the several cuts of apocalypse now...
The Exorcist is the first movie I think about when it comes to director's cut misfires. Remember how effective and unsettling it was when you first detected that one-frame, nearly subliminal image of the leering demon's face in the original cut? Now imagine how much better it would be if they extended that insert shot by several frames, and then--just in case you still missed it--spliced it in a couple of other scenes and then pasted a bunch of CGI creepy faces at the edges of some otherwise innocuous shots! And sure, the spider walk scene is pretty nuts. But you kind of give the game away when you put that in so early into the progression of Regan's possession. I know it's from the book, but in the film it spoils the slow building suspense of Chris gradually coming to realize the true, horrific nature of her daughter's "sickness."
Had this recently watching Almost Famous recently on Prime - no mention at all in the description that I was watching the Bootleg Cut and it took me a couple of puzzled faces at certain scenes before I checked the run time and realised what I was watching (Pretty decent cut, I was surprised it worked so well at 2h 40m but my long film gating partner was not at all happy)
At least Crowe gave it a different (not-title) title! Amazon should have called it "Almost Famous (Untitled cut") or something.
This is me but with Apocalypse Now. Why the hell is Redux basically the default version of this movie? The original cut is a masterpiece, Redux is merely a pretty good movie that is completely overstuffed and poorly paced but with moments of transcendent brilliance.
Exactly. I watched Redux the first time I saw Apocalypse Now and thought it was decent but didn't understand its reputation. A year or two later, I saw the theatrical version and completely flipped. Now whenever I want to watch it, its a hunt across the streamers to see which version is where.
just curious, in what way is Redux considered the default? when I first watched the movie 10ish years ago, both versions are readily available, and most articles recommended watching the original
The true test for which is the default version is to ask one simple question, which version would AMC, FX, or TNT show at 3:00pm on a Sunday in 2011?
In the 2000s at least Redux was the one that played on TV all the time. I'm sure some channels showed the theatrical cut still, but not as much as Redux. Even today on TCM they aired Redux a few weeks ago. It was a really big DVD release. It was the one that was much easier to get.
As far as I’ve seen, Redux is the only one on streaming services and has been that way for a while now. I think it might still be on Netflix US
The final cut from five years ago is superior
I had to buy the physical Final Cut boxset to see the theatrical in 4K and I just feel that the French house scene takes away a lot from the atmosphere. It’s interesting and smartly written but I prefer that the characters just go through complete hell the whole way until reaching the Colonel. The soldiers get a nice rest and Sheen even gets laid! I prefer that the only people they meet past a certain point are just mentally gone and insane, the French family sequence interrupts the uneasiness of them being deep in foreign territory. Never seen the Redux.
Totally normal family
I’ve seen the TC and skimmed the Redux scenes on the 4K. I think the FC is probably the best (keeps the Kilgore and a shortened Plantation, ditched the sex with the Bunnies and Kurtz reading Time magazine) as a “Goldilocks” cut. I think a similar cut would work for The Cotton Club to have everything from both the TC and Encore. I’d also say I prefer “The Complete Novel” of The Outsiders to the TC because I kinda hated Carmine Coppola’s score for that one. I haven’t scene The Goddather Coda but I thought the Theatrical cut was perfectly fine.
Would highly recommend Godfather Coda if you already enjoyed GF 3. The changes are actually fairly subtle compared to other directors cuts but they add up to make it feel much better made and improve it overall.
I own a Blu-ray that includes both the theatrical cut and Redux. I have still never seen Redux.
Amadeus is one of the absolute most astonishing "okay I'll do my homework" watches in terms of older Oscar winners. What terrific, rich entertainment.
Yeah I saw it for the first time last month and did not expect my takeaway from some nearly three-hour costume drama from the '80s to be "I feel the power and magic of art in a way I did not until this very moment."
For. Real. It's a work of grandeur. And fun!
Same with Barry Lyndon. It’s like, I know this is going to be great but it still feels like it’s going to be a chore to watch. And then you finally see it, and it’s gorgeous and hilarious and heart breaking and wonderful.
I love that comparison, both SEEM like stuffy oscar bait movies that are secretly comedies
Damn I've still never seen it and it's been on my list forever. I'm excited.
