Subtitled The Whole Bloody Affair (TWBA), the 281-minute cut will premiere on December 5 in US theaters. In this article, I’m going to talk about the history of TWBA, its connection to the earlier Cannes Cut, as well as reveal what exactly happens in its new “never-before-seen 7.5-minute anime sequence,” which impacts the story of O-Ren Ishii, while debunking a (popular?) fan theory about Bill.

Contents

1. The Young Bill Theory

2. The Extended TWBA Anime Sequence

3. The Evolution and Revision of ‘Kill Bill’

4. On the Cannes Cut

The Young Bill Theory

When Kill Bill Volume 1 came out, one of its most fascinating sequences was in “Chapter 3: The Origin of O-Ren,” where the live-action film switches to Japanese animation for an extended 8-minute flashback that depicts the childhood tragedy that came to define Lucy Liu’s character, leading to her rise as an assassin.

The first scene shows a child O-Ren witnessing her parents’ murders at the hands of the Yakuza. We see her father fight and kill two Yakuza before getting impaled with a Katana through the back by a tall, long-haired assassin in a white suit. After her father falls to the ground, the assassin delivers another stab to finish him off.

This character is never identified in the film, but online he seems to be commonly referred to as Pretty Riki, so let’s go with that.

There are several interesting things about Riki.

For starters, he has a distinctive design that draws attention to itself. Unlike the other Yakuza, he is rather tall, wears a nearly all-white suit and is clearly the most capable and intimidating fighter. Not only is he the one who actually kills O-Ren’s father, but the film draws attention to this character by using an elaborate pan-up shot that tracks the Katana sword, showing us Riki’s rings. We even get a shot of O-Ren staring at Riki with hate in her eyes. And then, at the end, Riki even gets a cool mike drop move, where he kicks a burning cigarette butt that sets fire to the room.

All this makes Riki something more than just an anonymous Yakuza henchman. He stands out as a soldier villain and is set up as a kind-of ‘boss fight’ type character for O-Ren. But despite this, Riki then completely vanishes from the movie.

The next scene depicts O-Ren murdering Riki’s boss Matsumoto two years later, and so avenging the deaths of her parents before the last minute speedruns through her rise as an assassin up to the moment she participated in the massacre that left The Bride comatose. Riki’s absence from the rest of the flashbacks thus raises some interesting questions, such as: “Did Riki survive? And if so, why didn’t O-Ren ever go after him? Was killing Matsumoto enough for her?”

The lack of resolution to his character thus opened the door to the theory that Riki is actually a younger version of Bill (David Carradine), who would later recruit O-Ren into the DiVAS organization. If you’re a fan and you’ve attentively watched Volume 1 several times, then the thought might’ve very well crossed your mind, like it did mine.

Consider the evidence:

• Bill could be Riki, because we never see Riki die, and movies regularly apply the law of conservation of character/detail.

• Present-day Bill is certainly old enough to have worked for the Yakuza when O-Ren was a child.

• Both are depicted as long-haired assassins, and there does seem to be some visual resemblance between them.

• There are similar shots of them with their hands over a Katana.

• Both wear distinctive rings - though not the same rings - in these shots, with the film’s cinematography arguably drawing a visual parallel between them.

• There’s also the fact that Tarantino had plans for a Young Bill anime prequel.

Having done some digging, I even found a forum page that cites an old imdb message board post from May 2004, according to which actor David Carradine ostensibly confirmed that the two were one and the same in an interview or at an event.

“He said that QT told him that the killer of O-Ren’s parents in the cartoon was indeed BILL. Apparently QT specifically requested this from the animators.

So the story would go, that O-Ren, becoming professional herself, forgives Bill as she understands that it was simply “business” and accepts his offer to work with him.”

Though the summary of Carradine’s interview does list a number of details that were accurate, such as the fact that a scene had been shot and cut with Michael Jai White and that Tarantino had plans for an animated prequel about a young Bill*, I was never able to find where exactly this supposed interview actually came from, nor to corroborate this via other interviews.

*That prequel would’ve focused on a young Bill’s relationship with three mentors: Esteban Vihaio, Hattori Hanzo, and Pai Mei. Like many other projects Tarantino had spoken off over the years, it would never come to fruition.

Following the release of Volume II, the question of whether or not Riki was a young Bill remained unresolved. The possibility was there, but there was no definitive proof to say one way or the other. As it turns out, the matter was to be settled in TWBA.

The Extended TWBA Anime Sequence

Why exactly did it take over 20 years for the full version of Kill Bill to get released?

It is difficult to say for certain. Tarantino often seemed to put it off to focus on other projects. Moreover, it seems that there were rights issues plaguing Volume 1 and Volume 2 and their various versions (eg. the ‘integral’ or Japanese Cut of Volume I) with the distribution getting a little messy or dispersed across different entities.

In practice though, the final cut was more or less ready 15-16 years ago.

Back in 2008, Uma Thurman stated in an interview about the Kill Bill anime projects:

“Right now he’s putting the two films together with an intermission with an added anime sequence he had already written,” she said of the ongoing saga of Beatrix Kiddo.

• Source: Shawn Adler, MTV Movies Blog, April 22, 2008

In January 2009, Tarantino confirmed to the Quentin Tarantino Archives, a fan website, that a release of TWBA was indeed in the works and that it would feature a new 7-minute sequence in the O-Ren chapter, one that was apparently already scripted but had to be nixed due to the ballooning length of the movie.

““We’ve actually added some things to it. We did a whole little chapter that I wrote and designed for the animated sequence, that we never did, because we figured, back when it was gonna be one big movie, it was going to be too long, so we didn’t do it. So when we were talking about re-releasing it, they asked is there anything you can put in, and I said no I put everything in there, but… there’s one sequence that we wouldn’t even have to shoot! So we got together with Production IG and did it, and it’s really cool. So it’s this little seven minute sequence, it’s really cool, it’s in the O-Ren chapter.””

In August 2009, Tarantino claimed that he would finish up TWBA following the release of the upcoming Inglorious Basterds, adding that he still needed to do some work to finalize the new anime sequence by Production IG for the release.

“When I’m through with this, I can actually finish the final Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair,” Tarantino told reporters Sunday in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif.

“I need to do one thing with it, though,” Tarantino said. “I’m not going to monkey around with the movie itself, but we’ve actually done a whole new section for the anime as the last thing [we added].”

Moreover, the director went on to specify that the extended anime sequence would actually depict an elaborate duel between O-Ren and Pretty Riki:

““I actually wrote a much longer script for the anime section during O-Ren’s revenge chapter. Remember the guy with the long hair that kills her father? It’s like, what happened to that dude? Well, I wrote it and it was the biggest, most elaborate thing I wrote—her taking him down.””

• From the ScifiWire article by Todd Gilchrist, August 10 2009

Though he didn’t directly state it, Tarantino here more or less confirmed that Riki and Bill were separate characters. He would reiterate this about 5 years later in an interview with Collider, where he also discussed plans to release TWBA in 2015:

So you see in the movie [O-Ren] kill her boss but then there was that long hair guy... The big sequence was her fighting that guy. I.G. [The Japanese Anime Studio] who did Ghost in the Shell said we can’t do that and finish it in time for your thing… So we dropped it and then later when I.G. heard we were talking about doing Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair -- they still had the script so without even being commissioned, they just did it and paid for it themselves…. The Weinstein Company and myself were talking about actually coming out with it sometime, not before the year is out, but within the next year with limited theatrical engagement as well.

One can infer that the new anime sequence was by this point fully finished, which is why Tarantino was now planning a theatrical release for TWBA. However, 2015 came and went, and nothing happened. News about TWBA then pretty much died.

I’m quite certain that the Weinstein Company announcing bankruptcy in 2018 and Tarantino filing a lawsuit against it further delayed the release. At some point between 2018 and 2023, Tarantino regained copyright to the film, allowing him to sign a new distribution deal for some of his movies with Lionsgate in May 2023.

This initially led to the remasters of Volume 1 and Volume 2, and is without a doubt why TWBA is now finally getting an unrated theatrical release on December 5.

The initial announcements all proudly proclaimed that the new version will finally feature a “never-before-seen 7.5-minute anime sequence,” with the recently released trailer explicitly confirming that this new footage is the lost O-Ren/Riki duel.

Now we have definitive proof that Bill and Riki are not one and the same. This means Bill did not kill O-Ren’s father before later recruiting her into his gang and that O-Ren really did get to complete her revenge, at least in the TWBA version of her story.

If Tarantino is to be believed, then the majority of the new 7.5 minutes will be entirely devoted to O-Ren dueling Pretty Riki. So, one can imagine a gloriously over-the-top action set piece that can only be made in anime.

But what about you?

Did you ever think the young, long-haired killer in the anime was a young Bill? If so, what was your headcanon explanation for his relationship with O-Ren? Are you looking forward to the new anime sequence? Will you catch TWBA in theaters?

Leave a comment

The Evolution and Revision of ‘Kill Bill’

“There is a lot of introspection, a lot of character development in VOLUME 2. Tarantino has always described Bill as a pimp of death. But there seems to be more to the man.

Yeah, quite a bit. As a professional, that’s what he does. He finds these young girls and turns them into assassins, controls them, and he likes to do it with beautiful women. And of course he gives his little brother a job. ”

• Source: Interview with David Carradine for Phase 9 by Phase 9 Editorial, 16 April 2004.

To be honest, I am a little sad to finally have that enigma resolved, for even though it is a little farfetched that O-Ren would work for her father’s murderer, it would make sense with who Bill is as a person and would be a devilish twist to his relationship with O-Ren. I also wonder if perhaps at one point Riki and Bill were supposed to be the same character but Tarantino later changed his mind.

This certainly seems possible when you consider how fluid and subject to change the film was all throughout development, production and post-production. Tarantino kept adding, modifying and rewriting scenes during the shoot. For instance, the film was to end with a swordfight between the Bride and Bill on a beach before getting pared down to her quickly besting him with the five-point-palm technique in his home.*

*Though I can’t find it right now, I do recall reading a draft where this was described as an elaborate battle, with the Bride using the Hanzo style and the Pai Mei styles of martial arts.

The decision to split the film up into two parts for distribution purposes also required creating a cliffhanger ending for Volume I as well as a new opening sequence for Volume II, so that each could work better as a standalone unit of storytelling.

Initially, the first volume was going to end with a reveal of Bill’s face. But Tarantino ultimately decided to hold off on this until the beginning of Volume II. Ironically enough, the original teaser trailer had already spoiled what Bill looked like!

...I had heard there was enough footage shot that there could have been a third film.

DC: The original idea was for two 90-minute movies, which ended up with the first film over 90- Minutes and the second over 2 hours and twenty minutes. There was always the plan to shoot extra scenes. For example, I do not have a scene with Daryl Hannah and we wanted to have something that would show how our relationship happened.

• Source: Interview with David Carradine for Skewed and Reviewed, by simeon, June 21, 2008.

“According to Carradine… the set of Kill Bill was a testing ground for tinkering, revising, and experimenting. “Most of the time (during filmmaking),” Carradine laments, extending his cigarette with jade-ringed fingers, “the director has a preconceived notion of what he’s gonna do.… But Quentin is open to changing with the wind, and he did it with his writing right up until the very end. That whole final monologue changed, like five times. The last time it changed was the day that I came in to do it!… There was one point, where there was a close-up of me at the end of the first movie. Then, (Tarantino) took that back out and thought, “I’m gonna keep this a complete mystery (until the second film).

• Source: Interview with David Carradine by KJ Doughton for NitrateOnline.com , 16 April 2003.

Then, he ended up producing multiple cuts of each volume for different markets.

Did you know, for example, that there is a longer, bloodier and gorier Japanese Cut of Volume I? It opens with a dedication to filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku, replacing the “old Klingon proverb” title card and presents the House of Blue Leaves fight sequence, where the Bride faces off against the Crazy 88, completely in color and uncensored. Tarantino, as it turns out, cut many bits out and transitioned part of it into black-and-white to help Volume I avoid an NC-17 rating for the US theatrical release.*

*On a side note, I remember hacking and modifying my computer’s DVD drive about 20 years ago just so I could play the Region 2 DVD of Kill Bill Volume 1 and watch the extended cut.

The Japanese Cut of Volume II similarly contains some differences from the US theatrical version, though these are very minor. Moreover, Tarantino has indicated that there are differences between the European and American cuts of the films as well though I don’t believe these have ever been reported.

Is it true that there are different versions of Kill Bill?

QT: That’s the most interesting thing about making this movie. There is no definitive version. There are different versions. Each one plays differently. I’ll give you an example. There is a Japanese version and an American and European version. If you put the two movies together, that’s a different movie. If I were able to put one chapter from the Kill Bill series in the theatres, say on a weekly basis, by the time you got to the end of the last chapter, you would have seen Kill Bill and it would not have been compromised. I cannot think of another film that I have made or will ever make that will be so malleable.

• Source: Interview with Quentin Tarantino by Alberlynne “Abby” Harris for BlackFilm.com, April 2004.

Given that the anticipation of the ultimate showdown is so high, is there any way to avoid somewhat of an anti-climax?

I don’t think it is an anti-climax, but Quentin wanted to surprise, and he certainly did. The way that we do it, and I don’t want to reveal it, but in the original script that I read there’s a totally different kind of battle, let’s say, at the end than what we did. And I came on to the set and all of sudden everything was changed and I had twenty minutes to learn the battle, and it was the funniest damn idea I have ever heard of, what Quentin decided to do – and that’s Quentin.

• Source: Interview with David Carradine for Phase 9 by Phase 9 Editorial, 16 April 2004.

When you take all this into consideration, it becomes obvious that all the stuff about how the 281-minute TWBA was always how Kill Bill was “intended” to be seen is just marketing hyperbole. TWBA may be the final cut, but it’s not really definitive. Regard-less, I’m looking forward to seeing it on the big screen next month and then getting the Blu-Ray (assuming it’s released on video), especially as this is likely the last project we’ll ever see in the Kill Bill universe.* Though I also hope that it’s so successful that it motivates Tarantino to finally finish the Django Unchained director’s cut.

* I highly doubt that at this point any of the planned anime prequels or sequels are likely to ever materialize.

On The Cannes Cut

Contrary to popular belief (and advertising), Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair has never actually been shown before to the general public. What has been shown (most notably at Tarantino’s own New Beverly Cinema) over the past 21 years, yet erroneously advertised as “The Whole Bloody Affair,” is the Cannes Cut, which was first screened for critics at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.*

*Some say it was 2006, but 2004 seems to be the correct year based on my research.

Combining the two volumes into a single film, it included many differences from the two US theatrical cuts of Volumes I and II respectively. These include:

• Alternate and additional footage from the extended Japanese Cut of Volume I

• The lack of the ‘bookend’ sequence that closes Volume I while previewing Volume II. Consequently, the audience thus does not become aware that the Bride’s daughter is alive until the very end of Volume 2, making it a surprise twist.

• While I can’t confirm it, I strongly suspect that the opening b/w car driving scene of Volume II, where the Bride breaks the fourth wall and talks about how the previous movie was described as a ‘roaring rampage of revenge,’ was also cut. It simply doesn’t make sense to include it unless Volume II is presented by itself.

• Ditto for the car driving credits of Volume II, which were already redundant given the presence of the complete credit sequence for both parts.

• A musical intermission between the two volumes

• French subtitles

Based on all the available info released thus far, it seems that Tarantino had long intended to use the Cannes Cut as the base for TWBA, with the only difference between the two being the addition of the animated O-Ren duel sequence.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if the director had made some more little tweaks here and there, given the 21-year gap between the Cannes Cut and the “final” cut.

But what about you?

What do you think of Kill Bill? How do you rank it against Tarantino’s other films? Have you ever seen the Cannes Cut? Do you like it more or less than the two-volume release? Do you think Kill Bill should really count as one movie or two different films?

Leave a comment

Film purists and cinephiles were aghast at the notion that Amazon had performed such a sacrilegious, disgusting act of mutilation upon a classic of American cinema. As I discovered though, Amazon didn’t make it. Rather, the abridged edition turned out to be one of several ‘legally gray versions’ of the film that were made possible by its strange and confusing relationship with copyrights and the public domain.

In this article, I will delve into the history of these legally gray versions. And in the process, I will debunk a number of popular myths and misconceptions about both the abridged edition and the original that are now spreading over the internet.

Table of Contents

1. Quick Links to Watch Different Versions

2. Public Domain and Mockdubs

3. Copyright Issues of It’s A Wonderful Life 

4. The Logic Behind Legally Gray Versions

5. The Escape Remix (1996)

6. The Rifftrax Version (2020)

7. The “Legend” or “Abridged” Edition (2020)

8. The “Rescored” or “Charles Dickens” Edition (2022)

9. Conclusion

Quick Links to Watch Different Versions

There are many versions of It’s a Wonderful Life that come up in this article. Here is a quick guide with links to where they can be seen:

• Original (Amazon, 131 min., black-and-white)

• Colorized (Amazon, 131 min., color)

• Re-Scored “Dickens” Edition (Roku, 131 min., alternate Raijman score)

• Rifftrax (Tubi, 106 min.)

• Legend/Abridged (Amazon, 106 min.)

• Escape (Archived Site, 45 min.)

Public Domain and Parodic Mockdubs

One very simple fact about It’s A Wonderful Life that arguably eludes the general populace is that it is today, to some extent at least, a public domain film. What does that actually mean? Well, the term ‘public domain’ commonly refers to:

“... content that isn't protected by copyright law. Works that are in the public domain may be used freely, without obtaining permission from or compensating the copyright owner.”

• Source: What is the Public Domain?, CopyrightLaws.com, 7 March 2023

Basically, any movie in public domain is essentially owned by the public, meaning that one should be able to download, alter, revise, re-edit, remix, reissue and even resell, without fear of violating copyright and getting into legal trouble.* Because of this, it is common for public domain titles to become source material for ‘mockdubs,’ which are parodic versions of the original work that have an alternate soundtrack, voiceover and/or dubbing, the purpose of which is to make fun of the source material.

*Now, of course, there can be caveats with this, as individual elements you might add to the remix (such as a pop song) could also be subject to copyright, but in general, you are allowed to do with a public domain film whatever you wish.

Consider, for instance, the case of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, a very popular, well-known film that ended up in public domain upon its initial release in 1968 as a result of a copyright error. As it could be revised and distributed by pretty much anyone with a copy, hundreds of different editions and derivatives appeared across home video formats over the years.

In 1991, indie filmmaker James Riffel released on VHS a parodic mockdub of Night featuring new footage that is known under the abbreviated title of NOTDOT, which has since become something of a cult movie in and of itself.

Riffel’s work bore similarity to the TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), wherein people would make funny, derisive comments while watching old, usually low-quality films. In addition to licensing movies, MST3K regularly used public domain titles as the basis of its episodes.

Here is a passage from an article on the series by Steven L. O’Donnell:

“The show is mostly silhouettes of a person and a couple of robots in front of a movie screen playing a bad movie. So, obviously, the critical step in producing such a show is to secure the proper rights to not only rebroadcast a movie, but to recut it, and completely reframe it…. An obvious way around the licensing issue is to simply use a movie in the public domain. At least, one might think so. The problem is public domain isn’t necessarily absolute. A movie itself might fall into the public domain but still have other copyright issues. ”

• Source: In the not-too-distant future, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and copyright licensing, January 3, 2024

The Copyright Issues of It’s A Wonderful Life 

This brings us to It’s A Wonderful Life, a film that’s technically been in public domain since 1974, when its then owner Republic Pictures failed to renew its copyright. 

Now, there are many different, often conflicting accounts of the film’s history with copyright and the public domain. The two most accurate ones, as far as I can tell, can be found in a 2024 article by playwright Jason T. Leblanc, who made a dramatic stage adaptation of It’s a Wonderful Life, and a 2023 article from The Nation by journalists Ray Novosielski and David Cassidy, who had created a 10-part documentary podcast about the film called George Bailey was Never Born for I-Heart Radio. Thus, I will mostly be drawing on these accounts for this section.

It’s a Wonderful Life was based on a short story called The Greatest Gift by writer Philip Van Doren Stern. Stern had copyrighted the story in 1943, prior to its adaptation by Frank Capra, and renewed the copyright in 1971. So, when the film fell into public domain in 1974, the story still remained copyrighted. And notably, the underlying rights to the story remained with Stern, who had only ever sold the rights to create film (and perhaps other media like TV and radio) adaptations of the story to RKO in 1944. A series of transfers would then move the rights to Republic Pictures years later. 

The film was famously a critical and commercial flop upon its initial release in December 1946. Once it became public domain, however, networks and stations en masse began to regularly broadcast it on television, especially around Christmas, and the picture received video releases. This post-theatrical life (hah!) introduced the film to a new audience and allowed it to attain the status of a beloved classic. Of course, the popular assumption was that the film could now be shown legally by anyone for free. This, however, was not entirely correct. Per Leblanc: 

“Notably, while the film's ownership was legally in the public domain, the rights of the underlying story were still held by Stern, and thus he would have been owed some royalties from these thousands of airings. In an interview with Sarah Robinson, Stern's granddaughter, she states that, for reasons she did not share, Stern and his estate decided not to pursue action against the TV stations at this time.”

Unlike Stern, Republic Pictures was arguably not owed any royalties due to the film’s copyright lapse. But in 1993, the studio regained a measure of control over the picture’s exploitation by stopping the royalty-free airings and entering into an exclusive licensing agreement with NBC. 

How did it accomplish this? First, Republic purchased music rights. Accounts vary, however, as to whether they purchased the rights to the entire music of the film, including the whole Tiomkin score, or just to specific songs used in the film.

For instance, Leblanc states:

“In 1993 they purchased the ownership rights to the film score and music used in the film from composer Dimitri Tiomkin, who had renewed the music copyrights correctly. ”

By contrast, here is the account by Nowosielski and Cassidy:

“When the movie fell into the public domain, it’s generally understood that all the screenplay drafts and the musical score written for the production fell too, part and parcel of the broader movie’s copyright. In a rather clever move, however, Goldsmith and Tierney went to four music publishers to purchase rights to songs created before the movie was made but used within the soundtrack.”

So, it is not entirely clear to me, as to whether Republic had the copyright to Tiomkin’s entire score or if the score went to public domain.* But based on other evidence I’ve found, including additional information from Nowosielski and Cassidy’s podcast, I believe that theirs is the more precise account.

Putting aside the exact status of the Tiomkin score then, there were several songs (or musical compositions) used in the film that had been copyrighted separately and Republic had purchased the exclusive right to copy and use said music in the film.

*Indeed, some claim that Tiomkin did not write all of the music for the film, but was only ‘credited’ as the sole composer for the film.

Next, Republic had its attorney send letters to TV stations and home video companies that had been exhibiting It’s a Wonderful Life, where he argued that any exploitation of the picture constituted a violation of Republic’s copyright on the grounds that: 

a) Republic had exclusive rights to use the previously copyrighted songs in the film

b) Republic still owned the ‘the exclusive rights to exploit’ (aka adapt) the original story, which had been copyrighted separately by its author, Stern.

According to this logic, because the songs were copyrighted and the original story was copyrighted, showing the film without paying royalties to Republic was illegal. In effect, the studio claimed to have copyrights by proxy.

It didn’t have to actually sue anyone, as It’s A Wonderful Life was quickly removed from television and video. The company then signed an exclusive deal to show the film on NBC, allowing it to receive financial compensation for years.

But contrary to popular belief, Republic did NOT change the status of the film itself, which technically was and still is a public domain film. And this strange, paradoxical situation opened the door towards the proliferation of alternate versions of the film that are defined by their attempt to excise all copyrighted content and so leave behind only the public domain parts. This is why I termed them “legally gray versions.”

The Logic Behind Legally Gray Versions

How could one possibly derive a true public domain version of the film that avoids infringement under the given circumstances?

According to Nowosielski and Cassidy, if the music rights were the only obstacle, it would simply be necessary to remove and replace the copyrighted music. 

“Though the visual images and performances and much of the story heard in the movie now belonged to the public, unless television stations wanted to find a way to strip these songs from the soundtrack and replace them, they suddenly had to deal with Republic. And no such deal was being offered… Thanks to advances in digital technology, it’s now quite possible for any enterprising company or individual to create and release “the people’s version” of this holiday classic with those particular songs replaced.”

The bigger issue would be circumventing the underlying story copyright owned by Philip Van Doren Stern, which following his death in 1984 passed to his relatives: his daughter Marguerite Stern Robinson and three granddaughters. Just one year after Republic signed the NBC deal, the four of them “created The Greatest Gift Corporation on March 1st, 1994 in order to manage the many literary works Stern had created” (Leblanc) and help enforce their rights.

As long as the underlying story copyright is maintained by The Greatest Gift Corpo-ration (GGC), there really can’t be a definitive answer to the question posed earlier, simply because there is no consensus over precisely which parts or elements of It’s A Wonderful Life are protected by the underlying story rights and which are not.

Much like in the case of a “fan edit” or “remix,” the legality of an individual case would be up for courts to decide. One could argue, for instance, that the underlying story copyright should apply to the entire film, as it is an adaptation of that short story, while a counter-argument would be that much of the on-screen visual material is original to the film, which greatly expands on the source material.

Unsurprisingly, all subsequent legally gray versions would present their own inter-pretation of what qualifies as copyrighted story content in the film and what doesn’t.

The ‘Escape’ Remix (1996)

Just a mere three years after the Republic deal with NBC, basic cable channel Comedy Central was preparing to air Escape From It’s a Wonderful Life.

Created by a group called the “Upright Citizens Brigade,” Escape was a 45-minute parodic mockdub consisting of footage from the original film with new dialogue, sound and music, resulting in a new storyline. 

As explained in a 2014 article by Nathan Mattisse:

“As Comedy Central President Kent Alterman tells it, Republic’s newly rekindled copyright only applied to the underlying story and soundtrack---not the visuals. So while other networks gave up their annual broadcast in light of the NBC agreement, the early Comedy Central team had an idea: what if they recut the film and added a new soundtrack?”

• Source: Wired Magazine, Dec 25 2014

In ths remix, George Bailey is tired of acting in the same movie over and over for 50 years and wants to do something different. Thus, the story becomes about him ultimately recognizing what a bad idea it is to get out of It’s A Wonderful Life, with the Pottersville segment of the picture becoming a reality where George has annulled his contract only to realize that he’s unemployable.

I have to say the mockdub overall is very creative, funny, and quite reminiscent of contemporary fan parodies. I also believe that it would have the biggest chance of being considered non-infringing due to its transformative nature, in that it doesn’t really retain the ‘underlying story’ of the original version, nor the music. Indeed, I believe it could very potentially qualify for the ‘fair use’ defense. 

Per Wired, Republic “disagreed with Comedy Central’s copyright interpretation” but they never took the creators of Escape to court, with one reason being that both Republic and Comedy Central were subsidiaries of the same company - Viacom.

Nonetheless, Escape from It’s A Wonderful Life was canceled shortly before its planned December 18, 1996 broadcast. Consequently, it could only be seen for free on the internet, again calling to mind the circulation of fan remixes.*

*I’ve found only two parts of the special on YouTube but it’s possible to download all three in ‘real media’ format from the archived Upright Citizens Brigade Official website.

Note

Over the next few years, the adaptation and music rights held by Republic kept passing to its successor companies, leading to It’s A Wonderful Life ending up at Paramount. I don’t know what the relationship between GGC and these various companies was but in 2000, GGC revoked the adaptation rights, leaving Paramount only with the music rights as the sole means of enforcing control over the exploitation of It’s A Wonderful Life.

This suggests that, from this point forward, Paramount would not really have cause to sue anyone for making new versions of the film unless they used the copyrighted songs without permission. GGC, however, could still sue due to possessing the underlying story rights.

The RiffTrax Version (2020)

“Copyright by Rifftrax, all rights reserved.”

• End credits of It’s A Wonderful Life

22 years later, another company would similarly remix the movie in a parodic way: RiffTrax, a spiritual successor to MST3K that was founded by some its former stars.  

On December 18, 2020, RiffTrax released its own mockdub version of It’s A Wonderful Life, which at the time of writing is available to stream for free on Tubi. In addition to adding a mocking voiceover commentary track to the film, RiffTrax cut it down to 106 minutes, making it 25 minutes shorter than the original version.

Here’s how they explained the process:

“As some of you know, It’s a Wonderful Life was in the public domain for decades, then back out again — it’s a complicated history. The main copyrighted stuff comes down to 1) material from the short story "The Greatest Gift" that part of the film was based on, and 2) some musical rights for background songs.

Well, since we wanted to offer this Christmas treat to you as a video on demand, we have meticulously excised all such parts. Which leaves... quite a bit, as it turns out!  One hour and forty-six minutes worth, in fact. You may not even notice any difference at all — unless you’re a big fan of depressing Pottersville.”

Though I don’t have a full list of cuts available, the most notable change was made to the film’s third act: the new version now cuts from the moment George Bailey asks the angel Clarence if he has $8,000 to the shot of him running happily back to Bedford Falls. This completely skips over the extended “Pottersville” alternate reality segment, where George sees what life would’ve been like had he never been born. 

