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The Many Cuts of the Many Movies We Watch - Page 2

post #51 of 62
8/12/08 at 12:44am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakespeare View Post
I would love to hear about the grievous errors in the Aliens: Director's Cut, because honestly I've seen the theatrical cut once and maybe I need to again from the sounds of it but the Director's Cut is one of my favorite films.

Well, the first mistake is spending time establishing the colonists. Not only does it bog the first part of the film down, but it kills the mystery of what happens to them . We know from the title of the film, and that it is a sequel, that there are in fact going to be aliens there. But we don't need to see the set-up. The audience is a participant going along on the rescue mission, discovering the truth along with characters. The director's cut removes any sense of discovery for the audience. This wouldn't be as big of a misstep if it didn't also kill the pacing as previously mentioned.
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post #52 of 62
8/12/08 at 12:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abbott & Prospero View Post
Well, the first mistake is spending time establishing the colonists. Not only does it bog the first part of the film down, but it kills the mystery of what happens to them . We know from the title of the film and that it is a sequel that there are in fact going to be aliens there, but we don't need to see the set-up. The audience is a participant going along on the rescue mission, discovering the truth along with characters. The director's cut removes any sense of discovery for the audience. This wouldn't be as big of a misstep if it didn't also kill the pacing as previously mentioned.
I figured that would come up.

Are you talking about the scenes in Hadley's Hope with the colonists talking in the control room and seeing the kid ride his Big Wheel around the hallways or the scene with Newt's parents? I'd say the Newt's parents discovering the ship scene is critical because it helps develop the character. I mean we know she's traumatized because she's seen the aliens and what they did to her family and friends but I think it helps us relate to her moreso by seeing what happened than letting it go implied.

The big scene that the Director's Cut adds to me is the scene of Ripley discovering her daughteer has died in the 57 years she was gone. That's the key set up for her character and her journey throughout that entire movie. It also adds the sentry gun scene but I suppose that's just more ass-kicking in a movie that's full of it already.
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post #53 of 62
8/12/08 at 12:58am
There's nothing ass-kicking about the sentry gun scene. It's a scene with people sitting safe in a room while guns endlessly fire at alien after alien..after alien. The colonist scenes all add up to information we find out later in the film. They're not not necessary and take the focus away from Ripley. The stuff with her daughter is just too on the nose for me. We understand the protective, motherly instinct Ripley feels towards Newt without it. It's not a bad scene. And it's one of the few additions that I actually don't mind, but still don't feel was needed.
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post #54 of 62
8/12/08 at 1:20am
*this post reserved for a hopefully forthcoming release of the complete Metropolis*
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post #55 of 62
8/12/08 at 1:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Abbott & Prospero View Post
There's nothing ass-kicking about the sentry gun scene. It's a scene with people sitting safe in a room while guns endlessly fire at alien after alien..after alien. The colonist scenes all add up to information we find out later in the film. They're not not necessary and take the focus away from Ripley. The stuff with her daughter is just too on the nose for me. We understand the protective, motherly instinct Ripley feels towards Newt without it. It's not a bad scene. And it's one of the few additions that I actually don't mind, but still don't feel was needed.
You make good points, I guess I just don't mind the more on the nose aspects.

It's certainly not a perfect film and I would snip some if not all of the colonist scenes, just not the Newt's parents bit.
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post #56 of 62
8/12/08 at 5:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jakespeare View Post
I'd say the Newt's parents discovering the ship scene is critical because it helps develop the character. I mean we know she's traumatized because she's seen the aliens and what they did to her family and friends but I think it helps us relate to her moreso by seeing what happened than letting it go implied.
It's still a waste of time. There's no reason to cut to the colony after "families..." because the audience is ahead of the story at that point. We're already on Ripley's side; nobody else in the movie believes in the alien(s), but we know she's right to worry because we saw the last movie.
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post #57 of 62
8/12/08 at 7:58am
Speaking of Cameron special editions: Terminator 2's special ed has some great scenes, but they drag the film down. They should be deleted scenes on the DVD, not part of the film. I bought the VHS special ed letterbox in 95, and loved it at the time but now if I'm going to rewatch T2 it's the original.
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post #58 of 62
8/12/08 at 8:14am
I enjoy the extended LOTR cuts overall, but I do have problems with the opening of FOTR and the end of TTT. I think the theatrical versions were stronger in both cases, especially with FOTR, where the addition of Bilbo writing "Concerning Hobbits" pretty much does what Gandalf and Frodo's ride through Hobbiton does in the original, only not half as well. And I think the theatrical cut of TTT had the tighter ending and made better use of Sam's speech.
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post #59 of 62
8/12/08 at 9:06am
The Extended Fellowship is the only one of the three with a proper intermission break.
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post #60 of 62
8/13/08 at 1:33am
This is my own cut, but I have a copy of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS where I put it in black and white (looks more like a 60s film), jumps from GROW FOR ME to SOME FUN NOW seamlessly, and ends with a letterboxed version of the plant eating everyone and destroying New York City.
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post #61 of 62
8/13/08 at 1:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by McIrish View Post
Speaking of Cameron special editions: Terminator 2's special ed has some great scenes, but they drag the film down. They should be deleted scenes on the DVD, not part of the film. I bought the VHS special ed letterbox in 95, and loved it at the time but now if I'm going to rewatch T2 it's the original.
That's generally how I feel about the Cameron editions. I love the new scenes and they were great in the first few viewings but now I prefer to watch the much tighter versions of T2 and Aliens. As I've said before, the one Cameron special edition I would actually like to see that never came out would be a version of the first Terminator with Reese's breakdown and the extra Paul Winfield stuff in there.

I remember when Buena Vista released all those Unrated Extended Cuts of Bruckheimer flicks like Gone In Sixty Seconds, Enemy Of The State, Coyote Ugly, Con-Air, and Crimson Tide. The only thing I can remember from any of them off the top of my head was an extra clip of Ving Rhames walking toward the plane in Con-Air.
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post #62 of 62
8/13/08 at 2:56am
Thread Starter 
I watched the original cut of Con-Air about a month ago and you could tell when they'd cut away from some of the violence. I looked it up, and the extended version doesn't. There's also little bits here and there with some of the characters. I found a shot by shot comparison online somewhere that detailed all the differences and there were surprisingly quite a few. Nothing that significant*, but enough that I'd prefer to have the extended than the original. It's such a dumb, fun movie that I wouldn't mind getting it for cheap.

*We're talking about Con-Air here, so significant is a bit of a relative term.
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