Category: Editions

Argo still

Argo (2012)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (120 min.)
  • Extended Cut (130 min.)

The Academy Award winning Best Picture Argo was released in an extended cut on Blu-ray dubbed Declassified Extended Edition in 2013. The extended cut adds almost 10 minutes to the film and is currently only available on Blu-ray. Entertainment Weekly interviewed director-star Ben Affleck when the extended cut of Argo was released:

Entertainment Weekly: This new extended cut of the film has nine extra minutes. Now, are those scenes your darlings that broke your heart to slash for the theatrical release? Or are these scenes more supplementary, adding context to what already exists?

Ben Affleck: No, it’s really interesting. I’ve never been in a movie where this happened or encountered it as a director. The nine minutes kind of came out all in one piece. I was screening the movie and people were really complaining that they were bored in various places but they couldn’t say what the problem was or what they didn’t like. They’d just say “Well, it’s slow. It takes a while to get going, blah, blah, blah.” And I loved the movie and I didn’t know what to do. I could tell that people were a bit less interested in Tony’s home life and so the editor and I, sort of as an experiment, said “Let’s just take out all the scenes with his wife and his kid, and just at the end, he just shows up at home on the porch. Let’s just see what happens.” And we did it and we screened it, and all of a sudden it just came together perfectly. And it broke my heart because the themes about family, responsibility, and marriage and all the other stuff were so dear to me; they were so central to why I wanted to make the movie. And Taylor [Schilling] is so great [as the wife] and she’s now on Orange is the New Black and everybody knows how great she is. But at the time, it felt like such a sh–ty thing to do — just to cut her all the way out of the movie, out of no fault of her own. And it’s such a sh–ty call because it’s like the breakup: “It’s not you, it’s me.” But it really was me! And now, I really was happy because I said [to Taylor], “Listen, I promise you, I’m going to put the whole thing back on the extended version so you’ll be able to see it. You’re really good in it.” And I’ll be interested to see if the people who do watch it share the belief that I had ultimately, that while really good, it was stuff that had to come out for the sake of the larger narrative. But it’s not just the kind of like, “Oh yeah, the bathroom scene we took out and, you know, 30 seconds from that scene.” You know, how people kind of slop stuff back in there just to be able to put a sticker on it that says “More Footage!”

Source: Ben Affleck on the new ‘Argo’ Blu-ray and the role more daunting than Batman, Entertainment Weekly

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray | UHD Blu-ray

The Blues Brothers still

The Blues Brothers (1980)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (133 min.)
  • Extended Edition (148 min.)

The Blues Brothers is considered by fans to be a classic comedy, and come to think of it, almost all comedies are thought by someone to be a classic. But not every comedy is likely to be titled a “Catholic classic” by the Vatican.

Writer-director John Landis originally presented The Blues Brothers as a roadshow film but Universal’s owner Lew Wasserman wanted the film shortened and the rest is history. For many years the extended cut of The Blues Brothers was the only cut available on DVD until the 25th anniversary edition where it included both the theatrical and extended cuts. Landis has talked about his preferred cut of the film only a few times on the record. Most notably in an interview with DVD Talk Radio from 2005:

Scott Weinberg: Do you have a preference? Do you consider one or the other a director’s cut?
John Landis: Well, in my own head, I think both are incomplete.
Scott Weinberg: How so?
John Landis: Well, you know, my original cut was a roadshow. You know, it had an intermission and I had to make all these lifts and trims. And then more lifts and trims. What the expanded version represents the second version. The second lifts from the roadshow version.
Scott Weinberg: What happened with the original print?
John Landis: They threw away all that stuff in 1985.

Source: Interview with John Landis, DVD Talk Radio

For those who want to know a little bit more about the roadshow, theatrical and extended cuts:

“The movie originally was a roadshow; it was meant to have an intermission. And Lew Wasserman said, “John you have to cut 30 minutes out of it.” So we did big lifts, and then I had a preview in L.A. and then I made some more lifts, and that was the released version. I’ve always felt the movie was kind of strangely lopsided, because of the rhythm and how I intended it to be, that was gone. But nonetheless, I don’t know how many years ago, Universal found this exhibitor print.

In 1985, Universal threw out all of the outtakes and trims, so the negatives are gone. So, all of the other stuff that was cut out is gone. However, the print from the preview showed up. It turns out it was stolen by the theater manager’s son, and he put it on eBay about seven or eight years ago, so Universal and the FBI swooped in to retrieve it, and that so-called “Expanded Version” is that preview print. It’s not my first cut of the movie, but it has like three scenes that weren’t in the movie, and we were able to extend some songs. The John Lee Hooker number is longer. The James Brown number is longer. The Cab Colloway number is longer. It’s like 15 minutes longer, but it isn’t the movie either.”

