Whenever soldiers go into battle, whether it was the knights of Europe or today’s battle-hardened combat troops, there was always a commanding officer giving an incredibly moving and inspiring speech. In the movie world, it’s no different, except it’s to get the audiences pumped for an upcoming battle of epic proportions. For this reason, this episode of The Best will feature the greatest movie speeches ever. Nothing gets the blood pumping like a bad-ass speech from a charismatic leader. So, without further delay, here are The Best: Movie Speeches.
Pacific Rim
This one falls into the “short-but-sweet” category. After a resounding success by the humans against the alien Kaiju monsters, Idris Elba’s Stacker Pentecost delivers a powerful speech that gets the survivors ready for the final battle. I don’t think anybody could have done this as well as Mr. Elba. He’s got that gruff and confident bravado that comes with experience and he proves that he’s the leader that they need. It’s pretty bad-ass.
Braveheart
Is there anybody who has NOT seen this movie yet? Well, let me tell you why you should: Just for this speech. It’s powerful, affecting, and combined with James Horner’s fantastic score, this is the kind of speech that makes you want to pick up a Scottish claymore and stand in defiance. This is Mel Gibson at his finest, both directing and starring in. Braveheart is one of the greatest epics ever put on the silver screen. This has to be seen.
Patton
This is another historical figure, General George S. Patton, who delivered this rousing speech to the Third Army during World War II. Now, granted: the film’s version of the speech was truncated quite a bit, but it still had the effect that the movie-makers were going for. George C. Scott was the only choice to play the legendary 4-Star General. While I don’t personally think his rhetoric would sit well in today’s world, but I have to admit, he got the men moving during World War II.
Independence Day
What can I say about this one? This one is definitely a personal favorite. Yeah, it’s science fiction, but Independence Day is still one of the funnest blockbusters ever released. This speech by Bill Pullman’s President Whitmore sends chills down my spine every time I watch it. Why? Because it’s a good goddamn speech, that’s why. While the film may come across as cheesy at times, you can’t ignore the star power in the film. Nobody could have delivered this speech the way Bill Pullman did.
Gladiator
For Gladiator, you get two for the price of one. Russell Crowe plays General Maximus Decimus Meridius, the commander of the armies of the north. Betrayed and left for dead by “Emperor” Commodus, Maximus returns to unleash his vengeance on the man who murdered his family. The opening speech is as amusing as it is inspiring: “What we do in life echoes in eternity.” The second was more of a threat than an actual speech, but it still counts as far as I’m concerned. It’s VERY powerful. Nobody else but Russell Crowe could have pulled it off.
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Aragorn’s speech at the Battle of the Black Gate is one for the history books. Viggo Mortensen delivers one of the most iconic battle speeches in cinema history as the new king of Gondor. Return of the King? Oh, yes. That is a definite yes. This is one of the most impassioned speeches I’ve seen in years, and still hasn’t been matched to this day. It’s a great movie and a great conclusion to a great film series, so it has to be big.
Those are my picks for some of The Best: Movie Speeches ever. So, feel free to add any of your own down below and I will talk to you next time on The Best.
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. Superman, Kingdom 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.
Before I start in on why I refuse to support the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot, I would first like to discuss why I’m such a huge fan of the franchise. I didn’t actually see the original movie in theaters, because it came it out in 1984, and I was only a year and a half old. I started watching The Real Ghostbusters cartoon on Saturdays when it was on my local Fox station. It was colorful, fun and loud. It was one of the greatest cartoons I ever saw as a kid. No, I caught the movie on TV and subsequent home video rentals. The original Ghostbusters film was and still is one of the best comedies ever made. It combined comedy, action and horror all into one. It was not entirely kid-friendly with some pretty off-color jokes, but it was just so much fun. It had the talents of three of the funniest comic actors in the industry: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis. There was so much chemistry between the characters, it was hard to take your eyes off of them. Even when Bill Murray’s character is jabbing at William Atherton’s Walter Peck was brilliant. The writing was super-sharp and the jokes came one right after another, and they were all funny.
The special effects themselves were simply astounding. The proton pack streams were incredibly well-animated. Slimer was just….well….Slimer. It looked like it was actually there. The terror dogs actually gave me nightmares when I was a kid, they were that scary. Even today, those damn dogs give me the creeps. Everything about the movie was incredible. It was funny and exciting all at the same time. It also remains one of the most quotable movies in history:
Well, that clip has quotes from the first two movies, but you know what I’m saying. Speaking of Ghostbusters II, it was not a terrible follow-up. It was essentially more of the same, but not as refined. It felt a little rushed, but it was still a ton of fun, and the characters were still memorable. However, one should always remember this important tip: If someone asks you if you’re a god, you say “yes!”
Unfortunately, Ghostbusters II was met with fairly mixed reviews and lacked the energy and spirit of the original film. Personally, I still loved it, but nothing topped the first Ghostbusters film. The one thing that really tied the both of them together was it’s theme by Ray Parker, Jr.:
It was catchy, it was funny, and it was iconic. After the success of the original Ivan Reitman film, the song was adapted for the cartoon series. It was #1 on the charts for several weeks. The music video even featured the main characters in a dance sequence. It was quite a sight. Even if you haven’t seen the movies, you know the song. It’s a part of pop-culture and is not something that can ever be forgotten.