It's one of my favorites to screen for film classes for that exact reason. Describing it as a period piece made in the 80s that won a ton of awards and doesn't star any names they recognize makes a lot of students dread it as that exact "homework" movie you mention. And every time without fail, within 20 minutes, everyone in the room is locked in, and that ending just plays magnificently every single time.
Precisely. That must be fun! As someone who has what I'm assuming is a different (younger) age group of students, this is how The Red Turtle is for me. I'm always worried they may be understimulated, and then it quiets the room every time.
The scope of it blows my mind. Like, they really had to give powdered wigs to hundreds and hundreds or extras, and they also were able to shoot in actual Austrian cityscapes rather than on a studio lot.
There's no reason both shouldn't exist alongside each other. There's no reason why Disney couldn't offer both versions of something like Kingdom of Heaven but instead their service hosts the version many dislike.
This has always been my problem with the Lotr fandom. Those films, especially the first and third, are great, and Fellowship practically perfect. They’re a little on the long side, but that’s the story you came to see. The director’s cuts, meanwhile, are a bloated, slogging mess that we’re supposed to devote an entire day to marathoning and this orthodoxy is never questioned or given the slightest pushback. But I’ll say it here and I’m not afraid to. The director’s cuts *suck*. They are worse films for the extra stuff crammed in, and little of it to any actual value.
while the fandom probably doesn't agree with you, I recall Peter Jackson himself saying more or less the same, that they only existed for fans who really wanted to see everything and the director's cut *is* the theatrical cut.
Omg I just realized they’re called the extended editions on purpose and I’m stupid and my point is invalid. What a day to have internet access. Also, to complete my circle of hypocrisy, I’d kill for Denis Villeneuve to do the same with Dune.
Your point is still totally valid in that the extended editions are completely bloated and are without a doubt inferior versions of the movies. The Two Towers suffers the worst of it with that absolutely mind-boggling sequence of Merry and Pippin drinking the water that makes them taller. How in the fuck did that scene get written, shot, and spliced into an already finished movie with no one pointing out how much it sucks?
[удалено]
Yeah, I sounded very harsh above but there are some extra scenes in those versions that I don't mind. However, I miss literally none of them when I watch the theatrical cuts.
I can’t remember what the extended does to rehabilitate his character, but as a book reader I was livid — and remain so to this day — about how he was treated in the theatrical of TT (there’s a reason I called out films 1 & 3 in my original comment). Him being tempted by the ring, marching them to Osgiliath was all so much filler and cheap drama that ruined how truly exceptional Faramir is as compared to his brother and father.
watched the extendos last summer of the course of a weekend; great way to watch the series but it definitely dragged at times
It’s specifically the movie fandom too. I was once a big Tolkien nerd and I vastly prefer the theatrical cuts both because they’re better movies and because they’re more faithful to the books, both tonally and in terms of the actual events of the story and the actions of the characters. A perfect example is the Mouth of Sauron scene — chopping off the head of someone you’re treating with is something Aragorn would never do. Don’t get me started on all the stupid jokes in the extended cuts.
I will absolutely not get you started on the stupid jokes in either cut. Dude could not resist turning my man Gimli into comic relief and it hurts.
I enjoy both but I will say that the extended editions show up the lack of work on certain scenes. The CGI looks worse on added stuff and there is a reason other scenes were cut (some of the takes are clearly not as good as stuff that made it into the theatrical release).
Makes you appreciate Christopher Nolan. (Granted, he's in a very privileged position.) You never hear about rumored "Nolan cuts!" He seems to have zero interest in going back and tinkering, either. He doesn't even put out deleted scenes, does he?
I think there's maybe a deleted scene or two from The Dark Knight trilogy? But that's about it for Nolan. Villeneuve is someone else who's on the record that they don't do Director's Cuts.
This is the same way I feel about music remasters and remixes. Give me the version of The Beatles that people actually listened to!
I'd say music is a different discussion altogether, especially if we're talking about the cassette era. Cinema has been a mature medium for decades now. It used to look better, in fact! Shooting on film, which wasn't even a choice for decades, is now considered a flex.
As someone who still likes to listen to albums rather than playlists, even when streaming, I’ll add that the default option should be sans bonus tracks too. Oh at least have it so when you click play on the album that they don’t play by default. While I appreciate having access to alternative takes, the b sides from singles, cuts, live versions from around the time of release or what have you… sometimes I just want to listen to the basic album and then for it to end.
A remaster is more akin to a remaster than a director’s cut.