Source: AICN LEGENDS: Capone talks THE BLUES BROTHERS, Eddie Murphy, and Ed Wood with John Landis!!! Part 2, Aint It Cool News

The director’s preferred edition: In a way, neither edition

Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

Knight and Day still

Knight and Day (2010)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (109 min.)
  • Extended Cut (117 min.)

James Mangold’s action-adventure romp Knight and Day starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz was released in an extended cut on DVD and Blu-ray in almost every country except for the US. Mangold confirmed with This or That Edition which edition he prefers:

The director’s preferred edition: Extended Cut

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

The King's Speech still

The King’s Speech (2010)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (118 min.)
  • PG-13 Edited Theatrical Cut (118 min.)

Early 2011 the Los Angeles Times reported that The Weinstein Company was not too happy with the box office results of The King’s Speech due to it’s R rating. As every one knows, The King’s Speech is a really family orientated film that should be widely seen. So it’s clear as day: it’s best to censor the coarse language in the film so the MPAA will grant it a family friendly PG-13 rating. Of course this was criticized by most of the Hollywood press. Even the movie director Tom Hooper was really vocal about this. But that didn’t stop The Weinstein Company from going ahead with the badly conceive idea edited all those fucks out of the picture.

Entertainment Weekly talked to Hooper about the censoring when it was still at the idea stage:

Before Saturday’s DGA Awards, Hooper told EW, “I wouldn’t support cutting the film in any way. I think we looked at whether it’s possible to bleep out the f—s and stuff, but I’m not going to actually cut that part.” Hooper clarified that no decisions have been made yet; only that TWC was considering it. When asked if the PG-13 edit would broaden the audience, Hooper reiterated, “I’m not going to cut the film.”

Source: Tom Hooper on PG-13 ‘King’s Speech’: ‘I wouldn’t support cutting the film in any way’, Entertainment Weekly

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

Arthur and the Invisibles still

Arthur and the Invisibles (2006)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • International Theatrical Cut (104 min.)
  • US Theatrical Cut (94 min.)
  • UK Theatrical Cut (91 min.)

Luc Besson’s animated film Arthur and the Invisibles (Arthur et les Minimoys) was edited by Weinstein Company when it was released in theaters in 2007. The French family film did well in its home country but fell flat in the US. It was even cut further when released by Momentum Pictures in the UK, according to the BBFC. Besson has some thought on why the film didn’t fare well in the US and why critics gave it such negative reviews:

Daniel Robert Epstein: Arthur and the Invisibles did very well all over the world except in America. Why do you think it didn’t connect here?

Luc Besson: I’ve worked in the movie business for 30 years now and for each film I work 40 different distributors around the world. The American distributor on Arthur [The Weinstein Company] was the worst I have worked with in my entire life, in any country. I think this is the essence of all the problems. Why the critics didn’t like Arthur was because they changed so much of the film and tried to pretend the film was American. The critics aren’t stupid. They watched the film, they vaguely smell American but they can feel the film is forced for an American audience. The film is European. Its made by a Frenchman. This was the only country where the film was changed. The rest of the world has the same film as France.

Source: Luc Besson and Rie Rasmussen, Suicide Girls

The director’s preferred edition: International Theatrical Cut

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King still

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (201 min.)
  • Extended Edition (265 min.)

For many years the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy have been among the most beloved longer cuts of movies, and for many the only true way to view the fantasy epic. Writer-director Peter Jackson went out of his way to make the extended editions on DVD and Blu-ray a must own for every film fan with excellent packaging, tremendous behind the scenes featurettes and meticulous documentaries.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is available on DVD and Blu-ray in separate editions that include the theatrical cut and the extended edition. Only a limited edition DVD included both cuts. IGN interviewed Jackson when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was being released in theaters in December 2003 where he was asked about the extended editions:

IGN: What happens on the extended version of this one [The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King]? 
Peter Jackson: The extended versions are interesting because I do the extended versions for the fans, really. To me every time I put a scene in it, it’s mucking up the momentum. The theatrical versions are very carefully worked out. We spent a whole year trying to get the best possible cut. I do the extended cuts because we have 30-40 minutes of footage that people are interested in, fans of the books.

IGN: What’s the definitive version of these films?
JACKSON: The theatrical versions are the definitive versions. I regard the extended cuts as being a novelty for the fans that really want to see the extra material.

Source: Interview: Peter Jackson, IGN in December 2003

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers still

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (179 min.)
  • Extended Edition (235 min.)