After Ghostbusters II, there were really no plans for further sequels or entries, despite the franchise’s popularity. There were a couple of games for the NES, but they were pretty terrible. After a while, though, there were grumblings that a third live-action film was possibly in the works. In fact, in the early 2000’s, Dan Aykroyd himself expressed a desire to return to the franchise that helped create. Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson and director Ivan Reitman were surprisingly open to the idea. The problem was that Bill Murray really didn’t want to come back to that role. He’s been on and off again about whether or not he wanted to return. The ideas for Ghostbusters III were many. One iteration had the ‘busters going into Hell itself or an alternate dimension. During the interim, though, Dan Aykroyd managed to convince the others to voice their characters for a full-blown video-game which was released in 2009. It had a fairly positive response. It had the charisma and charm of the original film, while exploring new areas of the franchise. I thought it was awesome, and about as close to a third film was we were going to get. The response to the game actually got people to really start thinking about a new Ghostbusters movie.
In fact, there were plans to do TWO separate films. One of them had an all-female cast, and the other was going to be the original guys, passing the torch to a new generation of Ghostbusters. Sadly, Harold Ramis passed away in early 2014, so any plans for an official sequel were shot. The film with the female cast was allowed to continue. Some people had reservations. I know I did, but you know what, I would give it a chance. Then they announced the cast for the film: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon as the Ghostbusters. These were pretty funny, so it could work. Then, they started releasing pictures from the film, and some people seriously lost their shit. Personally, I was hoping for a little more than this:
It still wasn’t terrible. Then they cast Chris Hemsworth as Kevin, the receptionist. Things are starting to become a little more dubious, but I’m still rolling with it. Then Sony released this:
Can you say, “shitstorm?” The response to the first trailer was extremely negative. Aside from the really awkward vagina joke, most of the jokes really fell flat and just came across as embarrassing. It has become the most disliked movie trailer in YouTube history with nearly 1,000,000 dislikes. Now, understand that while there is a vocal minority that hates the idea of female Ghostbusters anyway, the reason that most of us hated the trailer was because it looked like garbage. It was poorly put together with some really lame in-jokes and pop-culture references. The backlash was IMMEDIATE. So they released a second trailer. The response wasn’t much better.
Oh, things get worse. The film’s director, Paul Feig, along with Sony’s CEO, Tom Rothman, and some of the crew of the film have lashed out at the fans for deriding the trailers and essentially the movie before its release. Let me tell you something: If you’re trying to win fans, you don’t fucking insult them. That’s exactly what’s been happening over the past several weeks. Leslie Jones has actually come out and defended her role in the film, so there’s that, but nobody else has. Paul Feig and Sony have essentially said that people who complain about the movie are misogynists. The massive amount of negative publicity surrounding the film is astonishing. Paul Feig and company deserve it. They’re taking a beloved franchise and ruining it with terrible visual effects and lame jokes. Now, after all that, I was still willing to check out the film to see if it was any good or not. That was before the music group known as Fallout Boy released the “official” theme song of the new film:
I just…I just can’t. Listen to this crap. It’s terrible. Fallout Boy hasn’t been relevant for over a decade, and even then their music wasn’t all that good. The fact that this is a part of the official soundtrack makes me sick. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I can’t support this movie. No chance in hell. Ghostbusters fans should be insulted that this movie was allowed to be green-lit, especially with somebody like Paul Feig at the helm. This moron has no clue as to what makes Ghostbusters so special to so many people. While I’m sure it will make some money on its opening weekend with people curious about the movie, but I can almost guarantee you the drop-off for the following week will be….bad. This movie won’t even open in China, due to their restrictions on anything supernatural-related, so you can bet your bottom dollar that Ghostbusters 2016 will most likely be the biggest flop of the year. It’s going to fail. That much is clear, and Paul Feig deserves to fail. I don’t want the cast to fail, they’re not the problem. The problem is everything and everyone else associated with the movie. I should tell you that Dan Aykroyd has voiced his support for the film on Facebook:
“As originator of the original: Saw test screening of new movie. Apart from brilliant, genuine performances from the cast both female and male, it has more laughs and more scares than the first 2 films plus Bill Murray is in it! As one of millions of man-fans and Ray Stantz, I’m paying to see that and bringing all my friends!”
That’s all well and good, except for one reason, and this was brought up by YouTuber, Mundane Matt: Dan Aykroyd created Ghostbusters, so he has a vested interest in seeing a movie being made. There is definitely some bias involved with his response. I’m not bashing Mr. Aykroyd for having an opinion. I’m not. He’s talented and he’s funny. I’m sure he’s being honest, but his opinion alone shouldn’t be the bar to measure for a movie like the new Ghostbusters.
