Apple gave me a free ‘Planes, Trains’ deleted scene upgrade
Apple gave me a free ‘Planes, Trains’ deleted scene upgrade
Variations Issue № 6: On John Hughes, Trier, Gray, CUTs, and Idea Theft
About two years ago, I purchased John Hughes’ classic Thanksgiving comedy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (PT&A, 1987, 93 minutes) on Itunes/Apple TV, so I could watch it for the first time with my girlfriend.* It was, imo, a decent release but one not high on special features. It had only one deleted scene, for example, which was a bit of a bummer, as I had learned the first cut of the picture, then believed to have been lost, reportedly was around 3.5 hours.
*For those unfamiliar, the plot concerns Chicago businessman Neal (Steve Martin), who gets stuck with an obnoxious salesman named Del (John Candy), while trying to get home for Thansksgiving during a snowstorm that cancels their flight. The two end up going on a roadtrip full of quixotic adventures, with the cynical Neal gradually warming up to the cheerful Del. I personally recommend seeing the film at least once if you haven’t yet. It is an outrageously funny, yet heartwarming and sincere little film of the sort they don’t really make anymore. Steve Martin and John Candy make the perfect on-screen odd couple.
A few months ago, information surfaced of a new 4K Blu-Ray release of PT&A scheduled for November 22 that was going to include over an hour of recently unearthed deleted footage from that first cut. I was on the fence about getting it, as I had already bought the movie once and I don’t have much incentive to go for 4k remasters, given that the differences in so-called ‘audiovisual quality’ between them and regular HD is often negligible, at least in my experience.
However, I read on Twitter that Apple was actually upgrading folks that had purchased HD film releases via the platform previously to new 4k versions. This made me wonder if maybe my copy of PT&A might get upgraded, providing me with access to the new deleted scenes. I checked it out, and sure enough - the upgrade was there!
In addition to PT&A now being presented in a 4k remaser, the Apple TV extras page for the movie now has a section called “Lost Luggage,” which presents 75 minutes of deleted scenes. Sure, it’s not technically a full 75 minutes, given that most of these are much longer versions of scenes that are in the movie, but there is definitely a substantial chunk of never-before-seen footage here.
And the fact is, by virtue of having purchased the film before, I am getting them for free and early. So, thank you, Apple, for your great little Thanksgiving present!* In this article then, I wanna talk about the new PT&A footage before transitioning to some other film revision news, the CUTs series, and my experience with idea theft.
*Naturally, if you want to see the footage before Thanksgiving, you can purchase the Apple version of the movie now. This reflects the fact that digital releases of films now happen earlier than physical ones.
Table of Contents
PT&A’s Lost Luggage
The Lost Version
Before you continue, I highly recommend watching the following video by Joe Ramoni of Hats Off Entertainment, which discusses in depth how and why the picture evolved in the course of editing. As it makes clear, a LOT of footage was left on the cutting room floor and much of it hasn’t been seen by the general public.*
*Ramoni also provides a series of other videos about “Lost Versions.” I haven’t seen them all yet but I suggest checking it out the entire playlist.
What’s There
The first thing to note when you fire up the new deleted scenes is their quality. As the on-screen title card explains, the new material was sourced from VHS tapes “discovered in the archives of writer, producer, and director John Hughes,” and so is not presented in the high quality that the rest of the picture is.* But despite the relatively low video quality, unfinished post-production elements and the 4:3 aspect ratio of the sequences, the unearthed material here is completely watchable.
*Presumably then, the original celluloid film sources of the footage went missing or were destroyed after being transferred to video (the sole exception to this being the ‘food’ scene that was present on the previous HD releases).
It helps that Hughes’ movie isn’t heavy on audio-visual elements and instead is driven primarily by dialogue and characterization. All that remains intact here, with a lot more Neal and Del two-hander scenes. Some of the sequences, even though they are way more protracted than would work for the movie, have hilarious moments of comedy gold, such as when Del keeps asking Neal in the airplane about Hitchcock movies or the extended diner sequence, where Del tries to get out of paying, while inadvertently making Neal sick.
My favorite stuff though is in the first full Braidwood Inn sequence, where we see Del having an encounter with a really shady and unprofessional pizza delivery guy while Neale is taking a shower. Del - not undeservedly - ends up tipping him only one dollar for his services. This is why he and Neal are later robbed - the delivery guy comes back and breaks into their room in revenge.
In the final film, the thief has no dialogue and his break-in comes off as a random moment. Here, though, we have a lot more context, and the material with him - such as when he oggles Neal in the shower, believing him to be a woman - is amazing. The sequence also clarifies the ‘exploding beer cans’ that Neal and Del discuss later that night. Indeed, we see the beer cans blow up in their faces when they try to drink beer once Neal takes a bite of pizza.
What the “Lost Luggage” sequences as a whole tell me is that Hughes was very careful in the editing room to ensure that Del Griffith doesn’t come off as awful or unbearable. The released film walks a very fine line in that area, and some of the deleted material has Del doing stuff that is so uncomfortable that it would almost certainly have tipped audience empathy away from him had it remained in the movie.
Overall, I love the deleted scenes we get here, but you can absolutely see why they had to go. They highlight the fact that PT&A is a very narratively redundant film that could’ve easily been too long and thus too slow to work. Cutting down on the repetitiousness was necessary to make it succeed. (I’d say even the final cut is sometimes a tad protracted here and there but it’s very well paced overall.)