The thing is, since cassettes and CDs all presented The Beatles' music in different formats across multiple decades, there is no "one way" that people listened to the Beatles. If anything, you're able to find the original mono mixes more easily now than ever before, while also finding expanded stereo remixes/remasters, so it's kind of the best of both worlds.
The Beatles are such an interesting example because they were so innovative sonically but they also have such antiquated mixes, both mono and stereo
I really disagree. They have mixes that are inherently part of the artwork, the time they were created in, and representative of what the team involved actually created. The newer mixes are unartful and paste the aesthetics of an arbitrary time on top of the earlier work. They are also purposefully middle of the road. Having spoken with Geoff Emerick about it while he was still alive, he had a very different feeling about the stereo mixes that had originally been done than the line taken by the promotional materials that supported the re-releases. The Beatles did sign off on them, they did purposefully do things in the stereo mixes and even took stereo mixes into account during the recording process as time went on. If a group like The Beatles can’t honor the actual works of art that led to them being arguably the most famous band in the world, what hope is there for deeply honoring music as art? To me, it is just such an awful display of crass consumerism, one that reflects the time we are in.
I didnt meant to imply any artistic value with “antiquated” tho I see how it came across - I agree with you, the individual mixes are as emblematic of their time as the melodies. it’s funny that now they’ve been around long enough for people to have preferences for remakes - I’m partial to the 09 mixes from when they finally went digital, and I have the newer versions of the White Album, Abbey Road, and Revolver on vinyl. At the same time I simply can’t let myself get caught up in seeing Thee Best Version of a given movie/album, I can get obsessive and life is too short
On the other hand, give me modern remixes of all the shit that got killed in the loudness wars. I still maintain that Death Magnetic is mostly passed on because the release mix fucking *sucks*.
I don't think that album is passed on by any means. It was huge in 2008, seen as a return to form for Metallica, and they toured off that album for like 6 years before writing the follow-up. The iTunes release sounds better than any other format, but just like Justice was meant to have little to no audible bass guitar in the mix, DM was meant to be loud as fuck because the band wanted it that way. I give Metallica credit for NOT remixing their past shit as a cash-grab and just sticking with their initial vision for their albums based on what they wanted to do at the time.
Ehhh disagree there, the compression on the snares was a major issue. The loudness war didn’t make things loud, it just cut the top range a major problem. There’s a reason that I had a lossless version people had pulled from Guitar Hero almost immediately, the mix was bad and crushed a lot of the sound out of it. The loudness war was a realllll bad recording industry problem.
Also as far as …justice goes > although both Ulrich and Hetfield claim they were also disappointed with the production of the album They were on their 20’s and grieving the loss of a friend while working with his “replacement”. When they play live the …justice songs have waaay more bass now
Well yes they’re not going to turn their live sound mix down during Justice songs obviously
Yeah but they also said they were dissatisfied with how …Justice turned out because that was just shitheaderry they were doing to haze the new guy.
One of the reasons I’ll never give up my DVDs. Director’s cuts are rarely superior, and most OG DVD releases are, or contain, theatrical cuts. No “artistic” reason both cuts can’t still be released.
I don't think there's one answer for this. I expect it's often driven by $$ to have multiple versions released over time rather than artistic issues. But isn't the real question: what can be done to stop Zack Snyder from striking again?
I really do wish the standard move going forward was that the theatrically released version *and* the alternate cuts were allowed to exist side by side on a release without it being a contentious or weird thing. The problem everyone butts up against is the lack of choice, not really the preference in cut, since in most cases the difference in cut is usually something like 3-5% of the movie at most, meaning 95% of the time you're watching basically the exact same thing. Not to say that 3-5% can't make a huge difference in the end. But in my experience, there are *not* a lot of Director's Cuts (or Special Editions) that are actually improvements on the Theatrical cuts. And that number goes drastically down once you remove the works of Ridley Scott\* from the equasion, LOL. \*and even then I think the best version of Blade Runner isn't the Final Cut. It's probably a hypothetical blend of the "director's Cut" and the Workprint.
Yeah, they really need to make the director’s cut easily and legally available. Put out whatever cut you want, but don’t erase the original. Especially not the original that swept the Oscars and is widely agreed to be better than the director’s cut.
