What are some movies where the director's cut is actually WORSE than the theatrical cut? (piefed.social)

submitted 6 days ago by TheImpressiveX@piefed.social to c/movies@piefed.social

77 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 18 points 6 days ago

It’s probably worth pointing out that the original theatrical release of what we today call A New Hope was just released as Star Wars, wasn’t even called episode four, didn’t have a title crawl, and included that scene with Jabba but instead of it being Jabba it was some guy in a fur suit, so it’s going to depend on which directors cut you’re talking about.

[-] MimicJar@lemmy.world 13 points 5 days ago

and included that scene with Jabba but instead of it being Jabba it was some guy in a fur suit

The original theatrical release did not contain Jabba at all. A scene was shot with a human actor, but never used in the film.

We wouldn't get Jabba in the film until the 1997 Special Edition, which replaced him with CGI. In the documentary alongside that release we do see the original clip and Han stepping on Jabba's tail is due to Harrison Ford moving around the human actor in a way that doesn't work with a tail in the way.

We also later got an updated Jabba for the DVD release.

https://screenrant.com/star-wars-jabba-hutt-human-actor-change-reason/

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

This is making me question a lot of things… I would’ve sworn that it was in the original cut, I distinctly remember the DVD special features talking about that scene having been restored from the original cut. I’m gonna have to go back and find that.

[-] MimicJar@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

I can't speak to the DVD special features, but the VHS intro has an interview with George (jump to 7:30).

George definitely talks about it like it was always there. To be fair he shot the scene for the film and intended to include it. So George views it as a scene intended for the original cut, but it wasn't.

[-] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago

This is almost certainly what I am remembering, and I definitely remember seeing the VHSs when I was a kid too so this checks out. Thank you for doing the legwork to find this!!!

[-] metermatic26@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Lucas has been tampering with the film since the first home release. And he famously refused to hand over the original print for preservation in the National Film Registry. And he refuses to restore and re-release the original cut of the film.

But…there is an awesome fan project called 4K77 that digitalized and restored the original 38mm film for Star Wars. Meaning you can now download a crisp 4K version of the original theatrical version of Star Wars.

[-] 007ace@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago

The Star Wars Movies have had fans create despecialized editions, to match the theatrical releases. Ive made sure to keep a copy of them on my media server. I really enjoy them.

I think the intention of this post is to look at theatrical/physical release vs the directors cut.