Everybody knows movie studios exist only to make a profit. Unfortunately, directorial creativity is often times not in line with what a studio sees as a big money maker and since studios, more often than not, have say in the final cut of the movie, a lot of ingenuity gets scrapped in favor of playing it safe. Fortunately for us we live in an era where home video formats are prominent enough to enable more than one release of a movie. Granted, most of the unrated or director’s cuts released are quick money grabs adding in only a few extra scenes most of which don’t help the movie or make it differ much from the original release. But once in a while a director’s cut is released that was given proper time and attention, falls more in line with what the director had originally intended and warrants a second chance.
Daredevil
With misguided direction, an inane script and the bloated inclusion of Elektra the theatrical release of ‘Daredevil’ was lackluster at best. Fortunately for us, a lot of these faults were rectified with the director’s cut which tacks on another 30 minutes onto the running time.
The first thing to notice is this cut’s loyalty to Frank Miller’s comic. The origin story is much more fleshed out and a better sense of the relationship between Matt and his father is shown. We also see a lot of little back stories that were glossed over in the original cut. The struggles Matt has in dealing with his Catholic upbringing along with a clearer depiction of his abilities and the psychological toils that come with having super-senses.
The fighting, especially at the end with Bulls-Eye and Kingpin is a lot bloodier and more intense, which fits in with the overall mood of the cut which in turn has been bumped up to an R-rating. Elektra wasn’t a terrible character, but her inclusion did detract from Daredevil’s story in the original and has been stripped down for this cut. This allows the story to be more dark origin and less romantic action.
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The Departed
and if history repeats itself they will be mentally neutered features. These film makers will look at the “bad ass” stuff of the original and try to replicate it despite not having a clue about what actually makes the story tick.
Movies like ‘Star Trek’ have proven that when done right, rebooting a franchise can attract a new audience while simultaneously reinvigorating established fans (at least most of them). It wasn’t until I started looking for franchises that needed the on-off switch that I realized how many are already being done and how many are hanging in pre-production limbo. Here’s eight that should hit the fast track into production.
I’ve heard the term ‘remake’ for as long as I have been watching movies. It usually comes out in discussions as “did you hear they’re remaking [old movie]?”, followed by a groan of discontent by those listening. One would think that with all the complaining and generally negative criticisms people give to remakes that movie studios would get the hint and stop making them. However, remakes and reboots aren’t always terrible and often times breathe life into dead stories and franchises, as we saw this May with ‘Star Trek’. Rarely do I hear people say a movie is being ‘reimagined’ usually it gets tossed in under the ‘remake’ category and it wasn’t until this past year that the term ‘reboot’ became the pop word for dead franchises. So what exactly is the difference between the three terms?
