The Best: Extended Cuts

I’ve made several posts already about extended editions and directors cuts of films.  I’ve made the comparisons between each kind and how much they supplement the original theatrical if at all.  There are a great deal of movies out there that claim to be “unrated” but don’t really add anything significant to the picture.  1 or 2 minutes of extra footage just isn’t worth it.  9-10 minutes is worth taking a look.  Any extended version that has 15 minutes of footage or more added back into the film need to be seen.  I held off on doing this particular list until I saw the extended version of Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  Because of that movie, I will be discussing the best extended versions of movies.  The Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions will not be on this list, because they are very controversial and some of the stuff that George Lucas added really took AWAY from the films instead of adding to them.  Neither will the extended editions of The Hobbit.  Again, nothing significant was added.  While the majority of extended cuts that I’m listing won’t change the film significantly as far as story goes, there are a handful that really improve upon the original film in every way.  With that in mind, let us begin.  This is The Best: Extended Cuts

Batman V. Superman: The Ultimate Cut

This one is the most recent.  The Blu-Ray will be available in two weeks, but you can nab the digital version on Amazon right now.  When I said that some extended cuts dramatically improve the original film, this is one of those movies.  The theatrical release, while I though was fun, was riddled with plot-holes and questionable character motivations.  The extended cut of Batman V. Superman fixes most of those issues.  Lex Luthor’s plan to get Batman and Superman to fight each other is fleshed out even and makes a bit of sense.  In fact, Clark Kent gets to be a reporter in the extended version.  Most of the stuff that was added, was mostly exposition, character development and story development.  Taken by themselves, they might not necessarily change the overall story, but when you put all of that together, you have 30 minutes of extra footage that really needed to be in there in the first place.  The other thing you will notice is that the extended version is rated R.  It’s a tad more violent with a little bit more blood and an f-bomb dropped for good measure.  Overall, character motivations actually make sense and Superman actually gets to be Superman.  While the extended cut does not fix certain script issues, it is definitely a better movie than what was released back in March.

Kingdom Of Heaven

One of the most important aspects of film-making is the editing process.  It’s used to help make a coherent film, mostly, and to weed out stuff that may not be necessary to the final product.  It happens ALL the time.  It’s part of the job.  The problem is that with certain directors, the movie studios don’t necessarily trust the final product that the director wants to put out, so they step in and force certain cuts.  This is why we sometimes end up with extended versions of films.  Like Batman V. SupermanKingdom Of Heaven suffered from having nearly an hour’s worth of material cut out, which includes an important subplot involving the queen’s son, who inherited leprosy from his father King Baldwin IV.  You can’t cut out that much material and expect to have a movie that’s respected by anybody.  This video by Film Radar goes into greater detail as to why editing is important.  My personal opinion about Kingdom Of Heaven is that you need to see the director’s cut of the film.  It’s infinitely better, it has more action, and it goes into greater detail with the characters.  I thought it was an okay movie to begin with, but the extended version makes it infinitely better.  If you’re a fan of Ridley Scott, you HAVE to see this version.

Aliens: Special Edition

This one is extremely interesting.  The theatrical release of Aliens is considered to be one of the greatest sci-fi sequels of all time.  James Cameron crafted an incredible follow-up to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece.  It was different, but it still respected the creature and what it was about.  In 1993, an extended version of the film was released on VHS.  It contained 17 minutes of additional footage that had more action and more character development.  The big part of this version was that Ellen Ripley was a mother, whose child had passed away of old age while she was in hyper-sleep.  So, when she finds Newt, the bond between the two characters is that of a mother and daughter and makes Aliens a more compelling film.  Was the additional footage necessary?  Not really, but it was the version that James Cameron wanted people to see.  It’s really good.

Alien 3: The Assembly Cut

While I really enjoyed the special edition of Aliens, it was the Alien 3 Assembly Cut that I found to be extremely compelling.  This is what happens when you don’t trust the film director that you hired.  Yeah, David Fincher was inexperienced, but he had a particular vision that he wanted audiences to see, and ultimately it was not to be.  Fox Studios had interfered with him almost every step of the way while ordering script changes and alternate shots.  The result was a hot mess of a film.  The Assembly Cut addresses most of those issues and actually ends being a much better film.  It’s not perfect, because of the massive script problems, but it was certainly closer to what David Fincher had intended.  Sigourney Weaver gives what I consider to be her strongest performance in the entire Alien saga.  Alien 3 is what I consider to be a misunderstood masterpiece.

Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut

Superman II is a very unusual situation.  When Superman was being filmed, most people didn’t realize that Richard Donner was also filming Superman II at the same time.  Somewhere along the way, Donner and the Salkinds got into some kind of disagreement and Donner was booted from the sequel, despite having filmed about 80 percent of the movie.  So, they brought in Richard Lester to re-shoot the entire sequel, and the result was a more campy sequel than what was initially intended.  Between 2003 and 2005, the footage that the Salkinds rejected had been found and edited into a new cut of the film.  It’s not perfect, as some of Lester’s footage was used to complete the film, and the use of some test-footage was integrated into the picture.  While it’s a little uneven, the final result was a completely different movie than what was released back in 1980.  It actually feels like a real sequel to Richard Donner’s first movie, which is a very good thing.  Yeah, there’s still some camp, but it’s a version that I feel is superior in every single way.

These are the extended cuts that I have seen that add a lot of significant new material to the films.  My personal opinion is that we really shouldn’t need extended cuts to enjoy the proper version of a movie, but movie studios are a fickle bunch and are more interested in getting butts in seats than actually telling a coherent story.  I get it, it’s a business, but some of these decisions ended up with movies that were in worse shape than they deserved to be.  So, that’s my list for The Best: Extended Cuts.

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