What’s Missing
What I am not happy about though is what isn’t here. For instance, I was really looking forward to seeing the longer trek of Neal and Del after they reconcile in the second motel room, somehow ending up in Wisconsin. At that point, Neal slugs Del off-screen for apparently refusing insurance on their burnt rental car, which reveals just why Del has a shiner on his right eye towards the end.
But more than that, I wanted to finally see the sequence where Del really opens up to Neal about what he means when he claims to not have a home, and reveals the contents of his never-opened trunk. Originally, we were going to learn that Del sold his home and largely has lived on the road, staying in motels and attaching himself to various strangers like Neal close to the holidays, following the death of his wife.*
*I’ve spoken about this in a post I wrote on Medium 2 years ago, where I argued that in the final cut Del most likely doesn’t have a home in a metaphorical, rather than literal sense. That is, he may have a physical place to live, but it is not a home for him without his wife.
Cutting the scene where Del reveals everything to Neal about his life and how he get to this point left things open to interpretation. This scene would be a truly revelatory sequence that changes the way one interprets Del’s life and the film’s ending, so its absence is quite disappointing. But in the end, what we do get is still worth the purchase. I’m hearing some folks are really negative about the lack of film grain in the 4k transfer of the movie, but it’s not something that I’ve found to be an issue.
Bottom line is: if you’re a fan of PT&A, I am sure you will get a kick out of this new (old) footage. It shows you what a different movie PT&A might’ve turned out to be with different editing. And who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if we get another reissue a few years down the line with these and other additional lost scenes.
Now then, I want to share some interesting little revision-related stories I’ve found here and there.
Some Variation News
Trier’s The Kingdom on MUBI:
Lars Von Trier’s famous 1990s TV (mini?)series The Kingdom I (1994) and The Kingdom II (1997) are now on MUBI, with the latter released today following the former’s premiere last week. Both are issued in anticipation of The Kingdom Exodus (2022), the long-awaited sequel, premiering next Sunday, November 27.*
* The Kingdom is a magnificent series that blends horror, black comedy, and arthouse cinema into a weird singular whole. I own both seasons/series on DVD and am looking forward to the release of Exodus. Their appearance on MUBI suggests the film-centric platform is now moving into the streaming business. But that’s a whole other story.
What I want to mention here is that when the announcement was initially made earlier this year, a lot of outlets reported that these would be “never-before-seen director’s cuts” of the first two seasons. Well, it seems the claim was somewhat misleading. Both seasons are presented in the forms of episodes and their running times seem to match up with those of the original episodes as presented on DVD.
MUBI, for its part, has referred to these as “newly restored, never-before-seen versions of Seasons 1 and 2,” and “restored and remastered,” which suggests that they may have only been modernized for contemporary high-definition viewing, rather than recut with never-before-seen footage. But I don’t know. I haven’t seen these iterations yet and I don’t know if I can find my old DVDs to do a comparison. It would be interesting if some visible editorial changes do, in fact, exist.
The fact is, the announcement made me hope we might get the theatrical cuts of the series that haven’t been available in years. But this is definitely not the case here.
Sources:
Early MUBI announcement tweet
The Kingdom I on MUBI
The Kingdom II on MUBI
The Kingdom Exodus on MUBI
The Ad Astra director’s cut campaign
I’ve learned of an interesting campaign for a director’s cut of Ad Astra, the 2019 Brad Pitt sci-fi film by James Gray. Reportedly, Gray did not have final cut when finishing the film, and would prefer a version that is 12 minutes shorter than the theatrical release, yet has more of actors Ruth Negga and Donald Sutherland.
Though I have not actually seen the movie, I do believe it should get a director’s cut in any case, so I recommend reading the whole thread:
The Muppets Christmas Carol:
A restored version of The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992, dir. Jerry Juhl), featuring a completed song that had been cut from initial releases, will be coming to Disney + on December 11, and will apparently show up in UK movie theaters for a re-release.
Sources:
CUTs and Imitations
You might’ve noticed that the CUTs series is currently on sabbatical.
This is happening as I’m looking into making some needed revisions to an early published issue and tuning up later issues prior to publication. Don’t get me wrong. I love the CUTs series and I have a lot more to share from it. But it takes time to get those posts right and I think I might’ve rushed some a little to get them out there.
When exactly will I resume CUTs? Not sure, but it could be as early as mid-December.
Now, I want to talk about something a little different. September was a slightly less productive month than what’s come before and after, and saw a change in the publishing schedule. This was an unfortunate side effect of multiple unexpected events happening throughout that prevented me from finishing some planned pieces.
Perhaps the most unexpected one was my encounter with an act of what I’d refer to as ‘idea plagiarism.’ Basically, I discovered that a couple of months after a certain film revision article went up about a year ago, someone at a reputable film blog had essentially created a copy of it. The thing is, the author didn’t directly copy my article text but instead copied the sources and quotes I was using to arrive at essentially the same conclusions as I did. The author’s piece never references or credits my article, despite using the exact quotes, down to their format!
I must assume that at least some of my potential site traffic might’ve been siphoned by this, as my article only recently started to bring in better google numbers, so it was likely not ranked very highly. I tried emailing the site about this, but received no response. I got angry, and started to tweet about it. But after thinking some more, I decided not to make a huge stink out of it on social media.
Because, quite simply, I don’t want to raise any controversy or get into a public spat about things with said film blog or its author. Besides, this thing isn’t big enough to break me or the site. And as someone pointed out to me, I should see this as a sign that I’m doing something well, something worthy of imitation, something original.
Any other Substack authors have this experience? If so, please share your thoughts!