Removing it is meant to both circumvent the underlying story copyright - this segment of the adaptation is by all accounts the one that most corresponds to the source material - and to elicit audience laughter by creating the implication that Clarence really did give George $8,000!* 

*Despite all this, the original ending of the picture, where everyone in town comes out to support George in his time of need is pretty much all intact.

RiffTrax’s claim to legality is thus primarily based on the notion that the literary source material can be limited to specific parts of the adaptation. By cutting them out, RiffTrax positions its version as a transformative remix that can be commercially exploited due to the basis of its source footage in the public domain.

I’d say that, if sued by GGC for infringement, the RiffTrax version has a good chance of passing as a distinct and transformative work. That could explain how it has managed to remain in circulation for four years now without reported issues.

The “Legend” or “Abridged” Edition (2020)

All this finally brings us to Amazon. You see, the much maligned “abridged edition” now streaming on Prime Video is basically an undubbed variant of the 106-minute RiffTrax Cut. I have not performed a frame-by-frame comparison, but the durations of the two cuts are about the same and the removal of the Pottersville sequence is identical. It is safe to assume some of the original version’s songs are also gone.*

*To be clear, like the RiffTrax Cut, at least some of the Tiomkin score is clearly still in there, as evinced by the opening and closing credit sequences. This arguably supports the idea that a part of the music score indeed fell into public domain as well but it’s hard to be absolutely sure.

The key difference between the two is the lack of the mocking voiceover commentary that qualified the RiffTrax cut as parody. Thus, the Abridged edition is positioned as a straight-up recut of the original version, rather than a distinct transformative work.

This is made evident by the description of the edit:

“This Abridged Edition is a shorter version of the Jimmy Stewart Christmas classic with a condensed ending but still contains all the sweetness and Christmas wonder. A series of setbacks causes a man to reflect on his life. With the help of his guardian angel, he finds the true meaning of Christmas.”

Now, I want to be clear that, as far as I can tell, this version was not made by RiffTrax, but rather by a company called Legend Films, which is listed as the “Copyright holder” of the Abridged Cut in the final frames of the end credits. A restoration, colorization, and home video distribution company that specializes in making classic movies available on modern formats like DVD, Blu-Ray, and HDTV, Legend Films has created colorized editions of various classic studio films.*

*In fact, it produced the latest (and, by all accounts, best) Colorized Version of It’s A Wonderful Life for Paramount back in 2007.

Legend has an interesting relationship with Rifftrax. Apparently, Rifftrax began as a Legend subsidiary before spinning off in 2012 into a separate company. And multiple Legend Film ‘titles’ have Rifftrax editions, which are listed and linked on the site’s official page. All this leads me to believe that Legend Films saw what Rifftrax was doing and decided to emulate it, thinking it could be a good way to generate some licensing revenue from FAST (free, advertising-supported television) streamers.

Currently on Amazon’s Freevee service, the Abridged edition initially appeared as early as December 2021 on Tubi, though at the time it was subtitled as the “Legend Edition.” Even the poster artwork is the same.

Like its predecessor then, this edition rests on the presumption that the GGC’s underlying story copyright encompasses only specific parts of the adaptation, rather than the whole, and so that excising them (in addition to the songs) maintains its legal status. Unlike RiffTrax though, this version would likely lose a copyright infringement suit if GGC were to begin one against it, as it would not even have any claim to a parody defense. Not to mention, this version was clearly made in order to profit off the original version’s popularity without paying any royalties.*

*I’d be surprised if GGC hasn’t already begun some form of legal action but have not found any reports of this.  

I thus agree with the assessment of Ryan W. Mead, whose twitter thread on the abridged edition led me to find key sources in this article:

“The stuff before and after the attempted suicide and revelation… were wholly original to the film and, thus, presumably in the public domain. What Legend Films has done, then, is exhume which parts of “It’s a Wonderful Life” are taken directly from “The Greatest Gift” to avoid paying royalties on the original short story - something that is theoretically legally plausible, but, as established, ruins the point of the entire film, for the copyrightable portion - a man talked out of suicide by being reminded that he means so much to so many in his community - is, indeed, the heart of the film.”

The “Rescored” or “Charles Dickens” Edition (2022)

“It is important to note that correctly licensed and authorized derivative works will always credit Philip Van Doren Stern as the author of The Greatest Gift and note that it is the basis for the work. Typically credit is listed as: "Based on the short story The Greatest Gift by Philip Van Doren Stern." Any works not providing this credit are unauthorized.”

• Source: Jason T. Leblanc, https://itsawonderfullifeplay.com/copyright, 2024.

The Abridged edition is not the only legally gray version of the film created for streaming. In 2022, a version that has no official label but one that I like to call the “Rescored Edition” and the “Charles Dickens Edition” began to pop up on FAST services, such as The ROKU Channel, where it remains available to this day. 

Despite having a nearly identical runtime to the original, this version carries alternate opening credits and completely replaces the entire music score of the film (credited to Dimtri Timokin) plus individual songs with that of a contemporary composer named Daniel Raijman. So, while it retains the editing of the original, it has a very different feel, to the extent that Chris Bumbray, who saw it on Roku, referred to it as an ‘abomination’ in a recent article on JoBlo, adding that:

“...Dimitri Tiomkin’s classic score has been replaced by a new score that sounds like it was lifted out of a Hallmark holiday movie. No, scratch that. That’s not fair to Hallmark movies. It sounds like the kind of score you’d hear in a Canadian Hallmark rip-off or something on the Great American Family Network…”

The credit differences, meanwhile, are fascinating, though I’m not quite sure of what to make of them. In addition to a new page that replaces Dimitri Tiomkin’s credit, the opening renames the film to “A Wonderful Life” and claims that it’s “based on a story by Charles Dickens,” rather than the actual author Philip Van Doren Stern. Is this an attempt to avoid associations with the underlying short story or with Paramount’s presumed trademark over the film title? Or does the fact that the music change is the main difference between the versions mean the producers have not taken the underlying story rights into consideration at all? Why change the credits that much unless you know you’re doing something shady and potentially illegal here? 

By checking the final frame of the end credits, I discovered that there are two companies behind this version. The first, which is called “The Last Picture Show”, presumably produced the Charles Dickens edition. It specializes in using AI to restore classic movies, especially public domain titles such as Dementia 13 (1963) and The Doomsday Machine (1972). Recently, it launched its own streaming service called ClassicFlixTV with “over 150 classic movies to watch” with AI-enhanced images, but notably A Wonderful Life is not among them.

The second is the copyright holder and distributor, “Tricoast Worldwide,” which describes itself as “a full service media company that creates, produces, manages, and distributes entertainment content.” Again, I cannot find any listings of A Wonderful Life in their available online catalogs, which is weird because it is a relatively recent (2022) title and appeared on Roku as early as November 2023, going by this Roku community forum thread.

Of all the versions covered in this article then, I’d say this one has the weakest claim to not infringing on the GGC copyright. One can infer that, perhaps inspired by the Legend and RiffTrax editions, Tricoast licensed the Charles Dickens edition to Roku in order to make some easy money but wishes to keep it under the radar to avoid potential legal entanglements. 

Conclusion

In the end, all of these editions stem from the fact that It’s A Wonderful Life is a public domain film that is nonetheless partially copyrighted. Given its popularity and cultural status, it’s not surprising that there are many individuals that would want to exploit it commercially in some way.

Unless GGC shuts down the currently streaming legally gray versions with the threat of a lawsuit or manages to get their distributors to pay royalties by proving infringe-ment in court, we can expect more such editions to materialize in the future.

In the end then, It’s A Wonderful Life illustrates how public domain status can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it helped elevate the film to the status of a beloved classic and one of the greatest American pictures. On the other, it has led to its exploitation across multiple legally gray versions that now arguably diminish it.    

But what do you think?

Any questions about the copyright situation of It’s A Wonderful Life? Is it bad that it fell into public domain? What do you think of the Abridged, RiffTrax and other editions? Was this article informative? Did it help clarify any confusion? Any other thoughts? Please,

Leave a comment

Want to learn more about alternate versions?

Then consider reading:

Table of Contents

1. The Lost Version

2. From the Script

3. Inferences

4. Reused Concepts

5. Additional Thoughts on the Film

The Lost Version

When X-Men first premiered on DVD in November 2000, home video enthusiasts were somewhat disappointed that the film did not receive an elaborate special edition loaded with bonus materials. For sure, the initial release did feature some special features, including an “extended branching version”* that allowed one to watch the film with six reincorporated deleted scenes, but it was a far cry from the sorts of elaborate sets that the DVD format was becoming popular for.

*This worked in the style of the “Follow the White Rabbit” feature on The Matrix DVD: the user clicks on an emblem that pops up during the movie, taking one to the extra scene.

In February 2003, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released a new 2-disc edition DVD loaded with new supplements called X-Men 1.5 to help promote the release of the sequel X2: X-Men United, which would come out later that Summer.

Between conception and release, however, X-Men 1.5 underwent a slight downgrade. Originally, the title of the release was meant to designate a new cut of the film that would’ve featured two new scenes shot during the production of the sequel.*

*This is reminiscent of how John Carpenter shot about 10-11 minutes of additional footage for his film Halloween (1978) during production of the sequel Halloween 2 (1981, dir. Rick Rosenthal) in order to extend the original film’s upcoming broadcast version, which became too short to fit into a two-hour time slot due to network censorship.

Director Bryan Singer first discussed the new cut in an interview for DVDFile.com linked to the April 2, 2002 release of The Usual Suspects special edition DVD. He at-tributed the initially light-on-features release of X-Men to a tight production schedule before revealing that an alternate cut was being prepared that would feature newly filmed footage, though he stressed that this would not really be a “director’s cut.”

DF: While I may be in the minority opinion, I'm not too sure how I feel about all these new extended or "Director's Cuts" coming about, largely helped by the success of DVD. Is that something you would consider doing for X-MEN?

BS: You might find something similar happening in this arena. There's room for changes. (smiles) I'm sure that will be another interview we'll have, and you can see all the artwork (points around room) for the new scenes we're shooting. But I hesitate calling it a "Director's Cut" because that term is a bit misused. They're very often not what the director originally intended, but I do agree if they are recuts supervised by the director, they should be called "Director's Cuts." If anyone else supervises them, they should be shot. And you can quote me on that.

• Source: In the Director’s Chair - Bryan Singer, DVDFile.com; highlights in Singer’s response my own.

When the new DVD premiered, however, the alternate cut was absent, despite the title remaining X-Men 1.5. DVDFile.com editor Peter M. Bracke then interviewed produ-cer Rob Meyer Burnett, who revealed that the plan to shoot the new scenes, which would’ve been origin stories for the characters of Cyclops/Scott (James Marsden) and Storm/Ororo (Halle Berry), was apparently scrapped due to budget issues.

Alrighty, the big question first. It's supposed to be X-Men 1.5...but where's the .5? When I interviewed Bryan Singer early last year, there were apparently new scenes and a new cut of the film planned?

It was going to be called X-Men 1.5 at one time when they were going to do a new cut of the film. Frankly, I don't want to speak for Bryan, but I think he was pretty happy with the way the released film came out, and it made a huge amount of money.

What were the new scenes supposed to be?

The original plan was to shoot two extra scenes during the making of X2, which were going to be the origin of Storm and Cyclops, with them as children discovering their powers. But as I understand it, it was eventually decided that the money would be better spent on the production of X2. And if you look at the way the film is structured, with Wolverine and Rogue introduced at the beginning and both coming full circle within the film, it wouldn't really have made sense to focus on Storm and Cyclops as well. So while personally I thought it was a neat idea, I didn't think it would have added anything to the film.

• Source: (Re)making X-Men 1.5 with producer Rob Meyer Burnett, February 10, 2003 by Peter M. Bracke, DVDFile.com]; highlights in response are my own.

Bracke additionally asked if Singer was unhappy about the absence of the new cut. Burnett responded:

“I don't want to speak for him, but I think Bryan wished that there could have been more money put into the DVD, including the added scenes shot for a 1.5 version. I think if Bryan had more time to work the film during its original post production process, it would be a different film. As it is, X-MEN is clearly one of the most successful comic book adaptations. But I do know he's happy with the amount of material that is on the disc.”

Budget issues, from what I understand, were pretty common for the X-movies. The budget of X-Men was slashed shortly before production, so it’s not hard to see something similar happening to the 1.5 Cut. I wouldn’t be surprised if Singer was informed by an exec that ultimately any money spent on the new material for X-Men would have to be removed from the actual production budget of X2.

It’s safe to say that, due to the depiction of mutant powers, the Storm and Cyclops origin scenes would require extensive FX work and so could be costly to produce.

But what would the scenes themselves have actually entailed?

From the Script

The only truly detailed source of information I’ve been able to find on the subject is a script draft for X-Men dated Feb 15, 1999, about 7 months before it would commence filming. The opening sequence is similar to, yet different from the final film in some details, showing Magneto’s origin in 1943 Nazi-occupied Poland.

However, rather than jump to the present-day (aka the ‘not too distant future’), the script instead cuts to a savannah in “KENYA - 1972,” where a group of kids play tag.

The scene comes to focuses on:

“One girl in particular. A PRETTY GIRL OF 12, is tagged and immediately shunned.” (4)

Though not named in these pages, which are completely bereft of dialogue, the girl is clearly a young Storm. As the game progresses, the other kids begin to cruelly taunt and bully Storm, with her ending up surrounded in a circle. They start throwing stones at her, with the scene suggesting a horror similar to the Magneto origin.

Storm’s powers activate but she is unable to control them.

The children don’t immediately notice that it inexplicably starts snowing out of the cloudless sky. Soon, adults arrive from a village and everyone is amazed at the snow. But then, the snow is replaced by HAIL and the hail increases in size, to the point that the pellets become like bricks. Here’s an excerpt of how the scene ends:

"The girl drops to the ground and covers her head as hailstones the size of coffee cans plow into the Earth as well as the weaker shacks of grass and mud. Before long, they hew a path of destruction that devastates the village. And all along the girl sits huddled in the dust, crying. 

As hailstones fall in a circle around her, never coming closer than ten feet or so." (5)

Where this sequence seemed like an ambitious silent film, the next one is much more traditional. We cut to a school gymnasium on prom night in “SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA - 1986.” The camera leads us to a Boys’ Bathroom, where we find a teenager sitting in pain on a toilet with his head in his hands.

The script explicitly identifies him as “SCOTT SUMMERS - AGE 17.” (6) He talks to his friend, a Freckled Kid about how his eyes hurt. From outside in the gymnasium, we see a bright flash of light. Back in the bathroom, it’s revealed that Scott has made:

“A SMOKING, MOLTEN HOLE in the stall door, framing Scott's face perfectly.” (6)

It is only after this scene with the teenage Cyclops that we go into the Senate Hearing scene set in the present day, with Jean Grey and Senator Kelly.

Inferences

We can infer from all this that these scenes were planned before the original production of X-Men but were cut at the script level due to budget or scheduling issues. Singer apparently saw the X2 production as an opportunity to go back and reinstate these scenes into the first movie, implying he really wanted them in the original film from the outset. But again, the plan for them fell apart.

Now, it is likely that these were not going to be the exact sequences that would’ve been filmed during the making of X2. The script pages I’ve cited are not from the final shooting draft and it is almost certain that they would’ve been at least slightly revised following the release of the first movie due to the time gap between the productions of X-Men and X2.* However, I doubt that they would have been considerably different.

*I’m also curious as to where exactly Singer wanted to place them. It would make sense to have them appear chronologically prior to the Senate Hearing scene, but 1999 draft doesn’t include Rogue’s introduction scene. With the new sequences, this would make for 4 origin scenes in a row, which would be a bit too much upfront. Hence, I wonder if the Storm and Cyclops origins would’ve been positioned as flashbacks later in the extended cut.

I recall Singer discussing at one point, perhaps on the commentary track for either X-Men or X2, that Cyclops’ powers would’ve manifested in a bathroom and the set for it had been constructed but then reused for a different sequence (possibly the Mystique/Lorio scene in X2, but I don’t remember for certain).

This means the final Scott sequence would’ve been very close to what is described in the Feb 1999 draft, which in turns suggests the Storm sequence would’ve been as well.

In my opinion, though the sequences aren’t absolutely necessary to the movie, they certainly give a better idea of the traumas that shaped both Cyclops and Storm. Additionally, they provide a more clearly defined timeline for the events of X-Men. And, just going by the script, the Storm sequence could’ve been a visual standout on par with the Magneto opening. So, it’s a shame that they - and the 1.5 extended cut - were scrapped. At the very least, they would’ve made for an excellent bonus feature.

Reused Concepts

Interestingly, later X-Men movies would revisit both of these unused concepts.

The prequel X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) incorporated both characters retroactively into Wolverine’s backstory. Kid Storm had a cameo during the 1979 sequence in Africa though her scene was (thankfully) excised from the theatrical release.

Meanwhile, the second half of the movie includes a whole subplot (which felt completely out of place) about a teenage Cyclops, who had already developed his power, being kidnapped from high school by the film’s villain Sabretooth.

X-Men Apocalypse (2016), set in an alternate 1983, would present a take similar to both the cut Cyclops origin from X-Men and his first appearance in X-Men Origins. While in class, the teenage Scott asks to go to the bathroom as his eyes hurt. As he sits in a stall, he unleashes a beam of energy from his eyes for the first time, blowing away the door and another student who had hoped to beat him up.

As Apocalypse was also directed by Bryan Singer, one can infer that he had long intended to do the Cyclops origin scene and got his chance over 15 years later.

Additional Thoughts on the film

• I love the tone of this movie. Very consistent and barely a hint of the 'wink-wink, hah-hah' stuff that is emblematic of Marvel. I mean, sure, there is that line about 'yellow spandex' later on, but it's the rare exception. In hindsight, I’m happy Joss Whedon’s contributions to the script were minimized.

• I really like in hindsight how they take their time building to the reveal of Wolverine. He's not supposed to be THE main character of this movie. Like, it's a team-effort picture and he's introduced as maybe the fifth regular in an ensemble. Watching this though, you can tell Jackman was destined to become a star. Like, he dominates every scene he's in, for better or for worse. His Logan really feels like an animal that gradually becomes humanized.

• So, why does Magneto do that metronome-like thing with the iron balls swinging back and forth sans string in his office? I don't know but I always loved the detail of them falling off the moment he leaves.

• I wonder why all the Brotherhood members aside from Magneto were basically strong but silent background heavies. Like, each of them has maybe one line of dialogue. Did this help cut down on the budget - so they wouldn't have to hire A-list stars for these roles?

• It’s sad that we never got more deleted footage on DVD. In 2021, Hugh Jackman claimed that the film lost 47 minutes shortly before release, which aligns with early reports that there was over half-an-hour cut from it.

• I remember seeing a deleted scene in the bts docs, where Kelly tells Magneto about his having the best intentions and Magneto gets furious and retorts that it's only a matter of time before mutants are taken to camps and studied for weaknesses. I kinda wish that scene had remained in the movie, because it was a great showcase for McKellen, and it made it pretty clear that Magneto sees the mutant registration act as a precursor to mutants becoming treated as the Jews were in WW2.

• I appreciate how small scale this movie is, how quiet it is, how it has a tight economical plot with scenes that are allowed to breathe. Even the first sequel would overload itself with incident and jokes, leading to some pretty weird tonal whiplash. In part, I suspect this is attributable to the fact that this was more of a mid-budget movie. Consider how small-scale Magneto's threat is. He doesn't even want to kill any humans in this case, but to convert them to his cause. Even if you consider that his act could possibly kill everyone in NYC, it's still not a world-ending attack.

• There’s setup at the end here that doesn’t call attention to itself: Jean’s reaction to Magneto’s radiation was clearly meant to be setup for her transformation into Phoenix later in the series, the idea being that it’s a secondary mutation. I was really sad when it got retconned in X3.

• I used to think poorly of Halle Berry’s initial decision to not come back to X3. But given all the stuff that came out later about Singer’s abusive and unprofessional behavior on the X-Men and X2 sets, it made a LOT of sense why she’d come back only after he dropped out and was replaced by Brett Rattner.

But what about you? 

Would you like to have seen the extended 1.5 cut of X-Men? Or was it a good idea to leave the Storm and Cyclops origins scenes on the cutting room floor? Is there a deleted scene you wish the film had kept in? Any other thoughts on the film?

Leave a comment

Also, Merry Christmas to you and thanks for reading! 

The Romulus VHS Edition

Imagine you want to get a copy of the Alien Romulus limited VHS edition. Maybe you read an interview with director Fede Alvarez, where he talks about his love for the format and how he convinced the studio to do something special for the film’s home video release. Maybe you’re just excited by the prospect of seeing a new movie via a media delivery technology that you continued to use long after the majority of media consumers declared it obsolete. In any case, you’re interested.

So, you go to the official Walmart Pre-Order page for it and discover that the limited VHS edition had very quickly sold out. You do some digging and you discover that there are copies, still brand new and unopened, somehow available for order on a different site - eBay. Only there it costs about twice as much and will arrive a few weeks to a few months after the official December 3 release date. 

And then you start wondering if maybe the reason it went out of stock that fast is because the people who sell on eBay bought up a huge number of those limited copies, if not all of them, just to resell them later and profit off people like you.

Now, I want to clarify that this is not exactly my story.

I personally didn’t like Alien Romulus all that much and while I was interested in possibly getting the VHS version as I am a collector, I was turned off by the already-exorbitant official price tag of $60 per copy. And I know I wasn’t the only one.*

* If you ask me, for a VHS release of a new movie, this price is simply ridiculous, especially considering that virtually every other physical edition is actually cheaper. Compare this to how a company like Witter Entertainment offers multiple variants and pricing tiers of their limited VHS editions for recent titles like Terrifier or The Void. A ‘standard’ release typically comes with some exclusive bonuses like director introductions and costs about $25. Higher price tiers will get you additional extras, such as special artwork or packaging.  

But I was legitimately shocked by what I saw on eBay: a whopping 56 listings for the Romulus VHS preorder. Across them, I found 278 copies* of the VHS edition listed as either available for purchase or already sold at $100-140 per copy.

*The actual number should be higher. Multiple sellers did not provide exact numbers, but listed “more than 10” copies as available. Moreover, in the month since they first began to show up, some listings might have been taken down as the sellers sold off their stock.

Many of these vendors had about 1-3 copies in stock. However, several had up to 10 or over. One seller had a record of 22 copies and had sold 19 of them at $110, which suggests he made (or, more accurately, stands to make) about $1000 in profit. 

There’s absolutely no way that these VHS copies did not come from the Walmart online pre-order page. They are all brand new, factory-sealed.

And the delivery date is typically a few weeks after the official December 3 release date, meaning the sellers are first going to need to wait for Walmart to actually deliver their pre-order copies before they ship them out to the new buyers.

Heck, one listing even provides an image of a Walmart delivery tracking page to confirm that the seller will be getting a copy soon.

What percent of the preorder stock did the scalpers get?

At the moment, we don’t know for certain.

Neither Disney, nor Walmart have disclosed how many copies the Romulus VHS was actually limited to, so it is not known how many copies were available for pre-order, nor how many will be made available for physical retail on December 3.* But there are multiple signs that most of the preorders were bought up by the scalpers.

*In fact, Disney’s press releases have not made it clear even if the Romulus VHS would be available in physical retail, but a Walmart customer representative confirmed to me that yes, there will be copies coming to physical Walmart stores.

It’s important to note that, even by the standard of physical media limited editions, retro-VHS versions nowadays are issued in super-small quantities. Though the numbers can vary, depending on the title and distributor, it’s very common for titles to not receive more than a few hundred copies per edition. VHS, after all, is today a super-niche market, one unlikely to grow unless new VCRs are produced.*

Vice Press, for instance, limited the standard VHS editions of Evil Dead 2 (1987, dir. Sam Raimi) and Suspiria (1977, dir. Dario Argento) to 500 copies. Vinegar Syndrome appears to cap its ‘Degausser Video’ label’s limited VHS releases at 300.*

Witter Entertainment nowadays seems to offer standard VHS editions for as long ‘as supplies last’ and restocks them depending on demand. But it used to be common for it to print only 150 copies of a given title and/or edition.*

*All 150 copies of the Psycho Goreman (2020, dir. Steve Kostanski) limited run VHS sold out very quickly in 2021, leading to the title being restocked.

It is safe to assume that Disney, in the course of their marketing research, looked at other companies’ numbers to help determine the supply and demand for retro-VHS editions before deciding to release their first real VHS in years.

Based on this, the fact that the pre-order copies were gone in 3 days and that Disney would also be saving copies for physical retail, I’d estimate the Romulus VHS preorder stock did not exceed 500 copies. This is supported by November 28 reports from multiple fans that ordered early that their pre-orders were cancelled, indicating that Walmart actually oversold the Romulus VHS edition.

So, it’s almost certain that the 278 copies currently offered on Ebay constitute the majority of the pre-orders Walmart had available.

How could this have happened? 

Well, for one thing, Disney and Walmart offered no advance notices to prospective customers about the fact that the limited edition would actually become available for pre-order. Rather, the pre-order option just suddenly popped up on Walmart’s website a mere 10 days after being announced for release in December.*

*I suspect the VHS version was a last-minute addition to the other December 3 physical releases - DVD, BluRay and 4K UHD - announced back at the end of September. 

Thus, the target audience consisting of VHS collectors and Alien franchise fans had no time to actually prepare for the release, essentially guaranteeing that a good number of them would miss the pre-order window.

On top of that, Walmart clearly didn’t take any measures to ensure that a single customer couldn’t purchase and hoard multiple units.* Of course, few VHS fans would have the budget or need to purchase up to 10 copies of the release or more.

But for scalpers, this created the perfect opportunity to snatch up as many early copies as they could afford (about 5 copies on average) and then profit from the resulting lack of availability at the original store.  

*For comparison, both Vinegar Syndrome and Witte Entertainment usually limit one unit of a limited edition VHS per customer, with the latter specifying that they delete duplicate orders.

Unsurprisingly, some collectors and fans feel unhappy or screwed over.

Still, some have apparently chosen to indeed purchase the VHS version from eBay. I personally think folks that really want this edition should wait until the Walmart stores actually get their copies in or until bootlegs inevitably start spreading.*

*That, after all, was one of the appeals of VHS - bootleg circulation, easy reproduction and ‘aesthetics of access,’ as Lucas Hilderbrand would describe it.

Buying them at outrageous prices from scalpers is only going to embolden them to pull more shit like this in the future.

Expect More Issues

As a whole, this situation does not bode well for the future of Disney’s foray into VHS releases. The company has simply failed to clearly communicate with its intended audience and so paved the way for them to be exploited by unethical opportunists. 

Why not provide at the outset a clear and detailed press release or page that specifies how many copies of the limited edition are available, as well as when and where it will be sold? I wonder if perhaps the lack of disclosure stems from a desire to test the waters for interest. That is, based on the preorder demand, Disney could adjust the (unreported) limited number of available copies appropriately over time.

One thing is clear though: at the very least, Disney and Walmart need to adopt safeguards to prevent scalpers from being able to exploit fans in the future.

The physical retail rollout will hopefully help mitigate the situation. 

But honestly, given the way this pre-order fiasco has unfolded, I expect even more issues to crop up with the Romulus VHS edition once we get to the release date.

But what do you think?

Were most of the VHS pre-order copies purchased by the fans? Was the edition already overpriced? Will Romulus help revive the VHS market for movies in general? Can VHS really come back if the intended audience continues to be treated like this? Please,

Leave a comment

If you’re interested in the Alien film series, please consider reading the following:

Also, check out some thoughts on the Alien 3 Workprint Cut and the similarities of its climax to that of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Among other things, I want to share my impressions of both Halloween (H1, 2007) and Halloween 2 (H2, 2009), my original review of H1, and discuss the differences between the various versions, including the first one’s leaked workprint.

Table of Contents

1. Thoughts on H1 and H2

2. The theatrical cuts on Freevee

3. BONUS FEATURES

Thoughts on H1 and H2

I remember being really excited when news broke that Rob Zombie would be making a remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween.1

Things, however, would not go all that well for him. 

Working under the Weinstein brothers made him miserable, the film’s script got leaked or spoiled online and then, of course, there were all the fans who rejected the new film due to its apparent irreverence for the original.

While interning at an indie film company at the time, I witnessed my supervisor come into the office, apparently having either seen a test screening of the picture or received word from somebody that had, and express outrage at the fact that Michael Myers was a man, rather than ‘The Shape’ of evil, as in the 1978 picture.

That, of course, actually made me all the more excited to see Zombie’s take. Because Myers being an evil faceless boogeyman had been done to death at that point.

Once I’d actually caught it in theaters, my feelings were decidedly mixed. It seemed pretty obvious that H1 was at war with itself, a compromise between Zombie’s own personal vision and that of John Carpenter.