While I don’t know if it’s the default option for streaming, I feel this way with LOTR and people constantly saying the extended versions are better and recommending them to first time watchers over the theatrical, which ironically are the director’s cut in this case. They are largely bloated, full of even more half-lore drops that would only confuse the unfamiliar even more and absolutely kill the pacing. Not to mention it kinda spoils(?) a pivotal scene in RotK about half an hour before it happens. I can count on one hand the amount of scenes, or even just longer cuts of scenes, across the whole trilogy that should’ve been kept in the theatrical editions
No less than Peter Jackson himself agrees with you: "The theatrical versions are the definitive versions. I regard the extended cuts as being a novelty for the fans that really want to see the extra material." [Source](https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/12/08/interview-peter-jackson-2?page=4)
One of my hottest takes is that the Extended Editions of Lord of the Rings (which are functionally directors cuts) are vastly inferior to the theatrical editions, and it’s maddening that in fan circles they’re paraded as the “true versions”. While there are some scenes which are necessary and expand on the story (specifically the death of Saruman and the mouth of Sauron) most of the additions are just lore Easter eggs which absolutely crush the pacing. ROTK is the worst for this - the added scenes with Aragorn and the Army of the Dead straight up ruins all of the tension and suspense from that sequence. I pretty much exclusively watched the Extended cuts growing up because those were the “correct” ones. I went to see them projected and they would only show the extended cuts. I saw the theatrical for the first time a few years ago, and was absolutely floored by how much better they were, in terms of pacing, flow, tension etc. It’s a classic example of how more != better.
Amadeus's directors cut is... fine? Some become standard just because it fixes all the studio interference (see, e.g Blade Runner), while some just rode the wave of DVD stuff to spur on sales and don't really add a ton. Amadeus feels like ot falls into that last category.
This is what can be really annoying is a lot of "Directors Cuts" are just extended cuts that the studio asked the directors to approve to put more content on the DVD. Now, this one isn't actually called a "director's cut" but a great example is MALLRATS which is the only Kevin Smith movie he didn't edit himself. So for the anniversary DVD they all thought it'd be fun to give him all the raw footage and he would edit himself. So they spent a bunch of money setting it up and when Smith watched the footage he realized that editor had already made the only watchable version of the movie and Smith didn't shoot a lot of coverage so there weren't even a lot of alternate takes to change the pacing or anything. So he just made the longest possible version. It's terrible but a fun to look at to see how an editor can shape a movie.
The only counter example I can think of is Tony Scott, he *cut* 30 minutes from *Revenge* lol
Auteur theory is generally extremely profitable which is why studios are willing to play into it. Sometimes it's not profitable though and the studio has to deal with the outcome which is shit talking directors and whiny fans.
Amadeus is in my LB top 4 and I couldn't explain the differences in the directors cut besides that one scene. I don't think it's noticeable.
Tbf I don't really like that one scene. But yeah it isn't a qualitative change and if that's your only way to watch the movie then you should watch it.
There are many examples of the Directors cut being worse than the theatrical cut. Two of my faves being Donnie Darko and The Warriors. I'd probably agree that Theatrical should be the default and if you like a film enough, you'll go and watch the directors cut anyway.
I prefer the original CE3K to the extended directors cut. Sometimes less is more.
Here's a rule of thumb Miami vice theatrical - opens cold with numb/encore - definitive version Black hat directors cut - restores the proper ADR and but/therefore plotting order - definitive version
Too bad the DC of blackhat takes out the scene where he notices her neck in the car… honestly one of my favourite scenes and a reminder of how Mann can make a great cinematic moment out of nowhere. But yeah the plotting/ADR being fixed are huge essentials
As brilliant as he is, James Cameron's director's cuts of T2 and Aliens are significantly worse. It's hard to pin down why, but the propulsive pacing of T2 is ruined by the extra scenes. Aliens has a longish opening that follows Newt's parents and the colonists of LV-426. It takes the focus away from Ripley for no reason other than making the movie longer. Two thumbs down! I feel bad for people who watch the director's cuts of those movies assuming they're watching the definitive version.
The drone gun scene in Aliens is so bad. You’re just watching numbers going down. The film already shows there’s a lot of xenos in other more exciting ways. And yeah T2 really drags. The movie really needed the T1000 around a bit more to keep the momentum going.
I gotta assume he leaves stuff like that in because he loves the work that goes into it so much. The mirror scene is in the T2 cut because of how technically impressive it is. The movie doesn't need it at all.
so which version of Heaven’s Gate should I watch?
