10 Director’s Cuts That Change The Plot (Spoilers)

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Nappuccino said:
I'd argue that there is enough uncertainty and metaphor in even the final cut that you can easily make a compelling case for deckard's humanity. Meaning-wise, the movie is much better if he is human, but i almost would argue that, thematically, its better if its left ambiguous.
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The director's cut really doesn't leave alot of ambiguity. Honestly Deckard being a human would be more profound but whatever.

As for the Leon bit, lol. Now I kinda wanna see those scenes.

Also would Star Wars count? I can think of some changes that didn't really change the narrative but did have some impact(ending of ep.6).
 
Watching the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves director's cut is amusing, it sort of becomes Sheriff of Nottingham: The Movie. Alan Rickman really steals the show too.

And as it's been said, The Abyss. Teeny, tiny bit different there.
 
I think that Ridley Scott is one director where the director's cut is always better than the theatrical release, but I also believe that other than him and maybe James Cameron movies DC are very much inferior to the theatrical release. Case in point Donnie Darko and Apocalypse Now.
 
KaotikMind said:
I think that Ridley Scott is one director where the director's cut is always better than the theatrical release, but I also believe that other than him and maybe James Cameron movies DC are very much inferior to the theatrical release. Case in point Donnie Darko and Apocalypse Now.
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You could make the case that Peter Jackson's director's cuts are better. Though for the most part I have a hard time differentiating between "more" and "better" when it comes to the LOTR extended editions. After all how much value can you place in someone's editing choices when the movie is 4.5 hours long?
 
T2's longer cuts restore the scene in which they essentially humanize him by allowing him to begin to learn and take on the father role more implicitly.
 
shintoki said:
To sum it up, every single character is butchered in it other than Bloom.

To use Green's character for example
In the TC, she seems like a nice girl, who is married an asshole. After her brother dies, she runs away... or something, and wants to restart. No real reason. Maybe a princess complex.

In the DC, you learn that she had a son, who was going to be the next ruler of Jerusalem after Baldwin IV died. Over the course, she discovers that he also has leprosy. Baldwin IV dies and he ascends the thrown. And after seeing her brother decay through most his life. She decides it is better to poison her son and allowing Guy to ascend the thrown.
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They butchered Blooms character also. The TC left out the fact he was an Engineer. It was always strange to me how a balck smith knew how to set up all of those weapons until I saw the DC.
 
I like the directors cut of Picnic at Hanging Rock. Nothing was added, in fact some footage was removed to leave a tighter, better film.

Regarding Blade Runner:DC, although the DC is of course better I'm not sold on the less ambiguous ending. I'm with Harrison Ford on that one.

On the subject of unnecessary narration, I believe The Road would be at least 50% better without voiceover or possibly even music.
 
i'm not sure how anyone would prefer anything over ridley's final cut of blade runner. it just has the best pacing, flow, and feel out of 7 different versions of the film. god i want to watch it right now just thinking about it.
 
Kingdom of Heaven DC is in my top ten all time (films, not director's cuts). Maybe even top three. I loved Gladiator so much when it came out, but this film just has so much more going on than a pure revenge story. You could swap out the Commodus character for anyone, at the end of the day he's "the man who wronged Maximus" and the events would unfold much as they do. You can't change the identities of the characters in KoH without changing the core of the story. Both sides do unforgivable things, and no one is in the right in a conflict spanning centuries... despite the mentally impaired Fox news thinking the movie was an anti-american, muslim glorifying Saladin love fest, coming in the wake of 9/11/01. On the topic of the DC, even at it's 194 minute tenure the movie isn't boring, I still felt it was well paced and the ebbs like Balian rebuilding his villa felt like a natural part of the journey. Why Baldwin V was ever considered to be cut is beyond me. Sibylla's motivations don't make a whole lot of sense, it's just "derp this crusader douche with the devil beard is king now derp, o well".

In some particular order:

Fight Club
Kingdom of Heaven DC
The Matrix
Aliens
Inception
Star Trek 09
The Iron Giant
Pulp Fiction
Sunshine
Gladiator

There are movies with big flaws (Sunshine's third act, Inception's over-exposition, Star Trek's... plot) that I can't help but love because what they do have going for them is magnetic to me. On the other hand I don't think the Kingdom of Heaven DC has many flaws at all.
 
mrklaw said:
Leon - the directors cut is the only way it should be watched. The 'sexual' advances from Natalie Portman are not sexual, they're awkward and touching. It adds a lot to the central relationship. Have it on DVD, not sure if its available on bluray?
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It is, at least in England.
 
Uh some of these aren't directors cuts, in the case of Leon and Metropolis certainly, they're just films originally released in truncated versions.
If we're going this 'alternate version' rather than outright directors cut route, then I'll throw in Welles' Mr. Arkadin which has 3 versions and a fascinating history as does his Touch of Evil.
Sticking to true directors cut, I prefer Apocalypse Now Redux to the original version by far, The Wild Bunch was improved when Peckinpahs wishes were followed and Aliens second version is also superior to the theatrical release.
 
The most daunting cuts to me are still the scenes that were included in Avatar's Extended Edition's features, but not inserted into the film itself whether it be because some of them weren't funded to a finished render or some other reason.

The Dream Hunt, Hunt Festival, Alternate Montage and Long Way From Earth conflict between Selfridge and Quaritch were HUGE losses from the film.

Its amazing that when you compare the theatrical cut of Avatar to all the scenes that were shot, they managed to cut 90 minutes from the film. I think the cut with all the necessary scenes reinserted would sit at about 3h 35mins.
 
I'm really hoping for a director's cut of the recent Robin Hood movie. Scott's director's cuts tend to insert enough to make plot points that make no sense at all come alive. I'm really hoping that a director's cut can explain or erase those idiotic forest boys from the movie. They had no point in the movie whatsoever, but I also thought the same thing about several characters in Kingdom of Heaven until Scott's cut came out. Here's hoping...
 
didn't the theatrical cut of blade runner use footage from the shining?
and slightly off-topic: would you recommend watching the kingdom of heaven (director's cut, obviously)? i've yet to catch it.
 
LaserBuddha said:
How can people like the narration in Blade Runner? It's so poorly done and does not sound like it belongs in the movie at all. Even when I was young and didn't know anything about the production, the narration sounded like an afterthought that just didn't mesh with anything else. It's so sparsely scattered throughout the movie that when it does come up again, it's jarring.
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Exactly. All of the voice over crap was seemingly shoehorned in at the last minute and no one directly involved with the making of the film seemed to be in favor of it. The director's cut is certainly the definitive version of Blade Runner and one of my favorite films of all time.
 
Leon is one of my favorite movies of all time. It was the first movie I obsessively followed the development of, from magazine previews to the HBO first look. I joke that I was the first kid to fall in love with Natalie Portman because of it. haha
 
xbulletholes said:
didn't the theatrical cut of blade runner use footage from the shining?
and slightly off-topic: would you recommend watching the kingdom of heaven (director's cut, obviously)? i've yet to catch it.
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It's not footage in the Shining, but it was shot for it. I think it was in the original cut though.
 
At first I thought: There's a Director's Cut version of Leon? Holy shit, I need to see it.

Then I thought it was a bit odd that all the scenes they stated were already in the movie. I didn't know there was a separate version of the movie for American audiences. I was rather disappointed.
 
JoeTheBlow said:
The Directors Cut of The Butterfly Effect is horrendous.

After all the horrors that happen to them, even if it is Ashton Kutcher, the theatrical happy ending is a sweet relief.
But having the DC ending be Kutcher go back to being back in the womb, and fetus-strangle himself with his own umbilical cord.................... *headslap*
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People seem to be split with the ending, but I'm with you. Not that the other ending is bad, just the theatrical ending makes more sense and is just a better solution to the movie's problems.
 
Blade Runner... Deckard leaving the apartment with unicorn hint. I'm pretty sure that was there in a version over ten years ago (on my VHS). Definitely not introduced in a 2007 version.
 
2. Donnie Darko

Despite the cult success of the mind-bending film, Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly repeatedly apologized for the theatrical release of the movie, stating it was not his original film. To make up for it, he convinced 20th Century Fox to release a directors cut in 2004 that he felt would be more cohesive and easier for viewers to understand. The most notable change he made was literally adding in text from the fictional The Philosophy of Time Travel, which had previously been a DVD extra. Fans were split: some loved the explanations that filled in previous plot holes, others hated the notion that they needed to be spoon-fed the story.

Of course, some fans never got past the fact that the directors cut replaces Echo & The Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” with INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” in the opening scene.
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Wtf, really?


MMaRsu said:
Oh fuck off Solo, Butterfly Effect is a cool ass movie.
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I seem to always remember that scene where the big guy smashes the pool cue and then threatens someone with it. It was pretty cool.
 
LakeEarth said:
People seem to be split with the ending, but I'm with you. Not that the other ending is bad, just the theatrical ending makes more sense and is just a better solution to the movie's problems.
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No way. See the people who see the Director's Cut ending think it sucks because they see it OUT OF CONTEXT. The directors cut also includes another scene that the ending relates directly to.

It was a much stronger ending and had a beautiful score behind it. Theatrical ending folk be damned.
 