The DVD’s Director’s Cut improved things somewhat by extending the first half and putting back some of the kid Michael scenes from the sanitarium but it could not completely rewrite the lesser, more derivative second half.*  

*The most visible difference is arguably in the asylum escape sequence. In fact, I recall how somebody else working at my internship company got a phone call and then shared with us that after the test screening, the studio was def-ly changing the asylum escape along with the ending. In the theatrical cut, Michael busts out by killing multiple armed guards during a transfer to another institution. In the director’s cut, Michael is prompted to escape by a couple of abusive orderlies that rape another inmate.

Zombie seemed done with the franchise, but then, despite the experience he had the first time, wound up coming back to make H2 (apparently in part to ensure he would never have to work with the Weinsteins again). He clearly had more creative control on the second go-around and though I didn’t think H2 was great, it was a clear improvement on its predecessor and felt much truer to Zombie as a filmmaker.

I particularly appreciated the director’s newfound interest in simply luxuriating in surreal and weird-as-hell dream imagery, like the one displayed in the Halloween dinner vision Michael experiences about 40 minutes into the movie, which foreshadows the more aesthetically ambitious approach Zombie would take with the underrated Lords of Salem (2012). 

Apparently though, Zombie once again had a terrible experience behind the scenes and never really felt he had enough time to finish the film, especially as the release date of H2 got moved up two months from October to August (unless I misunderstood his comments), cutting down his post-production schedule. 

“ I will not make another movie under these circumstances. When you lock a movie's release date and then move it two months, it's just not good. It's good for everything but the cast, crew, and people who are creatively trying to make a film. Post is the part that can make or break a film. With Devil's Rejects, we didn't have reshoots [it had a low budget], but we had the time to craft it. Luckily, I always use the same editor, and he immediately gravitates toward the takes that I like. The problem is that nobody makes movies anymore - they make schedules and they make budgets.”

• Source: Collider interview with Rob Zombie by David Gralnik, Aug 29 2005

That might explain why the theatrical cut wound up with a baffling and unsatisfying ending. Regretting that he had second-guessed himself, Zombie would later restore the film’s original tragic denouement for the director’s cut on DVD. In effect, he repurposed the original ending of H1, where Michael regained some measure of his humanity and let Laurie go, only to get gunned down by the police anyway.

Zombie was always more interested in Michael the Man than Michael the Shape, and that point comes across clearly here when the finale, following an entire film of Michael speaking via a child avatar version of himself, has Hobo Michael actually take his mask off and tell Loomis to die before stabbing him in a rage.

It’s only after he has been demystified and regained his humanity that the police are able to actually kill him. In this version, though, there is no salvation for Laurie, who gives into her family’s demons and, seemingly driven by the same force as Michael was, moves in to finish Loomis off before getting promptly shot herself.  

It is a bold and audacious conclusion that illustrates how, though very similar on the surface, the director’s cut is a really different picture and clearly the superior iteration. Watching it, one gets the sense it was made by someone who no longer gave a shit about satisfying audience expectations or having a likable main character.

Without it, I don’t think there would be quite as many voices today that hail H2 as a misunderstood masterpiece.* 

*I personally don’t quite agree with that sentiment, as both cuts in my mind are a little too long and don’t explore some of their narrative details to their full potential. I definitely think the hospital nightmare sequence should’ve been completely cut from the film.

The theatrical cuts on Freevee 

Though they may not be the best iterations of Zombie’s vision, the theatrical versions are still worth seeing. Each provides insight into the compromises the director had to make for theatrical distribution and so enriches the experience of the director’s cuts.* Moreover, they both feature exclusive footage that can’t be found in the others.

*Revisiting the theatrical H2, for instance, made me appreciate Scout Taylor-Compton’s performance all the more, as in the theatrical cut she plays a considerably different, more well-put together incarnation of Laurie that has largely gotten over her trauma by the film’s beginning. The director’s cut, meanwhile, takes the opposite route and makes Laurie’s trauma ever-present, depicting her as permanently damaged by her ordeal.

The problem is that, since their initial releases back in 2007 and 2009, the theatrical cuts have been largely unavailable for mass circulation. DVD releases tended to prioritize the director’s cuts and though the theatrical editions did get some distribution (such as a Canadian DVD release by Alliance that featured both H1 and H2 on one disc), they were typically barebones in terms of special features.*

*I wonder if the exclusion of the theatrical cuts from the US market was a deliberate attempt on Zombie’s part to gradually phase them out of distribution/existence/memory and so leave only his preferred versions available. That these releases were not even afforded special features when available seems to support this possibility, though I have no idea how much control Zombie would actually have over the releases.

On Blu-Ray, the theatrical editions have been essentially excluded until the June 2023 “Ultimate Edition” release by the Australian boutique distributor ViaVision, which collected both cuts of H1 and H2 into a single release, combining them with pretty much all previously released bonus materials including a making-of doc for H1.2

While I have no idea when exactly Zombie’s H1 and H2 first arrived on streaming and VOD platforms, I was pleasantly surprised to discover earlier this month that Prime Video is indeed showing the theatrical cuts of them both via Freevee. This means you don’t even need to have an Amazon/Prime Video account to watch them.

The HD transfers are pretty good, so I suspect these were ported over by Lionsgate from the ViaVision release. I’d suggest checking out these ones sooner rather than later as there’s no telling when the Amazon license will expire. 

You can find H1 here and H2 here. 

You can find extended breakdowns of the differences between versions here and here.

BONUS FEATURES

1. H1 Workprint Cut

2. My Original 2007 review of H1

3. The Unreleased H2 documentary

H1 Workprint Cut

A piece of old news: some time before Zombie’s H1 came out in theaters, its Workprint Cut leaked onto the web. Now, if you google search it, you can in fact find it uploaded to a very good archival site and see it there. 

As is typical of workprints, this early cut is not finished: it has temp music and sound effects, but it is, imo, more watchable than workprints generally are. Running a full 2 hours with credits, this cut focuses much more on Michael’s perspective and offers a good idea of what Zombie’s vision for the film was before it went through the test screening process.

There’s lots of deleted and alternate footage here that has shown up elsewhere. Zombie, for instance, would restore part of the original asylum escape sequence to the director’s cut, while the alternate ending was released as a deleted scene on the DVD.

But there are also instances that aren’t present in any other release, such as a scene between the incarcerated kid Michael and Loomis, where Michael tells his therapist that he has nothing left to say, marking the exact moment he decides to stop talking. 

Another notable distinction is, again, during the asylum escape. Watching the work-print makes clear that the director’s cut found a middle-ground between the work-print escape sequence and the reshoots done for the theatrical release. 

In this version, Michael is prompted to escape by the abusive orderlies. However, the janitor played by Danny Trejo does not reappear and so does not die at Michael’s hands. Zombie admitted in interviews that he only later recognized that he had to resolve that character and the reshoots allowed him to film a new death scene.

Thus, the director’s cut would combine the original escape sequence footage with the new footage of the Janitor’s death.

Finally, you can see the original ending in its intended context. I haven’t found the famous instance where Michael actually speaks after unmasking himself in this version though, so I think - if indeed filmed - it must’ve been removed very early.

I do think any fan of Zombie or the Halloween movies should check it out.

My Original Review of H1 

Initially published on Livejournal in September 2007

Poor Rob Zombie.

The guy has taken so much flak lately for remaking a beloved horror classic. And he doesn't deserve it. The original film isn't going anywhere, and Michael Myers continues to exist in one form or another, be it the subtle, evil incarnate Shape of the original or the new, human, motivated, unstoppable juaggernaut of the remake.

It's weird, however, just how difficult people are to please when it comes to the issue of The Shape/Michael.

As much as nobody wants merely a "remake" of the original film a la Gus Van Sant's "Psycho", people tend to be just as reticent towards any fiddling with the formula of "evil embodiment Michael vs. Dr. Loomis and survivor girls".

Just the mere concept of Zombie's remake - to show a different Michael Myers, before he turned into an inhuman, faceless entity - seems to ignite more rage in film fans and critics than the idea of The Shape getting Karate-chopped by Busta Rhymes or Laurie Strode kissing Michael before plummeting to her death.

Or the story with the thorn cultists.

Does the film deserve the venom it gets from half or more of the audience for bringing a "human" Michael? I remember how my own internship supervisor voiced displeasure at how the Zombie Michael sucks, because he's not pure evil anymore.

Well, the fact is, this IS Zombie's Michael.

Carpenter's initial iteration isn't desecrated by Zombie's reality-grounded interpretation of the character. This new version purportedly TALKED in the mask - a single line of dialogue subsequently edited out. Personally, as it would've been cool to hear the Shape after all those years of mute remorseless murder.

But oh well... Whatever complaints purists might have, I think the film is okay.

I liked Michael's backstory, as it's something which was never really explored in the original film - Rob Zombie does have a thing for all that crazy redneck stuff. All the cameos in the film are cool, and Michael's attacks are perhaps the most brutal ones to date. Zombie definitely knows how to make violence disturbing, and although his approach never has the subtlety of Carpenter, his Shape is still quite vicious.

I feel "Halloween" also showcases Zombie's evolution as a filmmaker. Although that is not too apparent, the director has learned that restraint can have its advantages. The camera no longer moves about the screen in every frame, which was the case in his previous endeaours. This is especially noticeable in the Sanitarium scenes, where Zombie employs still shots and more extensive takes, perhaps deliberately homaging Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange."

It's only when Michael does what he does that the chaos of his psyche moves into the outside world, and the handcam shots take prevalence once more.

Overall, it's a good film. Not great, but good.

7 out of 10.

The Unreleased Halloween 2 Documentary 

If you’ve ever bought a Rob Zombie movie on DVD, you might occasionally notice the presence of a feature-length making-of documentary, such as 30 Days in Hell for The Devil’s Rejects or In Hell Everybody Loves Popcorn for 31. 

Surprisingly, however, there was never such a doc for H2, despite its predecessor getting the excellent 4-hour documentary Michael Lives when the picture was reissued in a special edition about a year or two after the initial one-disc release.

And yet, I recalled Zombie mentioning over the years that he had, in fact, made a documentary about the making of H2, which was a whopping 8 hours long! 

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any places Zombie actually talked about this online but I did manage to locate this 10-minute video by Nick of The Lost River Drive-In, who explains why apparently the 8-hour doc will never be released. I hope one day it makes its way out of the vault and reveals the hell the Weinsteins put him through.

But what do you think?

Do you have a favorite cut of H1 or H2? Have you ever seen the theatrical versions? Did you like them? Why or why not? What’s your take on Rob Zombie in general?

Can you think of any other movies, where the theatrical cut has been kept from circulation?

What’s you favorite Halloween film?

Leave a comment

Rejecting the official claim that Carnage was always intended to be around 90 minutes long, I will make the case that Venom 2 ended up at this length because its post-production was disrupted by Covid, which increased the costs of completing the VFX-heavy picture and reduced its box office potential.

To clarify, I am not claiming that the film necessarily has a longer director’s cut or that it was re-edited by the distributor against the wishes of the filmmakers. Rather, I want to delve into the actual causes of its conspicuously short running time and so show how external circumstances contributed to the theatrical cut’s assemblage.

Table of Contents

1. The Official Story

2. The Disruption of Carnage

3. Unplanned Expenses

4. Evidence of Budget Issues

5. Editor Interview

6. Budgets, Cuts, and Expectations

The Official Story

Venom: Let There Be Carnage is, without a doubt, an unusually short film for a sequel to a VFX-heavy blockbuster like Venom (2018, dir. Ruben Fleischer, 112 minutes). Typi-cally, blockbuster sequels are larger in scale, and thus tend to carry longer running times than their predecessors. But despite having more characters, a (slightly) bigger budget, and over 100 more VFX shots, Carnage is 15 minutes shorter than Venom.

So, it was unsurprising when its length became a subject of discussion online and in the press. One couldn’t help but wonder: “Why is the film that short?”

When asked, the filmmakers tended to create the impression that the 97-minute duration was intentional, repeatedly attributing the length to desire to make Carnage a super-fast film comparable to a ‘rollercoaster’ or ‘thrill ride.’

“"No, it was actually always going to be...we always wanted this film to be a real thrill ride. And a fast, muscular...not hanging around too much with exposition.””

• Source: Andy Serkis, Instagram interview via IGN, about 14:30

Tom and I, right from the get, knew we just wanted this to be an epic ride from beginning to end. We wanted to leave you breathless at the end of it as if you had literally just been on a roller coaster and came thinking that was the most insane batshit ride you’ve ever been on. This movie goes like a freight train and I don’t know that you could sustain much more of that ride if you went longer.

• Source: Kelly Marcel, Discussing Film interview  

“ We wanted to do more with [the sequel]… and bring it in under 90 minutes so it's a ride and a thrill.”

• Source: Tom Hardy, Syfy Wire interview

Director Andy Serkis, screenwriter Kelly Marcel and actor Tom Hardy all thus seem to agree that the film couldn’t or shouldn’t have been any longer than 90 minutes (sans credits), that its duration is the deliberate result of their creative intent.

If you ask me though, they’re selling a narrative, perhaps one designed by Sony to create the public perception that there was no trouble whatsoever with Carnage behind the scenes.* But the fact is that Carnage definitely had some trouble.

*And that’s understandable. As a rule, when a new movie comes out, you don’t want to badmouth it. You don’t want to kill its chances at finding an audience or making money. You don’t want to destroy all the hard work the cast and crew have put into it. You don’t want to ruin your professional relationships and so damage your career in the process. Regardless of what happened behind the scenes or what you personally feel about the end product, you put on your happy face and you do your best to sell it. And maybe you do get more honest and candid about things, but some time after the the fact.

The Disruption of Carnage 

With a reported budget of $110 million, Carnage began shooting mid-November 2019, with principal photography ending towards the end of February 2020. Just as it was about to enter post-production, the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown began, separating the filmmakers geographically and forcing them to adopt remote work-from-home protocols. All post work on the film, including editing, music, color grading, and VFX, now had to be conducted under these conditions. 

The film’s post schedule consequently was considerably longer than planned. Origi-nally, it was to last about 6 months. Delivery was to occur in August 2020 in time for the picture’s October 2, 2020 release date. Instead, it would stretch to approximately 18 months, with Carnage being delivered in September 2021 in time for its London premiere on September 14 before its main release on October 1, 2021.

In large part, the year-long delay is attributable to Sony’s reaction to the unpredic-table developments in the Covid pandemic. Carnage first got pushed to June 2021, then to September, and finally October.1 It follows that the film’s post schedule changed several times as well, which would in turn have influenced how long the film was worked on and the shape of the final theatrical release.

Lending particular insight into the complications of the post process under Covid is a pair of behind-the-scenes articles that detail the making of the film’s VFX, which were spread among several different teams, including an in-house team, DNEG, Framestore, and Image Engine. Here are some quotes from the picture’s main VFX Supervisor Sheena Duggal from Mike Seymour’s article in FX Guide.

On the delivery:

“The production, the crew, and the scheduling for our film got completely messed up by COVID, as most productions did,” says Duggal.

On working from home:

“Due to COVID much of the project involved working from home across multiple time zones. The team used a variety of tools including emails, iMessage, whatsapp, Clearview, Evercast, Zoom, Aspera, Microsoft teams, Slack, Shotgun/Shotgrid, Q-take, PIX x2x, Moxion, RV, Cinesync, and Streambox. 

On the demands of the project:

“The project was extremely demanding but the team did adapt thanks to persistence and practical intelligence. “I haven’t looked at this recently but by October 2020 I had read 22k emails and sent 6K,” comments Duggal. “That was almost a year ago so I can only imagine it’s triple that by now.”

• Source: FX Guide, October 24, 2021.

Now, here’s an excerpt from Ian Failes’ article in Before and Afters.

“…Duggal and her visual effects producer Barrie Hemsley were forced to completely re-think the way post on Carnage would be approached…. The task was enormous; reviewing thousands of shots, remotely, while setting up a technical workflow for that to happen… Then there were also the artistic, creative and personal challenges remote working brought.

“It was especially difficult to hold together a cohesive vision across thousands of artists each in their own bubble all around the world… I had to give a lot more feedback than I normally would expect to, and while we pulled off a very successful film, I feel there are still inconsistencies with the quality as a result of this challenging scenario.””

• Source: Before And Afters, October 22, 2021.

A good example of how unexpected complications arose in the course of remote work can be seen in a DNEG featurette on the film. At 8:13, VFX artist Spencer Cook discusses an issue DNEG had in reviewing VFX shots remotely:

“We also discovered something odd when we reviewing the lip sync shots with the clients because the post-production on this movie was done completely during the quarantine so everybody was working remotely and we noticed there was a slight lag in the review sessions and it made it impossible to judge if the lip sync was in sync or not cause everybody’s lag was probably a little bit different in all the different locations.”

He adds that they were not aware of this problem for a long time because

“…working remotely was kind of new for all of us and we were kind of figuring all this out and making a movie remotely was just kind of crazy but we did it, but… these were the kind of things that would just come up and that we would learn for the first time.”

As the various departments do not work in a vacuum and decisions in one area (such as the editing) can influence those in another, it can be inferred that the issues described here were not limited to the VFX area but affected all of post-production, which was considerably more challenging and complicated than it would be normally.

Initially, there was no established workflow that allowed the crew to manage things quickly and effectively. Many participants were caught off-guard and had to adapt to new circumstances on the fly, such as having to deal with different time zones, internet connectivity issues, and communication platform availability.

Consequently, the overall amount of work necessary to coordinate and finish the film was magnified. This, in conjunction with the fluctuating post and release schedules, was almost certain to have some sort of effect on the film’s budget.2

Unplanned Expenses

Covid in general has been known to really drive up costs and budgets of in-production titles. For the most part, this occurs due to the effect the quarantine has on filming. If you have to stop and restart production, you’re gonna have to cover associated overages, not to mention the new costs of Covid - hiring testers, making sure people mask and distance, paying extra due to the inflation of physical materials, etc. 

Carnage was fortunate, insofar that filming had already been completed before the pandemic. Now, I’ve found no real information about the specific effects of Covid on post-production costs. And there have never been any reports of Carnage going over budget. But it’s hard to believe that there were no side-effects at all.

Imagine you’re a producer at one of the companies that finances a blockbuster film with a budget of around $110 million. You’ve allotted the film a certain amount of money for development, for shooting and for post.

The film finishes shooting and is (presumably) on time and on budget. But then the post-production schedule that you’ve planned and budgeted for goes out the window because of external factors that nobody had predicted.

Putting aside that unplanned developments can easily waste money, the amount left for post-production now has to be re-allocated to factor in the new circumstances. 

Maybe you need to pay certain departments more money due to the people having to work longer. Maybe you need to pay other departments less because nobody will need to travel. Maybe the VFX artists now need to be paid extra for unexpected overtime. In any case, much like in the case of filming, it is almost certain that after Covid, the money that you have now is simply worth less than it used to be, if just by a little.

One post-production area where the movie would definitely have unexpected additional expenses is that of reshoots. Now, we can safely assume that Venom 2 would have planned for reshoots and so budgeted for them in advance, since that’s simply par the course for Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking nowadays.

However, nobody planned for reshoots to happen under the new Covid filming guidelines. This means any additional filming would cost more than the pre-lockdown projections. In at least one case, unanticipated VFX work was required due to the fact that the main cast were separated geographically and had to film the same scene, with all of them being spliced together into the sequence digitally later.  

“An added challenge came from some additional photography acquired during the lockdown in the UK, NYC and Toronto. “Our actors were in different countries although sometimes acting in the same scene,” outlines Duggal. “So we did a lot of previs and techvis to figure out how best to shoot. I was lucky to have the help of first-rate additional VFX supervisor Marty Waters, who was our shoot supe during principal photography and helped supe in post, and he was local to the UK, for that shoot. Andy Serkis is based in the UK so that made it easier for that part of the shoot.”

• Source: Ian Failes, Before And Afters, Oct 22 2021

A sequence confirmed to have been added in reshoots was an early minute-and-a-half scene between Eddie Brock and Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), where the latter briefs Brock about Cletus Kasady wanting to see him, which then leads to Eddie having a talk with his symbiote Venom in a bathroom. 

The sequence came about at the insistence of editor Maryann Brandon, who felt that Mulligan needed a proper introduction scene as she felt confused by his appearance after watching an early cut of the picture. As Venom appears in his ‘wraith’ form, the new scene required expensive VFX work.

“In fact, there was no backstory when I first started for the Mulligan detective character. When they first showed me the film I was like, “I don’t know who he is.” And then Andy Serkis explained to me who he was and I said: “Okay, so, you’re gonna need to shoot a scene so I know who he is when he’s waiting outside the prison for Eddie to come back….” 

We went back and shot that scene at the very beginning where he’s saying “Cletus wants to talk to you” and in this scene where Eddie has a fight with himself in the bathroom…. And again, a very expensive scene to do because Venom is not a cheap character.”

• Editor Maryann Brandon, Rough Cut Podcast interview,  Jul 16, 2022.

The thing about VFX nowadays is that even under the best circumstances on a production of this scale, it ain’t cheap. And any previously unaccounted VFX work would definitely eat into the available post-production budget.

Adding new, un-filmed scenes in other words could potentially take away money from other scenes that had already been shot. So, completing Carnage was almost certain to cost more than projected prior to the beginning of the lockdown.

Under these circumstances, the studio (by which I really mean the different companies or entities responsible for the financing of the film) would have to make a choice between increasing the film’s budget and so expanding its scope and running time, or cutting the movie down to make it fit the budget available.

I strongly believe that the latter is what happened in this case.

Evidence of Budget Issues

Now, of course, running time is in constant flux as a cut takes shape, with decisions by directors and editors being made, unmade, considered, reconsidered. The shape in of a picture’s assemblage can be influenced by numerous factors.

Of them, however, budget is one of the most important. It’s not uncommon for entire scenes or sequences to be jettisoned in editing just because there is not enough money in the budget to complete them. And sometimes you can tell from what you see on-screen, such as when the editing becomes visible and draws attention to itself.  

For instance, in the first major action sequence of Carnage, wherein the red symbiote busts out of prison, there are clearly missing shots in-between parts of the same scene. Here, I want to point readers to the following video by The Nerd Network which provides a close reading and analysis of the entire sequence. 

The author begins by looking at the initial Casady transformation scene and points out that that moments of his transformation are clearly skipped over, creating continuity issues: 

“Cletus’ transformation for the most part has been these tiny fleshy tendrils starting to grow out of his torso, but then that all fast forwards to a shot of a clawed red arm reaching towards the warden, which is funny because the last shot we saw of that arm was where it was strapped down on a table. How did the arm get out of the straps? … There’s no shots that show this happening, so it leaves sharp eyed viewers in the dark about what’s happening. You can tell something is missing here.”

He then looks at Carnage’s rampage through the prison, pointing out how the cuts jarringly jumps from one location to another, making it almost impossible to follow the onscreen action. I appreciate in particular when he points out how the movie cuts nonsensically from a moment where Carnage is looking from an elevated position at a group of cheering inmates to suddenly turning into a tornado in a completely different part of the prison, with no consideration for spatial continuity.

The sequence was evidently chopped up and connective tissue that showed Carnage tracking down the warden, leading into the moment where he turns into a tornado, was cut in-between. One can infer that the sequence initially was - and should be longer - by at least several seconds, if not a full minute. 

I’d say the sequence more than one occasion has instances akin to jump cuts - abrupt transitions between shots in the same sequence that disrupt continuity editing and make the subject jump from one place to another. 

Something similar happens later when Carnage busts Shriek out of the mental hospital. At 52:43-52:45, we see Carnage in his ‘wraith’ form use his tentacles to break down a doorway from inside Shriek’s cell and fling away multiple doctors and guards trying to stop him. But at 52:46, the sequence suddenly cuts to a wide shot of Carnage, now apparently in his full form, where he is one with Cletus, moving quickly through the hallway while holding Shriek with his tentacles, already outside the cell.

I’ve made a .gif to illustrate this:

The cut is again jarring and can qualify as a jump cut as there isn’t enough material in-between to properly connect the moment of Carnage moving down the hallway with what we saw just a second ago - Carnage inside the cell. 

What do all the missing shots in these sequences have in common?

Well, they would clearly require more expensive VFX work due to their featuring Carnage, who is an all CG character. And this indicates that the cuts were likely made to save on money, as their absence hurts the sequences’ continuity and the legibility of the film’s storytelling. If the latter were the priority here, then the sequences would’ve almost certainly been longer and more elaborate.  

Editor Interview on Carnage

That the picture had budget-based cuts is backed up by an interview with editor Maryann Brandon, conducted by Matt Fury for the Rough Cut Podcast. About 16 minutes in, Fury asks Brandon about the film’s short runtime and wonders if this was due to the picture having to cover less backstory than the first movie. 

Here is the relevant passage from Brandon’s response: 

“ I don’t think there was a plan for it to be 90 minutes, I don’t think it had anything to do with telling the backstory… I think at the end of the day it ended up being about 90 minutes because, first of all, I don’t pay attention to runtime, I kinda cut the film and…  if it needs to be tight, I tighten it, if it needs breathing room, I let it breathe and… that’s what it came out to be. ” 

Here, Brandon indicates that the film’s running time was not necessarily intended but rather was arrived at organically in the course of editing.

Brandon then specifically links the editing of the film to the fact that Venom and Carnage are both fully CG characters, who need to have actual scenes of character interaction in addition to action sequences, which poses a challenge in terms of sustaining a film’s storytelling and in terms of budget. She states:

“And especially with Venom, because both Venom and Carnage are full CG characters, and… I’m not sure how long… you can sustain full CG characters… You need them to talk to each other to tell story, can’t just have punch-punch, hit, blam. And also, those shots are expensive to make. So, for 90 minutes there’s a lot of bang for your buck in there.”

Brandon then goes on to note that things are different from a fully animated film, where everything is CG. She seems to mean that the film was short in part because it was rather expensive to have fully-animated characters interact on-screen for extended periods of time in a live-action picture. Yet tellingly, the attributes the brevity to specifically the picture’s writing, to the absence of ‘more scenes’ between the characters, which implies the film was already written to be short and not have much interaction between its CG characters on the page to save money.

“And I think in particular Venom… if it were an animated film, every single frame would be CG and you’d plan it out and you’d have storyboards and… you’d have characters that talk to each other, but because this is live action simulation and live action, either you have to write more scenes that are without the characters when they’re just themselves… and there wasn’t more scenes to write because… I think you got the story between Carnage and Eddie and I didn’t feel and I don’t think the writers or producers or director felt that there was much more you needed to know between them. And… I just don’t think it could’ve been longer.”

However, a little later, after Fury asks about how knowing that editorial changes can affect costs on a VFX-heavy movie impacts her decision-making process as an editor, she admits to sometimes making cuts specifically due to budget issues.

She begins her response by recounting a story of how she worked on Star Trek Into Darkness (2013, dir. JJ Abrams) with (presumably) VFX Supervisor Roger Guyett. 

“I remember on Star Trek Into Darkness there was a scene… that was very heavily CGI and it was way too long and Roger and I were putting our heads together and I came up with one version and he was like. ‘Okay, Maryann, you just added like two million dollars to the budget, we can’t do it. And I was like, oh, ok, I get it now.

So, sometimes if I get that kind of feedback, like ‘we just can’t afford it, can you come up with a better way or shorter way or a less expensive way to tell a story,’ you know, it’s a challenge and I’ll do it. And I did.

We cut out a fight and we rejiggered some stuff around and we had to come in at a certain budget and that’s the fun part, you get to rewrite it, and hopefully it’s better. It’s always easier I find to work within the parameters of something than to just have everything. It’s like at the blank page, it’s like ‘oh, shit, now what do I do?’ Whereas, like, the parame-ters are ‘you can have this many shots,’ it helps you kind of think with a goal in mind.” 

Now, I’d say Brandon is trying to be careful with her words here and so doesn’t specify whether it was on Star Trek or Carnage that she indeed had to find a shorter, less expensive way to tell a story and that “we had to come in at a certain budget.”

But even if she’s not talking about Carnage directly, her admission here about needing to make budget-based cuts and the context surrounding this response at the very least strongly imply that this did indeed happen on the Venom sequel.

Reading between the lines then, Carnage too was made within certain parameters, and there was a limited amount of VFX shots that the final cut could ultimately have due to their expensiveness, all of which impacted the editing of the picture.

Budgets, Cuts and Expectations

Altogether, these details indicate that the 97-minute runtime at least in part resulted from the need to keep the film’s budget down, that certain shots or scenes were dropped simply because the budget was not high enough to afford them.

Even prior to the pandemic, such budget-based cuts were possible, considering that Carnage had a budget about half that of the average summer blockbuster ($200-250 million) and was made under the tenure of Tom Rothman, who was reportedly hired in 2015 by Sony due to his ability “to work with multiple production labels and turn out blockbusters, while maintaining tight control over expenses.”*

*Rothman is currently chairman of Sony Picture Entertainment’s Motion Picture Group. Per Brandon, he also looked at cuts of Carnage and made various suggestions in the course of editing, though it’s not clear to what extent he was involved.

