Superman II

In 1977, director Richard Donner planned on shooting his epic Superman adaptation in two parts. Production got backed up and Donner was forced to postpone finishing photography on ‘Superman II’ in order to get ‘Superman’ into theaters. After ‘Superman’ was released it was assumed that Donner would go back to finishing photography on the sequel, however a series of unfortunate events led to Donner’s replacement as director. One of these events was the excising of Marlon Brando from the sequel. The producers, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, felt that paying Brando 11.75% of the gross U.S. box office earnings was not in their favor.

The tensions between Donner and the producers were already high during the initial filming but Donner’s reluctance to concede to their demands pushed matters over the edge. On March 15th, 1979 the Salkinds replaced Donner with Richard Lester who had served as a go-between for Donner and the Salkinds during the first ‘Superman’ shoot. Lester had to have 51% of his own footage in ‘Superman II’ for him to get credit as a director and from this stipulation a majority of the film was re-written and re-shot with the end result being a hybrid of both Donner and Lester’s footage.

As a result of fan pressure late 2005 Richard Donner began work on his restoration of ‘Superman II’. Released in 2006, the new cut contained approximately 83% of Donner’s footage. Among the wealth of new material was the reinsertion of the scenes featuring Marlo Brando as Jor-El condemning General Zod and his minions to the Phantom Zone along with the nuclear explosion that breaks the Kryptonian villians out of the Phantom Zone, extended scenes of Zod terrorizing the White House and Lois firing a gun on Clark to prove he is Superman. Fortunately the scene were Superman throws his “S” at Non is absent from this cut.

Payback

Based on the novel The Hunter, ‘Payback’ shares the same source material as the 1967 noir-classic ‘Point Blank’. In 1999, the theatrical release of ‘Payback’ was not the version first time director Brian Helgeland had in mind. Initially deemed too dark for the mainstream, the film went through rewrites and 10 days of reshooting under uncredited director Paul Abascal’s eye. The idea was to make Porter’s character more relatable and human, remove the notions of spousal abuse and beef up the third act. Among the changes to the theatrical cut were a new voice-over for the opening scene along with Kris Kristofferson taking over as the new villian.

Helgeland’s original vision was able to see the light of day with the release of ‘Straight Up: The Director’s Cut’ in 2007. The new cut features a female villian who is never seen rather than Kristofferson, the torture scene with Bronson (Kristofferson) is not present, the opening scene voice-over has been removed and the blue tint present throughout the entire film is replaced with hyper-saturation. Helgeland’s cut also features an entirely new, if not ambiguous, ending.

Blade Runner

The granddaddy of recuts had a tough time finding his true form with five different versions seeing the light of day. ‘Blade Runner’ follows the same pattern of studio intervention as the rest of the movies on this list with director Ridley Scott having to battle unnecessary changes and additions to his adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s source material.

Workprint Version

Initially shown to audiences in Denver and Dallas in March of 1982 the workprint version garnered negative responses and was the catalyst to the studio’s modification of the film that lead to the eventual theatrical cut of the movie. This cut featured no voice-over, “unicorn vision” or “happy ending”. There is no opening crawl but rather a static screen of text with the definition of “replicant”.

U.S. Theatrical Release

Released in 1982, the American release of ‘Blade Runner’ featured the infamous voice-over narration and “happy ending” that consisted of left over aerial shots from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’.

International Release (”Criterion Edition”)

The international cut is very similar to the U.S. theatrical release but contains more violent footage. When Batty confronts Tyrell he pokes his eyes out in addition to crushing his skull. The fight between Pris and Deckard was altered and in the final fight between Batty and Deckard, Batty intentionally pushes a nail through his hand.

Director’s Cut

In 1990, Warner Bros. showed the workprint version of the film to audiences in Los Angeles and San Francisco under the guise of it being a “director’s cut”. Scott publicly refuted this cut, citing rough editing and an incomplete score.

Following the workprint screening debacle and coinciding with the upcoming 10th anniversary of ‘Blade Runner’ Warner Bros. decided to let Scott make his director’s cut in 1992. The cut features the removal of the voice-overs as well as the “happy ending” and the re-insertion of the unicorn dream sequence. This version however did not include much of the violence present in the international version.

Unfortunately due to time constraints and his obligations to ‘Thelma & Louis’ Scott was still unsatisfied with the end result.

The Final Cut

In 2007, only 25 years after the original was released, Ridley Scott’s original vision of ‘Blade Runner’ had come to fruition. The cut was screened in theaters across  the U.S. and was part of the multi-disc box set released in 2007.

Among the many small changes are the removal of the cables used to lift the police spinner, altering the color timing to give the film a more greenish tint and dialogue additions and changes. The removal of voice-over narration and happy ending mirrors that of the director’s cut. Larger changes include restoration of the full-length unicorn dream sequence with Deckard shown to be awake rather than asleep, reinsertion of the violent scenes present in the international version, superimposition of Joanna Cassidy’s face over the stunt double during Deckard’s pursuit of Zhora and the dove at the end flying up to a dark sky rather than a blue one.

Honorable Mentions

The Mist

Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novella is already a great horror/suspense movie that features one of the best endings in recent cinema. Originally Darabont wanted the film to be printed in black and white, however the studio didn’t feel that it would appeal to mass audience. The Two-Disc Collector’s Edition of the film features a copy of the film in black and white as originally intended. The absence of color adds a lot to the film, especially to the CGI which looks much, much better.

The Phantom Edit

While we can’t go back in time to stop George Lucas from creating the travesty that was Episode I, we can at least edit out the unbearable parts. Created by “The Phantom Editor”, a.k.a. Mike J. Nichols, the edit comes in 20 minutes shorter than the original but oh what a difference it makes. Unnecessary exposition and redundancy, most of Jar Jar’s scene and Anakin’s “yippie” and “oops” dialogues have either been completely removed or heavily edited. It’s certainly worth a look if you’re looking for a way to breathe life into the new trilogy.

Léon

With approximately 23 minutes of additional footage, the bulk of which appears in the second act focusing on the developing relationship between Mathilda and Léon, the director’s cut of ‘Léon’ doesn’t dramatically change the quality of the movie but does add a lot to it. Among the new footage is Mathilda trying to get Léon to admit he loves her by playing Russian roulette, Mathilda openly asking Léon to be her first lover and Léon teaching Mathilda the “ring trick” which involves breaking the chain after people open their doors.

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