Extended Editions vs Director's Cuts

Over the past year, one thing I've noticed more and more of are "extended editions" of movies. These things annoy me, mostly because I've got no idea who's behind the extending. I'm usually more than happy to check out a Director's Cut of a movie, and in the case of LotR I was okay with the "extended edition" business because I at least knew what PJ thought of them. But Ridley Scott is on record saying that the theatrical release of Gladiator was his director's cut, so whose idea was it to put out an extended cut? And now it's happening left and right. Extended editions. Do these things come with the director's approval, or is it a studio decision to cut some footage back in to try to make more money? Anyone know anything about the advent of this phenomenon?

 

It's mainly just a marketing gimmick, especially with Director's Cuts. They usually don't add a whole lot to the movie, maybe just a couple deleted scenes and behind the scenes features, and it seems now that the basic DVD is really just the movie.
Extended Editions also bother me, because it's implying that what you see in theaters is incomplete, which rings false for me.

 

I think for the most part it's a marketing thing, kind of like all the "uncut" releases of teen comedies and the like that keep coming out. It's annoying to me as well.

And for the most part, I prefer the theatrical cuts of most of these movies with a few exeptions such as Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Aliens. But most of the time it either adds nothing to the film to make it better or ends up tarnishing a previously great film.

The LOTR:EEs are a weird case, though. PJ has said that they aren't director's cuts, they're more just alternate versions of the films that include some of the fun stuff that was cut out. But, at least he was involved in the "extending" process (ooh, that sounds a mite dirty doesn't it?). As an aside, I think I may be alone in this but I prefer the theatrical cuts of the LOTR movies to the EEs.

 

LOTR Extended Editions =

 

i would have to disagree on that. i could never tell differences between Extended Editions and Directors Cuts because most of the time they're the same. only movie i can think of where the directors cut was different from the theatrical cut and was actually shorter was Alien. the director's cut of that was a little shorter

 

My point excactly: You can't see no difference but it makes the movies 15-30 minutes longer which is a huge waste of valuable time!

 

As long as both theatrical and extended/director's versions are available, it doesn't bother me much. Sometimes the directors are wrong about their own films needing a new cut anyway. Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Cameron's Aliens are prime examples of this.

 

that's not what i meant. i was talking about Extended Editions and Directors Cuts in general in regards to the term names(Extended Edition and Directors Cut) that I see them as the same thing almost.

you can tell a difference in the LOTR series a lot and it helps them.

 

But the thing about LOTR is that both the theatrical cut and the Extended edition are director's cuts.
The same thing about Oliver Stone's Alexander: The theatrical cut was Stone's cut, the same goes for the newly released Director's cut. And it's the same story for Kingdom of Heaven. They are releasing a Director's Edition of it when the theatrical cut also was a director's cut.
So basically the term director's cut and Extended Edition has replaced the term "Special Edition" (now used for DVD cover, extras etc) when it comes to a different cut.

 

Personally I think they need to stop this crappy "Extended" versions. LOTR was a great example of how to do it right. All those other films that come out now with "Extended" "The Stuff You Didn't See In the Cinema" are total garbage, most of the time it's obvious the reason we didn't see it at the cinema is cos it wasn't good enough to make the final cut of the film. The extra scense in 40 Year Old Virgin, Wedding Crashers were totally pointless and for me spoiled my enjoyment of the film.

If they want to do this they should at least put the cinematic version on the DVD.

Director's Cuts are different, if the director actually has spent the time and effort to do it then it's worth it but if it's just the studio relabelling it it's pointless.

 

I prefered the extended edition of the LOTR movies, just for the little things mostly from the novels that PJ decided to put back into the film(like the Mouth of Sauron scene, the short segment between the Witchking and Gandalf, and Faramir's memory of him and Boromir having a good time, until Denethor messed it up). At least he didn't have a Tom Bombadill segment for FOTR.

Aliens was good as well just for explanation of how the colonists found the derelict. It made the film better to me.

 

Here's the most well-known example for you Mas:

Dune (David Lynch).

This movie had (I believe) three versions:
1) The original theatrical version (running approx. 2 hours, 7 minutes.)
2) The director's cut (what Lynch wanted to release, running approx. 2 hours 17 minutes)
3) The version edited for TV viewing RECUT BY THE STUDIO (which Lynch had his name removed from in exchange for Alan Smithee, running approx. 2 hours 37 minutes)

 

Directors cuts are almost always terrible. Extended cuts are fine.