After Covid then, they were only more likely to happen, for the longer the theatrical release was and/or the more VFX shots it had, the more it would cost. Indeed, consider how much more expensive Carnage might’ve turned out to be if it had been as long as the first Venom. The final cut of Carnage has 1323 VFX shots over the course of 97 minutes, resulting in an average of 13.64 VFX shots/min. At this rate, a 112-minute cut of Carnage would need around 200 additional VFX shots.

I doubt any of the financiers, especially Sony, would be willing to pony up the money necessary to pull that off, even if that made for a better film, especially given that Covid had also reduced the film’s box office potential.*

*At the time the film was to come out in October 2021, theaters were not allowed to seat their maximum capacity due to social distance protocols. Moreover, audiences were still hesitant to return to theaters in general due to the need to crowd with strangers for an extended time. The distributor reportedly assumed that the picture would open with only about $40 million domestically yet it actually ended up grossing $90 million in the first weekend.  

Given all these circumstances, mandating a short final running time would simply be logical from the studio’s perspective. So, though there’s no definitive proof at the moment that a longer cut of the Venom sequel was desired by the filmmakers, there is enough evidence to suggest that the 97-minute theatrical cut was not intended creatively from the outset, but was rather the end result of the picture needing to be completed under unprecedented circumstances that nobody had planned for.

In other words, the 90-minute duration was moreso the result of business-driven decisions rather than artistic ones.

For sure, I think that keeping the movie fast-paced was a priority for Serkis et al., but I doubt anyone involved wanted the end result to have storytelling this rushed or cut-ting this frenetic and immersion-breaking, especially considering how comparatively better edited and easier to follow both the first and third Venom movies are.

I hope one day then we get to see what Carnage could’ve been, had its post-production not been disrupted, had the filmmakers not been forced to make additional, unforeseen compromises as a result of external factors.

But what about you?

What did you think of Carnage and its editing? Is it legible and easy to watch? Do you agree that its duration was the result of budgetary issues? Do you think the filmmakers in reality wanted a longer cut? Would you be interested in seeing it? Please,

Leave a comment

I could’ve never imagined something like this, given that Amazon is a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service and has always previously shown R-rated films with all violence, profanity and sexually explicit content fully intact. 

In this article then, I’m first going to discuss the film itself and its censored cut. Subsequently, I will offer my speculations about who censored it and why.

Pacific Heights 

The Movie

Pacific Heights is a good, solid 90s thriller.

The basic premise is that a slick conman tricks a couple into letting him rent an apartment with the goal of basically stealing their entire house. 

I wouldn’t say the film is a masterpiece or anything but it is very well shot and offers some nice social commentary on class differences and toxic masculinity. One thing I really appreciate is how, despite the plot having outlandish and heightened elements (especially when it comes to the machinations of its villain), Heights feels like a far more grounded thriller than others of its kind.

A good deal of the story is devoted to its protagonists Drake (Matthew Modine) and Patty (Melanie Griffith) dealing with the bureaucracy of landlord-tenant laws, and the level of detail the film goes into is rather impressive. 

Heck, you might be tempted to wonder if this is based on a true story, and according to screenwriter Daniel Pyne, it actually was based on his and his wife’s own experience with a scam artist who exploited Californian rental laws. 

Its biggest asset though is Michael Keaton, whose villain Carter Hayes can come off as alternately affable and menacing, a combination of traits Keaton would bring to the Vulture in Spider-Man Homecoming over 25 years later.

The movie approaches him from a distance and never gives you much of an idea of who he really is beyond a wealth-obsessed conman, with almost every scene he has with other characters suggesting some level of performance or artificiality. The resulting mystique makes him feel less like a real person and more of an unknowable, possibly supernatural force, akin to a masked villain in a slasher movie. 

All this is good enough to make you forgive those instances when the characters just dont’t act believably under the circumstances.*

* I was particularly frustrated by how Drake and Patty pass up multiple opportunities to actually question Hayes’ co-conspirators about him. 

The Censored Cut

The censored version of the film is interesting, in that it doesn’t lack any footage from the theatrical release. Every scene, along with every instance of sex and violence, at least based on my comparison, seems intact. And aside from the blurred-out nudity in the opening scene, the only other changes are to the dialogue.

Really, it’s quite funny in a way, because all the swear words, with one notable excep-tion, are muted, meaning the dialogue track goes silent when they are uttered and the closed captioning lists the word as [expletive]. Notably, these are not instances of alternate dialogue, which is when cleaner, less harsh words substitute the profanity, which is, in my experience, typically the case with broadcast television cuts. Rather, this seems more in line with one would see on basic cable.

To illustrate this, I’ve made a list of the censored language changes below. 

• 29:00: ‘Goddamn’ muted twice; ‘fucking’ once

• 32:19 - ‘Fucking’ muted when Drake says:“You changed the fucking locks!”

• 33: 50 - About 3 f-words and three instances of “Bullshit!” are muted. Ironically, in this scene, a cop reacts to Drake’s swearing: “I don’t appreciate foul language, sir.” I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw this.

• 40:41 - “Shit” muted twice

• 41:49 - Two more muted “shits”

• 43:26 - One more muted “shit”

• 46:22 - Here, there is an interesting exception to the rule. During an argument with his partner Greg, Carter yells: “I told you from the fucking get-go, there was gonna be certain risks involved, and you have to be flexible!” The f-word is actually unmuted but the closed captions still list it as ‘expletive,’ indicating that this was an oversight on behalf of whoever or whatever made this version of the movie. Greg then responds: “Yeah, well don’t bullshit me, Carter!” In this line, the profanity is indeed muted.

• 1:20:45 - Multiple muted expletives

Overall, there are around 15 instances of muted swearing by my count. As a whole, they result in an unintentionally funnier version of the picture, distorting its tone and feel. It’s simply hard to take things seriously when the swear words are silenced.

Mind you, I don’t think such a version shouldn’t necessarily exist. Its presence pro-vides insight into what somebody somewhere clearly thought would make the picture more acceptable to a wider audience and offers a different viewing experience. The changes, which are very clearly marked here, are entertaining in their own way.

The problem is that Amazon does not provide simultaneous access to the uncut edition and offers no label or disclaimer anywhere designating this as an alternate version. This is wrong, for it misrepresents the work and misleads the viewers.

Speculations on censorship

Who censored Pacific Heights?

I honestly have no idea. I’ve been going over this question a lot, and quite simply, there isn’t enough information available to draw any definitive conclusions. 

I’m disinclined to believe that it was Amazon. As the company is only a licensor and exhibitor of the film, and from what I know about how such deals work, it is doubtful that it would have the right to alter a feature film that it doesn’t own in such a manner. This is supported by a January 2021 response an Amazon staff member named Davar A. had given to user Isaacl, who was inquiring about why Prime Video was showing a censored version of the R-rated black comedy Lower Learning (2008), where profanity had been replaced with less-offensive wording:

“I'm sorry to hear about the issue. The censorship of the content completely depends on the Content owner. However, Prime Video content is judged according to the Content Policy Guidelines.”

The response suggests that the owner of Lower Learning (which I believe at the time to have been Lionsgate) may have sent a censored cut to Prime Video specifically to ensure the film met its guidelines for inclusion on the platform.1

However, I do not believe this to be the case, given that Prime Video has for years streamed much more sexually explicit and profanity-laden R-rated films and the platform’s Content Policy Guidelines, at least in their current form, state:

“We reserve the right to determine the appropriateness of all content submitted for publication on the service. Titles containing persistent or graphic sexually explicit or violent acts, gratuitous nudity, and/or erotic themes ("adult content") are not eligible for inclusion in the Amazon Prime Video catalog. Titles containing adult content may not be amended or edited from their original form to circumvent this restriction.”

This means that censoring a title that Amazon has deemed inappropriate for Prime Video would not help it land on the streamer. It follows then that Pacific Heights was censored prior to its arrival on Prime Video by the owner, but for some other reason than inclusion on the platform.2 What could this reason be?

One theory I have is that the owner(s) wanted to both boost the film’s viewership and avoid alienating potential advertisers.

The Rise of Ad-Supported Plans 

Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services like HBO Max used to be similar to premium cable, in the sense that the customer pays a regular fee for accessing movies and TV shows uncut and uninterrupted by commercials.

That similarity has eroded over the past couple of years, however, as pretty much all of them, including Netflix, introduced cheaper ad-supported tiers.*

* As of now, Apple TV+ may very well be the only remaining exception.

This was virtually inevitable, as everyone in the streaming business realized it was immensely difficult, if not impossible, to generate profit purely from subscription revenue, especially considering the fact that ad-supported services were found in 2022 to have a faster adoption rate than subscription-based ones.

Having a cheaper tier that can bolster your potential audience is just good financial sense. So, it shouldn’t have been surprising when Amazon introduced a new ad-supported plan to Prime Video in January of this year.3

Commercials, of course, have long been one of the main causes of broadcast television censorship.4 Advertisers generally seek to appeal to the widest possible audience and may not want their commercials to be associated with offensive and/or sexually explicit material or content that somehow might controversialize the brand of the sponsor. So, when film and television companies get into business with advertisers, they need to provide content concessions to keep sponsors happy. This can include either altering existing content to fit the demands of the advertiser or producing content that is advertiser-friendly and staying away from making content that is not.  

Back in 2022, there were already concerns raised about how the rise of ad-supported plans could lead to censorship in the streaming landscape. Particularly insightful, in my mind, is an article by Jeffrey Cole of the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future, which predicts that streaming censorship will arrive as a natural side-effect of the rise of ads, making streaming platforms far more similar to broadcast television in the process. A couple of passages in particular are worth citing:

• “Broadcasters felt they had to edit anything even remotely explicit or controversial because advertisers would not place ads on those shows. Or they could be punished by outraged viewers…. As Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, and others take on advertising, what becomes of the freedom to explore the content broadcast television will not touch? Will the language, explicitness and themes begin to resemble broadcast?”

• “Some advertisers will shy away from sponsoring programs or movies on HBO Max and Netflix. Will the teams that run the channels begin to have an overt or implicit bias towards the kind of content that will attract the most advertising? Will they, perhaps unconsciously, avoid some content that is likely to offend advertisers or not attract them at all?””

Another article by Indiewire reported an interesting detail about some advertisers being interested only in running ads on movies below the PG-13 rating:  

“Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of Future Today, which curates and connects advertisers to AVOD channels, told the audience at the Behind the Scenes panel that some clients ask for their streaming ads to run only on movies rated G or PG — but all advertisers are demanding more data about the “context” of the programming.”

From all this, it can be inferred that the owners of Pacific Heights may have deemed it necessary to provide a censored cut so it could be shown with ads on Prime Video.

However, this is far from a perfect explanation.

First of all, users have reported seeing censored cuts of R-rated feature films on Amazon for some time prior to the ad-based plan’s addition to Prime Video. The case of Lower Learnings, after all, came up way back in January 2021, while a response about a similar situation with the movie Nurse (2013) arrived in November 2023. 

Second, titles censored on Amazon can be streamed uncensored on other ad-supported platforms. This is certainly the case with both Lower Learnings and Pacific Heights, which are shown uncensored with ad breaks on Tubi. The latter also appears uncensored on PlutoTV, which is similarly a FAST platform.

An Accidental Error?

Now, every streaming platform presumably has its own individual content policies and so likely do the advertisers that work with it. But all this suggests that the desire to not alienate sponsors is not, in fact, the cause, and raises the possibility that the Prime Video version is the odd one out. If so, then why?

Could it simply be a mistake, meaning that a censored cut meant for basic or cable TV was accidentally uploaded to the streaming platform?

Perhaps.

There have been documented instances of this happpening in the past, such as with Birds of Prey (2020, dir. Cathy Yan). And a Reddit thread from 2018 about an alternate cut of Sleepers (1996, dir. Barry Levinson) suggests that Amazon doesn’t really perform quality checks of the edits sent to them by production or distribution companies, making it easy for incorrect cuts to slip through the cracks. 

Unfortunately, I can’t check out every single platform the film appears on to see if Prime Video is the sole service to have the censored cut, nor can I corroborate if the uncut version of Pacific Heights is available to stream on Amazon’s ad-free plan.*

*To be more precise, I’m not willing to sign up for more services and/or spend money just to check what versions of this film are available in other formats. So if anybody reading this has ad-free Prime Video, a subscription to the FAST Shout! TV platform, or has rented or purchased the film from the Prime Video store, please check to see if Pacific Heights is censored there and let me know in the comments.

UPDATE: Since the initial posting, my colleague Jeremy Beck, who has ad-free Prime Video, has checked the film and discovered that it is also the censored cut, strengthening the likelihood that the censored cut is indeed exclusive to Amazon.

If the censored cut is on Prime Video in error, then it should be taken down and replaced with the uncut edition. And if it’s there intentionally, then somebody should officially explain why and add proper labeling or disclaimer information.

Because audiences should be informed of what version of they are about to see when they watch a film on a new delivery technology or platform.

I, Robot (2004, dir. Alex Proyas) 

Viewers Should Be Informed

Heck, this is why organizations like the Artists Rights Foundation lobbied congress in the 90s to pass ‘‘the film disclosure act.” The bill was not enacted into law ultimately but it did lead the MPAA to adopt a voluntary labeling system about 31 years ago, making it the responsibility of distributors to label alternate versions.5

This made it virtually standard practice for revised broadcast and home video releases of feature films in the US to have a black screen with a text that states:

Now, I don’t know if this applies to the streaming era, but if it doesn’t, then it should.

Whether it’s the streaming service that demands alteration or the ‘content owner’ who chooses to send a sanitized cut for whatever reason, somebody needs to take responsi-bility for ensuring that the work is not falsely advertised and misrepresented.

And there needs to be more transparency and accountability, in my opinion, within the entertainment industry when it comes to this topic, as more and more censored versions of movies pop up on streaming platforms without official explanation.

Full Moon Films on Tubi

But what about you? 

Do you think the censored cut of Pacific Heights was placed on Prime Video accidentally or deliberately? Is the rise of ads increasing censorship on streaming platforms? Do you have any stories of seeing a censored cut on a streamer? If so, please share them in the comments.

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

1. Memories of ‘Alien’

2. A Brief Overview of Digest Versions

3. Alien 8mm Supercut

4. Ahead of Its Time

Memories of ‘Alien’

Like so many cinephiles of my generation, I first caught Ridley Scott’s seminal sci-fi/horror classic Alien (1979) on video way before I was old enough to really watch it, though if memory serves me correctly, my introduction to the franchise was actually James Cameron’s sequel Aliens (1986). Perhaps due to the fact that as a child I couldn’t really appreciate the artfulness of the original, for many years I preferred the far more exciting, action-packed, and less terrifying second outing. Yet as I grew up and my tastes matured though, I came to recognize in time the fact that Scott’s deliberately paced, economical, and atmospheric film was a masterpiece and a true work of art. (At the same time, I hold the view that Cameron’s Aliens remains a masterpiece of entertainment and one of the greatest sequels ever made.)

I could go on for a while about why I believe that, but my thoughts are best reflected in a 2012 Chud.com article on the film by Joshua Miller, who covered what was at the time every Alien movie for his “Franchise Me” series. One passage about the film’s titular creature and its design by H.R. Giger is worth quoting in particular:

“I’m hard pressed to think of a movie monster that represents a better marriage of concept and design than the Alien. Giger’s designs infected the entire atmosphere of the film, yet managed to stay somewhat contained too. Giger’s visions are biomechanical and sexually fetishistic, but the film itself is not. The Nostromo is utilitarian, plausible…. This helps make the Alien (and the Giger-designed ship on which the Alien is found) feel all the more alien. There is something dangerous about the way it makes you react, it seems sub-primal, further down past even animals. This is aided by director Ridley Scott’s decision to only show the creature in sparing flashes, which – especially the first time you’re seeing the film – make the Alien’s full layout nearly impossible to decipher.”]

Over the years, I’ve collected Alien a few times on the post-VHS formats. Its initial DVD release was actually a pretty nice special edition, featuring some cool features like an alternate audio/dialogue track and an isolated score by Jerry Goldsmith. 

Subsequently, I repurchased the film’s newer editions alongside that of its sequels in the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD set and the 2010 Alien Anthology bluray collection mostly because of the new bonus features by Charles de Lauzirika.

One feature I really looked forward to at the time - a new director’s cut of the film by Ridley Scott turned out to be something of a disappointment.* But everything else - the higher-quality transfers, multiple documentaries, concept art, deleted scenes, etc. made the re-ups worth it in my opinion.  

*Indeed, Scott included some notes via a booklet in the new set(s) where he admitted that the theatrical version was his true director’s cut while the new version was just a marketing ploy.

By 2024, I thought I’d seen all there is to see of Alien.

But then, a couple of weeks ago I came across an upload via Twitter of what turned out to be a 17-minute digest version of the film produced by the Ken Films company and released sometime in 1980. I had no idea that this even existed, and was surprised to discover it’s been available online for at least 7 years!

Really, you can catch it on YouTube. 

And honestly, I wonder why nobody ever released it as a bonus feature on any of these preceding sets. Because despite the limitations it suffers from, it is really well done and works remarkably well in our ADHD streaming video era.

Before we get into that though, let’s talk a little bit about such digests. 

A Brief Overview of Digest Versions

Before home video made movie libraries easily accessible to the masses, one way of actually collecting motion pictures was buying or renting Super 8mm film prints. Studios officially licensed theatrical features for a market of cinephiles that could afford them and the tech necessary to run them.

Now, I don’t know exactly how long this practice has been around, but based on what I’ve gathered, I believe it lasted roughly from the late 1950s to the mid-80s.

Many initial titles reissued this way were apparently from the silent era. But sound films followed as eventually did more contemporary works, such as Jaws, Chinatown, and Star Wars, with studios opening up their libraries for various Super 8 companies like Castle and Ken Films.

Naturally, the format considerably altered the work it presented. 

Audiovisual quality would degrade from the 35mm prints and widescreen films would need to be tailored towards the 4:3 frame of the Super 8mm cameras and projectors.*

*This was the same frame as that of television, but how exactly the reframing of the image would occur in this case is not something I’m currently aware of. 

But the biggest difference could occur in terms of duration.

In some cases, a film would be released in its entirety across multiple 8mm reels, such as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), which was 5 reels long. In others, a picture would receive an “abridgement,” meaning it would be cut down. For instance, Straw Dogs (1971, dir. Sam Peckinpah) came out in an abridged 83-minute version (across 5 reels), losing about 30 minutes from the theatrical cut.1 

Finally, a film could be released in a short-to-medium length edition called a ‘digest’ that recapped the entire picture by cutting it down to its barest essentials. Digests typically lasted 9-18 minutes, ideally containing all the best or key scenes from a picture from beginning to end. In some cases, a digest could have voiceover narration to explain the plot and cover its gaps.*

*Per Courtney Joyner’s excellent article on the history of Super 8 releases of Westerns, this was the case with the shorter 9-minute 20th Century Fox film digests issued by Ken Films. It is not entirely clear from the text but it seems that some titles received both 9-minute and 18-minute cuts, with the shorter ones having narration and the longer being released without it. 

The market for Super 8 digests, however, was apparently killed by the rise of VHS in the 80s as the preferred home viewing format for theatrical features.

Studios had much less incentive to release digest versions on Super 8mm when they could make them available en masse via relatively cheap videotapes, and consumers could now easily rent or own the entire work.

Alien - 8mm Supercut 

As I understand it, the 17-minute Super 8 Cut of Alien was released by Ken Films sometime in 1980, building on the company’s established relationship with 20th Century Fox.* However, this doesn’t seem to be the only Super 8 version available.

The Super 8 database lists a full-length Super 8 release by a UK company called Derann Film Services, while a 1980 Muscatone Journal clipping references another US Super 8 digest version released by a company called Red Fox Films (alternatively listed as “Red Fox Enterprises” on the Super 8 database).

*According to Joyner, earlier in the 70s Ken struck a deal to release Super 8 editions of the 5-film Planet of the Apes series to great commercial success, leading to Fox opening its library to Ken for more Super 8 releases. 

Regardless, the Ken Films version is the one I’ve seen and so the one I wish to discuss. Specifically, I want to talk about the changes.

The image

Let’s get this out of the way first: the original film’s 1:90:1 widescreen imagery is really not done justice here. I don’t know how the film was re-framed for 4:3 (pan-and-scanning shouldn’t have been an option as it is a video process) but this has all the issues that typically come with films that were not composed for 1.85:1 when they reappeared on broadcast TV in the old days.

For the most part, there is an effort to keep the key action and characters within the frame. And while the new version mostly succeeds at this, the images now lack much of the detail that makes Alien so fascinating.

Everything looks more cramped in the frame, occasionally zoomed in, to the point you really can’t savor the excellent production design. Moreover, there are also plenty of instances when faces or other crucial elements are cropped or cut off. Look, for instance at how it displays the face of Ian Holm in a couple of scenes. 

And of course, the image quality isn’t high. It wouldn’t be high even if you saw the source print at this point, and it obvious deteriorated further in the course of being uploaded to web video. (Though I will say that in the downloaded .mkv edition I have, it looks higher quality than on YouTube or Archive.org, with better color.)  

The Editing

All that said, this digest is indeed well-edited and is surprisingly enjoyable. Naturally, given the shorter running time, the pacing is much faster here. And yet, it’s not so frantic as a trailer or an episodic recap video. Rather, it retains select bits of specific scenes and sequences, cutting them together in such a way that there is some sense of temporal and spatial continuity, allowing the audience to watch, understand, and enjoy the chosen moments. 

And indeed the digest version manages to retain most of the theatrical cut’s key plot points and scenes in a condensed form, including pretty much all the key scenes with the Alien itself. However, there are some notable and very interesting omissions.

The first major change is right there at the beginning: quite simply, the digest has its own unique opening title sequence! 

The theatrical cut memorably opens with a slow and methodical title/credit sequence that sets the tone, mood and pace of the film perfectly, akin to a musical overture.

The camera pans to the right, showing a planet, as we listen to Jerry Goldsmith’s score. Meanwhile, as the names of the cast and crew appear in the center of the frame, the words forming the letters of the title “ALIEN” gradually phase in at the top, their distinct elements initially looking like foreign symbols before they become recognizable as English letters.

It’s not until it ends about two minutes in that we catch our first glimpse of the Nostromo and a title card informing us about its cargo shows up onscreen. 

[Clip created by me, source footage courtesy of Disney]

By contrast, the digest opens with what seems to be new or altered footage of the Nostromo flying to the right in closeup (perhaps it is footage from later in the film though reversed, but I can’t tell). The letters spelling ALIEN fade in within the first three seconds and only then do the cast and crew titles follow. The Goldsmith score is reprised, but the sequence is barely thirty seconds long.

It condenses the ‘essential’ information of the theatrical opening and tries to retain the ‘feel’ of it as a whole but also makes evident that this is going to be a much faster version of the picture. It has no time to properly set the tone or mood.

The next big change occurs right after Kane gets facehugged, with the film cutting to black. When it fades in again, we get the lab scene on the Nostromo, where Ash and Dallas remove Kane’s helmet. Thus, the entire trek back to the Nostromo is cut and so is any conflict involving bringing Kane onboard in his facehugged state.

This omission isn’t that big of a deal. It clearly saves time, though it also effectively kills the Ash/Ripley subplot. Shortly thereafter, the digest cuts from Ash’s line about how removing the facehugger could kill Kane to the scene of Dallas listening to music in the shuttle! So, the entire sequence, where Dallas chooses to take responsibility for Kane’s life, which leads to the big reveal that the creature has acid instead of blood is now missing, as though the main characters indeed did nothing to try to remove the thing and just waited for it to die! This was a rather poor choice.

In addition to removing a key sequence in its entirety, it represents a weird tonal shift and paints everyone, especially Dallas, in a very negative light! But that also make it unintentionally funny, even if you don’t know what you’re missing.

The next big change occurs during the big confrontation between Ash and Ripley, which is now, frankly speaking, hilarious, as it flat-out breaks coherence. 

As in the theatrical version, Ripley grabs Ash and pins him to a wall. But the sequence then immediately cuts to the part where Ash starts throwing Ripley around and tries to kill her in a completely different part of the ship! This makes no sense spatially at all.   

Finally, there is the ending.

The new (old) ending 

By far the biggest departure from the theatrical cut is the alternate ending of the digest version. As I’ve mentioned, the film shows pretty much all the key alien sequences. But the ending is a huge exception.

Here, Ripley escapes on the shuttle as the Nostromo explodes, she says she got the ‘son of a bitch’ and then it cuts to a quick version of the end credits.

The actual final confrontation with the xenomorph aboard the shuttle is completely absent. There is no surprise reveal of the creature sleeping in the wall. There is no scene where Ripley harpoons it and blasts it out of the airlock. No, here we are led to assume that the Alien indeed dies on the Nostromo. 

One has to wonder what the rationale was for skipping the actual ending here. I can imagine time being a key factor, yet the sequence itself was such a key part of the movie that its absence is noticeable and the film as a whole comes off as anticlimactic. 

[Clip created by me, source footage courtesy of Disney]

Yet more interesting is how this decision seems to harken back to an earlier iteration of the ending that I don’t believe was ever entirely filmed but certainly existed in script form. See, you might have heard a lot of stories over the last few years about how director Ridley Scott originally wanted to end the picture with the Xenomorph killing Ripley by biting her head off or something.

Garnering much less attention though is the fact that at one point Alien was scripted to conclude with the Alien dying on the Nostromo and not making it to the shuttle at all. Scott has told different variations of this story over the years, it seems, so I can’t be entirely certain of all the details. But here is how he put it on the Alien Covenant audio commentary track in 2017 about 1 hour 41 minutes into the picture:

“So, is it the end of Alien? It was all written that when Sigourney gets inside that shuttle, they close the door, it’s over. And I felt it was flat, it needs another evolution. So you need a fourth act. So, I sat down and wrote the fourth act, which is what would happen inside the escape shuttle. And it cost money so they didn’t wanna do it. But I think it’s the whole difference in the film. And then when I had to go and pitch it - extra five days shooting, because it came outside, fell, got burned and went back inside and blew it out again…. And it was worth every penny.”

You can read a nice little article that delves into more detail about this fourth act and provides somewhat different accounts of it how it came to be here by Valaquen for the Alien fan blog Strange Shapes. Per the article, there was always a fourth act in the script, insofar as the alien attacks Ripley “just as the shuttle launches.”

This means the film would’ve indeed featured its final appearance before the Nostromo explosion rather than just having it die off-screen.

In any case, however, the Digest version provides us with an idea of what the original ending of the film could’ve looked like and so illustrates how right Scott was about it needing another ‘evolution’ or something punchier.

With such an anticlimactic finale, Alien would not have been the great film it is today, in my opinion. The only downside, however, is that since then, the ‘additional 4th act’ has become a staple for this series as a whole and a kind-of crutch. 

Aliens, Resurrection, Covenant, and Romulus all replicate the structure of Alien by having one final creature confrontation aboard an escape ship just as it looks like the main characters have gotten away from the xenomorphs . And while the first two movies made it work in their own way, I can’t say the same for the last two entries, where the inclusion feels gratuitous and has little to do with the actual story. I sincerely hope that if we get more Alien films then there will be no more 4th acts.

Despite all these issues, however, the digest version remains quite watchable and entertaining. It’s quite impressive how much of the film it manages to successfully translate into a 17-minute runtime without it being distracting and the revisions that are noticeable do have their own funny charm to them. I’m not sure to what extent one could enjoy this without having seen the whole film previously but if it were more complete, I do think it could work as a standalone version.

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Ahead of its Time

Now, with all of that, you might wonder: why did I mention earlier that I think this digest version was ahead of its time? My answer is that this digest, if done better, without any re-framing or a strict 17-miunte time limit, could work really well in the contemporary streaming environment.

Because quite simply, we live in an age where our media consumption is often heavily segmented, where we are always distracted and have too much to watch but not enough time for anything. When this digest originally came out, watching short versions of movies was a niche practice. Today, it is arguably mainstream, with film clips and short form videos being regularly viewed on web video platforms.

Look, I love movies. I love TV shows. But I don’t think I love watching things as much as I used to. I unfortunately don’t remember where I read it recently (it was definitely a Substack) but there was an article that commented on how we don’t really watch that much on streaming anymore. We might spend more time looking for stuff to watch, put something on for a few minutes and then turn it off.

And honestly, I feel that’s a very accurate assessment.

I’ve been finding that over the past year or so, I’ve been sometimes spending more time browsing my streaming platforms and picking things to watch (looking at trailers, synopses, genre descriptions) than actually watching them. I have numerous entries in my watchlists that never get seen and I keep adding more.

And sometimes, I discover that stuff I planned to see at some point is no longer available due to licensing issues, which makes me feel like Dev Shaw in the Master of None S1 finale, where he reads about the fig tree analogy from The Bell Jar. 

All this leads me to think that Digest versions could play rather well today. 

Imagine if studios made official, high-quality re-edits of feature films (complete with proper aspect ratio) available on streaming services, if just as an occasional bonus option. I think having the ability to watch movies this way is something a lot of folks would appreciate and so this practice could generate good ratings for a streamer.

