A near masterpiece, with my original theater viewing being one of the two greatest film experiences of my life

Rating: 10/10 (24 December 2018)

When I originally saw this in '98 the first week it was out, I knew nothing about what to expect. As chance would have it, I was late to the theater and didn't get into the auditorium until just as we're moving in on the giant clock. I did not hear the opening studio-imposed narration or see anything prior to that clock. This not-quite-actually-existent version of the film I'd rate as unquestionably up there among the greatest films of all time. It was such a profound experience that for many years I refused to watch it on a smaller screen in digital and only finally did so on a top-of-the-line setup I knew was capable of actually some semblance of the dynamic range Proyas intended. That's a long time with only a memory of a single film viewing. I've heard people having that sort of inability to bring themselves to watch Lawrence of Arabia on anything but 70mm projection. Dark City was sort of my Lawrence of Arabia. These subsequent much later viewings of Dark City, though not quite up to the film viewing, surprisingly had a similar emotional impact on me as the original. There is only one other film that had such an effect on me on the big screen that I hesitated to see it on the small screen later, but that one I still refuse to re-watch.
However, the director's cut of Dark City adds too much footage beyond just getting rid of that idiotic opening spoiler. The extended row boat scene now is far too long and spoils even more than the original opening did. The ultimate reveal is later.
The theatrical cut's efficiency in editing also worked slightly better than what people are now calling the "slow burn" of the extended takes and painstaking match-cuts in the director's version. Some of the extended takes and improved match-cuts do add some lucidity to it, are appreciated, and aren't harmful, but clearly the rhythm and flow of the theatrical cut was not hampered by these differences beyond the opening studio-imposed spoiler.
My recommendation: watch the theatrical version the first time but skip to the clock. Start after the clock if you have to with everything muted and then rewind to the clock, unpause, and unmute.
This film is begging for a new >4k re-telecine because the original telecine to digital was not great and the later 2k transfer for the director's cut only did the additional footage and didn't redo the original theatrical footage. Neither is up to modern standards now, but the theatrical transfer, in particular, has not aged well side-by-side on the bluray. Probably they need to go back to the original negatives, effects plates, and redo all the opticals digitally as was done on Aliens and Bladerunner. The first run prints of Dark City were unbelievably gorgeous like you cannot believe, with color and contrasts that I have never seen matched in any film before or since.