Director's/Extended cuts that massively improved a film?

[KManX89]

It's a fairly common practice in Hollywood: a film gets gutted of content and made "cinema-friendly" for its theatrical release, then has an Unrated/R-rated Director's Cut or Extended Edition that adds all the "good stuff" back in.

The thing is, though, these so-called Unrated/R-Rated Director's/Extended Cuts usually don't add anything substantial, amounting only to a couple extra minutes with a little more blood and/or a few more violent shots added (back) in (Terminator: Salvation's DC, for example, only adding 3 extra minutes with the Moon Bloodgood semi-nude scene and a scene with Marcus stabbing some guy in the shoulder with a screwdriver).

However, there have been some that actually went out of their way to give us a better film. What are some Director's Cuts that massively improved a film?

A couple that spring to mind off the top of my head:

• DareDevil: Director's Cut-The 30 minutes of extra footage fixes a lot of the theatrical cut's issues. The fights are better and grittier (a facet of the character/franchise) and have real impact, the story is structured better (the Matt/Elektra love story is now secondary to the main story with a lot of the romantic cheese removed, certain scenes transition better, too), the added Coolio/hooker subplot patches a lot of holes from the TC while adding a lot more depth to Matt and his legal team as well as Kingpin. It makes for a darker, grittier, and much more complete and better film. And remember: this was all stuff that had to be cut to avoid an R rating, barely.
  
  It's a shame because Fox's drive to go commercial ruined what otherwise could've been a solid film (Mark Steven Johnson's original pitch was supposed to be even darker and less campy than the 2004 DC). It's not as good as the Netflix iteration nor is it a great film by any means, but it's a marked improvement over the TC in every way. The playground scene is still full of cringe, though, there's no fixing that.
  
  
• Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition-An extra hour of footage per film makes an already epic movie trilogy even better (Return of the King is the biggest beneficiary of the added content of the 3 films). I don't think this needs much of a descriptor.

 

[KennedyKiller]

I'll be honest, Batman v Superman. That theatrical movie is a trainwreck. But the uncut version? Is a damn masterpiece as far as Superhero films go.

 

[UniqTeas]

A) Does the Batman V Superman change the film that much?

B) RE1 Director's Cut comes to mind when I think about great Director's Cuts. haha

C) LOTR Extended Versions are the only way to watch them anymore.

 

[KennedyKiller]

A) Does the Batman V Superman change the film that much?

Yes. Yes it does. The Theatrical cut removes FORTY minutes of the film. That extra forty minutes actually makes the story f*ckin' COHESIVE. BvS Directors Cut is legit one of my favorite superhero films to date, outclassing I'd wager 70% of the MCU.

 

[Turo602]

A) Does the Batman V Superman change the film that much?

Not really. There's bits and pieces here and there that pad the story out, but the story is still essentially the same. I never understood why people were acting like the Ultimate Edition suddenly made the film amazing after trashing it. Are some things more fleshed out? Sure, but it's still lacking what everybody wanted from this movie. I've always been one of the first ones to defend Batman v Superman, and I still stand by it today as it definitely deserves more credit in a world where people celebrate the mediocrity that is the MCU, but the movie is still incredibly flawed and bloated.

 

[KManX89]

Not really. There's bits and pieces here and there that pad the story out, but the story is still essentially the same. I never understood why people were acting like the Ultimate Edition suddenly made the film amazing after trashing it. Are some things more fleshed out? Sure, but it's still lacking what everybody wanted from this movie. I've always been one of the first ones to defend Batman v Superman, and I still stand by it today as it definitely deserves more credit in a world where people celebrate the mediocrity that is the MCU, but the movie is still incredibly flawed and bloated.

Well, to be fair, there are some new story bits that had to be removed from the TC because of the PG-13 rating, and those "grittier" scenes it turned out were actually quite important to the story (as the body burning scene explained how Superman became a suspect, which was completely absent from the TC), but let's not kid ourselves here, a lot of the same issues are still very much there.

 

[UniqTeas]

Either way - as a DC fan - I will have to watch it now. If I remember, I will update y'all on my thoughts as well.

 

[KManX89]

C) LOTR Extended Versions are the only way to watch them anymore.

Only reason I can think of for not watching them is they don't feel like sitting through a 4+ hour film.

The TCs are all 3 hours (RotK 3 1/2 hours) and are plenty good enough by themselves. It just makes the extended cuts that much more memorable, especially RotK's.

 

[UniqTeas]

I should really marathon them kind of soon and then hope that the Amazon LOTR series matches up to the quality. I don't know how it could, but I can dream!

 

[KevinStriker]

Kingdom of Heaven: Director's Cut restored roughly an hour of footage that was cut from the theatrical release.
The theatrical cut is a shallow Crusader movie, but the director's cut is a story of political intrigue that greatly elevates the film with character development, which I'm uncertain why was cut from the film.

Dark City: Director's Cut removes a forced-by-the-studio opening narration from Kiefer Sutherland on the grounds that ruins the whole movie by explaining the twist before the movie starts. It also provides more character development from William Hurt's character and uses Jennifer Connelly's real singing voice rather than having her dubbed.