Let me be clear: I don’t want this to completely supplant the practice of watching visual works from beginning to end. I think that this will never entirely go away.

But much as Cable TV in the old days inspired channel-surfing, streaming TV and web video today promote a different kind of engagement. There are too many choices now, too many options. And when you want to enjoy all these things, it helps when they can be either short or digestible in bite-sized increments.

*There are of course movies and TV shows that I watch in their entirety. But it’s not uncommon for me to use the skip button to fast-forward through the ‘boring parts’ of some movies and TV episodes when I stream them.  

So, in that sense, the time is ripe for the return of digest versions.

Even if just the Super 8 ones that already exist could get remastered and reissued, I think they’d be accepted and appreciated by modern audiences.

Bonus Features

Here’s a playlist on YouTube by Savage Cinema of Super 8 digest versions of movies. Among other things, you can find links to rare cuts of Jaws and Star Wars. 

But what do you think?

What did you think of the Alien Super 8 digest? Have you ever seen any others? What do you think of releasing such versions in general? Would digest versions work today for streaming or is it a completely obsolete practice tied to a bygone format? Please,

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

1. Watching the Assemblage

2. What Works

3. What Doesn’t Work

4. The Best of Both Worlds

Watching the Assemblage

When watching a movie nowadays, I can’t help but pay attention to the editing, evaluating how well the film is edited, how tight it is, and if there are any moments that could be cut or, conversely, expanded, to improve it.

I’d argue that a lot of movies today, especially mainstream ones, suffer in the editing department. Some are too short, while others are too long. And most could really benefit from a bit more pruning - the removal of little bits and pieces of footage that don’t change a scene in a major way but make it faster and more concise.*

*The last mainstream picture I’ve seen that I think had a fully unified edit, with nothing extraneous or nothing rushed, was Aquaman (2018), but that’s another story.

All of these problems are demonstrated by Zack Snyder’s two-part sci-fi epic Rebel Moon, which has just been reissued in a 6-hour-plus R-rated director’s cut after being previously released in a much shorter PG-13 cut, aka the “Netflix version.” Where the PG-13 Rebel Moon was, as a whole, way too short, the R-rated is way too long.

This is reflective of the principle differences between the Netflix Cuts of Part 1 and Part 2. While A Child of Fire was a choppy picture with poor pacing and obviously missing connective tissue, The Scargiver was a coherent, focused and unified action film that delivered solid payoffs to the Seven Samurai-esque setup.

The R-rated versions (now subtitled Chapter 1: Chalice of Blood and Chapter 2: Curse of Forgiveness) each feature an hour of new footage, give or take. But while the new scenes of Part 1 feel like vital additions that improve the film (with an exception or two), those of Part 2 have the exact opposite effect, needlessly distending it and largely derailing its momentum. Let’s break things down a bit more, shall we?

What Works

By far, the best addition across both parts is the extra blood and gore. The bloodless violence of the PG-13 Cut has been replaced with over-the-top dismemberment and arterial spray, meaning limbs are hacked off and heads are eviscerated or blown up in graphic, yet aesthetically pleasing fashion. This is what really sets apart from other big budget space operas and feels like a fulfillment of Snyder’s true vision for the film.

Another welcome addition is the reinstatement of three uncensored sex scenes, two with Kora and one with Admiral Noble. I could probably do without the hentai-esque octopus stuff, which, while funny and reflective of Noble’s depravity, is bit much, but the Kora/Den and Kora/Gunnar scenes play into the main character’s development, as well as patch up some obvious gaps in the movie.

This also allows Rebel Moon to truly feel like a subversive response to Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, both of which are very chaste when it comes to relationships. The Veldt in particular finally live up to the promise of being horny hobbits.

I love all the new material in Part 1 with the characters of Jimmy and Aris, who basically went missing after the first 30 minutes of the PG-13 Part 1. One of the bigger issues I’ve had just in terms of storytelling is that there logically should’ve been a scene that explains where precisely these two stand after helping Kora kill the Motherworld soldiers left to oversee the Veldt’s grain preparation.

These scenes really fill in a lot of obvious narrative gaps, make Part 1 more visually diverse (there are a lot of beautiful sequences of Jimmy communing with nature) and help imrpove the flow of the film as a whole.

The new footage, unfortunately, can’t fix the script problems with the faux climax that concludes Part 1. But it does build a little better to this climax, thanks to some extra material with Noble (we get clarification that he took his personal ship to apprehend Kora) and Kai, who has more interaction with everyone before the betrayal.

Finally, there are some neat little lore additions here and there. The tooth-gathering by the red priests and the Rue Kali goddess engine are nice touches that I appreciate seeing. And both parts just look a little nicer thanks to an altered color grade.

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What Doesn’t Work

Part 1 now opens with an extensive 19-minute prologue that I think should’ve instead either been used for Part 2 or remained on the cutting room floor. I appreciate that we no longer have to deal with a voiceover in the opening sequence that takes away the viewer’s sense of discovery, but the prologue itself both feels redundant, considering everything that comes after, and gives away too much by first introducing its villains.

This diminishes the gradual and suspenseful buildup to the Motherworld forces’ arrival on Veldt and makes General Noble’s murder of Sindri less impactful.

With the exception of the extra sex and violence, most of the additions to Part 2 feel superfluous and really slow down the pacing. For instance, there’s a new subplot featuring some sub-villains called The Hawkshaws that just needlessly drags things out and you really wouldn't notice it were missing. I also like the PG-13 Version’s climax more, as it made Kora’s destruction of the King’s Gaze ship a means to save the Veldt village at the last second. In the director’s cut, by contrast, Kora destroys the bridge first by taking control of the main cannon, so her destruction of the ship is now causally separated from saving the village and feels less significant.

My biggest personal peeve is that Snyder still left unaddressed the glaring narrative inconsistency in the extended Part 1 between the Sindri murder scene and Kora’s meeting with the Bloodaxes, which breaks immersion in the storytelling.

When he killed Sindri, Noble originally was supposed to reveal that he knew about Gunnar’s dealings with the rebels, which is what brought him to Veldt. This is why Kora later claims to the Bloodaxes that it was ‘‘because of that transaction” that Noble targeted the farmers. However, at some point, Noble’s line was removed, making it that he indeed arrived on Veldt only because his forces ran low on food. Logically, Snyder then should’ve in turn removed Kora’s line about the Bloodaxes being responsible. But he evidently overlooked this.

I was betting on him restoring the Noble line or taking out Kora’s line to fix the issue with the director’s cut. But he did neither, which amazes and annoys me to no end.* Little things like this can really break viewer immersion in the movie.

*I mean, really, did nobody notice this in the months between releases?

Side Note

I recently participated in a podcast conversation with my friend Elvis Dutan, where we discussed both the new Rebel Moon cuts of as well as the M. Night Shyamalan film Trap. For more of my thoughts on what works and doesn’t, please give it a listen here.

The Best of Both Worlds

For all these reasons, I believe the best version of Rebel Moon should be one that finds a middle ground between the R and PG-13 Cuts, retaining all the violence, sex, and connective narrative tissue of the director’s cut, while removing all the excess.

To derive such a version, which would be approximately 5 hours long, it would be necessary to make the following changes to the director’s cut:

• Remove the 19-minute Aris prologue from Part 1 and make it the opening of Part 2. Or possibly leave it on the cutting room floor entirely. So, the film begins sans voiceover with Kora plowing the fields.

• Prune the overlong scenes of Part 1. This includes trimming out individual lines of dialogue in conversation scenes and removing throwaway bits, such as when the Griffin creature kills its owner.

• Remove the extraneous and nonsensical line of dialogue Kora has about how Veldt was attacked because of Gunnar’s dealings with the Rebels.

• Remove from Part 1 the entire extended ending sequence where Noble is quickly recovered, resurrected, and then sent to have a mental conversation with Belisa-rius, so as to not to immediately undermine the Part 1 climax. (Part 1 would thus end with the shot of the Group arriving on Veldt, with Jimmy looking from afar. Noble’s revival would in turn be revealed a little later in Part 2, when Cassius informs him that they jumped to his location and recovered him.)

• Reconstruct the PG-13 Part 2 using predominantly the R-Rated version’s corresponding footage, with a few changes here and there to account for the differences. The second sex scene, alternate gorier sequences, and Rue Kali material would all be included.

• Possibly move the final Princess Issa flashback from Part 2 into Part 1 to give it more closure overall.

With these changes, I think Rebel Moon could become its best self. But, of course, this is just my personal, subjective opinion. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t make a fan cut of this movie, as it is not likely to ever become available on physical home video.

But what about you?

Do you also pay attention to the editing when you watch a movie nowadays? Are there any films you’ve seen that you’d like to recut or that you think could’ve been better edited? If so, why? What’s a recent film that has great editing in your opinion? Please,

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Also, if you’re interested in reading more of my thoughts on Rebel Moon, please read:

Doing so was necessitated by the fact that the first two installments in what is now called The Eastrail 77 Trilogy introduced two radically different internal mythologies, each explaining in their own way how and why superhuman beings exist. 

In this article, I want to show exactly how Glass achieves this and in doing so retroactively rewrites the first film’s narrative. To this end, it will be necessary to outline the internal superpower systems of both Split and Unbreakable.

Table of Contents

1. Unbreakable: Superpowers as Innate Abilities

2. Split: Superpowers as Products of Trauma and Belief

3. Glass: Reconciliation and Expansion

   1. David Dunn’s Revised History

   2. The Machine and the Procedure

   3. Redefining Elijah Price

4. Conclusion

Unbreakable: Superpowers as Innate Abilities

Unbreakable focuses on the relationship between David Dunn (Bruce Willis), who mira-culously survives a fatal train derailment without any injury, and Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), a seller of comic book ‘artworks’ that was born with a genetic disorder that makes his bones prone to breaking. It is through Elijah that the film communicates a great deal of information about how and why superpowers work.

Believing that comic books stories have a basis in reality, Elijah proposes that David survived his incident because he may, in fact, be a real-life superhero (though he never explicitly refers to David with this term), who was born (or “put” on Earth) to protect mankind.* 

*This implies that David survived the train derailment because some higher power (possibly God) willed it so, and that his destiny or purpose is to save people by fighting the forces of evil. 

Moreover, he posits that David’s superhuman imperviousness to injury is tied to some universal balance involving Elijah himself, with the two complementing one another as antithetical existences. From this perspective, David exists because of Elijah and vice versa. The former was born unbreakable and is more than human in contrast to the latter, who was born broken and so is less than a normal human.*

*Interestingly enough, this suggests Elijah and David may have been born at the same time though the film never confirms nor denies this possibility. 

As the film progresses, more and more evidence appears that seems to corroborate Elijah’s theories. David recognizes that in addition to his apparent invulnerability, he seems to have an immense level of strength and a form of extrasensory perception that allows him to see people’s sins by touching them.

Nonetheless, David still has doubts that he could be something more than a normal human. A key reason is that he almost drowned in a swimming pool as a child. Elijah, however, claims that his near-drowning is actually the exception that proves the rule, in that a hero typically has some kind of weakness, comparing water to Superman’s kryptonite. He adds that he himself has a similar problem with water, which he takes to mean that he and David indeed exist in a binary relationship.

“Century Comics 117. That’s where this group, the Coalition of Evil, tried to ascertain the weakness of every superhero, because they all have one, just like you. Your bones don’t break. Mine do. That’s clear…. You don’t get sick. I do. That’s also clear. But for some reason, you and I react the exact same way to water. We swallow it too fast, we choke. We get some in our lungs, we drown. However unreal it may seem, we are connected, you and I. We’re on the same curve, just on opposite ends….”

By the end of the film, David recognizes that Elijah was right about pretty much every-thing. He has never been injured, except for the one time he almost drowned. All this seems to corroborate that he is indeed a superhero and that Elijah, in turn, is his anti-thesis, a point Elijah embraces by defining himself as a villain in the film’s ending.

From all this information, we can infer that in the world of Unbreakable, superpowers are innate abilities that certain individuals are naturally (or rather, supernaturally) born with. This means that such people are simply ‘special’ or ‘chosen’ or ‘gifted,’ distinct from the majority of normal individuals that populate the world.

For every superhuman born, however, the universe or some unknowable higher power creates another, seemingly lesser human to balance things out. These lesser humans, going by the trajectory of Elijah, could very well end up being villains. 

Now, we don’t know how long this has been going on, but if Elijah’s theories about comic books actually being based on real-life history hold any water, then it’s possible superheroes and their human opposites go back to ancient history, perhaps as far back as Ancient Egypt. One can infer that Gods indeed existed on Earth and the hieroglyphics and images were used by Egyptians to tell stories based on real life. 

David Dunn is thus just the latest in a long line of people born with extraordinary abilities. We don’t know if David had his full power set from the very beginning, but it seems that all his life he had been virtually invulnerable, with water being his Achilles’ heel, the one thing that can physically weaken him and potentially kill him.

However, he had lived most of his life under the (false) belief that he is a normal human, never recognizing that he could be something more until the train incident revealed that he could be something more. 

Split: Superpowers as Products of Trauma and Belief

Split is an origin story for supervillain Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), who as a result of a highly abusive childhood has developed dissociative identity disorder (DID), which led to the formation of almost two dozen alternate personalities that can take control of his body. Three of these alters, nicknamed “The Horde,” begin kidnap-ping teenage girls in order to offer them as a sacrifice to a new personality they call “The Beast,” which physically manifests for the first time at the end of the film.

When it takes control of Kevin’s body, the young man undergoes a transformation, gaining the abilities and characteristics of various animals, arguably reflecting the fact that he had spent much of his adult life working at a zoo.* He becomes able to scale walls in a manner reminiscent of lizards, gains bulletproof skin similar to the thick hide of a rhinoceros, develops enhanced physical strength comparable to that of a bear, as well as the speed and agility of a lion or tiger.  

*To be clear, Kevin himself maintains a recognizably human physical appearance, though with some slightly exaggerated traits, like a more muscular physique with bulging veins.

The manner in which Kevin’s powers emerge is considerably different from that of David Dunn. It is clearly established that Kevin was born as a normal human, and doesn’t exhibit any superhuman characteristics unless The Beast alter controls his body, effectively losing his ‘powers’ whenever switching to another persona.

Similar to the first movie, Split features a character that specializes in delivering expo-sitory information to viewers that helps them understand how and why superpowers manifest. In this case, it is Kevin’s psychiatrist, Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), who posits that DID patients exemplify how great trauma and suffering can allow individuals to surpass the limits of normal humans through their beliefs, attesting to the capacity of the mind to influence the body. 

Particularly insightful in this regard is an early scene, where Karen has an exchange about DID patients with a skeptical colleague.

Fletcher: They are what they believe they are. The brain has learned to defend itself.

Joe: You speak of them like they’re supernaturally gifted. Like, they have powers or something. Karen, these are patients. They have been through trauma.”

Fletcher: And perhaps now they are capable of something we’re not. We have brain scans now. DID patients have changed their body chemistry with their thoughts.

Fletcher does not deny that DID patients are victims of trauma. But she posits that their traumatic experiences have allowed them to evolve beyond normal human limits, to develop through their beliefs capabilities that may be seem supernatural. She elaborates on this later when giving an online lecture to the University of Paris :

“The identities have different IQs. They have different physical strengths. One personality is a Russian weightlifter and can lift three times his body weight. Their ability to hyper focus and have different experiences is astounding. Have these individuals through their suffering unlocked the potential of the brain? Is this the ultimate doorway to all things we call unknown? Is this where our sense of the supernatural comes from?”

The manifestation of The Beast, in addition to giving credence to Fletcher’s theories, establishes that one can be born a normal human but evolve into a superhuman later in life through belief. According to the internal logic of Split then, superpowers are NOT innate traits someone is born with, but are instead something one can develop or manifest in response to extreme trauma.*

*Though not explicitly stated, it is implied that The Beast was created through the collec-tive beliefs of the Horde members Hedwig, Dennis, and Patricia, who desired a powerful God-like figure that would protect them and thus Kevin from the world, striking back at the normal or ‘impure’ people who would mock and ridicule them. In other words, the three believed so strongly in The Beast, that it manifested in reality. 

Here, there is no sense of individuals being born with abilities because of a cosmic balance or the influence of a higher power that singles them out as special. Rather, powers are produced by the human mind itself. In this sense, the film rationalizes superpowers, rejecting the implicit supernatural explanation of Unbreakable and positioning them as the result of a reactive evolution.*

*Fittingly, Dennis describes The Beast as “a sentient creature that represents the highest form of humans’ evolution.”

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Glass: Reconciliation and Expansion

Naturally, the distinctions between each film’s power system raise several questions about the nature of superpowers in the world of the Eastrail trilogy.

For instance, does this mean that there are different kinds of superpowers, distinguishable by rational and supernatural causes? Or does this signify that the information provided in Unbreakable about how powers work and where they come from was incorrect? And if the information was incorrect, then does the plot of Unbreakable still make sense with the events and lore of Split?

Arguably then, one of the central tasks of Glass, as a sequel that brought together the storylines of the first two movies, was to resolve these questions and reconcile the disparate mythologies of its predecessors, while simultaneously expanding on them.

Key to all this is Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), who is initially introduced as a the-rapist that specializes in individuals that falsely believe themselves to be superheroes, but who is later revealed to be working for a secret society dedicated to removing or suppressing superhuman powers and thus preventing public awareness of the existence of superheroes. In the course of the plot, Staple demonstrates two methods for turning superheroes back into normal humans: psychological manipulation and a fictionalized version of what appears to be radiation therapy.

David Dunn’s Revised History

The first method is exemplified by the film’s central ‘group therapy’ sequence set in the pink room. By mixing truths and lies, Staple hopes to make the main characters believe themselves to be only normal humans, knowing that this will de-power them, for victims of trauma, as Split has established, “are what they believe they are.” 

And it is in the course of this sequence that various gaps between Unbreakable and Split are bridged, especially those pertaining to the character of David Dunn.

All three characters here are defined as ‘superheroes,’ which positions Kevin/The Beast as explicitly a comic book supervillain and so evinces that the Split power sys-tem should indeed apply to David and Elijah.

This is strengthened by the introduction of the concept of the ‘anchoring incident,’ a traumatic past event that first leads a broken person to believe themselves to be (and so evolve into) a superhuman, which fits into and so expands on the Split system.

Staple’s dialogue initially reaffirms the already-established fact that Kevin had been repeatedly abused as a child by his mother, which is what led to his DID and thus to his superhuman alter-ego The Beast. But it then reveals something new: that David too might have an anchoring incident that led to his believing himself to be a superhuman.

The moment Staple asks him to remember, the film cuts to his near-drowning as a child, an event mentioned via dialogue in Unbreakable but now depicted in flashback.

Though Glass does not explicitly confirm this, its positioning of the pool event as an anchoring incident clearly suggests to audiences that, much like Kevin, David is a victim of trauma who surpassed the limits of normal humans through his beliefs. This would mean that, rather than having been born as a nigh-invulnerable superhuman, David was actually born as a normal person and only evolved into a superhuman after his pool incident, which occurred when he was around 8 years old or so.

It logically follows that, in addition to being David’s weakness and the source of his hydrophobia, water was also the source of his strength. So, ironically enough, what made David virtually invulnerable is the only thing that can kill him. 

Now, when you start to really scrutinize things here, you realize that such a rewriting of David and the nature of his power directly conflicts with some of the events of Unbreakable. That film clearly established that David possessed superhuman powers despite having lived almost his entire life under the impression that he was a normal person. It was not until after his train incident that he realized that he had never been injured and that he had never been sick a day in his life. 

According to the ‘you are what you believe you are’ logic of Split and Glass, however, David should’ve indeed remained a normal human as long as he believed himself to be normal. So, this might be why Shyamalan refrains from openly corroborating that David indeed acquired his powers through his belief.

Nonetheless, the new take on David works perfectly in the context of Glass and does not at all break viewer immersion in the storytelling.

The Machine and the Procedure

If the first method of power removal was closely linked to the arc of David Dunn, the second is more firmly tied to that of Elijah Price, who is forcefully subjected to an unnamed “procedure” that, per Staple, ostensibly “rebalances the part of the frontal lobe that is overstimulated.” 

First, let’s talk a little bit about the “procedure” itself, which is never fully explained.

Elijah is placed under a machine that fires a visible red fan-shaped laser beam (visually calling to mind a CT Scan) at his forehead.* This ties into the earlier group therapy scene, where it’s established that an MRI would show that, much like Kevin and David, Elijah has an abnormality in his frontal lobe that Staple cites as a ‘marker’ for the mental disorder she is ostensibly treating.

*The moment the beam hits Elijah’s forehead, he seems to have a violent flashback to being at a carnival as a child, where he sustained multiple breaks after taking a ride. By implication, this is Elijah’s anchoring incident: the moment he first recognized how fragile he really is, and thus what first inspired him to develop his superhuman power. It follows that the ‘abnormality’ and the ‘anchoring incident’ are indeed linked.

Presumably then, the procedure should help ‘cure’ those like Elijah of the ‘superhero delusion’ by surgically removing this abnormality. Of course, once the viewer learns that Staple is lying about the disorder and in reality seeks to destroy superheroes, it should be evident that this is the procedure’s true purpose.

Staple confirms this in her final speech to the Clover Society near the film’s conclu-sion, where she describes it as the second most humane alternative to outright executing empowered individuals after ‘convincing’ them:

But how does it work, exactly?

Well, the process as a whole arguably resembles external beam radiotherapy (EBRT), which is meant to destroy cancer cells within a specific part of the body, including the brain, without the need for any invasive physical surgery (eg. making incisions within the skull before targeting the cancer cells inside the brain.) Typically, MRIs and CT scans help doctors pinpoint the location of the tumor and so remove it without damaging healthy cells with their respective beam therapy machines.

In the course of it, a beam of radiation is 

“delivered from a machine directed to the part of the body where cancer is present. ” 

• Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/external-beam-therapy

Staple’s machine seems to function in a similar manner. We don’t know exactly what kind of laser or beam it uses, but we can assume it targets the part of the human brain that has developed superpowers, and in ‘correcting’ the abnormality, removes the power and possibly with that, the traumatic memory that allowed it to manifest.*

*The audience, however, does not receive first-hand confirmation of this, as Elijah sabotages the process by removing a lens from the device prior to its usage, which weakens the beam to the point that it evidently does not affect him.

Given all the available information, we can conclude that, rather than proof of a mental disorder, the presence of a ‘clouded’ or ‘overstimulated’ frontal lobe is actually a sign of an evolved human, meaning anybody that has developed superpowers will show a similar abnormality in their MRI.

Redefining Elijah Price

Now, the whole subplot with the procedure and Staple’s machine only makes sense if Elijah himself has a superhuman ability in the narrative of Glass, which is a genius-level intellect.* And this constitutes a rather radical retcon of Unbreakable, yet one that, unlike the David retcon, never contradicts anything from the first film’s plot.

*If Elijah were simply an unempowered human, then Staple would never need to use the machine on him, nor would she consider his existence a danger to the mission of her organization. She would never refer to him as a ‘god’ among normal humans.  

After all, it was never explicitly stated in the first movie that Elijah didn’t have a superpower, though this seemed like the only logical conclusion given that film’s power system. To reiterate, Elijah was supposed to be David’s literal opposite, so it only made sense that he didn’t have any ability that could position him as more than human. Or to put it simply, if David should have superpowers, then Elijah should not.

In the context of Glass, however, it makes perfect sense for Elijah to have a power as well, for he already has an established history of trauma and so fits very neatly into the ‘trauma-and-belief’ power system introduced in Split. No wonder then as to why The Beast immediately recognizes Elijah as a kindred spirit, as a fellow ‘broken.’ 

“He doesn’t have a superpower, but he’s smarter than anybody else, and he dresses with a grandeur that makes him larger than life and bigger than most people believed that he would be.”

• Samuel L. Jackson on Elijah’s fashion sense. Interview by Brian Hiatt for Rolling Stone, Oct. 31 2018.

In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Shyamalan’s decision to retroactively make him a superbeing, rather than just a Lex Luthor-esque human villain, was a logical byproduct of introducing that system in the first place. Given all the trauma Elijah has experienced due to his bone disease and his belief in the connection between comic books and reality, how could he not have developed a superpower? How could he not have evolved beyond the limits of a normal human via his belief? 

Thus, once again, Glass revises the history of a main character from Unbreakable, retroactively reconciling it with the events and lore of Split.

The first movie led us to believe that Elijah was born broken and remained a lesser human his entire life to balance out the existence of his superhuman antithesis David. By contrast, the third indicates that Elijah was born broken but later evolved into a superhuman being following a traumatic trip to the carnival as a child, mirroring what happened to David at the swimming pool. 

David and Elijah thus remain mirror images, but the notion that they are supposed to exist in a binary good/evil relationship, as ordained by the Universe or God, no longer seems to apply, indicating that Elijah’s initial theory about their connection was not entirely correct. Rather than just having an aversion or weakness to water as a point of overlap, the two now share the fact that they are superpowered individuals.

Both were in their own ways broken and so both became ‘more evolved’ than the ‘impure’ (normal people). And like David, Elijah now also defines himself and is defined by others as a “super-hero.”* Quite simply, the lines between the two under the more grounded ‘trauma-and-belief’ power system are a lot more blurry.

*This isn’t to say that he never refers to himself a villain or a ‘bad guy’ but that the notion of what a superhero is has now expanded to include those like him. And certainly, he seems considerably less of a villain in comparison to a totalitarian like Ellie Staple. In fact, Glass positions Dr. Staple as Elijah’s actual opposite: a normal human that weaponizes doubt and perpetuates disbelief in the extraordinary, so as to maintain the dominance of normal people. 

It is in the attempt to bring back the first film’s notion of binary cosmic opposition and suggest that it still indeed somehow works within the power system of Split and Glass that I feel the Elijah retcon falters. It simply makes no sense to suggest some supernatural causation to powers at the 11th hour after consistently sticking to the idea that they are the result of reactive evolution.

Shyamalan should’ve never had Staple bring up the opposition angle at all in her final conversation with Elijah, leaving it to remain solely within the context of Unbreakable or explained it as an erroneous assumption on Elijah’s part.  

Regardless, I find that the Elijah retcon still works and is done rather subtly, to the point where I’m certain most viewers of the trilogy wouldn’t even notice it. With perhaps that one exception noted above, it never attracts attention to itself and so doesn’t break viewer immersion. 

Conclusion

Overall then, I would say that, while the retcons of Glass are not completely seamless, they are well made, rarely feel contrived, and almost never detract from the story as you are watching it. Though the narrative elements of one film may be in conflict with those of another, each picture still works in and of itself as a cohesive, singular unit that never breaks the illusion of reality. 

The fact that these changes occurred at all evinces that Shyamalan’s conception of the world of the Eastrail trilogy had evolved during the 16-year gap between Unbreakable and Split. This is reflective of the fact that long-form stories tend to organically change over time, especially across multiple installments released years apart. 

One of the tasks of storytellers is to make it seem that everything that comes later feels wholesome and organic with what came before.

From this perspective, Glass feels like a natural follow-up to two very different films, with very different internal mythologies, that also successfully expands the world all three take place in. This is yet another reason why I think it is an underrated movie that will have been re-evaluated as a great film in the future.  

But what about you?

Have you seen the Eastrail 77 trilogy?

Do you think it is internally consistent? Do you think the gaps between the installments detract from the experience? Are you generally bothered when serialized series or franchises retroactively change past events or ideas? Or are retcons not a big deal for you? Please,

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Want to read more of my analysis of Shyamalan’s trilogy? Then please check out:

Among other things, I establish why multiple cuts of the film exist, why they have not been simultaneously released, and what this tells us about Netflix’s current stance on auteurism. In the process, I hope to debunk several myths about Rebel Moon, such as the notion that the company was attempting to ‘reverse engineer’ a Snyder Cut.

  Table of Contents

1. Why is there controversy about Rebel Moon having multiple cuts?

2. Why is there a PG-13 Cut of Rebel Moon?

3. Why hasn’t Netflix released the director’s cut already?

4. What can we expect in the director’s cut?

5. Why did Netflix want a short duration?

6. When did Netflix start to care about time and money?

7. Will Rebel Moon continue beyond Part 2?

8. Conclusions

Why is there controversy about Rebel Moon having multiple cuts?

Because a lot of people didn’t seem to register until Rebel Moon Part 1: A Child of Fire premiered that it and its followup, Part 2: The Scargiver, would initially come out in a shorter PG-13 Version before receiving a 3-hour R-Rated director’s cut.

When this was discovered, many social media users became confused as to why the film needed to have two cuts in the first place. The general consensus is that this decision doesn’t make sense due to the fact that Rebel Moon is an original film produced primarily for a streaming platform rather than theaters. 

Consequently, web-saavy fans and commentators became outraged at the fact that they were not getting the ‘true’ version of the film and jumped to the conclusion that Netflix was ‘pulling a stunt’ by withholding it or was capitalizing on the popularity of the Snyder Cut fan campaign by ‘reverse-engineering’ a lesser cut of the movie.* 

*Some have even gone so far as to claim that the decision goes against the very notion of what a ‘director’s cut’ is, as in a version created in response to a compromised theatrical release. 

