Bladerunner.
They took out the music. Like WTF?
Although there are like 3 or 4 different cuts. Not sure if it was technically the Director’s Cut.
The latest one “The final cut” is supposed to be the directots cut. It’s really good.
Agree, the final cut is good. I prefer the first version, but that’s a question of personal preferences, not of quality of the versions.
Any of the original Star Wars trilogy films.
It’s probably worth pointing out that the original theatrical release of what we today call A New Hope was just released as Star Wars, wasn’t even called episode four, didn’t have a title crawl, and included that scene with Jabba but instead of it being Jabba it was some guy in a fur suit, so it’s going to depend on which directors cut you’re talking about.
Lucas has been tampering with the film since the first home release. And he famously refused to hand over the original print for preservation in the National Film Registry. And he refuses to restore and re-release the original cut of the film.
But…there is an awesome fan project called 4K77 that digitalized and restored the original 38mm film for Star Wars. Meaning you can now download a crisp 4K version of the original theatrical version of Star Wars.
and included that scene with Jabba but instead of it being Jabba it was some guy in a fur suit
The original theatrical release did not contain Jabba at all. A scene was shot with a human actor, but never used in the film.
We wouldn’t get Jabba in the film until the 1997 Special Edition, which replaced him with CGI. In the documentary alongside that release we do see the original clip and Han stepping on Jabba’s tail is due to Harrison Ford moving around the human actor in a way that doesn’t work with a tail in the way.
We also later got an updated Jabba for the DVD release.
https://screenrant.com/star-wars-jabba-hutt-human-actor-change-reason/
This is making me question a lot of things… I would’ve sworn that it was in the original cut, I distinctly remember the DVD special features talking about that scene having been restored from the original cut. I’m gonna have to go back and find that.
I can’t speak to the DVD special features, but the VHS intro has an interview with George (jump to 7:30).
George definitely talks about it like it was always there. To be fair he shot the scene for the film and intended to include it. So George views it as a scene intended for the original cut, but it wasn’t.
This is almost certainly what I am remembering, and I definitely remember seeing the VHSs when I was a kid too so this checks out. Thank you for doing the legwork to find this!!!
The Star Wars Movies have had fans create despecialized editions, to match the theatrical releases. Ive made sure to keep a copy of them on my media server. I really enjoy them.
I think the intention of this post is to look at theatrical/physical release vs the directors cut.
Check out 4K77, 4K80 and 4K83.
Trust me, you’ll never want to watch any other version ever again ✌🏻
I don’t remember the differences (and there aren’t many) but Ridley Scott himself was asked to make a “director’s cut” of Alien for the Blu-ray release and he did… But he said something along the lines of “It was hard to figure out what to change. The theatrical cut already is the director’s cut. I made it the way I wanted it to be the first time around.”
The director’s cut of Alien is terrible. All they do is put in more shots of the xenomorph and that ruins the movie in two ways:
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The reason Alien works so well is you barely see the alien at all. The build up to the end is incredibly good, and
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The shots that were inserted make it clear it’s just a dude in a rubber suit. The alien changes from something to be feared to something to be laughed at.
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Speaking of Ridley Scott, Bladerunner had many different versions iirc. Might be a candidate
I might say Donnie Darko as the Director’s Cut may complicate the movie a bit for those who prefer the mystery of the theatrical one.
I would say the musical choices are better in the theatrical cut as well.
Leon, The Professional. Besson is a creep.
How does it differ from the original movie? I tried looking it up but I couldn’t find any notes on that. The “International” version seems to be longer. Of course, one of the top results is a Reddit thread where I scroll down and immediately see an “um akshully it’s ephebophelia” comment, which is on-brand for Reddit.
That’s pretty much it. They trimmed the sexualization of Portman’s character in the theatrical release. The director’s cut put it back in. It changes the relationship from flawed underworld father she never had figure, to attempted lover. Jean Reno refused some scenes and forced Beson to take a milder direction then even that as he wanted to go lolita in the film.
Aha! Yeah I’ll skip that, thank you hahaha
anything Zack Snyder gets his hands on. literally anything. he’ll take an ok theatrical release and then turn into 3 hours of sheer boredom.
Rebel Moon was already a zero. I’m curious how he made it worse, but I really couldn’t be fucked to watch that garbage again.
Justice League
The theatrical Justice League has two things going for it: brevity, and Batman’s “just save one” mentor moment with The Flash, which was nice.
Everything else about Snyder’s cut is better. It looks better, it sounds better, each scene in isolation plays better, it has fewer cringy jokes. Most importantly, it retains Cyborg’s story arc, which it turns out was the heart of the whole damn movie.
Oh, to me both were bad and, generally speaking, I’ve been overdosing on superhero movies, it just never stops and each one is even more slopish than the last. I just remember the director’s cut of this one leaving me even more apathetic than the theatre cut, when we were promised that it would make more sense, be more interesting, etc. It was not. The superhero slop has to stop.
If you aren’t having a good time either way, the theatrical’s 90 minute running time is a huge advantage. But then you should probably just walk away, rather than try again with a 4 hour cut. I enjoyed Snyder’s version well enough once, but I’ll likely never rewatch it just because of the time investment required.
Oh no, I’d die before I pay to watch an american movie. I just need background noise when I’m working on my computer. A movie is good when it actually grabs my attention away from what I’m doing. Both versions did not.
Oh no, I’d die before I pay to watch an american movie.
Glad to hear it, the less money being sent to that country the better. The only money I’ve given to any film or TV for the past year or more has been to CBC Gem and BritBox.
