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Director's Cuts/ Extended cuts MIA on Blu-ray (& some even MIA on DVD) (1 Viewer)

Tom St Jones

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DIRECTOR's Cuts and other Extended/ Roadshow/ alternate versions that remain MIA on Blu-ray and some even on DVD.

Regardless of what one thinks of these versions - whether you believe the Dir./extended is better or worse than the theatrical/ original version, or adds to/ takes away little or nothing - many people appreciate them and, of course, many represent the director's original intentions or simply an alternate experience they/ the creators wished to offer. In short, they remain important "pieces of the puzzle".
In some cases here, of course, NO version of the film has yet been released to Blu-ray. Also, I realize some have been released with Dir. cut/ altern. scenes included as bonus features.

A few I can think of:

THE NATURAL
MASK (1985)
CRIMSON TIDE
DUNE (1984)
WATERWORLD
LETHAL WEAPON
LETHAL WEAPON 2
LETHAL WEAPON 3
THE ALAMO (1960) (the "elephant in the room" around here, of course)
TOM JONES (Director's cut is SHORTER than orig. version)
DARLING LILI
HUSBANDS
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE
 

MatthewA

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Bedknobs and Broomsticks: 139-minute reconstruction is on DVD but not Blu-ray, where some but not all of the scenes with which they have been playing musical chairs for 45 years are in the supplement section.

Cry-Baby: 7 minute longer director's cut is only on DVD.

The Muppet Christmas Carol: The laserdisc is the only OAR source of the director-preferred 89 minute version with "When Love is Gone"* reinstated; the DVD has that version in pan-and-scan (not open matte) while the OAR version is the 85 minute theatrical cut. It is nowhere to be found on Blu-ray.

Pocahontas: 10th anniversary edition with "If I Never Knew You" reinstated is only on DVD.

The director's cut of Scream is only available on laserdisc in the US.

There were a bunch of Disney/Touchstone/Miramax/Dimension extended cuts that were apparently laserdisc only, but some of them made the jump to DVD. None are on Blu-ray. Off the top of my head I can recall them releasing:

Sarafina!
Ransom
Pretty Woman
Dead Poets Society

There may have been others but I can't remember their names at the moment.

*They should have called it "When Songs Are Gone."
 
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Winston T. Boogie

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The most egregious example of this, in my opinion, is Sam Fuller's The Big Red One which was to much acclaim and adulation reconstructed to something much closer to the director's vision and luminaries of the film world, like Martin Scorsese, called this reconstruction an important event that elevated the film to something that might be discussed as a masterpiece and a far greater film than the butchered cut that was originally released.

And what does Warner Brother's do? They only release the butchered cut on blu-ray. Scorsese should have torn them a new one for doing this.
 

Tom St Jones

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This one may not count, but thought it worth a mention:
The original JAWS was shown on ABC for its 25th anniversary (2000) in an extended version with many deleted scenes restored (they appear as extras on the initial DVD and later Blu-ray). Apparently, this isn't director Steven Spielberg's "preferred" version, however, otherwise I would think it would have been released to DVD and Blu-ray, at least as an option.
 

t1g3r5fan

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When Time Ran Out... AKA Earth's Final Fury has two versions of the movie not available on DVD; one is the original 121 minute theatrical version, the second is the 144 "expanded" version that was released on VHS in 1986 and 1994. It would be nice to have all three versions in one home video set, but seeing that it's not really that popular, I'm not holding my breath.
 

MatthewA

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The most egregious example of this, in my opinion, is Sam Fuller's The Big Red One which was to much acclaim and adulation reconstructed to something much closer to the director's vision and luminaries of the film world, like Martin Scorsese, called this reconstruction an important event that elevated the film to something that might be discussed as a masterpiece and a far greater film than the butchered cut that was originally released.

And what does Warner Brother's do? They only release the butchered cut on blu-ray. Scorsese should have torn them a new one for doing this.

Wasn't the reconstruction for The Big Red One only done on tape? And if Lorimar saved that film's cut scenes, I'm not buying Friedkin's claim that UA destroyed the cut scenes to Cruising. More like what Robert Preston opined in Victor/Victoria*, "kill him but mustn't kiss him."

*Which Lorimar had the chance to make it before M-G-M ultimately did, but they balked at the budget.
 

B-ROLL

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Maybe this wouldn't apply, but Stanley Kubrick approved Alex North's score for 2001: A Space Odyssey. They had even had one recording session. From what I understand, Kubrick was notified by MGM they had made a licensing deal with Polygram for the "classical" pieces used in the film as we know it.

North's widow allowed the cassette tape that was made of the recording sessions to be released on CD. Clearly the music was not inferior and sets a slightly different tone to the film.