Despite a lack of evidence, this became the widely accepted de facto explanation, one that was surprisingly embraced or promoted by multiple prominent film critics.

The way people were reacting to it, you’d think there is no precedent for an alternate cut being planned in advance of a film’s first run and that the Netflix release strategy is some huge surprise that was sprung on audiences at the last minute. 

Which, frankly speaking, is bullshit.  

Why is there a PG-13 Cut of Rebel Moon in the first place?

Let’s put aside the long history of Hollywood filmmakers, such as James Cameron, making concessions for theaters while having final cut to maximize a movie’s audience or prepping alternate cuts well in advance of the theatrical version’s release.

The simple fact is that Netflix never hid the fact that there would be two cuts for each installment of Rebel Moon. This was reported as far back as June 2023 in Vanity Fair magazine, six months before the film’s premiere on the streamer:

“Debuting on Netflix on December 22, Rebel Moon is not just one movie—it’s already a saga, with plans to split the film into two parts. That makes the $166 million price tag, estimated from California tax filings, a two-for-one bargain at around $83 million each…. Also arriving at later dates will be more explicit, harder-edged cuts of the two movies.

Though the Vanity Fair article does not specify why Netflix would want the film(s) in two cuts, it does delve into why Rebel Moon was split into two movies. The issue came down to the fact that the original one-film script for it “was shaping up to be approximately three hours long—which worried Netflix film chairman Scott Stuber.”

Stuber claimed that movies shorter than 2 hours performed better.

Side Note 

There are different accounts, as to how long exactly the ‘original script’ of Rebel Moon at the time it was decided to split it into two films. Vanity Fair states that it was 172 pages, but other interviews and articles I’ve found claim it was over 200 pages.

Further information about what Netflix expected from Rebel Moon can be gleaned from a Hollywood Reporter piece that would come out later in November:

“After some negotiations on length, Netflix greenlit the project as a two-parter. Snyder was originally expected to make it PG-13, but after another round of back-and-forths, it was agreed that the movie would have an additional cut: lengthier, sexier, more violent and R-rated.

Now, what does this all tell us? 

Basically, Netflix wanted Rebel Moon to be a mass appeal, PG-13 movie preferably under two hours. By their calculations, this would maximize the picture’s streaming performance. Snyder, by contrast, wanted a much longer, more violent and sexually explicit R-rated movie that would be truer to his original script and appeal to his fanbase. So, Snyder negotiated with the studio and reached a compromise.

The film would be split into two parts, each of which would receive two cuts: an audience-friendly Netflix cut (which would get a brief run in theaters prior to the streaming release) and Snyder’s complete director’s cut, filled with all the sex, violence, and other content that he wanted to include in the first place. 

To put it another way, he got to make his movie, a Snyder movie/cut, as long as he also made a more conventionally four-quadrant Hollywood movie/cut for Netflix.*

*According to actor Staz Nair, the cast apparently had a “separate script” for the extended cut. This would suggest Snyder filmed at least some if not all scenes twice - once for the PG-13 Version and once for the R-rated director’s cut. 

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Why hasn’t Netflix released the director’s cut already? 

According to interviews with Snyder, both Studio Cuts are to be released first, with the director’s cuts to arrive at some point after the April 19, 2024 premiere of the PG-13 Part 2. A potential Summer 2024 release has been suggested, though a specific time has not yet been announced. Why release the PG-13 Cut first? Or, why not release both cuts simultaneously and let viewers choose between them?

Well, at the time of Part 1’s release, the director’s cut was not finished yet. Neither was the PG-13 Studio Cut of Part 2. Snyder explained back in December:

"I'm working hard on Part 2 now, which comes out April 19, at the same time we're working on the two director's cuts. Those will happen right after that [The Scargiver]. We don't have a hard date yet...." 

• Source: Zack Snyder, Vodka Stream discussion of Rebel Moon, 22 Dec 2023

Later in January, he would offer more information about the release dates of the director’s cut versions.

“Later on… in the Summer… you’ll see what I pitched them basically. ”

• Source: DGA Podcast Conversation with Louis Letterier, 9 Jan 2024, 20:00

It is safe to assume that each cut of each Rebel Moon film requires a considerable amount of time in post-production due to the large amount of available footage and VFX shots. So it is likely that finishing and releasing the shorter versions before the longer ones simply made the most practical sense for Snyder and Netflix. 

Another possible factor in the decision is that releasing both cuts at once could diminish the maximum viewing time or engagement of each individual unit.*

* Windowing different versions of the same film is a common strategy for distributors to get the best value out of their products.

In any case, there was no reverse engineering of the PG-13 Cut on the part of Netflix or Snyder. The movie wasn’t first finished as R-rated and then deliberately cut back to a PG-13 as a marketing gimmick. Rather, from the beginning, there was an agreement about releasing the film in different cuts, so as to ensure that it could appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Those claiming otherwise either failed to do their due diligence or just deliberately ignored inconvenient facts to promote a false narrative.

What can we expect in the director’s cut?

The director’s cut is said to run about 3 hours, which would suggest an additional 45 minutes of new footage. However, it is also likely to have a considerable amount of alternate footage - different takes, line readings, dialogues, action, and so on - given that the film was reportedly shot with a separate script.

This was more or less confirmed by writer Kurt Johnstad in an interview where he discusses the film’s evolution from a 200-plus-page script. He additionally states:

“The long draft that became two movies was always the Zack Snyder draft, and I would call that the extended version draft. So we ended up filming all of that… So we really had our eyes on four drafts, because, in a lot of ways, we were shooting four movies at once.”

• Source: Interview for The Hollywood Reporter - December 28 2023

Having seen the PG-13 Cut, I’d say that there are multiple instances where it’s evident that some connective tissue went missing. The characters of Jimmy and Aris, for instance, largely vanish from the film following the opening sequences on the farm, despite seeming rather important early on. This, along with Jimmy’s brief re-appearance with deer-like horns at the end of the film, strongly implied that more material with the character was filmed, but cut from the PG-13 Version. 

Johnstad confirmed this speculation about Jimmy in another interview:

“Jimmy has a much bigger story in those extended cuts and certainly in the second movie. It’s a little bit like Jimmy goes from this sentient robot to really becoming a little more human, and he goes a little feral.”

• Source: Interview for Variety - December 23 2023

Based on the various interviews with Snyder, it appears that a lot of character development scenes or instances were also excised. After all, one of the rationales for splitting the film into two parts in the first place was to preserve the character development, with Snyder describing Rebel Moon as a ‘character story.’

The released Child of Fire, by contrast, seems very plot-oriented and doesn’t feature much in the way of character development for any of the main characters outside of Kora. I assume that nobody expected at the time the split was decided on that the director’s cut of just the first part of Rebel Moon would end up being around 3 hours all by itself, ironically forcing Snyder to focus everything on the plot.

Thus, it is logical to assume that the lost character development will be restored.* 

“Zack said, ‘If you ask me to make this less than two hours, I’m going to lose all the character. You won’t care about these people. It’s a character story…’ So he said, ‘What if I give you two movies?’”

• Source: Vanity Fair

Any explicit sexual content was also clearly removed to ensure the PG-13 rating. 

About 7 minutes into the film, it is implied that Kora has a casual sexual encounter off-screen. The way the sequence is cut together, it is almost certain that the encoun-ter was filmed. An extended sequence between Admiral Noble and his octopus was likely filmed as well. Though it is only briefly glimpsed in the released Part 1, the sequence is far longer and more graphic in the film’s novelization by V. Castro, which was apparently based on an early version of the Rebel Moon script, and so contains many fascinating world-building details in addition to cut scenes and subplots.*

*To be clear, I have not read the novelization but my colleague Elvis Dutan has. We recently discussed the differences between the novelization and the released PG-13 Cut, as well as other things about the films, on his Unsourced Wall Radio podcast. In Elvis’ opinion, the novelization considerably improves upon the film and may be its best incarnation.

Why did Netflix want a short duration?

Because, contrary to what some may believe, Netflix actually does have limitations.

To start, it cares about the amount of money it’s spending on film production and it desires a good return on investment, which can be typically measured in the number of hours that users spend watching its Original Content, and the number of new paying subscribers the Original signs up or old subscribers it helps retain.* 

*It is also likely that Netflix is now making money from its ad-based tier. Though I’m not certain of how the economics of this tier work, it is likely that the more people watch with ads, the more money Netflix makes.

The very fact that Netflix chose to make two Rebel Moon installments for the price of one standard (mega) studio blockbuster is already illustrative of that.*

*It should be noted that the two-parter’s actual budget is likely in the $200+ million range, as the $166-million reported number did not include ‘above-the-line’ costs such as the director and actor salaries. That’s not to mention that Hollywood tends to underreport budgets in general, and the costs of the picture(s) could’ve very well grown during production.

Snyder even alluded to the fact that he had to make compromises for time and rating due to how expensive the film was in the December 22, 2023 Rebel Moon post-release interview with Vodka Stream:

“The why of the movie is… for me, that version of the movie you’ll see soon. Because, of course… I also understand this is a- an expensive endeavour and that it’s important to be a good partner and try… be as inclusive as possible with the audience.”

So, while Netflix may have little interest in making money from theatrical box office, it still has much incentive to procure a lighter rating to maximize a work’s potential viewers and thus viewing hours, in turn bolstering its overall level of engagement. The decision to let Snyder make his director’s cuts can very well be an extension of this mentality: in total, the company gets a total of four Rebel Moons.

Does a shorter running time indeed equal greater engagement for a Netflix Original film? I don’t know. But I’d say Netflix is convinced that this is the case. If you look at the running times on Wikipedia’s List of Original Netflix Feature Films released in 2023, you’ll see that, out of the 153 movies listed, only about 30 are 2 hours or longer. 

This means over 80% of Netflix’s 2023 Original Films are under two hours.

Now, one should note that the list does not refer to every Original Film that Netflix itself has produced. From what I understand, the actual number of True or House Original movies it has itself made is probably less than half of that.

Nonetheless, the listing does illustrate that most Netflix Original Films nowadays are pretty short, somewhere in the range of 90-110 minutes. And though there are several titles that exceed its 135-minute duration, Rebel Moon Part 1, even in its reduced cut, is still among the longest Netflix Original Films released last year.

When did Netflix start to care about time and money?

Such measures may seem surprising, given how Netflix began its foray into producing Original Films by basically throwing huge chunks of money at Hollywood filmmakers and giving them carte blanche to make whatever they wanted. That is how we got Martin Scorsese’s $200+ million, 3.5-hour crime opus The Irishman (2019) and Zack Snyder’s own R-rated, no-holds-barred 2.5-hour action horror Army of the Dead (2021). 

In 2022, however, Netflix underwent what Matthew Beloni of PUCK likes to refer to as the “Great Netflix Correction.” The company decided to tighten its belt buckles and become more corporate and fiscally responsible after losing 200,000 subscribers and facing increased streaming competition. And one of its strategies was, as THR reported, to start making fewer movies while focusing predominantly on event films. 

“As it moves forward, Netflix wants to focus on making bigger movies, making better movies, and releasing fewer than it previously did at a gluttonous pace…. One thing many agree on is that the era of expensive vanity projects at Netflix, whether animation or live action (like Martin Scorsese’s $175 million The Irishman), is likely over.

• Source: The Hollywood Reporter - June 1, 2022.

We can sum up the film-related transition like this: the New Hollywood era of Netflix came to an end and the more conservative, commercial blockbuster-centered period of 80s Hollywood began. This is likely why Rebel Moon did not get the same treat-ment as Army of the Dead, and thus why there isn’t just one uncensored, epic-length cut of each chapter filled with all the sex and violence Snyder clearly longed to include.

In any case, the production of the Rebel Moon PG-13 Cut reflects the fact that Netflix is no longer willing to throw Hollywood auteurs a blank check to realize their visions. After positioning itself for years as a bastion of creative freedom, the company now displays little difference from a traditional studio that puts commercial interest first.

Will Rebel Moon continue beyond Part 2?

I highly doubt it.

Rebel Moon was supposed to be Snyder’s next big transmedia franchise. But Child of Fire has not had great ratings, and its critical reception has been largely negative, so the saga is unlikely to continue beyond the currently planned director’s cuts.* In turn, I don’t think Snyder will stick around with Netflix for much longer.

*Perhaps we might see it live on in other media, like comic books, but the cinematic installments are all but certain to end this Summer.

The multi-version production and distribution plan for Fire and Scargiver already reflected a more cautious and careful Netflix than the one that indulged Snyder with full creative freedom over the excessive, big-budget Army of the Dead.

Though almost certainly attributable to the general pivot Netflix had undergone in 2022, the shift also suggests that the company might’ve cooled a little on Snyder following the performance of Army. Bolstering this possibility is the fact that the animated Army spinoff series Lost Vegas, which was supposed to tie into the Rebel Moon universe, has been indefinitely delayed, if not outright cancelled.  

On top of that, producer Scott Stuber has recently left Netflix, meaning that Snyder no longer has a key collaborator who might be willing to go to bat for him at the more frugal, post-pivot iteration of the company. Given all of this, I’d say Snyder and Netflix will part ways sometime after the R-rated versions debut this Summer.

Conclusions

Would Rebel Moon have better chances of becoming a success if Netflix had simply let Snyder make and release just his R-rated, 3-hour versions of both parts? It’s difficult to say. There are no guarantees, as to whether or not its performance on the platform, however one measures it, would be better or worse.

I do believe the reception of Child of Fire would’ve been more positive though I don’t think the extended version will fix all of its issues.* There are clearly problems with the picture on the script level that no amount of editing could address.

* In my opinion, though it’s not a good movie, it is watchable and nowhere near as bad as the critical reception would lead you to believe. Were I to grade it, I’d give it a C+.

Without a doubt, however, there certainly wouldn’t be any controversy about the film coming out in multiple cuts that skewed different audiences, a tried-and-true strategy of the video industry meant to maximize a work’s commercial success.

The next time something like this happens, viewers and critics alike will hopefully no longer operate under the false presumption that streaming platforms like Netflix are not bound by the commercial restrictions inherent to the traditional studio modes of production and distribution. Rather, they should understand that the multi-version release of Rebel Moon is not an exception to the norm but a sign of the new (old) normal, a testament to the fact that Netflix was never fundamentally different from the likes of Warner, Disney, Universal or other ‘legacy media’ companies.

But what do you think?

Was Rebel Moon a good or bad movie? Should Netflix have released it in just the director’s cut? Is this just some unsuccessful experiment that won’t be repeated or indeed a long-term strategy? Will Snyder indeed continue working with the streamer? Please,

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In particular, I want to discuss whether or not my predictions for the series panned out, as well as the good, bad, and mixed changes it makes to the assemblage. 

So, obviously, this post is going to contain spoilers.

Table of Contents

1. The Ending

2. Good Changes

3. Not So-Good Changes

   1. The Mixed: A New Score

   2. The Bad: Colors and Subtitles

4. Final Verdict

The Ending

Based on the evidence available both in the film and in its various behind-the-scenes paratexts (interviews, articles, etc.), I predicted that the series would notably expand the rushed opening of the film, fill out the compressed second half of the picture, and most importantly, restore what I believed was the initially intended ‘Drover dies’ ending, allowing the story to conclude on a fittingly tragic note. 

Turned out, I was pretty much right about everything.

And while I will talk about some of the other things further down the line, right now I want to focus on the changes to the ending. Fact is, when Downs premiered, I couldn’t help but skip to the final episode and check out the climactic scene where Neil Fletcher tries to murder Nullah to see if I was right about how it would differ.

Well, I ended up doing a bunch of fist pumps, because I’d called it: everything is pretty much the same up to the moment where Fletcher seems to fire. Here, we get an additional sound of a gunshot and then we get a cut to alternate footage, where Nullah now has blood on his face and it’s revealed that the Drover has been wounded. Bleeding out, he says his final words to Sarah and Nullah before dying in their arms. 

This to me is indeed the true ending of the movie, and one completely in line with its postmodern subversive ethos. It is a heartbreaking, beautifully tragic scene.

It is everything the movie was building to. It is wonderfully acted by Jackman and Kidman. It is also a little funny. 

I mean, the goodbye is so sincere and so protracted that one can’t help but chuckle a little, in my opinion. And I mean that in a good way. Because it’s important to keep in mind that Luhrmann isn’t going for full on melodrama, he’s sending it up a tad. 

Probably, the part where people are meant to start registering the irony is when the Drover reveals his real name. And what an utterly unremarkable name it is!

Say it out loud with me now: Jack Clancy. 

And it turns out Sarah didn’t know it, which is utterly implausible and yet completely true to this film’s internal logic. After all, The Drover up to this point seemed like an invincible, mythic, larger than life figure. He was “The Drover,” the film’s equivalent of the archetypal cowboy. So, it’s all too fitting that in the end he is completely demystified. By giving Sarah and thus the viewers his name, he becomes fully human.

He was just a guy, who in the end died protecting the people he loved.

This is beautiful, wonderful, post-ironic stuff. And I completely see why audiences would want a resolution where everyone lives happily ever after. Had Luhrmann left it in, I think some folks would’ve burned the theaters down.

So, I’m so, so happy that it’s back in Faraway Downs, allowing it to realize the full tragic potential of Australia.*

*If anything, I wish that Luhrmann had left out the part where Drover tells Nullah that he’s the new station manager. I think this beat is a tad extraneous, especially as in the very next scene, Nullah ends up leaving Sarah as well by going on a walkabout with his grandfather.

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Good Changes

The restoration of the tragic ending is great in and of itself.

But what about the rest of the additions? Well, I wouldn’t have restored everything we get here but most of the new footage really helps fill out the rushed storytelling of the TC, providing the work as a whole with a much better and more consistent pace. 

The first and fifth episodes in particular benefit from having extra breathing room, making it easier to follow the setups of the plot and the flow of information about all the different characters and factions involved. Lurhrmann also has found what feel like natural breaking points for the ‘chapters’ to end. There’s an actual sense of some conclusiveness to a given plot setup when an episode fades to black and does its own individual credit role, so it doesn’t feel like the movie was just arbitrarily cut up into chunks as I’ve seen happen with some TV-style extensions (eg. The Hateful Eight).*

* As I suspected, each episode has an intro and ending title credit sequence. The intro is an animated sequence, with a new key song and is pretty nice. 

Now then, I’ll share some brief thoughts on specific additions that stood out to me across the various episodes.

10,000 Pounds

There are lots of little things changed in the first two episodes but my personal favorite addition is the subplot about Sarah specifically hoping to secure 10,000 pounds by selling Faraway Downs. This gives her a more concrete narrative goal early on and strengthens her character arc as a whole.

When we get to Episode 4 later and Sarah turns down Carney’s offer of 75,000 pounds, it becomes a lot more evident that she’s pivoted away from being interested solely in money and has come to care about the people that live on her ranch. 

Crossing the Kuraman

There is an amazing new sequence in Chapter 3 that shows the main characters crossing the Kuraman, where they have to brave several days of heat and sun in the desert without water before wandering into a massive sandstorm. Things get scary and surreal, as Nullah starts to experience visions of the future after seeing a downed Japanese biplane. I’m REALLY happy to see this restoration, as it is beautiful and it really helps create the impression that they might not make it out alive. 

Nature Takes Its Course

The death of king Carney is indeed extended, as I’d hoped, but only briefly. I rather like the new scene itself, but there's a related change that I did not enjoy. In the TC, Carney basically disowns Neil upon discovering that he had murdered Maitland Ashley, claiming that if anything happens to his daughter, then Neil will be cut out. By contrast, in Faraway Downs Carney doesn’t disown Neil but only chastises him, calling him an idiot. This results in an interesting difference character-wise. 

I actually like what happened in the TC, as it revealed Carney to be more sympathetic and nuanced than previously believed. Carney in Downs, by contrast, is far less moral a person. He isn’t shaken by what Neil had done, which explains why Carney then takes Neil with him when he goes hunting, a plot point that seemed a tad confusing given their relationship in the TC.

Now, it’s not until the full hunting scene at the very end of Chapter 4 that Carney makes clear to Neil that he is no longer interested in Faraway Downs and that his empire will only ever go to his daughter Catherine. This is a really nice scene as it shows that Carney isn’t at all scare of Neil, who chooses to let ‘nature to take its course’ by basically letting Carney get eaten by a crocodile. 

This benefits Neil’s character development but it diminishes Carney’s, who ultimately comes off less sympathetic here in his final moments than in the TC and remains, sadly, underutilized as a character.

Overall then, I think I prefer the TC resolution of Carney’s fate. But I also believe it would’ve been better, had the brief glimpses we got of the hunting scene been removed entirely. That is, Luhrmann should’ve just referenced Carney’s death via newspaper imagery and dialogue, while leaving the rest to the imagination. 

An Achilles Heart

I quite like the extensions about King George and the Walkabout, and I do believe there is added footage establishing why Ashley heads to Darwin. There is also a nice little extra scene between Fletcher and Sarah at the end, where Sarah demands all the children taken to mission island be removed and Fletcher comments that she has an “Achilles Heart.” This is why he states he will have the ‘original contract’ with the original offer drawn up.

Not-So-Good Changes

The Mixed: A New Score

Wishing to better foreground the story of Nullah and the plight of the Lost Generations, Luhrmann has given the film’s soundtrack a significant overhaul. There are a lot of new Indigenous tracks in the miniseries. And though I think Luhrmann meant well and the main opening credit theme by Budjerah and Matt Corby is really good, I’m not sure the new tracks always fit the original footage that well. 

Take the ending, for example. I love it, and yet I miss the suspenseful music of TC leading up to the shooting. The new score here just doesn’t have the same impact.*

*Perhaps part of the problem is that the new tracks simply don’t mesh all that well with the original instrumental scores that remain in the movie. 

The Bad: Colors and Subtitles

Like so many years-later revisions, Faraway Downs has received a new color grade. And I would say that it is unfortunately a step down from the TC.

Australia had a lush, vibrant, and somewhat exaggerated color palette that arguably played up the throwback vibe of the film and its sense of artificiality. Downs, meanwhile, seems to be going for a more naturalistic and muted look overall, losing the TC’s sumptuousnes. 

This, in my mind, is not a good change, at least in the early going. The first two episodes just look kinda muddy and bland, at least in comparison to their theatrical counterparts. The scene of Lady Ashley in England in particular suffers from a lack of saturation. Things improve from Chapter 3 onwards, but nonetheless the footage just doesn’t look as nice as it used to.

Another issue I have: the addition of Nullah’s subtitles. It’s a change that I don’t believe was at all necessary, and I find it at times to be downright distracting.

To clarify, whenever aboriginal characters speak in their native language, their dialogue is subtitled in English for audience comprehension. Nullah, by contrast, predominantly speaks English in both iterations of the film but a somewhat broken English, mixed with his own native language, that perhaps isn’t always comprehensible. This, of course, is a mark of his status as a half-caste child. 

Adding subtitles to his English is perhaps a means to align him more with the other aboriginal characters. In theory, this isn’t a bad idea, but in practice this breaks immersion by having subtitles for English in some instances and not others. Moreover, it also singles Nullah out, and arguably otherizes him, which conflicts with the work’s intention. Here, I’d say, the TC definitely wins out.

Final Verdict - Which version is the best?

Overall, I would say that both iterations of the film have their pros and cons.

I certainly appreciate the extended length of Faraway Downs, which allows the story to breathe, and especially the restoration of the original ending. But I also think from an audiovisual standpoint, the theatrical film is indeed richer, with a deeper, brighter color palette and a superior score.

I think a truly definitive version of Australia would find a middle ground between the theatrical and television cuts. Imagine much of the extra footage in Downs combined with the colors, music, and unobtrusive subtitles of the theatrical Australia. Maybe we’ll see something like that in 5 years, for the film’s 20th anniversary? Who knows?

One thing I want to add is that I’m sad that Downs isn’t leading to a true critical re-appreciation of the film in the US. Reading the reviews makes it clear that a whole lot of people still don’t get that Australia was a postmodern parody of epic romances. 

Oh, well. I’m certain the international reception is better, just as it was in 2008.

But what do you think?   

Is Faraway Downs a good version of the film? Is it better than the theatrical?

Does it play well as a streaming series?

Did Luhrmann make the right choice to restore the tragic ending?

Please leave a comment! (Or perhaps a note.)

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In John Bryant’s The Fluid Text, the author discusses the ‘fluid text moment” as a moment of “apparent slippage between your text of a literary work and someone else’s….” (p. 64) Basically, it’s the moment when you realize that there is another distinct version of a literary text, with differences that make it a unique variation.. (p. 64-69) I’d say this applies to film texts. That is, there are moments when you recognize that the film you’re watching can actually exist in different versions, distinguished possibly by editing, aspect ratio, screen size, language, etc.

For me, the earliest fluid film text moment I can remember is when I first saw the Russian television broadcast version of No Retreat, No Surrender (1985). You see, this was kinda one of my video favorites as I was growing up, a weird little martial arts movie where the ghost of Bruce Lee (!) decides to teach Jeet Kune Do to an American teenager so he can fight an evil Russian(!!!) played by Jean-Claude Van Damme. It’s a ridiculous film but one that was pretty damn fun and entertaining, especially because a) my brother and I loved Bruce Lee films and b) Van Damme was uncharacteristically playing a bad guy. 

I saw it so many times on tape, I could remember almost every scene. So, when it came up on TV in the early 90s, I decided to give it a whirl… yet something was different. On tape the movie started with an image of Bruce Lee before dissolving to Jason practicing Karate in his father’s dojo. Yet on TV there was a whole credit sequence set in the streets of New York before the film arrived at the dojo. Then, there were a LOT of these other scenes that I’d never seen before, like more stuff with Jason’s new friend in Seattle skateboarding and dealing with bullies. 

That experience first got me to realize: hey wait, you can put stuff in and take stuff out of movies. I didn’t give it that much attention at the time, but it stayed with me. So, as I watched more movies and learned about censorship, scenes getting cut for commercials, director’s cuts, etc., I would recall that moment I saw NRNS on TV as a kid. It may not be a great movie exactly, but it’s provided a great learning experience about film editing and variation.

Anyway, what about you? What’s your first fluid text moment? In other words, what work made you realize that movies (or TV episodes, games, etc.) can exist in different versions? How did that impact your view of the work? Have you seen the different cuts of NRNS? Sound off in the comments below! Or maybe respond with Notes!

In this article, I will critique boutique video label Arrow Video’s Blu-Ray release strategy for the last Bruce Lee-starring movie, Game of Death (1978, dir. Robert Clouse), which entailed cannibalizing its special features and packaging a new 3-hour documentary called The Final Game of Death with another movie. To understand why this is important, I will first discuss the film and its strange revision history.

Contents

1. Game of Death Before and After

2. Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest

3. The Missing Alternate Cuts

4. The Buried Documentary and Footage

5. The Pre-order Mixup

6. Inferences

7. Other Notes and Recommended Links

Game of Death Before and After

Long before Hollywood would become steeped in controversy for resurrecting dead actors by digitally affixing their faces to the bodies of younger men, Game of Death (1978, dir. Robert Clouse) brought Bruce Lee back to life on-screen through the use of stand-ins, recreated sets, trick editing, and even clips from his real-life funeral.

Up until the last 15 minutes or so, it consistently shows Lee at a distance or finds ways to obscure his face to disguise the fact that it is not really him onscreen. And on the rare occasion we get a closeup, it is done almost exclusively through the incorporation of stock footage from his other movies.

Or, in one instance, a cardboard cutout, as you can see above.

The result was a weird, immersion-breaking, clip show-esque, unintentionally hila-rious, at times tasteless and exploitative, yet endlessly fascinating meta-textual palimpsest film that followed Billy Lo, a man who shares the initials of Bruce Lee as well as his career as a martial arts movie star. In fact, on more than one occasion we see Lo shooting Lee’s real life movies: Death literally opens with Lo ‘filming’ the climax of Way of the Dragon, while the pivotal scene where he is shot in an assassination attempt interweaves material from the final scene of Fist of Fury. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

Game of Death was initially slated to be Lee’s sophomore outing as director after Way of the Dragon, and thus a prime opportunity for him to communicate to the audience his philosophy and beliefs about martial arts. The film was about a retired martial artist named Hai Tien, who is forced to go to a mysterious island to retrieve an ancient treasure locked away at the top of a pagoda. 

As modern weaponry is not allowed on the island, the protagonist and his allies must face off in hand-to-hand combat against the pagoda’s five guardians, each of whom is a master of a different style of martial arts. Lee’s character would have to adapt to each fighter’s style and techniques, learning to exploit their weaknesses in order to win. Before putting the picture on the backburner to go work on Enter the Dragon (1973), Lee filmed three of the five planned fight sequences. The first was with Dan Inosanto, the second with Ji Han-jae, and the third with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Sadly, Lee died after finishing his work on Dragon but before the film premiered, leaving Game of Death unfinished. Director Robert Clouse was subsequently hired to shoot a new movie that could incorporate Lee’s fight scenes. Clouse used a measly 11-minute chunk of the total footage Lee had shot, stitching it into the new Billy Lo plot’s climax, where he goes to the restaurant HQ to take revenge on the Crime Syndicate that tried to have him killed.* Unsurprisingly, this generated a great deal of interest for Lee fans and video collectors in the remaining footage.

