Brevity is the soul of...

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2001)

The shorter version is better. The French plantation is ridiculously, jarringly out of place, and the "love" scene there is as gratuitous as something out of "Pearl Harbor". The extra Bunny scenes, the Slapstick Fighting scenes, none of these belong in this movie. Most of the added scenes have a lower artistic quality to them, like things just weren't clicking on the days they were shot.
The original was completed in a hurry. For a movie with a magical quality like Apocalypse Now, maybe it was better not to have too much time to think about things. Maybe being under pressure helped them to capture a purer artistic vision.
However, there were many clips added which did enhance the movie and were of high artistic quality. Even in some of the added parts which I didn't like, there were some mystically beautiful scenes. And it's true, the added parts filled out the characters, especially Captain Willard. The extra scenes of L.T. Kilgore were enjoyable.
One thing that was taken out but should have been lift in - the air strike ending with Jimi Hendrix' Woodstock version of the national anthem. It tied in nicely with Kurtz' comment "Drop the bomb, exterminate them all!" scrawled on one of his reports, and with some of Dennis Hopper's comments about The Man and His Children. A fiery ending is so much more satisfying in these circumstances.