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Kulock said:
Watching the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves director's cut is amusing, it sort of becomes Sheriff of Nottingham: The Movie. Alan Rickman really steals the show too.
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From what I can remember that is why the movie was changed back in the day. When the movie was being screened most ppl felt sorry for Alan Rickman. The studio didn't like it and changed the movie.
 
Scullibundo said:
No way. See the people who see the Director's Cut ending think it sucks because they see it OUT OF CONTEXT. The directors cut also includes another scene that the ending relates directly to.

It was a much stronger ending and had a beautiful score behind it. Theatrical ending folk be damned.
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I am not arguing about how good either ending are thematically. I'm just saying, even with the added scenes of the director's cut, the theatrical ending is still an available option that prevents all the bad stuff from happening AND he gets to live. I'm the type of guy that hates it when a character in a movie makes a decision when a better option is available. If I lived in a universe where the theatrical ending never existed, I probably would've come up with it and bitched about it on alternate-reality GAF where no one fights and Gabron posts happy news.
 
golem said:
No Anchorman?
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Is there a notable Anchorman director's cut? The biggest thing to come out of Anchorman was Wake up Ron Burgundy.

Edit: Apparently the Daredevil Director's Cut is a big improvement over the original version.
 
Nappuccino said:
I'd argue that there is enough uncertainty and metaphor in even the final cut that you can easily make a compelling case for deckard's humanity. Meaning-wise, the movie is much better if he is human, but i almost would argue that, thematically, its better if its left ambiguous.
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im totally ok with it being ambiguous. i think it was stupid that Scott came out and took that away
 
Payback goes from being a terrible movie to being a good movie with the director's cut. It's night and day. The theatrical cut has major plot holes and some scenes don't even make sense. The DC is a pretty cool homage to old 70s crime/revenge movies, while the theatrical cut completely misses the point.
 
davepoobond said:
i actually might agree with you. i saw the director's cut first. afterwards i was like "WTF just happened."

I watched the theatrical cut, and i had a sense of closure, but i wasn't exactly sure why i had watched it. It didn't feel like it made any profound statement or anything, but at least i wasn't wondering what the hell was going on.



i really dont get blade runner. i like the world they created or whatever, but that's one of the few movies that went over my head.
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its true. blade runner's world is greater than the actual story it tries to tell. its a visual masterpiece wrapped around a decent story.

The main problem with the DC is that Scott comes out and definitively says what happens. which is one of my biggest directorial wtfs ever. shut your mouth.
 
reilo said:
I had no idea Baldwin V was not in the theatrical release of Kingdom of Heaven. Holy shit, that changes everything.
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I hated the theatrical version because it seemed so rush and so many plot holes. The Director's Cut makes it an awesome movie.

That's funny about Blade Runner, I knew that it was considered to be one of those movies that the studio wanted changed and that Scott wanted something different. Now I have to see if I can find his version. Don't know how I feel about Ford being a replicant in it.
 
MMaRsu said:
Oh fuck off Solo, Butterfly Effect is a cool ass movie.
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Most unintentionally hilarious movie I've ever seen. The scene where he
wakes up with no limbs, screaming
shouldn't be funny in any universe, but it somehow is.
 
This list is useless without the Extra Extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies. Those are so much better than the orignal studio versions.
 
CloudWolf said:
This list is useless without the Extra Extended editions of the Lord of the Rings movies. The original versions are great, but in comparison with the EE's they are incredibly mediocre versions of amazing movies.
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Huh, the EE of FOTR didn't add anything of real interest, if anything it messed with the perfect pace of the film. I'll agree that the sequels are indeed mediocre though. :)
 
Not a DC but the fna edit of True Romance, that cuts the film into the order/format of Tarantino's script is seriously superior to the film we got. Tarantino's ending is also a lot better.
 
This is primarily a list of ending changes. The plots themselves remain intact. I guess The Professional did some major changes by not including the love story.
 
Jo Shishido's Cheeks said:
Uh some of these aren't directors cuts, in the case of Leon and Metropolis certainly, they're just films originally released in truncated versions.
If we're going this 'alternate version' rather than outright directors cut route, then I'll throw in Welles' Mr. Arkadin which has 3 versions and a fascinating history as does his Touch of Evil.
Sticking to true directors cut, I prefer Apocalypse Now Redux to the original version by far, The Wild Bunch was improved when Peckinpahs wishes were followed and Aliens second version is also superior to the theatrical release.
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metropolis was released with those scenes intact, they were lost afterwards. they don't really change the plot.

i'd also argue the DC cut of blade runner doesn't change the plot, just makes the allusions to deckard being a replicant more obvious.
 
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