*11 minutes is the commonly reported number. I’m not certain if it counts, however, a brief snippet of Lee’s footage that was reworked as a flashback earlier into the picture.

Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest

Over the years, there have consequently been multiple versions (or reconstructions) of what a hypothetical “Lee Cut” of the three fights might have looked like. For instance, there was a 30-minute version in the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey (2000, dir. John Little) and a 40-minute version in Game of Death Revisited, a special feature included on a Platinum Edition DVD from Hong Kong almost 20 years ago.*

* For more information, I recommend reading this in-depth article by Muck47 about the film’s many reconstructions at MovieCensorship.com.

Nonetheless, the promise of more material has always worked as a great selling point for the video releases, as did the fact that the 1978 movie itself circulated in multiple cuts across various territories, including the US, Japan, China, and Hong Kong. This resulted in Game of Death receiving a lot of different ‘special edition’ releases on DVD and Blu-ray from different companies and labels.

In the Summer of 2023, Arrow Video released the Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest 4K Bluray (UHD) collection, an extensive 10-disc limited edition set of all five Bruce Lee movies, which devoted 3 whole discs (specifically numbers 6-8) to Game of Death:

• The first (Disc 6 of the collection) contained the feature in both its International and Japanese cuts with English audio.

• The second (Disc 7) featured alternate Cantonese and Mandarin cuts.

• Finally, the third (Disc 8) had a brand new documentary called The Final Game of Death, which included a new 45-minute reconstruction of the Lee footage and two hours of previously unreleased raw dailies Lee had shot.

All 3 discs also contained additional bonus features but the multiple cuts of the 1978 film and the new documentary with additional footage obviously constitute the main attraction for the fans, video collectors and completists, myself included.

Naturally, the set went quickly out of stock. At the time, I hadn’t procured a copy, so I was happy to discover that Arrow was planning to reissue four of the films from that set in their own standalone limited edition releases, now with a regular 2K Blu-Ray option: The Big Boss, Fist of Fury, Way of the Dragon, and Game of Death. 

Unfortunately, Arrow made choices in the release and marketing of the standalone Game of Death that are honestly a slap in the face for their target audience.

Problem #1: The missing Alternate Cuts

A natural expectation is that in order to create a standalone Game of Death set, Arrow would package the film together with its two bonus discs, perhaps in different combinations, such as a two-disc set option with the Feature and the Alternate Cuts disc, and a three-disc option that adds the new Final Game documentary to the mix. 

Rather than include either of the movie’s bonus discs in the Game of Death set, however, Arrow has instead chosen to package the feature disc with that of its loosely-connected sequel Game of Death 2, aka Tower of Death (1981).

The front cover of the Game of Death Bluray, however, makes no mention of the fact that the set is actually a two-movie bundle and so does not inform potential buyers that they will be getting a second disc with another tangentially-connected movie rather than additional features related to the picture that actually gets billing.*

*This suggests that Arrow doesn’t even think it’s worth it to give the sequel its own standalone release, even though the Disc itself for the Death 2 is very much designed as a self-contained unit, with its own special features. And sure, it is mentioned on the back cover and in other marketing materials, but the front cover is the one that most will see at first glance.

Given the misleading advertising, it’s not hard to envision some people ordering the Game of Death Blu-ray, expecting to get access to a second disc of rare bonus material only to feel duped, while those actually seeking the sequel by itself might not even realize where to find it. This decision is both confounding and disappointing, espe-cially because Arrow did put out a proper two-disc set of The Big Boss that contained both the feature disc and the bonus disc with its recently unearthed alternate cuts.

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Problem #2: The Buried Documentary and Footage

What Arrow did with the basic two-disc set of Game of Death comes off even worse, when you consider that they’ve taken the Final Game of Death bonus disc and affixed it to Way of the Dragon. So, if you want to get a whole disc filled with Game of Death bonus materials, you also have to purchase another movie that has nothing to do with Death, aside from starring Lee and being used as a source of stock footage.

Clearly, the idea here is to help bolster the sales of Way by including a substantial supplemental disc. But this comes at the cost of diminishing the value of the Game of Death standalone set and also effectively buries the documentary, alienating the people that are most likely to be interested in procuring it. Because even if you’re a professional collector, your first instinct is to think that supplemental home video material would come in the same set as the movie it was produced for. So, unless you really went looking for it, you wouldn’t even know it was released.*

*I was simply fortunate that somebody mentioned the inclusion of the bonus disc in a comment section on a facebook page, otherwise I would’ve passed on Way.

It is possible Arrow is banking on the idea that anybody who orders at least one of these four new Bruce Lee sets would already want to order all the others. But this goes against the very logic of making standalone releases. Because standalone sets are meant to appeal to those audiences that would only wish to order some of the films and not the others. If you’re going to cannibalize the special features of one movie and package them with another movie, why bother making a standalone release at all?

Why not just release another big box set with all the movies and bonuses?

More likely then, Arrow is doing this deliberately so as to get completists to pay more for the completion. In other words, it wants the Game of Death fans to buy Game of Death 2 and Way of the Dragon on top of Game of Death to maximize revenue.

Quite simply, with its release strategy, Arrow is showing little to no consideration for the interests of the customer. It reminds me of when Paramount began to disperse special features designed for a Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray in 2013 across different retailer exclusive editions, forcing fans to go on what Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits described as an “expensive scavenger hunt.”

“Look, I get the occasional exclusive Bonus Disc on catalog titles… But taking fully half or more of the disc-based special features created for a major Blu-ray release and casting them to the winds as retailer exclusives, thus forcing your customers to go on an expensive scavenger hunt – if they even know about the exclusives at all – is, I’m sorry, absolutely outrageous.

It’s a terrible way to treat your consumers, who are sometimes spending $30 or more for a Blu-ray, expecting to get a little genuine value for their money. And no, six different versions of the exact same movie isn’t value.  If you’re a serious Blu-ray enthusiast – or for that matter a Star Trek fan of any kind – all you care about when you buy a Blu-ray is getting the movie in pristine quality with lots of extras.”

• Source: Bill Hunt, Paramount Has a Blu-Ray Problem, 28 Aug. 2013.

And look, it worked.

I had previously purchased all four of the aforementioned Lee movies on DVD in nice Region 2 Platinum Editions 20 years ago and was initially going to rebuy only The Big Boss and Game of Death, due to the fact that they came loaded with new bonuses and rare Alternate Cuts. I only decided to re-purchase Way because I wanted to get the Final Game of Death doc.* And then, I thought, well, if I’m getting 3 of the 4 Lee films, must as well go for the last one. So, I got Fist of Fury as well.

*In hindsight, I kinda wish I had done more research before ordering it and gotten the (now apparently discontinued) 2017 Shout Factory Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of Game of Death instead, for that release already included the alternate Cantonese and Mandarin cuts.

I’m sure there are others in a similar situation. Which brings us to…

Problem #3: The pre-order mixup

Because of the artificial scarcity (“Limited Edition”) placed on the new Bruce Lee film sets, I decided to preorder them, prior to the November 13 release date. The Discs arrived around November 16, but as this was a very busy time for me, I put them on a shelf, unwrapped. One week later, I received an email from Arrow. It said:

“Due to a manufacturing error, our first batch of The Way of the Dragon Limited Editions contains an incorrect second disc; this affects both the UHD (SKU 14930337 / FCD2472) and Blu-ray (14930338 / FCD2473) releases.

We will have the correct Final Game of Death discs in individual jewel cases ready to ship from week commencing 4th December. This disc is a Blu-ray and is the same across the UHD and Blu-ray editions. There’s nothing further you need to do, the correct disc(s) will be shipped to the address on your original order as soon as possible. Please note, this will not appear as a new order on your account.”

So, on top of everything, it turned out that if you had pre-ordered Way of the Dragon, hoping to get that Final Game of Death bonus disc, you’d have to wait at least an additional 3 weeks to get your money’s worth. This sort of blunder can mess up trust with your customers, who expect you to deliver what they paid for and on time.*

*Lately though, Arrow seems to be having more and more problems delivering on their promises. This year, they’ve repeatedly delayed disc releases due to manufacturing or production problems, as is the case with the recent Blackhat or the upcoming Chucky and Conan film Collections. There’s also the fact that at the last minute they ended up dropping a brand new extensive documentary called The Sleeper Must Awaken from their long-awaited Blu-ray release of David Lynch’s Dune last year. 

I assumed that, as typically occurs with manufacturing errors, that the wrong disc was a duplicate of the other one, such as in the case of the Blade Runner 4-disc set.

But when I checked out my Way of the Dragon Blu-ray a few days later, I got a pleasant surprise - the ‘incorrect disc’ that Arrow sent out is actually another bonus disc from the 10-disc collection but one that had been excluded from the standalone reissues! 

Namely, it is Disc 10: The Documentaries, which has two feature-length docs - Bruce Lee: The Man & The Legend (1973), and Bruce Lee: The Legend (1984). So, the silver lining of not getting the ‘right’ preorder disc from that first batch of Way of the Dragon is that now one can basically get an extra disc for free.*

*I personally would’ve preferred the Game of Death Alternate Versions disc, but this is better than nothing, especially as I haven’t seen either of these documentaries.

How exactly did this happen? I don’t know.

Maybe at one point the plan was to bundle Way of the Dragon with the Documentaries disc and this first batch was a holdover from that approach? I certainly think this would’ve made more sense than opportunistically cannibalizing the Game of Death bonus features in the manner that Arrow wound up doing. I also find it curious that Arrow’s email never specified that the set included the Documentaries disc at all. 

But what this situation really tells me is that Arrow is all but certain to reissue those remaining unreleased discs at a later date. I mean, Arrow has them - the people in charge are just choosing to hold the discs back right now.

Perhaps they’ll bundle the Game of Death Alternate Versions Disc with that of The Documentaries into one set. Or maybe they’ll just reissue Game of Death in a proper 3-disc collection with all of its supplements to motivate further repurchasing. 

Who knows? In any case, the unreleased discs are unlikely to stay out of print for too long. Until the next “limited edition” runs out of stock, that is.

Inferences

All in all, I’d say Arrow Video has botched the Game of Death standalone release. I don’t know what the people there were thinking but I doubt that the choices they’ve made will be beneficial in the long term.

Look, I’m not going to tell you to not buy these sets. Heck, I went for it myself. And I know Arrow doesn’t owe us anything. It is a commercial company that wants to maximize profit. But if you ask me, resorting to such crass and manipulative tactics, especially for a boutique label, is disrespectful to your customers.

And Arrow Video deserves to be called out on this. If it plans to continue catering to cinephiles and collectors, then it needs to do better. It needs to be held to a higher standard, especially given its established reputation.

But really, the biggest problem with this is the fact that it’s really diminishing the visibility of the Final Game of Death and with that, the unearthed Bruce Lee footage that absolutely deserves to be seen after being locked in a vault for ages.

Other Notes and Recommended Links

• Mr. Jabbar, who portrays the final guardian in Lee’s footage, has his own Substack publication, where he focuses on sports:

• There’s an extensive essay about the making of the film from Kung Fu Coffee Break author Nico that briefly discusses some of the differences between the various cuts of the 1978 Game of Death.

• The 1997 Playstation videogame Final Fantasy 7 includes a side quest, where one of its characters has to undergo a 5-story Pagoda challenge, fighting a guardian boss on each floor. I’m certain this was inspired by Lee’s film.

• There’s a really nice and short video comparison of the some of the different Lee Cut footage restorations on YouTube by user HolyGhostClaw.

• You can also watch a Fan Remastered Version of the Warrior’s Journey reconstruction on YouTube by user OldPangYau.

• On a final note, I have to wonder if the release strategy for Game of Death, coupled with its other recent issues, is a side effect of parent company Arrow Films getting bought up in March 2021 by the Hut Group, a company that owns online retailer Zaavi? A reddit discussion about the sale from back then suggests that some folks were right to fear this would have a negative impact on Arrow down the line.

But what do you think? 

Do you have a favorite Bruce Lee movie? Do you like 'Game of Death'? 
Is it completely unethical for its producers to have completed it in the manner that they did? Is Arrow being disrespectful to its customers with their release strategy?

Or am I just exaggerating? Please leave a comment! (Or perhaps a note.) 

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Before that though, I will briefly discuss the movie itself and its amazing DVD.

Contents

1. Brief Thoughts on the Movie

2. A Great DVD

3. The Transfer

4. Cameron’s Recoloring History

5. The Paradox of Preservation

6. Other Thoughts and Notes

Brief Thoughts on the Movie

The Abyss is good but not great. I kinda feel like Cameron was trying to operate somewhat outside of his comfort zone, which is horror and action, and the results, much as in the case of Titanic, are a little mixed. 

Though I laud Cameron for making an ambitious near-three-hour scifi movie with the special edition, I do think the theatrical cut is ultimately the superior version in the end, just as it is with all of his movies. It minimizes the unnecessary character development and the more grandiose scope of the special edition in favor of a tightly focused, action-oriented narrative. And this is where Cameron truly shines, creating an immersive and suspenseful experience with all his underwater filming.

In hindsight, you can see this alongside Titanic as a test run for what he’d accomplish with the superior Avatar: The Way of Water. 

A Great DVD

The Abyss may not be one of my favorite James Cameron movies, but it is one of my favorite DVDs. Presumably based on a preceding laserdisc edition, the 2000 special edition DVD is a simple pleasure to own.

It comes with a collectible booklet, both the theatrical cut and the 1993 special edition via seamless branching on the first disc, and a second disc loaded with numerous special features (“supplements”) that combine text, image, and video with amazing interactive menus by Cameron collaborator Van Ling. 

Those menus really go a long way to making it a unique and immersive experience: as the viewer, you are allowed to explore various ‘compartments’ of the underwater oil rig central to the movie, with each opening up its own subset of supplements. 

There’s a section devoted to BTS documentaries, a section full of concept art and storyboards, a Drill Room that gives you access to an extensive 28-chapter textual database where you can, among other things, read Cameron’s excellent essay on the concept of the director’s cut and the creation of The Abyss special edition, as well as drafts of the script, including the original treatment.

Oh, and did I mention the (now sadly almost impossible-to-access) DVD-ROM features, which include the ability to watch the film side-by-side with its shooting script and storyboards, or the Aliens easter eggs that you can find by clicking on the facehuggers that suddenly appear when you arrive at the right point on the menu?*

*Sigh… they really don’t make them like that anymore.

At the time, this was the definitive release of the film. The only real issue with it?

The transfer 

The video quality of The Abyss DVD wasn’t that great, even by mid-90s standards. 

The highest  quality releases back then had anamorphic transfers. That of the Abyss was not anamorphic (despite the claim of the packaging), and so looked kinda closer to what you’d expect from laserdisc than DVD. That’s not to say it was bad but it didn’t live up to the full potential of the format. So, of course, when BluRay and High-Definition (HD) video became the new standard, there was a natural expectation that The Abyss would get a new HD digitally remastered release. 

For one reason or another, this never happened.

Though Fox and Cameron began working on the HD remaster back in 2010, the process kept getting deferred, moving in fits and starts. After almost 14 years, the digitally remastered edition of The Abyss (derived from a 4K scan) has finally been officially announced for release on home video among several other Cameron titles, including the similarly long-awaited action-comedy True Lies.

The Digital Video release is coming on December 12, while the physical BluRay/4K UHD is scheduled for March 12.

In fact, it’s even getting a theatrical (re-)release on December 6 for a 1-night only event! Cameron made a whole announcement about it on Twitter, hyping up the remastered Special Edition by throwing some shade at the theatrical version:

“If you haven’t seen the film before, this is the way to experience it. And if you have, you’ll be seeing the film I actually set out to make with some big surprises not seen in the original released version.”

I know Cameron is promoting the new version(s), so we shouldn’t take his words here at face value but I’m gonna say that I find this statement a tad disingenuous, given the fact that there is no way Cameron could’ve set out to make a movie back in the 80s that would’ve fit the 4K and HD projection technology that is standard today.*

*Though maybe Cameron is referring strictly to the editorial differences and signaling his current preference for the special edition assemblage? I am unsure. 

And though I am happy that The Abyss has a new, higher quality transfer, I’d say it comes with one notable caveat, similar to the DVD: it clearly bears a new Color Grade.

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Cameron’s Recoloring History 

Above are some screenshots from the trailers of the initial theatrical release of The Abyss in 1989 and the 2023 remastered version. Even if we were to make a concession for the fact these are compressed trailers and not the actual movie, as well as for computer color settings, the color differences between them are pretty obvious. 

The new version definitely looks more greenish-blue, than dark blue. 

Such a shift seems not uncommon in 1980s films that have a lot of dark and deep blue colors. There’s really nice clip on YouTube that showcases the differences between the colors of the 1991 director’s cut and the 2007 final cut of Blade Runner, both of which were made available on the same Blu-Ray set. A Reddit thread discussing this clip had a very interesting comment by user Happy_Television_501:

I like the clarity of the FC, but I do wonder why there is so much green. I think it’s just the current fashion.

I work in commercials and very recently I said to the colorist I wanted a blue tint to the office shots. What he sent me was very cyan, I.e. a lot of green in the blues. He said that’s blue, not cyan. I pulled it up in the meters to show him and he said, ‘well of course there’s some green in it…’ and I was like, look at the numbers. There’s more green than blue. He just said ‘we’ll that’s what blue is now…’ I was like, ‘so what do I call it if I actually want blue’, he said ‘I don’t know… purple?’

As a Not On BluRay article on how movies are recolored for HD illustrates, such changes seem to be par the course for James Cameron. The remastered Terminator and Aliens releases both had new grades that replaced dark or cool blues with more greenish-blue tones. I’ve copied an example from the article to illustrate.*

*Now, I should note that it is common to think of any such re-grading as making a film adhere to ‘teal-and-orange,’ a predominant color palette of American cinema in the 21st century. In fact, the article directly uses the recolored versions of Terminator and Aliens as examples of teal-and-orange, but I personally don’t think they completely fit that designation. 

However one chooses to define the new palette, it is evident that a shift took place. But why would a filmmaker like Cameron make such color changes rather than reproduce the colors audiences are already familiar with in higher resolution?

I don’t know if there’s a definitive answer. But the simplest one might be that because this is how he thinks his films should look color-wise now. And this likely has to do with the evolution of film delivery platforms and related technologies.

The Paradox of Preservation

A seldom acknowledged fact of our media industry is that feature films must be continuously modernized for release on contemporary home video formats, be they physical (BluRay) or digital (Apple). The act of modernization is often sold to us through terms such as ‘restoration’ and ‘remastering.’

In truth, many movies that get new digitally remastered releases don’t need to actually be (and so are not) restored, for their original source materials are not in a state of tremendous degradation that actually warrants a film preservationist to recover it. 

Rather, new master copies of the picture need to be produced, so new access copies (eg. BluRay discs or re-release digital projection copies) can then in turn be derived from them, so consumers can purchase those copies and access the film via constantly changing, constantly evolving delivery technologies. 

And so, we get successive editions of the same movie within and across different formats, with each new remastered version being ostensibly closer to fully reproducing its source material in terms of audiovisual quality. Think of how a movie like Wizard of Oz (1939) gets ‘restored’ every few years, allowing it to go from standard-definition DVD to 2K high-definition BluRay to 4K Ultra-HD, and you get the picture. 

As audiences, we get used to how a movie looks and so then come to believe that’s how movies should look. That becomes what we want, what we perceive to be good. The same thing can happen to filmmakers. Their perception of how a picture should look, or how well it looks, or what colors work best given the hardware becomes changed or reshaped gradually over time. 

What this means is that how a film looks and sounds is determined, at least to an extent, by the newest delivery format’s technical, qualitative, and aesthetic standards. And so as standard practice films have to be tailored (modernized) to fit them.

In most cases, the differences resulting from the act of modernization (eg. a new 5.1 audio mix for a picture from the 1940s) tend to be invisible or imperceptible, with the new variant being disguised as a pure reproduction of some vaguely defined ‘original’ version. But occasionally, such as when a filmmaker decides to add new CGI effects to scenes that never had them or to update an older film to look more in line with contemporary pictures color-wise, the differences become rather obvious.

The 2023 version of The Abyss is illustrative of this. By digitally altering its color grade, Cameron foregrounded its status as a new version and made visible the act of modernization. His choice may very well reflect the belief that cyan or teal is the new ‘blue’ according to contemporary HD standards.

In principle, I have nothing against such changes. And I will likely enjoy the new versions when I see them. But I do wish the colors of the films as shown previously were at least an option.* I really like the dark blue colors of the initial Abyss DVD release more than the greenish colors of the remaster and would love to see them on-screen in HD resolution with the new clarity. They are more fitting for the film’s setting in the dark, deep recesses of the ocean, and for its status as an 80s film.

*I don’t know if it would be correct to refer to them as ‘original colors.’ 

Ultimately though, modernization is the cost of wanting a James Cameron movie to remain accessible many years after its initial theatrical release. 

That’s the paradox of contemporary film preservation. For a film to be preserved, it must remain accessible. But to remain accessible, it must be modernized.

 Other thoughts and notes

• Will I get the new release? I’m probably going to buy the Digital Apple edition, as I already have a physical DVD copy that I hope to explore for a few more years.

• The initial delay from 2010 occurred because Cameron wasn’t happy with the initial HD remastered Abyss and wanted to perform new 4K scans of his movies (a feat that would be ahead of its time, given the state of home video and television technology in 2010). You can get a much more in-depth look at the strange history of the release via a paywalled Patreon article by Bill Hunt of The Digital Bits.

• Even though I don’t entirely agree with the author’s claims about film purity, I would recommend reading the full Not On Bluray article by Mac as it delves nicely into the history of teal-and-orange and contemporary recoloring.

• Another article by Tod Miro from 2010 similarly looks at the use (and possibly overuse) of the teal-and-orange palette.

• If there is something that’s really disappointing about the announcements is that the long-awaited True Lies special edition release is nowhere near as expansive as the other films in terms of special features. Given how packed with supplements Cameron movies tend to be, even in the era of home video decline, this seems like a missed opportunity, especially given how long the wait was for it.

But what do you think? 

Do you like 'The Abyss'? Do the new colors bother you? Is their presence a sign that history has been distorted? Can a film actually be preserved without being modernized? 

Please leave a comment! (Or perhaps a note.) 

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*Only in the US though. Internationally, it will be known as a Star+ Original in Latin America and a Disney+ original in Europe, Asia, and other territories. 

In this article, I want to share my thoughts about Australia, which I recently saw and greatly enjoyed, as well as discuss what I believe Faraway Downs will do to improve on the theatrical release. In particular, I want to talk about why Faraway Downs is likely to end with the tragic death of the Drover character, which in my mind is how the theatrical cut should have ended and was indeed meant to end.

Contents

1. Faraway Downs

2. Revision History

3. The Subversive Power of Australia

4. A Compromised Ending

5. Other Thoughts and Notes

6. Conclusion

Faraway Downs

• Directed by Baz Luhrmann

• Release Date: November 26, 2023

• Duration: About 225-240 min.

• Plot Summary: Opening in 1939, the story follows the lives of three major characters: the British aristocrat Lady Ashley (Nicole Kidman), who seeks to sell her late husband’s Australian cattle ranch Faraway Downs, Nullah (Brandon Walters), an Indigenous child working at the ranch, and the Drover (Hugh Jackman), a mysterious stockman previously employed by Ashley’s husband.

Faraway Downs isn’t something that was at all planned back when Australia came out in 2008. That is to say, it wasn’t designed to have both a theatrical cut and an extended broadcast version from the outset.* No, this is a case of a film being retroactively extended and restructured.

*Such an approach that is not uncommon for European productions. Examples include Das Boot (dir. Wolfgang Petersen), Carlos (dir. Oliver Essayas), and Mysteries of Lisbon (dir. Raul Ruiz), all of which had both a theatrical feature version and a TV miniseries version created around the same time.

Typically, this happens if the picture is already long and has a large amount of unused deleted footage. Reincorporating deleted scenes to expand the feature to multiple hours then allows it to be broken up into distinct television chapters or episodes and aired over several nights.* In this case though, the miniseries is set to follow the binge-release model popular with streaming platforms, meaning all six episodes will premiere at once on November 26. In effect, though broken up into episodes, the new version can be consumed all at once, similarly to a feature film.

*There is, for instance, The Godfather Saga, a 1977 recut of the first two Godfather films by Francis Ford Coppolla that reincorporated previously deleted footage from both movies into a 7.5 hour chronological broadcast version.

Revision History

The idea to revisit the picture came to Luhrmann during the COVID lockdown when the production of Elvis was put on pause. This allowed him to have a new look at the “2 million feet of film” he still had and reconceive the picture for episodic streaming.1 The result was for him “a different variation on the themes” of Australia.2

Though the technology helped motivate the production of the new version, the decision primarily stemmed from the fact that Luhrmann wasn’t very happy with the theatrical release. And while he hasn’t exactly admitted it outright as of yet, there is plenty of evidence that one of his key issues was with the ending of the film.

Let’s go back to November 2008. Just a few weeks before the theatrical premiere of the film, information around the web begins to spread about Luhrmann changing the ending of Australia in response to studio pressure.

One of the key reports was from the Herald Sun, which stated that Luhrmann “bowed to studio pressure for a happy ending.” This occurred following ‘disastrous reviews’ from a test screening where participants wanted the ending changed due to them loving High Jackman’s character, who died in the screened version. It states:

“Luhrmann's initial cut - which ran for more than three hours - ended with Hugh Jackman's character, The Drover, dying in the final scenes… After intense discussions with studio executives, Luhrmann was persuaded last week to go for a more uplifting ending.”

Luhrmann subsequently played down the negative buzz from the reports in an interview with Scott Feinberg for the LA Times. Following the claims about the ending being changed due to test audience reactions, he stated:

"…I wrote, I think, six endings in all the drafts I did, shot three, and I ended up concluding the film in a way in which I — probably more than anyone — least expected…. I came up with a third ending, and the ending that I've created about the film came from a place of a response, actually, to the thing that I wanted the movie to be — the important, big idea of the movie — how to amplify that big idea.”

Here, he basically endorses the final ending of the movie without really confirming or denying whether or not there is a ‘Drover dies’ ending or if he changed it, while positioning the theatrical ending as something he wanted, as an ending was something he came up with naturally and what he chose for the film.

Furthermore, he responded to the claims that the film was initially too long, sugges-ting that it was now of the proper length and effectively positioning it as his cut:

"The length is the length that I want it to be. It's the length that I think is the right length to be as inclusive as possible. I mean, my rough-cut, by the way, wasn't that long; it was only about three hours."

From these comments, it would seem that the theatrical cut of Australia was one Luhrmann was happy with, that it represented his vision and that its ending was not forced upon him but was a deliberate creative choice. 

14 years later, while working on Elvis, Luhrmann was more candid about his experience editing the film and painted a rather different picture. 

Here are some quotes:

“For various reasons that aren’t worth going into, I never got to finish it ultimately the way I wanted to… People go ‘well it’s long anyway’ but actually the reason it felt long was a lot of crucial plot material wasn’t in it.”

*Source: Sidney Morning Herald - May 2022

“Australia was the most difficult, and of all the films, it was certainly the one that was least resolved. It was a bumpy ride…. In the end, we got into such conflict. I don’t know about you, but I usually win those conflicts and I kind of lost it. It’s the first time I had studio conflict I couldn’t solve.”

*Source: Vogue Conversation with George Miller - June 2022

Lurhmanmn’s comments here indicate that he was, in fact, dissatisfied with the theatrical duration of the film and believed it should’ve been longer. Cutting it down negatively affected its pace and flow.*

*I feel I should mention that cutting a film down length-wise doesn’t necessarily make it flow better. A longer cut can sometimes be better and more consistently paced than a shorter one. This is demonstrated by the extended 223-minute cut of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, which has a much better flow than the jumpy, overstuffed theatrical release. 

Furthermore, it has been confirmed that the new cut would have a different ending, indicating that Luhrmann had chosen to reinstate one of the two unused endings he had shot before he arrived at the theatrical ending that found itself.3

The inclusion of a new ending is in line with something else Luhrmann has mentioned, which is that the new cut would have “alternative plot twists” to the theatrical release, suggesting the presence of alternate footage of the same scene.4

But which alternate ending will Luhrmann actually reinstate?

As I said before, the director confirmed there were 3 endings shot, but he never spe-cified exactly how the two alternate endings differed from the theatrical one.

More recently, he he has revealed that the new ending was the ‘initial ending’ he had, but he plays coy with what it contains. He states:

“Without giving away what that ending is, I initially thought and then revisiting it realized just how important it is for Lady Ashley not to be defined by any one person so much as her relationship to her environment. It’s a melodrama and melodramas have a relentless amount of tragic twists and turns. But I think that if I was being true to the bigger theme of the story, the “Faraway Downs” ending speaks more directly to the primary theme of the movie.”

