From: boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com (The Man from Another Place)
Subject: Re: With cuts restored:  The Frankenstein Academy of Film.
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 09:31:01 GMT

In article <11AUG199213411558@portal.lasc.lockheed.com>, le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025)) writes...

} Close Encounters of the Three-and-a-third kind

} I liked the original version better.

So did I.

} Tighter movie, and it wasn't about WHAT the visitors looked like, so
} much as the journey/discovery, so the extra footage about the inside
} of the alien craft was totally out of character IMHO.

Spielberg would agree with you. His concept of what the the movie was
about didn't change from the original to the Special Edition. As he
himself explained in the supplements to the Criterion Collection CAV
laserdisc, Columbia decided to move up the release date on the film
by seven weeks, and so he had that much less time to play with the
editing to get a film he was satisfied with. While he thought the
original release was a good film, it still wasn't quite what he wanted.

He convinced Columbia to let him do a recut and re-release, but in
order to get that agreement, as well as the money to work on the recut,
he had to agree in turn to shoot some new footage of the inside of
the mothership. Spielberg never wanted that scene in there, but it
was the price he had to pay to get the recut.

} Dances with Wolves

} I guess everyone knows that this movie reportedly had 45 minutes
} additional footage cut out. And then Kevin Cosner (sp?) said that
} he would restore them when the video came out, but didn't.

Apparently, you don't know the full story.

DANCES was released a year ago on video. The plan at that time was to
release the original theatrical version on video in August, and then
a special version (with the additional footage) at Christmastime. In
between, CBS negotiated rights to broadcast the longer version as a
mini-series, so the video release had to be put on hold until after
CBS shows it (I haven't heard anything about when they plan to do
this; most likely it'll be during the November or February sweeps).

In the meantime, the longer version *has* been released theatrically
in (at least) Europe and Australia. Most of the comments I've seen
about it (here on the net) have been positive.

Along the same lines, Bertolucci added in another hour's worth of
footage to THE LAST EMPEROR. As I understand it, the extra footage
was shot specifically to create a mini-series version. I haven't
heard of this longer version being shown anywhere, though it is
available in Japan on laserdisc (I have a copy of it). The extra
footage doesn't *significantly* improve the film, but I think it
does make a good film better. It's also worth noting that while
this hour's worth of footage was added, the Japanese company that
released the disc trimmed some other footage to downplay the Japanese
atrocities in Manchuria. To be honest, though, I couldn't tell where
any of these trims were made.

-- 

	"She's my radiation baby.
	 She's my teenage fallout girl."

--- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA)

    boyajian@ruby.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies