Real fans can appreciate “the less” of the original too 23 Nov 2005
6 comments Latest by Anonymous
It’s a widespread misconception that true fans just can’t get enough of whatever they’re into. More is always better, right? We’ll suck it all up.
Extended editions of movies are a great example. Take 80/90’es action movies, which I particularly love. With Aliens, you get roughly 20 minutes of additional material over the traditional theater cut. You get to see LV-426 before it got raided, you learn that Ripley had a daughter, and there’s the cool scene with the sentry guns.
That’s all great — as a single showing. But then it sucks. Big time. Because you can’t not see it. The movie is now 20 more minutes untight. See the whole reason I liked Aliens so much in the first place was just as much because of the tight cut, the Just Enough, But No More.
So why can’t we just get different tracks? One that gives you the tight cut and one that mixes in the additional scenes for that single showing. Perhaps its a DVD limitation. If so, I hope that the HD-DVD guys sort it out and make timeline and scenes more independent.
(I had meant to rant about this long ago, but picking up the extended edition of Terminator 2 today made me realize how much it still annoys me).
6 comments (comments are closed)
rick 23 Nov 05
I thought T2 let you pick between the original and the original w/ extended scenes interlaced? I seem to recall it acting up in my previous DVD player because of it.
Unleashed lets you pick between the original and the unrated w/ extended fight scenes. Very cool…
Mark 23 Nov 05
I completely agree with this. The behind the scenes type bonus footage has the same effect. It’s kinda like ToTo pulling the drape on the old man running the Wizard in Oz.
When I was a kid growing up in Florida, my family used to go to DisneyWorld most every summer. Like most kids with a creative and curious bent on things, I was fascinated with the “magic” of the kingdom. The more we went, however, the more I started noticing how the magic was done, and seeing all the hidden projectors and reflections of computer banks (this was all in the 70’s) in windows under the stage.
Just like you’re saying with the movies, from then on I couldn’t go to the park from then on out and not see everything. The knowledge ruined the moment.
Jamie Tibbetts 23 Nov 05
It depends on the quality of the extended cut. The LOTR DVDs are the best examples of how to do extended cuts. The added 30-40 minutes are so seemless that I didn’t even know I had watched the extended version the first I saw it. The extra scenes simply add more depth to the original storylines. I can watch the extended or regular versions of any of the three movies, and enjoy them just the same.
David Heinemeier Hansson 23 Nov 05
Wups, had the comments turned on by accident. We’re not quite ready to experiment with that again just now. (No reflection on the on-topic comments already here).
Joe Auricchio 23 Nov 05
Solution: Don’t buy extended editions.
If a friend picks one up, watch it at his place, ooh and aah at the new footage… but at home you have the original well-edited version.
Anonymous 23 Nov 05
COMMENTS COMMENTS COMMENTS?????? BLAH BLAH BLAH… 37S BLOWS … BLAH BLAH BLAH.
Sorry … missed this…