• Source: Interview with Baz Luhrmann by Adam Chitwood, The Wrap, Oct. 18 2023.

Though Luhrmann is still being ambiguous here, I believe there is enough evidence in the film itself to conclude that the rumored ‘Drover dies’ ending actually exists and that this is the ending that will play out in Faraway Downs.

To explain that, it is necessary to discuss the film itself.

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The subversive power of Australia

“By choosing to set the film between the two world wars, I was able to bind the historical romance to what really is the greatest scar in the history of this country: the Stolen Generation [the thousands of mixed-race Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families by the state and assimilated into white society during the 20th century.”

• Source: Baz Luhrmann, “How we made the epic of Oz,” The Guardian, 2008.

Australia is an underrated and largely misunderstood film. At the time of its release, critics seemingly didn’t know quite what to make of its (intentional) tonal clashes and its paradoxical combination of farcical comedy, serious historical drama, and epic romance. I would argue that this constitutes a strength rather than a weakness, for Australia is a film of deliberate contradictions that attempts to enhance its depiction of reality by foregrounding its artificiality and its status as a movie. 

It aims to provide an insightful look at the history of the horrifying treatment of the aboriginal Australian population by European settlers, yet simultaneously participates in revisionism by featuring more modern progressive white main characters. It positions itself as a historical film set in real-life Australia yet also relies on mythic and romantic archetypes in its depiction of the country.

It is postmodern, ironic and self-aware, a work that builds itself up initially as a familiar, lighthearted romantic comedy in a period setting that abides by conventions of the genre before subverting them with dark, shocking turns that change its emphasis. Thus, what the film is really doing becomes all the more powerful because it initially lulls audiences into a false sense of complacency.

In my mind, one of the best illustrations of this is its treatment of the 1939 film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz and its famous song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The first time it shows up is when Nullah asks Lady Ashley to sing him a song and it is the only one that comes to her mind. Her performance of it is comically terrible - Ashley doesn’t remember the song well at all and can’t seem to get even the first and most famous line of it right. Nullah doesn’t seem to mind though. He loves the song and subsequently becomes intent on seeing The Wizard of Oz.

Even as he comes to perceive the wizard as similar to his grandfather, a ‘magic man,’ the irony seems lost on Nullah that in pop culture, Australia and Oz are closely associated. Australia can be abbreviated as ‘Oz’ in regular speech and there are some that believe Oz to be a mythic, magic standin for Australia itself - a fantastic version of it that doesn’t exist. 

Thus, the invocation of the fictional land of Oz and its film adaptation calls attention to the very status of Australia as similarly a film and a textual construct. The desire for Oz, a beautiful happy magic land where skies are blue and dreams are possible can be seen as a desire for a magic, dreamy version of the country of Australia itself.

The meta-textual aspects of the story and the sharp contrast between reality and fantasy come to the foreground when Nullah later goes to a racially segregated movie theater in Darwin to see The Wizard of Oz on the big screen.

As a mixed-race child of what would be known as “the Stolen Generation,” Nullah risks being caught by the police and forcibly taken away to a foster white family. And so he resorts to having his face covered with charcoal to make himself indistingui-shable from full-blooded aboriginals, who are allowed to sit in the back of the theater. 

The image of a disguised Nullah sitting enraptured by the picture is an ironic shock to the system that uses the status of The Wizard of Oz as classic, escapist, feel-good entertainment with the power to comfort the viewer with an illusory immersive reality against itself. In the context of everyday racism and class divide in 1930s Australia, its presence only serves to foreground the horrors of real life, making it impossible for the viewer to escape them.

Australia the film thus confronts audiences with the terrifying historical reality of Australia the country by juxtaposing it with the fantasy perpetuated by traditional Hollywood cinema. It makes you remember that you’re watching a movie and calls attention to the fact that movies tend to romanticize the historical past, immersing you in illusory images that distort and beautify the periods they depict.

And so it positions itself as comparatively more real. 

A compromised ending

That juxtaposition between reality and fantasy extends to the overall structure of the film, which consists of two parts. Part 1, which encompasses approximately the initial 100 minutes follows Lady Ashley as she comes to the Faraway Downs ranch in 1939, learns of local cattle baron King Carney stealing from her herd, and then attempts to deliver a large stock to the British Army to fulfill her late husband’s contract.

Part 2, which encompasses the final hour of the movie, then picks up around 1942, skipping over multiple events, to arrive at a point where WW2 catches up with the main characters, with the historical bombing of Darwin becoming a key event.

Despite having instances of subversion, the first half of the movie seemingly brings the main plot to a crowd-pleasing, happy ending, with Lady Ashley and the Drover admitting their love and basically taking in Nullah as a foster son.

But then the film continues and its second half undermines the first by showing that its main couple’s happily-ever-after doesn’t last, while also subordinating the fictional romantic narrative to the larger historical narrative. And in this larger context, the characters’ victories in the first part don’t really seem to matter. The way the plot develops in the final hour suggests that it’s building towards a tragic ending. And indeed, the film seems to give us one before revealing it to have been a fakeout.

In the aftermath of the bombing of Darwin by Japan, the villainous Neil Fletcher, who hates Nullah, sees an opportunity to murder the boy and cover it up. He manages to get his hands on a rifle, targets Nullah and prepares to open fire. The Drover sees this and rushes to save the boy, while Nullah’s grandfather George, looking from afar, prepares a makeshift spear. The cutting of the sequence keeps getting fast and faster, to the point where everything seems to happen at once.

I’ve included a .gif to help illustrate what I’m talking about:

For a moment, it seems Fletcher has shot Nullah, but it’s then revealed that George had tossed his spear into Fletcher’s back just in the nick of time. Fletcher dies. Nullah and Drover are both okay. They reunite with Ashley and return to Faraway Downs. Some time later, Nullah leaves them to go on a walkabout with his grandfather.

The end.

Rather than shock viewers with a tragic, subversive death, the ending goes in for wish fulfillment, with everyone surviving and going home. But the way the sequence is shot and cut together, you can see that it could be easily changed to have a different outcome. Thus, I suspect that the original ending used alternate footage, which revealed that Fletcher did get a shot off, but hit the Drover, mortally wounding him.*

* January 16, 2023 Edit: I’ve written a follow-up post about the many changes of Faraway Downs following the release of the miniseries. You can see how my predictions about the ending turned out here.

Even if this is not exactly the case, an ending where the Drover died should’ve been in the theatrical cut as he is an archetypal, larger-than-life figure.* Killing him off would deconstruct the romantic narrative and undermine the myths he represents. Without this tragic turn of events, the film doesn’t quite feel complete or true to itself. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, but that it’s unable to achieve its full potential.

* While fulfilling the real-life profession in Australia’s history, the character seems heavily inspired by the Western archetypal cowboy. His real name is never even revealed. He is only ever referred to by his profession, which is to drove cattle. 

To put it another way, an ending where the Drover dies would make a lot more sense thematically and stylistically for the type of movie Luhrmann is making than the one we get in the theatrical release. It would also fit with the early reports about Lurhmann being forced to change the ending due to test screenings.

Finally, two of Luhrmann’s previous movies - Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge! (2001) - both concluded with tragic deaths, so the choice to kill off a main character would be in line with the director’s larger body of work.

All this leads me to believe that not only does the ‘Drover dies’ alternate ending exist, but that this is indeed the ending Luhrmann has chosen to restore in Faraway Downs.

Assuming I’m not wrong and the miniseries ends with Hugh Jackman’s character biting the bullet, Faraway Downs will prove the stronger of the two versions of Australia, at least in my opinion. Of course, I could be wrong, and the director has something else planned. But in any case, I do believe some sort of tragedy does have to happen for the picture to feel wholesome and complete.

Other Thoughts and Notes

Australia is not a perfect film by far, but I kinda love some of the things it’s doing, and I definitely believe that a longer cut could improve upon it. So, here I will speculate on what other editorial differences the miniseries might have from the theatrical cut, as well as note some things that don’t quite fit into an argument.

• How long exactly Faraway Downs is at the moment is not entirely clear. Luhrmann himself claimed in 2022 that it would contain an hour of extra footage and more recent reports are stating that the new miniseries will amount to 4 hours, suggesting an extra 75 minutes.

• The introduction is very fast-paced and more kinetic than the rest of the picture. It’s not until about 30 minutes in that Australia slows down to truly focus on its characters and this is where I feel it really picks up and becomes engrossing. I can definitely see this introductory section being extended to make it somewhat slower paced and more consistent with the rest of the film.

• To add to that, I think the opening act is far more in line with what we normally expect from a Baz Luhrmann film. His movies tend to move a mile per minute and overwhelm the senses with detail. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when Australia slowed down somewhat and allowed its plot to unfold more gradually.

• The 2-year gap between Part 1 and Part 2 is condensed to a mere montage in the theatrical cut and so largely skips over a key plot development: Fletcher’s murder of King Carney and his subsequent rise to power. I suspect this could become a whole subplot in Faraway Downs, allowing Carney a better send-off.

• I suspect it is the second part that will be most extended in Faraway Downs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Luhrmann is able to devote a good 90-120 minutes to it. There is definitely room to elaborate on the plot points we see here, as the theatrical cut the film rushes somewhat towards its finale, to the point where I sometimes had trouble following the exact sequence of events.

• Assuming that the ‘Drover dies’ ending and the theatrical ‘Drover lives’ ending are the ones known to us, and do exist, what then was the third ending that Luhrmann shot? This is something I’m quite interested in, as the either of these alternate endings were ever released on DVD or BluRay. One article I’ve read suggests that there was an ending, where neither Lady Ashley nor Drover survive the bombing of Darwin, but I haven’t found any evidence that this is true.

• Interestingly, in the recent interview for The Wrap, Luhrmann backs away from the claim that three endings exist. Or rather, he states that “there were only two possibilities.” Could he mean that he shot three endings, but didn’t really ever consider one of them for inclusion? I’m not sure.

• For anybody interested into a deep, scholarly dive into the film, I suggest reading Stephen Papson’s 2011 article in JumpCut on the film’s parody and its status as a postmodern film. He points out multiple references Australia deliberately makes to other movies, positioning itself as a self-referential intertext.

• I haven’t read the full article but found a quote from scholar Marcia Langton, who views Dorothy Gale’s escape to a dream world as “…a metaphor for Luhrman’s own artistic struggle with the prosaic facts of history. In his imagined cinema of the 1940s, the spatial and social shape of racism is reconstructed with such exact detail, I felt I had been transported back to my own childhood.”5

Conclusion

Much like the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, Australia is on some level a movie about how history is constructed by movies, about who gets to tell stories and why. In that sense, it also qualifies as an example of historiographic meta-cinema, a term I use in reference to Linda Hutcheon’s ‘historiographic metafiction.’ 

I hope that the new cut, whatever its actual changes are, gives the film a second chance to find an audience in the US and so get some deserved re-appreciation.

But what do you think? 

Is 'Australia' a good movie? Does it have irony or should it be read exclusively as a sincere film? Does it fail or succeed as an epic romance? Does the theatrical ending work? Would a tragic ending not fit? 

Please leave a comment! (Or perhaps a note.) 

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Also, please help this publication get more views by sharing, forwarding, or cross-posting this article!

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Something that I’ve long found fascinating is the fact that numerous Hollywood filmmakers touted as auteurs have a tendency to revise and reissue their films, a fact that suggests that the ability or license to release an alternate cut of a picture may constitute a defining characteristic of the auteur director.

Case in point: Michael Mann. 

Out of the 12 feature films Mann has directed thus far, he has retroactively revised and reissued seven of them in an alternate cut or version, namely ​​Thief (1981), Manhunter (1987), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Heat (1995), Ali (2001), Miami Vice (2006), and Blackhat (2015). Some of these, in fact, Mann has revised more than once.

Mohicans has both a “director’s cut” and a “director’s definitive cut,” while Manhunter has at least five somewhat different editions carrying the “director’s cut” label. With each such release, Mann seems to reaffirm his authorship over the text, while simultaneously undermining claims to singularity of vision.

Based on my research, Mann also has a particular style of re-editing: many of his alterations tend to be small and largely imperceptible. Where some filmmakers like to make big, easily identifiable changes (such as Cameron, who specializes in adding completely new full scenes and subplots to his special editions), Mann prefers to make short, often surgical extensions and subtractions to existing footage. He might add a few seconds here, remove a line of dialogue there, and use an alternate shot elsewhere.

This isn’t to say that Mann doesn’t ever add new full scenes, or tinker with other elements of the picture, such as the color or transfer, but that the editorial differences in his movies rarely seem intended to attract attention to themselves.

Consequently, even if you are intimately familiar with the theatrical release, you might never notice any difference as you watch the new edition unless you’re specifically looking for it. Individually, such changes might some negligible. But as a whole, they can have some interesting effects on a film and its perception. 

I personally find that making such tiny changes is actually more interesting than making big sweeping cuts, because it’s more about pruning, finessing the details.

All of which is to say that I’m kinda excited for the upcoming Arrow Video Blu-Ray release of Blackhat, as I fully expect it to exhibit those qualities. Here’s a trailer for the film in case you’re not familiar with it.

Blackhat Director’s Cut

Release Date: November 28, 2023 (BluRay and 4k)

Initially released in 2015 and becoming a critical and commercial flop, Blackhat is a (cyber?) thriller starring Chris Hemsworth as an expert hacker recruited by the FBI to take down a powerful cyberterrorist. The movie passed me and a lot of other people by when it first came out, but I’ve never really forgotten about it, especially thanks to the trickles of news regarding Mann’s director’s cut.

Mann first premiered his cut back in 2016 during a retrospective of his films at a New York film festival. At the time, in an interview for IndieWire’s Sad Happy Confused Podcast, Mann had stated that he views both this and the theatrical release as a director’s cut, but stated that he was not happy with the theatrical release.

As he put it:

“It was a challenging film to do because the ambition of the film was to an event driven narrative and develop characters within scenes, but have a very rapid narrative with rhythms imitative of how fast our world moves today in the digital information age. So this is why I intentionally had a rapidly driving plotline. But the engine of that was cyber tech so you had to track with the search for the code… which leads you on and on and on through various hacking techniques. So in moving some of the big pieces of story around I may have obfuscated [the audience] tracking the events of the basic plot.”

He adds that the biggest change was putting the events of the film in its original order, placing the events of the ‘Soy Hack’ first, believing that this would allowing audiences to better follow the ‘causality’ of the plot. He also takes full responsibility for all the issues and does not put it on the studio. The director’s cut is, according to Mann, about two minutes shorter than the theatrical. 

I find his comments quite intriguing. Mann takes full responsibility for what he perceives to be the main flaw of the theatrical cut - its narrative structure. At some point during post-production, he apparently decided to move the order of the main events around, deviating from the script.

Restructuring the film apparently made it hard to follow and so negatively impacted audience enjoyment. He doesn’t specify, however, why he did this.

According to MovieCensorship:

“​​It is speculated that the studio wasn't happy with the structure of the movie and wished for a bigger threat for the thriller instead of such a trivial thing such as stock market betrayal.”

This sounds plausible, though I’ve found no direct corroboration from Mann himself that this was the case. Presumably, the new cut builds much better and gradually raises its stakes. So watching it with back-to-back in theory could be useful for learning how to tell a story and/or move scenes around editorially, in that it ought to illuminate what happens to narrative comprehensibility and pacing when one extensively switches up the order of multiple sequences.

A Strange Release/Revision History

The upcoming BluRay release by Arrow Video is going to be the first time the Blackhat director’s cut has received wide circulation and accessibility. Even so, its road to home video has been a little strange.

Following its premiere at the 2016 NYC Retrospective, it was then broadcast on the cable channel FX back in 2017. Presumably, this happened only once or twice as FX is not a premium cable channel that repeats its licensed movie titles over and over.

The theatrical cut of Blackhat received a video release from Universal back in May 2015. Blackhat then at some point received a slightly different international cut which also became available on video though was not advertised as a different cut all that much. Yet the director’s cut was MIA for video up all the way up to now.

In fact, despite its reputation for being a boutique video distributor that appeals to collectors of multiple versions and bonus materials, Arrow initially wasn’t even planning to include the director’s cut in its new limited edition! The decision to actually add it only came about after a vocal fan backlash.

Consequently, Arrow pushed the release of the Limited Edition back from its initial May 29, 2023 release date to September 4. At the time, they announced:

““We listened to your feedback about our release of Blackhat not including Michael Mann's revised director's cut of the film and we are very pleased to confirm that the original digital files have been found. It will now be included as a second Blu-ray Disc. To allow time for disc authoring and quality control, we have had to push the release date back to 4th September. We hope you understand the necessity for this delay and are as excited as we are to be able to feature this significantly different version of the film alongside the two previously announced cuts.””

• Source: Dawn of the Discs

However, the release was delayed two more times, first to October 31 then finally to November 28. Assuming nothing goes wrong, then in a little over two weeks, the director’s cut will finally have become available on Blu-Ray in a high-definition digital transfer, which means you should be able to watch the movie with consistent high-grade quality from start to finish.

In addition to having three different cuts of the film, the release will have some nice bonus features, including an audio commentary track. All in all, the BluRay edition can be preordered right now for a little under $30.

I do wish there was maybe a feature-length BTS doc on the disc as well but the special features Arrow has listed make this a pretty sweet deal, in my opinion. Definitely more price-appropriate than the Hellraiser Bloodline workprint.

A New Manhunter director’s cut for 2024?

Something Mann said about reworking Blackhat on the podcast stood out to me:

“What’s wonderful about digital is that we’re able to improve these things, modify them. I’m impelled to do it… I didn’t feel complete with Blackhat before.”

These comments corroborate something I’ve long suspected: much like George Lucas, Mann is enabled by ongoing developments in technology. He is compelled to tinker and revise older works, because it is possible. This ties into the fact that Mann basically made a new cut of Manhunter for every new home video format. 

And in turn, it suggests we might see more revisions from Mann in the future, possibly for streaming or 8K Mega-Hyper HD BluRay.

This is one reason why I am inclined to believe a certain rumor I’ve read recently on Twitter by an account called The Discfather, which claims that Mann is planning yet another a new cut and restoration of Manhunter, possibly for 2024.

See, Mann already released a DVD ‘director’s cut’ (his fourth I think if you count the various cuts he made for the Showtime channel) in 2001 and then a ‘restored director’s cut’ in 2003 (if memory serves correctly, this was primarily to address the bad video quality of the director’s cut footage on the earlier release, though I think the 2001 director’s cut was missing some crucial moments and dialogue).

But he was never really satisfied with how the film’s extra footage looked because it was sourced from a low resolution videotape. This made it impossible for the footage to look seamless and consistent with the footage from the theatrical release.

Think of seeing a movie with crisp, high quality imagery only for the picture to cut to a VHS scene the back, you get what I mean. It is a jarring experience. The quality gaps were magnified when the latest director’s cut showed up on Blu-Ray from Shout Factory a few years back, which presented it in high-definition but with standard-definition inserts for the non-theatrical footage.

If this is indeed another cut and is being restored, then it’s possible Mann has finally found a celluloid source for the extra footage he wanted to integrate into Manhunter. Thus, we might finally get a truly definitive, quality-consistent director’s edition of Manhunter next year. At least until the next leap in video technology, that is.

Annotations

• Other auteur-revisionists include Charlie Chaplin, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Oliver Stone, and Quentin Tarantino. Honestly, there are too many of them to count.

• Personally, I hope that at some point Mann finally decides to revisit The Keep, his weird genre film from the 80s, which famously went really wrong behind the scenes and remains a movie he is quite unhappy with.

• Though there are plenty stories of movies that have been extensively restructured in post-production prior to theatrical release (Batman Forever comes to mind), it is somewhat rare to find multiple cuts of the same film that have notably different orders of events on video. Off the top of my head, I can think of the chronological versions of reverse-chronology pictures like Memento or Irreversible, and the chronological re-cuts of The Godfather Part II, such as the one that came out on TV in the 80s. Then, of course, there’s the recent Hellraiser Bloodline workprint.

• Ironically enough, I once tried to make a fan edit of another Chris Hemsworth movie by switching around its first act with its second, which meant a good chunk of the film would play out in flashback. I thought this was a good idea, for the chronological order was, in my mind, rather bad for doling out information to the audiences. My recut unfortunately, was never finished.

Readers, what do you think?

Anybody here seen 'Blackhat'? Did you like it? Do you plan to get the director's revision?

Do you like Mann's films in general? Does he tinker with them too much?

What are your thoughts on auteurism? Is releasing a director's cut a sign of being an auteur?

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But it never manages to achieve that high bar because of one glaring editorial error: the omission of a key scene crucial to selling audiences on the turn taken by W’Kabi (Daniel Kaluyya), who starts out as a close friend and ally of king T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), but ultimately chooses to side with the villain Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) in the film’s second half.

In this article, I will talk about what I would term as the film’s ‘W-Kabi problem’ and how it could’ve easily been avoided in post-production.

Table of Contents

1. The W’Kabi Problem

2. The Cut Confrontation

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Hellraiser: Bloodline Workprint Cut

• Directed by Kevin Yagher/Alan Smithee

• Release Date: October 23

Like a number of other long-running horror film franchises, Hellraiser ended up going to space.* It didn’t take long. After three fantasy horror movies filled with BDSM demons and a nonsensical though enthralling mythology revolving around mysterious supernatural puzzle boxes, the franchise wound up mixing things up with a dash of sci-fi in Hellraiser 4, aka Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996).

*This is usually taken as a sign of the series’ quality deteriorating, though I’d argue that space-set sequels can be really damn fun. Anybody here see Jason X (2001) or Leprechaun 4 (1996)? I mean, those were just ridiculous fun.

Though I am of something of a Hellraiser fan, I’ve never actually watched Bloodline because I’ve been led to believe over the years that none of the Hellraiser films after the third one were good or watchable, the amazing 2022 remake notwithstanding.* However, I’ve recently become interested in seeing the fourth installment, as I’ve become more aware of its revision history, as well as the fact that some rank it higher than Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth (1992).

*For some reason, I did see the one from Dr. Strange director Scott Derrickson, Hellraiser: Inferno (2000), which turned out to be a bad if at times promising student film.

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Table of Contents

1. My Personal History with Dragonball Z

2. Dragonball Z Abridged: The Buu Bits

3. An interlude for Dragonball Super

4. Battle of Gods: 10^th Anniversary Edition

My Personal History with Dragonball Z

When I was growing up in the 90s, Dragonball Z was my - and I assume, a lot of other people’s - entryway into the world of anime, a work unlike any other cartoon aired in the US.* As I became a Z fan, I came to understand that the show was heavily revised from its original Japanese incarnation. The initial 67 episodes were heavily re-edited for violence and compressed into 53 episodes for US broadcast.

*If you’re not familiar, Dragonball is one of the most popular Japanese anime franchises ever made. Based on the manga by Akira Toriayama, it consists of four different series, numerous movies, and videogames.  

Even after the extensive re-editing had stopped, episodes would still be censored for violence, resulting in them getting issued on video in both standard and ‘uncut’ versions. And that’s without counting the bad dubbing that really diminished the quality of the stories, and the removal of the original sound and music.

Thanks to DVD, I was able to collect the show uncut in subtitled Japanese versions, which were great! At least, until I grew up. Upon revisiting the old series in the later 2000s, I realized Dragonball Z wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was.

Never mind the holes. The plots were endlessly padded out with redundant animation and filler storylines. Even when a new and improved version of Z called Dragonball Kai recut the initial 200 or so episodes of DBZ into about 100 episodes to remove the ‘filler’ material and realign it with the manga I wasn’t all that impressed.

But then something interesting happened in the 2010s: I found two new, modern incarnations of Dragonball which were legitimately good. One was an unofficial fan edit of the series called Dragonball Z Abridged.* The other was an authorized continuation called Dragonball Super. 

*Thanks to the availability of consumer-grade digital video editing software and the rise of video streaming, fans of different media properties became increasingly capable of fully re-editing their favorite movies and TV shows as well as distributing the resulting alternate cuts or ‘fan edits’ over the internet. 

Now, there’s some revision-related news pertaining to them both. 

Dragonball Z Abridged: The Buu Bits

For a while in the late 2000s, there was a trend of creating “Abridged Anime,” which essentially combined the practice of fan editing with that of the ‘mockdub,’ when a foreign work is deliberately mistranslated in the course of dubbing in an effort to make fun of the work itself. In this case, fans would recut overly long Japanese animated series, such as Pokemon and Yugi-Oh!, to be shorter before adding new dubbing that radically altered the ‘original’ text. 

The resulting new ‘Abridged’ versions of anime were often comedic, self-aware, low-budget metaworks that pushed the boundary of what was acceptable as ‘fair use.’ Out of these, the longest and arguably most popular abridged series to this day remains TeamFourstar’s Dragonball Z Abridged (DBZA). Premiering in 2008, the series rekindled my interest in Dragonball by turning the show into a parody of itself and producing something legitimately different and exciting. Both reverant and mocking, it was one of the funniest animated re-workings I’ve ever seen, something that stands quality-wise alongside Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost: Coast to Coast or Sealab 2021.*

*Even if you’re not a fan of Dragonball, you should check it out: The First Episode has garnered 31 million views on YouTube since being reposted there in 2013.  

After producing 64 amazing episodes, TeamFourStar decided to call it quits and so did not adapt the final arc of the original Dragonball Z series, which is often referred to as the “Buu Saga,” after the series’ last big villain, leaving DBZA feeling somewhat incomplete. After a five-year break, however, DBZA has made a bit of a comeback earlier this month with the premiere of the “Buu Bits” - little sketch comedy-style redubs of specific scenes and moments from the Buu arc produced by TeamFourStar for DBZ reviewer Totally Not Mark.

The ‘Buu Bits’ are rather funny - though you really do have to be a fan of the series at this point to get in the in-jokes and references - and can be seen as parts of Mark’s reviews or as a compilation by TeamFourStar itself (link below).

An interlude for Dragonball Super

Now, let’s talk about Dragonball Super, the other modern incarnation of Dragonball, which premiered in 2015. Super is not a parody - it’s a full-on official sequel to Dragonball Z. Like its predecessor, it’s an action-heavy adventure series, where much of the appeal is seeing powerful God-like martial artists battle other powerful God-like martial artists, who are sometimes literal Gods.

But Super is also an evolution - it took everything that was good about Z and removed pretty much everything that was bad. Gone was a lot of the redundant animation.* Gone was the filler and horrendous pacing. In its place was far more economical and consistent storytelling that allowed characters more emotional development.

*Not all of it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing as both shows sometimes use recycled animation to great effect visually.

If DBZA made Dragonball enjoyable in an ironic way, then Super made it cool to (kinda) take it seriously again. It really helped rejuvenate Dragonball as a brand, and I remem-ber when its episodes started to get so popular, they would crash the livestreams coming from Japan over platforms like Crunchyroll.

But what’s fascinating is that when it began, it really wasn’t well received. This is because the first 26 or so episodes had instances of really poor animation quality and were remakes of two Dragonball movies: Battle of Gods (2013) and Resurrection F (2015).

Imo, those early episodes aren’t exactly bad. But it wouldn’t be until the show’s third arc, which moved past the films into original territory, that the series began to carve out its own identity and show what it was really capable of. 

Battle of Gods Extended Edition 10th Anniversary

Battle of Gods, as I recall, wasn’t a great Dragonball movie.

It was kinda boring and honestly a wee bit anticlimactic. Though maybe that was the idea. The tone I recall was perhaps a bit too humorous for me and its main ‘antagonist’ Beerus wasn’t much of a villain. In fact, I actually kinda liked how the plot of the movie was later re-adapted, revised and expanded in Super, making it more interesting and better integrated with the events of the preceding series, even as the TV episodes contained inferior animation quality. *

*The show for some reason couldn’t use animation or footage directly from the movie and instead retold/reanimated many scenes from it.

But I am grateful to the film, as I don’t think Super could exist without it. Dragonball Z: Battle of Gods, if anything, helped gauge market interest for more Dragonball animation and so began the process of rekindling public interest in it as a whole. 

What I hadn’t known until just a couple of days ago is that there was an extended edition of Battle of Gods released on DVD and Blu-Ray back in 2014, just a year after the movie came out in theaters, with about 20 minutes of extra footage.* Now, for the 10th anniversary of the movie, the extended cut will be shown in US theaters for two nights next month: October 17-18.

*If you’re interested, here’s a link to an outline of the differences here.

Not sure if I’ll check it out, but I legitimately enjoyed the last two Dragonball movies when I saw them on the big screen (Broly and Super Hero), so who knows? 

Perhaps Gods in its extended iteration could be worth revisiting.

Readers, what do you think?

Have you any thoughts on the many versions of 'Dragonball Z'? Have you seen the different cuts of 'Battle of Gods'? Do you like Abridged Anime or have you watched anything like DBZA or another mockdub

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