Because of my love for the franchise, I cannot support a Ghostbusters film that has been made by people who have treated the fans like garbage and continue to insult them. I really wanted another Ghostbusters film, but this isn’t going to be it. I honestly think that the franchise has hit a low-point from which it may not recover. There are a LOT of people out there who share my opinion. While some may still go see it, the rest of us are going to be busy either watching the original film or playing the 2009 video game which are going to be infinitely better regardless. To quote YouTuber Angry Joe: Sony, you done fucked it up.
A couple of months back, I posted an opinion piece on extended versions of film and how relevant they are to the theatrical release. I basically talked about the different aspects of extended cuts that are interesting, as well as how and why they are released. I will be doing a Best Extended Cuts list later on this week, I hope. But right now, I want to revisit the subject of extended cuts. Why? There were two movies released this year that I want to focus on: Batman V. Superman and Warcraft. Why these two movies? When I saw these movies, it felt like they were missing things and important clues as well as plot points and subplots. One of the reasons that I bring up Batman V. Superman is because they announced an extended cut of the film before the actual film was released back in March. The extended version of the film will be released next month, and will feature about 30 minutes of additional footage reintegrated into the film. I’m not opposed to that, as I think there’s a good movie in there somewhere, and hopefully the extended cut will fix some of those problems. My issue is with them announcing the extended cut of the film before the movie was even released. That brings up a number of questions regarding the film’s quality during post-production.
I understand that a movie studio needs a movie to be within a certain run time, between 2-3 hours so the audience doesn’t fall asleep. But when you release a movie that throws so much material at the audience, you are actually doing damage to the film itself. If you’re going to throw that amount of story points, characters and events, you need to give the story of the film room and time to develop properly. Warcraft ran at a little over two hours, but it tossed so much lore and characters at you, it didn’t have time to properly explain what was going on or giving the characters time to grow. This is why extended cuts or almost a requirement in this day and age, especially for home video. According to various sources, including Dark Horizons, the original cut of Warcraft was 2 hours and 40 minutes. That’s an additional 40 minutes that could have been used to further explain what was going on in the movie for your average movie-goer. So, who is responsible for cutting those movies down to an “acceptable” run time? Is it the director or is it the movie execs? In certain cases, it’s the director. When a director decides to cut a movie down from a previous cut, he’s usually got his hands all over and is his responsibility. You can tell the difference when a movie has been cut by a director or by a movie execs. The execs are fairly obvious, because they want to plant more butts into theater seats, so they want to get the movie down to a run time that they feel won’t alienate audiences. This is what I hate about movie studio executives: They think that the audiences are stupid. I can’t even begin to tell you how untrue that is. With the Internet and social media today, we have almost unlimited access to information. You know when a studio exec has screwed with a movie. Alien 3 is a PERFECT example, as is Daredevil and Batman V. Superman.
For movies like Batman V. Superman, it feels like the movie studios don’t have a whole lot of faith in the film that they are trying to produce, hence the extended cut which hits home video next month. Are the issues behind the scenes THAT bad, that the movie studios have to start interfering with production? We’ve seen how often that plays out, and most of the time it’s not pretty. Again, I use Alien 3 as an example. The studios didn’t trust David Fincher to really get the project done the way they felt it should be done, so they kept getting in his business and changed things without telling him about it. This had the effect of driving the director off the film. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that film making is a business and that movie studios are basically gambling on whether or not a movie will make a profit or break even. It’s kind of like Russian Roulette, in that regard. Sometimes, though, you have to take a leap of faith and hope that you get it right. New Line Cinema took a massive risk with Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings movies, and look how well that ended up. They gave Jackson the go-ahead to make The Return of the King a 3.5 hour film. Audiences ate it up. Those movies did so well that the studio pretty much gave Jackson the green light to revisit his movies and released the Special Extended Editions of the films, which added a whole lot more to them.
Extended Cuts serve a real purpose. A lot of the time, its usually because the director of a particular film feels that his movie isn’t good enough, so he ends up revisiting it later and adds more to the film. Take Aliens and Terminator 2 for example. The theatrical versions were GREAT movies, but the extended cuts made them even more special, because they helped elaborate certain plot points and allowed for more character development. That’s not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is when you’re trying to release a movie, but you have to announce an extended cut before the actual film is released. Sometimes, a director is happy with the film that he/she released to theaters, but is entirely willing to show them an alternate version of the film just to show audiences what could’ve been. X-Men: Days of Future Past is an example of that. The Rogue Cut of the film was released last year and featured an almost different take on the film with the character of Rogue being placed in some of the more important scenes. Was it necessary? No…but it was awesome.
I don’t hate the two movies that inspired this post. I really don’t. In fact, I rather liked them. But the problems that I encountered with them brought them down a bit. I just wish movie studio execs would just allow directors the latitude and flexibility that they need to give us a proper movie. If they all did that, then the need for extended cuts would be greatly reduced. However, the execs only see dollar signs and nothing else. That can have a serious impact on whether or not a movie turns out well. Extended Cuts shouldn’t be necessary, they should be optional and a bit of a bonus for the audience. The theatrical film should be able to stand well enough on its own without the need to have further edits post-release.