I imagine most movies would suck if I watched them the way you do, though. Podcasts or talking head YouTubers are my preference for choring background.
How??? The Snyder cut wasn’t anything to write home about but the theatrical cut was terribly boring.
The first release was a cringe yet-another-superhero-movie, the director’s cut was masturbation over a cringe movie made even longer.
If I may, I’d like to recommend the animated movie Justice League: War (2014). It’s basically a shorter version of JL17 and ZSJL, all three films are adapted from the same comic. Of the three, this is the best.
I remember watching War and repeatedly thinking “man, if only they made this live action, shot for shot, it might’ve had a chance”
Star Trek VI. The director’s cut interrupts the extremely dramatic mind-meld interrogation scene with another obnoxious flashback every time a character is implicated. I suppose between releases the director must have lost faith in his audience’s ability to follow the story without having their hands held.
“Directed by William Shatner” basically tells you all you need to know.
And anyone brave enough to watch the director’s cut, is boldly going where no man has gone before…and returned with their sanity intact.
That was Trek V. VI was Nicholas Meyer, who also did The Wrath of Khan, so actually a very talented director. But I guess we all make mistakes.
My bad…I read it as ‘V’… 🤐
Deadpool 2.
Theatrical jokes are better.
I didn’t know there was a director’s cut of any Deadpool movie. I knew there was the PG-13 version of Deadpool 2 called “Once Upon a Deadpool” that featured Fred Savage like in Princess Bride
In my experience, all of them.
The directors cut isn’t about watching the movie itself, but examining the process of producing a film - dissecting it.
Two different experiences.
The director’s cut for Blade Runner is a massive improvement on the theatrical version because it removes the narration the studio forced in. A lot of director’s cuts include a few scenes that make a movie work when they were cut or changed to meet some silly studio meddling.
Which one?
There are 7 of them.
Yep and the definitive version was released 25 years after the theatrical.
The theatrical cut of Dark City assumes the audience is an idiot and spoils the movie’s plot twist with an unnecessary opening narration.
I’d argue that James Cameron’s “The Abyss” director’s cut is superior to the theatrical. The extra 25min introduces some extra plot details in the climax that really flesh out the ending
What about watching a directors cut unknowingly and loving it?
/end of thread!!!
Empire Records. The directors cut tries to make Rex Manning a more sympathetic character but it just works better with him as a villain.
TIL there was a director’s cut of Empire Records…
I must have watched that movie a dozen times when I was younger and absolutely loved it. Just goes to show that not every movie needs a director’s cut.
I don’t know as to whether Rex was really a villain. He was just an arsehole.
Mitchell, however, was a prick from top to bottom.
I see them both as representative of faces of capitalism. Mitchell is a leech. His father created the business and did useful work but all Mitchell just consumes. Rex and Musictown represent the corporatization of music. Rex isn’t an artist, he is a product being sold.
Gladiator. The director’s cut adds a lot of unnecessary content, which just messes up the pacing of the movie. And sadly, the theatrical cut is hard to come by (impossible?) in HD format.
And sadly, the theatrical cut is hard to come by (impossible?) in HD format.
4K isn’t HD though. Maybe they like smaller file sizes or didn’t have a need for 4K.
The theatrical cut is also available on the regular 1080p Blu-ray.
Since it’s available on Blu-ray, surely someone must have remuxed and encoded it by now. I mean, the Scene guys had to source the movie from somewhere, right?
TBH it sounded weird to me too. I was just trying to make sense of it.
Stargate. The director’s cut tried to add to much plot, and the best bits by a mile were the action scenes!
It’s a Roland Emmerich film. He makes stupid but exciting movies. Stargate is hugely stupid, but it’s exciting. Made for the basis of a great TV series too.
The theatrical cut of Legend, by Ridley Scott, has an awesome prog rock soundtrack.
The director’s cut has some generic fantasy movie musical noodling.
It’s not even close.
Iirc there’s also a different release between the US and Europe separate from a director’s cut. I remember the plot being way different between the versions I watched, and not just via music choice.
shit, i need to look into this because I remember loving Legend back in the day
I swore that was the case but i honestly didn’t by find much on it.
It’s in the Post-production section of the movie’s Wikipedia article.
Alien 3. Though technically not an actual director’s cut (which is bad in and of itself), the assembly cut was sold as being the the next best thing.
But imo its a sloppy version of the film. The ox scene was nonsensical and unnecessary, the ending scene was ruined with bad fx and bad scoring and I disliked the overal pacing.
Its like someone just swapped out a bunch of scenes and went “There ya go, all better now!”
The Legacy cut is imo the best version of the film.
All versions of this movie suck.
They really should have stopped after the 2nd one.
I didn’t mind Romulus as much though. Ending was a little meh but it felt like a nicely executed side story.
I also prefer the theatrical cut of Aliens. The relationship between Ripley and Newt is just enough. The director’s cut mashes the maternal relationship button too hard. Seeing a little bit more with the colonists is nice, but doesn’t make up for the other imbalances.
Wow, that’s a good point actually.
The special edition has pretty much been the standard for home video ever since they released the Alien Trilogy Boxset in 1997.
Meaning I also haven’t actually watched the Theatrical Cut since at least 1997 🤐
Cameron recently hinted at a 3D re-release following the 40th anniversary, but the movie itself hasn’t aged as well as Alien and I won’t even mention the issues with the 4K ‘remaster.
I prefer The Assembly Cut
What about the Assembly Cut did you enjoy most?
Here’s a good summary of the differences
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3-comparing-the-assembly-cut-to-the-theatrical-cut/
