I was watching Stargate the other night. Fantastic movie, you can read my review by clicking on the Reviews tab at the top of the page. More specifically, I was watching the extended cut, which was about 9 minutes longer than the theatrical version. It got me thinking: Was it really necessary to have those scenes put back into the movie? As usually happens when a question like that enters my head, I have to start thinking about all the other movies that have gotten the extended cut treatment. They’re not always called that; sometimes it’s “Special Editions” or “Director’s Cuts.” You also can’t forget about the “Unrated” cuts, either. But that one is generally reserved for horror movies. So, how does one define Director’s Cut or Special Edition. Well, a film goes through a process called editing during post-production after filming is completed. Editing is used to form a coherent film. It’s like a puzzle of sorts, but during the process, certain bits and pieces of the film are deemed unnecessary or too long for a particular film. As a result, said bits are left out of the film. The average length of a film is about 2 hours, give or take a few minutes. For a good long while, some of these extended “Director’s Cuts” were not meant for the public. Usually, we got a shorter version of the film, because our attention span is typically non-existent. I’m going to go into some detail into some of the movies that got an extended version released.
The past 40 years have seen movies getting re-edited and re-evaluated by the director, and we started getting these extended versions on home video. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is a prime example of a director who went back multiple times to try and get it right. Blade Runner got 5 different releases, with The Final Cut being the last and probably best version of the bunch. It’s usually not typical of a film studio to allow a director of a film to go back and “fix” issues with the film that he/she feels could have benefited the film more. During the early 1990’s, we started seeing special extended cuts of movies being released. The two big ones were James Cameron’s Aliens and Terminator 2. Both films were made by the same director, but were published by two different companies. Each extended version had 15 minutes of footage edited back into the film for home video release. In Aliens, one of the most interesting aspects about Ripley that was removed from the film for one reason or another, was the fact that she had a daughter. Ripley spent 57 years in hypersleep after the events of the original Alien. She’s informed by Burke, a company exec, that Ripley’s daughter, Amanda had died two years prior. The reintroduction of that particular footage and information actually had an impact on some of the scenes that followed. When Ripley and a group of marines head back to LV-426 to investigate the disappearance of the colonists, they discover a lone survivor in the form of a little girl. During the course of the movie, Newt(the little girl)and Ripley start bonding and Ripley’s instincts as a mother come into play, and it’s really moving at times. So, having that kind of context can actually improve a film. Yeah, there were more action scenes and the use of robotic turrets that were really cool, but it was that deal with Ripley being a mother that made the character far more relatable. Sometimes an underlying theme can help drive a film.
Terminator 2 had a scene that was truncated, but it was a very important aspect of the film. The scene in question was after John Connor and the Terminator had rescued Sarah Connor from the T-1000 and were hiding out in a mechanic’s garage. The scene was kind of a throwaway in how the Terminator learned about human behavior, but in the extended version of the film, we learn that Skynet presets the Terminator’s CPU to “read-only” when they’re sent out alone. This scene is significant for several reasons. One: It makes more sense for them to able to reset the switch so the Terminator can start evolving in a certain way. Another is to allow John to showcase some of his leadership abilities. He basically says that if his own mother won’t listen his ideas once in a while, how would you expect anyone else to? So, afterwards, we start seeing the Terminator start learning about human behavior. He even learns how to smile, and the bond that John and the Terminator form gets stronger. The Terminator is still a machine at the end of the day, but because he learned about human behavior and what makes us tick, he begins to understand the value of human life. As with Aliens, Terminator 2 also featured more action and more character development. In the end, the extended versions of these films actually ended up being better than the theatrical version. Thankfully, the theatrical versions of each film were really, really good, so the extended versions were a bonus.
There is the rare occasion where a director’s cut or extended cut will significantly alter a movie. I’m not talking about just a few scenes here. I’m talking entire plot points that were cut out of the theatrical release to get the run times down. As a result, those films ended up not being as well received. Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven is a prime example. 50 minutes of footage was reintroduced several months after the film hit theaters. There were two plot points involving Orlando Bloom’s character murdering his own brother and Eva Green’s character killing her own son because he was going to be a leper like his father. These plots really changed the scope of the film. It became a lot more personal and made a lot more narrative sense. Fantastic movie, but a movie CAN hinge on how important a particular plot can be. Alien 3 suffered from multiple problems: The lack of an actual script, some questionable editing, and serious interference on Fox’s part. The film that was released wasn’t that bad, but there were issues. Some characters would show up, and then disappear without an explanation. When the Alien Quadrilogy DVD set was released it contained two versions of each film. The one that most people were anxious to see was the Assembly Cut for Alien 3. Not only did the film run half-an-hour longer, it showed us a lot more of the prisoners and their environment. Not only that, there was a scene where they attempted to capture the creature. In the Assembly Cut, they succeeded, only to have it sabotaged by one of the survivors who went insane. So, that answers TWO major questions. Now, the Assembly Cut was still imperfect and wasn’t supervised by David Fincher, but he gave his approval for it, as it was closer to the film that he wanted released. It was basically two different movies.