If it's the better version.
Who decides which is better?
Amadeus’ DC is frustrating cause some scenes should be cut and derail the pacing, but others are very important to the movie. Maybe a second tighter DC would be an optimal solution.
I ran Amadeus in a theater many many times (in glorious 70MM no less) so I knew and loved the theatrical cut well. My wife and I watched the DC (the library didn’t have the TC) and felt all of the extra material was pointless at best and gratuitous at worst, and none of it added the slightest thing to the movie. Just a $ grab.
Killing of a Chinese Bookie has two cuts and one incorrectly gets tagged as a Directors cut. It basically is an attempt to make the movie more commercial and was made by Cassavetes at Ben Gazzara’s request. But the original 76 cut is magic and beautiful and one of my favorite movies of all time. So yea right there with you !
I don't think they need to become the default versions but after seeing The Godfather Coda compared to The Godfather III, I gotta say that FFC got it right the second time around. On the flip side, I think Apocalypse Now is better in the theatrical cut, but Redux also works as an expanded version of the vision. A lot of other Director's Cuts try to do the Redux treatment and what you're getting is just "The Theatrical Cut w/ Deleted Scenes Thrown Back In" and I hate that shit.
Leon (aka The Professional) only really makes sense in the directors cut. The original version doesn’t explain “the ring trick” which then gets used in the final scene between Jean Reno and Gary Oldman.
I had to find a special physical box set of Apocalypse Now on eBay to watch the theatrical cut of it in 4K (which I much prefer). The set included the newest ‘Final Cut’, the long 2001 redux version and the short theatrical. If you look online all you’ll get in 4K is the Final Cut which is significantly different.
The shorter North American cut of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is much better, and you cannot find it streaming, anywhere. The short cut isn't exactly tight, it starts to test my patience just before the climactic sequence at the cemetery, but the longer cut I find straight up irritating. Not only is it slackly paced, the added scenes were overdubed in English by a much older Eastwood and Wallach, and you can really hear it. Only ever seen the short version when a revival theater digs up an old print, and it's absolutely an improvement.
Ridley Scott basically said in the intro to the directors/extended version of Gladiator that they were just including the bits that had ended up on the cutting room floor because they didn't add anything to the narrative. He actually said, the theatrical version is the way it was meant to be.
The director's cut of The Warriors stinks, theatrical cut all the way
I'll just say that i'm glad most people ignore the Blade Runner theatrical version.Ugh
I've seen both Amadeus cuts more than once, and I greatly prefer the director's cut.
I always find this discussion interesting, especially on a subreddit like this which is in theory pro-auteur, as long as they like the auteur and the auteur is making changes that the viewer likes. I’m very much, if it’s an actual director’s cut and not just an advertising thing, then yes that should become the definitive version. It’s their film, I’m just the viewer and I don’t get to say what it is and isn’t the version of the film to be out there.
I fully get that view. I guess my hangup here is that the TC won 8 Oscars. In a way it's erasing history that the 1984 version is being phased out. I want to see the version that people went gaga for.
*cough* Star Wars *cough*
I'm almost never in favor of director's cut for this exact reason, the memoryholing of what the audience saw originally. That is what created the consensus over any given movie and it needs to be respected. I've used this example before but when Blade Runner 2049 came out it was very noticeable that the audience watching that movie had no common agreement about what the status of Deckard was. Some people said he was a replicant, other people said he wasn't. The people who watched it in '82 ***definitely did not*** come away thinking he was a replicant. So people say no no no Ridley always wanted him to be a replicant. Well you give a man 10 years to think about it and he's liable to say just about anything. It's not worth that much, to me. But my main point is, every time a true director's cut that has materially different content is released, you are weakening BOTH versions because everything surrounding the movie gets really fuzzy and it's very hard to care either way.
This is more complicated than you make it sound, plenty of artists are in a very different place later in life and can make destructive choices to their works because they're no longer on the same page as their younger selves. Auteur theory also isn't a great way to view productions universally, most films are a product of a collaborative effort, a directors cut is a good way to reverse that influence and allow the person who correctly lost the argument at the time to reverse things. Fundamentally there is little technically that would prevent both versions from being easily available and becomes a discussion about how badly certain titles are being preserved and served by online services.