 

I disagree. I tend to prefer Director's Cuts. Often the studio will force a picture to be cut to make it more accessible or whatnot, and I'd rather see the director's version of the film. Sometimes it's gimmicky, but more often than not I find the changes worthwhile, and, frankly, I'm more interested in seeing what the director has to say than a version sanitized for whatever reason by the studio.

Extended Cuts, I'm not interested in. If a director's happy with the theatrical cut of his film, I don't want someone else to decide to shove some stuff from the cutting room floor back into the movie. These seem almost exclusively (with the possible exception, as has been discussed, of LotR) to be money-making gimmicks.

Of course, there are situations such as with Dune and Alien3 where the studio cut may be as close as we'll ever get to what might be a Director's Cut if the director were actually willing to come back to the project, but what's with The Patriot? Enemy of the State? Gladiator? Crimson Tide? The Replacement Killers? Dances With Wolves? Con Air? The list goes on. How many of these cuts have been "extended" with the actual director's involvement or blessing? Who decides what's going to be cut back in?

 

There are times, however, when a director needs some discipline.

Champion example: Coppola. He never knows where to stop, and he has restored every stupid outtake he ever had to the Godfather Saga.

And Jackson. Just about everybody agrees that "King Kong" was too long, but such was his clout, it was released that way.

So I don't agree that Director's Cuts are always better. EE, OTOH, are the suits picking your pocket.

 

Any truth to those rumors about him wanting to release an EE of King Kong?

 

He already did.

Someone said in the King Kong thread that in the EE edition the boat ride takes nine hours.

 

Extended cuts are coming out on DVD left and right now. In fact, just this last Tuesday, extended cuts were released for "Casualties of War", "The Patriot", and "The Replacement Killers". And I'm pretty sure, recently, extended cuts for "Crimson Tide" and "Enemy of the State" were released.

 

I prefer the term extended editons because then you know that they didn't cut anything out [coughs]Alexander[coughs]

Good EE's/DC's

LOTR (three masterpieces)
Gladiator (the 17 minutes really works into the film quite nicely)
Kingdom of Heaven (It doesn't come out for another month and I'm already giving it thumbs up)

Bad EE's/DC's

Crash (2 minutes is not enough to warrant a DC)
Alexander (A total change from the original, jumbling it up even more)
The Patriot (Too many small scenes to add to a EE)
Harry Potter SS (Additonal scenes reflect the book well, but the theatrical 155 minutes is long enough for a short book)
Harry Poter COS (The movie's already 2hr 41 min. Too many snippets that add to continuity, but slightly drag the story)

 

Its funny that so many of you are lumping directors cuts and extended editions together.

They're very much different. It goes back to the orginal question of who's version of the film you are actually seeing in an extended edition. Usually its just a group of marketers who say "thats cool put it back in" while the director didn't want anything to do with it.

So yes, extended/unrated cuts are just marketing gimicks they stick on bad or poorly recieved movies to make people think they are getting something different. A "true" directors cut would be the director's definative cut of the movie. The one he wanted you to see in the first place.

 

What about Unrated cuts? Those are pretty plentiful, too. I recently saw Dumb And Dumber Unrated, and I liked the original version more.

I have the Extended and Director cuts of the Star Trek films, and they are better than the theatrical editjons.

 

And what's with this pricing a single disc no-frills edition for the cost of a regular old 2 disc set and then bumping the prices of 2-disc sets up!

 

After seeing the LOTR extended editions, I can't and don't want to watch the theater editions anymore. Peter Jackson himself has said that he prefers the extended versions, they were as he intended the story to be told all along, but a fact of life is that without intermission you can't really make people sit in movie theaters for more than three hours straight.

The Abyss is one movie where the director's cut was truly brilliant. I remember seeing the theatrical release and being so utterly disappointed, because the ending didn't make any sense at all. The end of the director's cut was very satisfying, though.

 

I was not aware there existed different editions of the Harry Potter movies!!!???

 

The LOTR films were too long *before* the extended editions were released. No one should have to sit through a film as long as ROTK: EE.