An extended cut can’t really save a bad movie, though. Highlander 2 is probably the best example I can think of, where no matter how much effort you put into trying to fix the movie, the damage has already been done. In Highlander 2, the explanation for Immortals was that they were aliens from the planet Zeist. While the original film didn’t get the theatrical attention it deserved in the states, Highlander actually ended up being a cult classic, and one of the best action-adventure movies of the 80’s. Here’s the problem, Highlander 2 was flawed way before it was released to theaters. It went way over-budget, there were issues with special effects and some really flawed writing. Russell Mulcahy recognized this fact and was allowed to go back and attempt to fix it. This is one of those movies that got multiple releases on home video. One of the more recent releases of the film, actually revamped many of the visual effects and gave the shield a blue hue instead of that red eye-sore. They also cut out the whole Zeist angle, but the remnants of that were still left in the film. They also got rid of some unnecessary action footage. While the latest version of the film is a lot tighter in terms of editing and is still a lot of fun, it can’t hide the fact that Highlander 2 was a mess to begin with. No amount of tampering is going to fix that.
Now, we come to UNRATED! I’m rather bemused by these ones. Sometimes a movie has to get a certain rating so it can go to theaters, which means that sometimes the material in a particular film can be too violent or too…..sexy. This label is generally reserved for horror movies, because they are often gory and super-violent. A horror film is sometimes edited for content to be sure, but there are cases where the amount of stuff they cut out is laughable and doesn’t really make a difference in the final product. When you have movie that has UNRATED CUT or KILLER CUT in the title, I have to call absolute bullshit on. The difference between the “UNRATED CUT” and the theatrical can be very minimal, and it strikes me as a complete waste of everybody’s time. Sometimes the unrated cut has alternate footage, maybe a different or some additional violent footage or sex scenes. Some of them can be pretty noticeable without making the film longer.
Now, do certain movies really need an extended version? Not really. I mentioned above that I had watched Stargate the other night, the extended version. Why does that exist? The film opens differently, yeah, but it’s a basically a longer version of the flashback in a later scene when they discuss Ra. All the extra stuff in the extended of this movie serves no actual purpose. In fact, it slows the film down. Same deal with Independence Day, the extended version ran 8 minutes longer, yet it really didn’t need to. Now, I’m sure they have a reason for putting those versions out there, but honestly, its’ superfluous at the end of the day. When Peter Jackson released The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, he also gave us extended versions of those movies. While the extended versions really weren’t necessary, it was actually really great to see more of Middle-Earth, and some of the stuff that was shown made sense. But you didn’t really need them to get what was going on. Those were worth buying. The Hobbit? I saw the extended edition of the first movie and it was weak. It was seriously weak. There was nothing substantial in those extra scenes. I haven’t the extended version of the second movie, but I’m not entirely sure I’m going to.
Now we come to it at last. The elephant in the room: Star Wars. When the original Star Wars film came out in 1977 it was groundbreaking and record-breaking. But somewhere along the way, George Lucas felt that the versions of the films that he released were…incomplete. I understand that the technology at the time was limited for what he really wanted to do, but you know what? He broke new ground in terms of visual effects and how to make movies. He pioneered techniques that are still used by filmmakers today. He didn’t seem to think that the visual effects in his movies weren’t good enough, so when CGI got to the point where it could be viable enough, George Lucas re-released the Original Trilogy back in 1997 with new special effects and additional footage including a new ending for Return of the Jedi. Let’s just say that not everybody was happy with the results. The CGI was….not that great, some of the additional scenes were unnecessary. The first movie got most of the “enhancements.” Honestly the only enhancement for the original movie that I actually approve of was the assault on the Death Star. That was great. But yeah, the scene with Jabba was pretty bad. The Sarlacc in the third film gets a CGI beak and it was just not overly threatening. I prefer the hole in the ground. And that ending was….not surprisingly terrible. Empire Strikes Back is the only one in the trilogy that actually reaped the benefits of the extra stuff. For the most part, it was untouched. We got a new approach to Cloud City, we got to see Vader leave the planet. We also got to hear Luke scream when he was falling down the central shaft. The initial DVD release didn’t actually make things a whole lot better. Some of the CG got touched up, but(and most fans will tell you this)HAN SHOOTS FIRST!!! Well, the second DVD release, we got the original pre-Special Edition trilogy on DVD as well, which was great. But Lucas couldn’t leave well enough alone. He just kept tinkering with his trilogy until the Blu-Ray was released. That was also a mixed bag. Thankfully, George Lucas sold off Star Wars, and his company to Disney.
So what are my final thoughts on extended editions? As with all things, I take it on a case by case basis. I look at what each edition has to offer and I judge accordingly. Some extended editions are fantastic, yet others can’t save a bad movie. Some are pointless while others add just a few things. A good movie will stand on its own without the need for an extended cut. Quentin Tarantino has not done anything like that with his movies, because the movies that are released are the versions that he intended for us to see. At the end of the day, these are just movies, and this has been my observation on this particular topic, but I thought it was an interesting topic. Any thoughts? Preferably not spam.