For many years the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy have been among the most beloved longer cuts of movies, and for many the only true way to view the fantasy epic. Writer-director Peter Jackson went out of his way to make the extended editions on DVD and Blu-ray a must own for every film fan with excellent packaging, tremendous behind the scenes featurettes and meticulous documentaries.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is available on DVD and Blu-ray in separate editions that include the theatrical cut and the extended edition. Only a limited edition DVD included both cuts. IGN interviewed Jackson when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was being released in theaters in December 2003 where he was asked about the extended editions:

IGN: What happens on the extended version of this one [The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King]? 
Peter Jackson: The extended versions are interesting because I do the extended versions for the fans, really. To me every time I put a scene in it, it’s mucking up the momentum. The theatrical versions are very carefully worked out. We spent a whole year trying to get the best possible cut. I do the extended cuts because we have 30-40 minutes of footage that people are interested in, fans of the books.

IGN: What’s the definitive version of these films?
JACKSON: The theatrical versions are the definitive versions. I regard the extended cuts as being a novelty for the fans that really want to see the extra material.

Source: Interview: Peter Jackson, IGN in December 2003

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings still

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (178 min.)
  • Extended Edition (228 min.)

For many years the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy have been among the most beloved longer editions of movies, and for many the only true way to view the fantasy epic. Writer-director Peter Jackson went out of his way to make the extended editions on DVD and Blu-ray a must own for every film fan with excellent packaging, tremendous behind the scenes featurettes and meticulous documentaries.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is available on DVD and Blu-ray in separate editions that include the theatrical cut and the extended edition. Only a limited edition DVD included both cuts. IGN interviewed Jackson when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was being released in theaters in December 2003 where he was asked about the extended editions:

IGN: What happens on the extended version of this one [The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King]? 
Peter Jackson: The extended versions are interesting because I do the extended versions for the fans, really. To me every time I put a scene in it, it’s mucking up the momentum. The theatrical versions are very carefully worked out. We spent a whole year trying to get the best possible cut. I do the extended cuts because we have 30-40 minutes of footage that people are interested in, fans of the books.

IGN: What’s the definitive version of these films?
JACKSON: The theatrical versions are the definitive versions. I regard the extended cuts as being a novelty for the fans that really want to see the extra material.

Source: Interview: Peter Jackson, IGN in December 2003

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

Alexander still

Alexander (2004)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (175 min.)
  • Director’s Cut (166 min.)
  • The Final Cut (214 min.)
  • The Ultimate Cut (207 min.)

The life and times of a Macedonian emperor Alexander the Great has never been successfully covered in a movie. Director Oliver Stone tried to pull it off in 2004 with Alexander but failed on his own accord but Stone has since then released three different cuts of the film. And it looks like he’s done. At least for now.

Alexander was panned by critics and tanked at the box office but that didn’t stop Warner Bros and Stone pursuing the dream of finding a good movie in the mess. First there was the director’s cut where most of the homosexual content was edited out. Then the Final Cut was released which is to this date the longest cut and Stone called it his definitive cut. Then to celebrate the 10th anniversary the Ultimate Cut was released on Blu-ray and DVD. In the press release for the Ultimate Cut Stone says the following:

“Originally, I did my best to deliver a thrilling movie on a very brief post production schedule, but was frustrated in the end because I wanted the material to tell Alexander’s story with greater nuance and complexity. I’ve tried throughout this process to achieve what I believe is the appropriate balance between the inner and outer journeys undertaken by this extraordinary man. Free from earlier constraints, I’ve continued to pursue this great story, and I think I have at last achieved a film that tells a story as it has never been told.”

Source: 10th Anniversary Edition of Oliver Stone’s Sweeping Epic “Alexander: The Ultimate Cut” on Blu-ray June 3 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Further more:

The director’s preferred edition: The Ultimate Cut

Comparison of the editions with courtesy of Movie-Censorship.com

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray

Red River still

Red River (1948)

This or That Edition

What editions are available?

  • Theatrical Cut (127 min.)
  • Pre-release Version / Book  Version (133 min.)

Howard Hawks’ western Red River starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift is widely considered one of the greatest westerns of all time, including AFI where the institute ranked it as the fifth-best western ever. The editing process of Red River took over a year and resulted in two editions: pre-release version (or sometimes called “the book version”) and the theatrical cut.

For almost a half a century the theatrical cut was lost until MGM and Janus Films/Criterion re-released the film on Blu-ray and DVD in 2014 where it included both cuts. In the UK the Masters of Cinema collectors series has the pre-release version on Blu-ray and DVD. Hawks/Wayne expert Peter Bogdanovich talks about the two cuts on the Criterion release of Red River where he talks about Hawks preferred edition:

“Years later somebody decided that the long version must be the director’s cut because the director would
want to prefer the longer version but that’s not correct. Way back in 1972 or 1973, somewhere in there, I
interviewed Hawks and I asked him specifically about those two versions and he said, “I don’t know where they
got that book version we discarded that in favor of the narrated version”. He didn’t approve of the book
version.”

Source: Peter Bogdanovich on “Filmmaker Bogdanovich interview on Red River” featurette on Red River Blu-ray release

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

List of different editions with courtesy of DVDCompare.net: DVD | Blu-ray