Highlander: Director's Cut as it's known in North America is really just the European Cut of the film (with the exception of France*), which includes extended scenes (the opening swordfight with Fasil is longer), and scenes previously removed from the U.S. theatrical cut, like the Kurgan stalking MacLeod and Brenda at the zoo, and a WWII flashback of MacLeod meeting his adoptive daughter Rachael.
*The French cut is identical to the U.S. cut but includes the WWII scene.

 

[KManX89]

Looks like I'm not the only one who was completely starstruck at how much better the DC of DareDevil was than the theatrical release, I was searching YouTube for reviews on the DC and came across this (not many views on his video, so you could say I'm doing him a favor):

He pretty much echoed my thoughts. It's a completely different movie, so much had to be cut out to appease the MPAA/studio overlords, including entire story bits, believe it or not. The director himself admitted as much in a featurette on the Blu-Ray of the DC. Good to know that a good version of this movie exists somewhere, and the general consensus on the DC is that it literally turns a bad movie into a good/decent flick.

I heard the TC of Kingdom of Heaven is a much better and entirely different film altogether as well, I'll probably give that a watch on one of them torrent/streaming sites. The DC of Watchmen is another.

 

[KennedyKiller]

Looks like I'm not the only one who was completely starstruck at how much better the DC of DareDevil was than the theatrical release, I was searching YouTube for reviews on the DC and came across this (not many views on his video, so you could say I'm doing him a favor):

He pretty much echoed my thoughts. It's a completely different movie, so much had to be cut out to appease the MPAA/studio overlords, including entire story bits, believe it or not. The director himself admitted as much in a featurette on the Blu-Ray of the DC. Good to know that a good version of this movie exists somewhere, and the general consensus on the DC is that it literally turns a bad movie into a good/decent flick.

I heard the TC of Kingdom of Heaven is a much better and entirely different film altogether as well, I'll probably give that a watch on one of them torrent/streaming sites. The DC of Watchmen is another.

For someone reason the video won't load on my side, but are we talking about a good version of the Ben Afleck film!?

 

[KManX89]

For someone reason the video won't load on my side, but are we talking about a good version of the Ben Afleck film!?

Yeah, pretty much the TL;DW version of this vid is that his mind was blown at how much better the DC was, as was mine and many other people's. Fox took a movie that was actually pretty good and butchered it. Pretty much everyone only acknowledges the sh!tty theatrical release whenever it gets brought up, and not the much better DC released on home video which a lot of casuals don't even know exists. No surprise, seeing how it was Tom Rothman, the same dumbass who greenlit X-Men Origins: Wolverine and sew Deadpool's mouth shut, refused to greenlight Deadpool with the script sitting on his desk for years out of fear that it "wouldn't make money", hired Brett Ratner to direct X3 after driving Bryan Singer off of it, turned Galactus into a space cloud, sabotaged Babylon A.D. to the point where the director bashed his own movie and a bunch of other moronic decisions who cut the film down.

Oh and he also brought up the Unrated cut of Stay Alive towards the end of the video. I don't know if I'd call it a MASSIVELY improved cut, but it also contains important plot points that had to be removed from the watered-down TC, and the gore that was sorely missing. And 2 characters. Cecil Trachtenberg from GoodBadFlicks covers this in his vid on the movie.

 

[Deleted member 21244]

Batman vs superman
The ultimate edition completely changed the movie, the theatrical version misses so many important pieces of story that I don't know how in the hell they release that

The Wolverine r rated cut, blood and gore rendered this version way better than the theatrical one

Kingdom of heaven, the directors cut add so many things like new character and motivation that the theatrical cut look like a ****ty mess

 

[KManX89]

Batman vs superman
The ultimate edition completely changed the movie, the theatrical version misses so many important pieces of story that I don't know how in the hell they release that

The Wolverine r rated cut, blood and gore rendered this version way better than the theatrical one

Kingdom of heaven, the directors cut add so many things like new character and motivation that the theatrical cut look like a ****ty mess

The Wolverine's DC is actually an Unrated cut as opposed to an official R-rated cut, but they're basically the same thing, it's just the movie is advertised as a PG-13 one when you go to watch the Unrated version.

Batman v Superman was edited down for a PG-13 theatrical release, and I get it, they wanted the biggest possible audience for arguably the biggest vs. movie ever that should've easily cracked $2 bil if put in competent hands, but by doing so, they had to cut a bunch of important plot elements and grit. This and the DareDevil DC are why I always scoff when I hear people say "R just means more (graphic) violence, gore, F bombs and titties!" No it doesn't.

Kingdom of Heaven is one I have my eyes on. Much like the DareDevil DC turns a terrible movie into an actually pretty good or at least decent one, I heard the KoH DC turns an okay/above average film into a great movie. Sometimes the filmmakers know more than the studio overlords, foreign concept, I know.

 

[KevinStriker]

Kingdom of Heaven is one I have my eyes on.

It's well worth it. Just have three hours to spare, since the Director's Cut is treated like a Hollywood roadshow, complete with Overture and Intermission

 

[KManX89]

I just watched the Extended Cut of Sucker Punch. While still not a GREAT film, it definitely fleshes out the story by adding back in missing story elements from the TC, including a pivotal scene with Jon Hamm (High Roller) and Emily Browning (Baby Doll) that makes the ending much more clear and ups the ante with more gritty action that was also missing from the TC.

It might be worth a second viewing for people who didn't like TC, which is many. Actually, this cut seems to have gained quite a few new fans.

Oh and the DC of Kingdom of Heaven was excellent.