I'm surprised Warner hasn't just settled the legalities, re-recorded the score and re-released the film to theaters first with the original score. and then to ... then to physical media




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey_(score)

 
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Winston T. Boogie

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Wasn't the reconstruction for The Big Red One only done on tape? And if Lorimar saved that film's cut scenes, I'm not buying Friedkin's claim that UA destroyed the cut scenes to Cruising. More like what Robert Preston opined in Victor/Victoria*, "kill him but mustn't kiss him."

*Which Lorimar had the chance to make it before M-G-M ultimately did, but they balked at the budget.

No, it was reconstructed from negatives and film that were all supposedly, according to the documentary about the reconstruction, high quality sources. There is some sort of rumor that they edited to beta tape...which seems odd...but I guess could be true and this decision was presumably made due to "budgetary constraints."

However, there were 35mm prints made and they brought it to Cannes on film. So, I would think if they wanted to...and probably at some expense as that is what I have heard is the reason they have not done it...they could create an HD version of the reconstruction.

This is where I am torn on buying the existing blu-ray...which so far I have not...if it has poor sales they may think it is not worth spending the money on bringing the reconstruction to HD...but I don't want to buy the blu-ray just so I can have an HD version of the butchered cut. I am no longer inclined to watch that version when a far superior cut of the film exists.

I always end up hoping somebody like Criterion might come to the rescue here and want to do a release on blu-ray of the reconstruction. It, as of right now anyway, seems Warner is not interested in spending the money on this one.
 

Peter Apruzzese

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Re: 2001: I can't imagine why they would do that, since A. North never finished scoring the film and B. Kubrick's intention was the classical score.
 

Winston T. Boogie

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I would add to Peter's comment on 2001 that due to the fact that Kubrick's use of music in 2001 just may be the most iconic, influential, and heralded use of music in the history of film it would seem not very likely they would ever mess with that by creating a version with an alternative score...plus can you imagine the complaints doing something like that would generate?
 

Peter Apruzzese

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The score was completed just not fully recorded

I don't recall if Goldsmith's re recording had anything beyond the Intermission. You'd think they would have recorded that

Also, even if North did write music for the second half, the film was never edited to the score. There would be literally no way it would even approximate either man's intentions or desires.

And, of course, these posts have nothing to do with the topic at hand :)
 

Robert Harris

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This one may not count, but thought it worth a mention:
The original JAWS was shown on ABC for its 25th anniversary (2000) in an extended version with many deleted scenes restored (they appear as extras on the initial DVD and later Blu-ray). Apparently, this isn't director Steven Spielberg's "preferred" version, however, otherwise I would think it would have been released to DVD and Blu-ray, at least as an option.

One cannot "restore" anything to a film, if it was never included.
 

Lord Dalek

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I would add to Peter's comment on 2001 that due to the fact that Kubrick's use of music in 2001 just may be the most iconic, influential, and heralded use of music in the history of film it would seem not very likely they would ever mess with that by creating a version with an alternative score...plus can you imagine the complaints doing something like that would generate?
Yeah really, they made the right call in 1968 with the temp score. North's music sounds like something out of West Side Story, not a film about the loneliness and sterility of space travel.
 

Lord Dalek

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Since we're talking about "Tv versions" here...

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1982 ABC "hybrid" cut)
Superman: The Movie (has two different alternate tv cuts, including the infamous Salkind International version that runs three hours)
Superman II (hybrid of Lester's version with Donner material and several otherwise unavailable deleted scenes put back in)
Superman III (has a different opening title sequence amongst other things)
Halloween II (20 minutes of new scenes for censorship cuts)
Videodrome (The Criterion blu-ray is the uncensored version only, the alternate TV version is available in Europe)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Fox "extended version" including deleted scenes on dvd)
 

MatthewA

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The roadshow cut of The Sand Pebbles was reconstructed for DVD, but the Blu-ray is another situation where the shorter general release version is what's on the film, but the roadshow version scenes are supplements. Fox learned their lesson with South Pacific and included both cuts of the film, but the roadshow version was only in SD while the making-of documentary was in HD! Priorities, people!
 

Paul Rossen

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The score was completed just not fully recorded

Where did you learn this? North did not compose music for the second half of the film per Kubrick's instructions. And if by chance he did don't you believe that his friend Jerry Goldsmith would have included this unrecorded music in his Varese recording of North's unused score?
 
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Paul Rossen

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Yeah really, they made the right call in 1968 with the temp score. North's music sounds like something out of West Side Story, not a film about the loneliness and sterility of space travel.

I'm one who believes that North's unused score fits 2001 to a tee while most but not all of the temp tracks were out of place.
 

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