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Directors/Extended Cuts That Massively Improved a Film?


KManX89

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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 or adds new content after the fact.

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.

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 few 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 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), the added Coolio/hooker subplot patches a lot of holes from the TC while adding a lot more depth to Matt Murdock 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 rather solid film. It's not as good as the Netflix iteration, but it's a marked improvement over the TC in every way. The playground scene is still full of cringe, though.

Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition-An extra hour of footage per film makes an already legendary movie trilogy even better. I don't think this needs much of a descriptor.

Stay Alive: Unrated-It adds a pair of new characters and an extra 15 minutes of material that Disney removed from the TC after buying the studio behind it (Hollywood Films) to score a lower rating. Turns out it actually contained important plot points that explained what was happening towards the end of the film, leaving the TC a neutered and confusing mess. This vid explains in full detail the backstory behind it. Maybe not the best example, but it's a lesser-known film, so I thought I'd throw it a bone.

Edited by KManX89
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Blade Runner is kinda the go to for this.  I love the extra footage for LOTR too.

I am Legend's alternate ending was way better than the theatrical release, if that counts.

Also, I'm throwing in Star Wars for the opposite reason.  Watching a documentary recently about the making of the first movie makes it seem like George Lucas accidentally filmed a masterpiece.  There was so much crap cut from that movie, like the landspeeder pursuit by sandpeople, Darth Vader with a high pitched Welsh voice, etc.

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3 hours ago, KManX89 said:

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 or adds new content after the fact.

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.

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 few that spring to mind off the top of my head: 

Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition-An extra hour of footage per film makes an already legendary movie trilogy even better. I don't think this needs much of a descriptor.

I have all three extended editions of LOTR and love them, but the only one that truly benefited from the extra footage is The Two Towers.

Kingdom of Heaven TC was pretty mediocre with plotholes galore. The DC, however, is a masterpiece and nearly fixes all the problems.

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I didn't know Kingdom of Heaven or Troy had a director's cut! Guess I'll have to check them out.

X-Men Days of Future Past: Rogue Cut didn't really change a ton, but it did make the journey to the ending slightly change. I liked it better.

Waterworld and Payback for some honorable mentions.

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6 hours ago, Xenos said:

I have all three extended editions of LOTR and love them, but the only one that truly benefited from the extra footage is The Two Towers.

Kingdom of Heaven TC was pretty mediocre with plotholes galore. The DC, however, is a masterpiece and nearly fixes all the problems.

Yes to KOH.  The director's cut is the only way to watch that movie.  Whoever cut it back the way they did was a moron.  

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7 hours ago, Xenos said:

Kingdom of Heaven TC was pretty mediocre with plotholes galore. The DC, however, is a masterpiece and nearly fixes all the problems.

I've seen the director's cut available on HBO Now and have been meaning to circle back to it.  I'm not sure if I've seen the film since I saw it in the theatre years ago.  There was a lot that I liked about it but it just didn't seem to reach the level of other films in the genre (plus I've never been a big fan Bloom).  I'll have to give the DC a look.

Edited by thrILL!
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On 7/25/2019 at 4:59 PM, Xenos said:

I have all three extended editions of LOTR and love them, but the only one that truly benefited from the extra footage is The Two Towers.

Kingdom of Heaven TC was pretty mediocre with plotholes galore. The DC, however, is a masterpiece and nearly fixes all the problems.

I've seen the TC on HBO while on vacation a while back. Never seen the DC, but people saying it's so much better makes me want to watch it. 

Same thing with the DareDevil DC. People saying it's much better encouraged me to watch it, and it was. It's still not a masterpiece by any means (the TC was terrible), but it shows we would've got something much better had Fox just let it stay R. MSJ's original pitch was supposed to be even darker and less campy than the 2004 DC IIRC.

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