Alien 3: 2003 Special Edition

[AngusJS]

The Aliens special edition was marred by the inclusion of an unneeded scene as well. In the original, there is no contact with the aliens after the 1st battle (besides the facehuggers in the medlab) until the interrogation of Burke, when they suddenly cut the power. The surprise and resulting tension work magnificently.

The special edition includes a scene where the survivors remotely monitor some automatic security guns that they've set up outside their barricade. The aliens attack the guns but are beaten back, and everyone goes back to their business as if nothing happened. There is no more action until the medlab scene. This really reduced the impact of the aliens' final assault on the the command center - instead of it feeling like "oh crap, they're here", after the absence of any adult aliens for the entire second act, it's now more like "oh, so they're attacking again," as we knew they had already made their way from the power plant to the command center. The editors were right to leave this on the cutting room floor.

[Dowly]

I liked the sentry gun scene, always wondered where did they came up with them to the AvP games.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by AngusJS

The editors were right to leave this on the cutting room floor.

Its almost always the case.
Theatrical versions always flow better than the so called "extended editions".

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by goldorak

Its almost always the case.
Theatrical versions always flow better than the so called "extended editions".

Not true. Often the theatrical releases are crippled versions against the will of the director, because producers fear the audience is too dumb to understand them, bringing revenues down. And this dumb version then is what fails to impress the crowds. "Kingdom of Heaven" on my mind as a very prominent example. Theatre version: bad; extended version: benchmark movie. Dirctor's Cut of Blade Runner sees the film being even shorter than the theatre release, and cutting the end scenes that against the director's will had been introduced to the theatre version to make the movie more digestable for the stupid crowd (it is footage Scott got from Kubrick, from Shining).

Regarding Alien, there was "Alien, and "Aliens" - and then nothing anymore. Third and fourth part simply were extremely bad movies.

[Torplexed]

I remember Alien 3 being something of a downer as they killed off all the fun character from Aliens like Lieutenant Hicks and pretty much threw the android Bishop on the scrap pile. ( I guess Aliens director James Cameron was a bit annoyed about that too as the original script kept Hicks alive) Charles Dance's doctor character introduced in Alien3 was cool too, and they wasted no time killing him off early as well. Plus, I wondered why this prison in the ass end of space was so heavily populated by people with British accents.

I guess I'll have to check out this extended version. I always thought the accidental fire scene seemed a bit odd and abbreviated.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Not true. Often the theatrical releases are crippled versions against the will of the director, because producers fear the audience is too dumb to understand them, bringing revenues down. And this dumb version then is what fails to impress the crowds. "Kingdom of Heaven" on my mind as a very prominent example. Theatre version: bad; extended version: benchmark movie. Dirctor's Cut of Blade Runner sees the film being even shorter than the theatre release, and cutting the end scenes that against the director's will had been introduced to the theatre version to make the movie more digestable for the stupid crowd (it is footage Scott got from Kubrick, from Shining).

Regarding Alien, there was "Alien, and "Aliens" - and then nothing anymore. Third and fourth part simply were extremely bad movies.

Hey Skybird thats why I said "ALMOST ALWAYS".
There are exceptions to this rule, and as you note I agree with you on the fact that Kingdom of Heaven in its 3+ hour original length is the correct version. To be honest, some cinemas in europe actually projected the whole film instead of the canonical 2 hours.

Also lets not forget 2 points : one is the director eliminating footage because its bad and would ruin the film independantly of the length of the movie. And in this case the director is always correct, so when we see reinstated footage that should have been on the cutting floor we are seeing nothing more than a marketing edition and most of the time the extended version will be bad.
The other issue is of course the fact that some directors comply with this stupid 2 hour rule so they have or are obliged to leave on the cutting florr footage that actually is part of the movie (and isn't bad footage in any case). So when you see the extended edition you're actually seeing the whole damn film. Now mind you, in europe cinemas and people are not so obsessed with this 2 hours rule as americans are. So we get to see movies for the most part unaltered in length, although most cinemas yes tend to impose a stupid 2 hours screen time to maximize the number of viewings per day.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Regarding Alien, there was "Alien, and "Aliens" - and then nothing anymore. Third and fourth part simply were extremely bad movies.

Oh come on! Alien and Alien 3 are basically the same movie, except Alien 3 is better.

@Torplexed

No, you dont want to see the extended thing. The "action" in the fire scene is just people running around screaming. The original cut in that scene is much better, trust me.

And yes, I must agree, I didnt like A3 when I first saw it, because Hicks died, he was much more interesting than Ripley.

I'm glad that the director of the A3 washed his hands off the SE version and refused to have anything to do with it. Atleast he knew it would suck.

[Blacklight]

Originally Posted by goldorak
Its almost always the case.
Theatrical versions always flow better than the so called "extended editions".

I would say that the director's cut of Daredevil was actually a saving grace for that film and it actually made it a LOT better and made the plotline flow so much nicer. It was actually a decent movie.
In the theaters, they cut out almost EVERYTHING relating to the pretty much essential (in my opinion) side plot, making the theatrical release a crappy mish mash that half the time, didn't make sense. If they had released the director's cut with the extra footage in it, to the theaters instead of the version they DID release, Daredevil wouldn't have been crucified HALF as much as it was. I have no idea why they chopped out everything that had to do with the side plot that made EVERYTHING make sense.