Director's Cut: a little less powerful

Rating: 8/10 (11 February 2005)

I loved the original, so I snapped up the director's cut DVD when it came out.
I have to say that, although some bits of it were interesting, in most respects the original was more powerful.
** possible spoilers ahead ** The DC integrates some deleted scenes, some musical changes and some new visual effects, including pages from the "time travel book".
The deleted scenes are OK, but frankly not especially noticeable, and certainly don't change anything of significance. In this case, it seems most of the deletions were good editing choices in the original.
The added visual effects mainly consist of some computer generated 2d images of some kind of computer or visual interface which is meant to be in control of what is happening. The graphics ranged from mildly interesting (an eye, waves) to extremely cheesy (flashing English words!). In particular, the "purge" sequence seems totally inappropriate and low-tech. Seeing an English word on a fairly basic looking windows-like interface... that's not exactly what you'd expect from some kind of higher being(s) modifying the universe! I listened to the director's explanation of the graphics and his ideas for the science-fiction element, and I came to the conclusion that there was a certain amount of luck in the original edit managing to reveal just enough; once you heard it explained it really wasn't as interesting as you might imagine. For instance, the idea of God actually being involved is fairly clearly stamped out by the technological flavour.
The musical changes were fine with me. The opening song (INXS, Never Tear Us Apart), I liked. I thought that fitted just as well or better than the original choice.
Selected pages of the time travel book mentioned in the original are shown in full, overlaid/interwoven with other scenes. These were mildly interesting, but seemed quite intrusive to me. They were clearly just added over top and didn't need to be there. They also seemed a little simplistic or matter-of-fact for what seems quite a mind-bending story.
Generally, I prefer director's cuts (ex: Bladerunner, LOTR) but not in this case. Stick with the original. This is only really worthwhile for completeness.