The other day I went and saw Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith while waiting for crappy tire to switch a wheel for me (I couldn't get it off myself). Overall, a pretty good movie. Lots of action, lots of lightsabers, lots of great special effects. The thing that I liked best about it? How it tied everything together. Now it makes sense how and why Anakin fell from grace. The whole story line feels so complete now, it's great.
What didn't I like? Well, there were many times were it didn't flow as well as it should of. I kept on thinking "oh, they cut out another scene there". Hopefully when it comes out on dvd they will all the scenes that they cut out and it'll be a smoother film.
Another wonderful thing? Jar-Jar didn't speak. ;-)
Sometimes I think they leave stuff out just to sell more DVDs. It's not like they really have a time limit. Are theatres not going to show it because it's too long? Do the directors not realize till after its in theatres that they forgot entire scenes? Maybe they just think our attention spans aren't long enough to sit through it all. Maybe they should only show certain sceness in the Theatre. It would give me more incentive to go. Why should I pay $10 to see a movie when I can rent it for $3, and actually get to see the entire movie.
ReplyDeleteI don't think they cut out the scenes just to sell DVDs. I was watching "National Treasure" and the original footage was about 4 hours, and they cut it down to 2. I guess Star Wars was probably 3 hours long. With all additional footage it would be probably 5 hours or more. Anyway, they were editing out the scenes even before DVDs were invented, and they were not adding it on VHS, so why would they do it then?
ReplyDeleteI realize that they have to make some sacrifices when making movies and cut some scenes, otherwise, they'd all end up like The 10th Kingdom (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0207275/). But the cuts shouldn't detract from the actual story line. In the end, you shouldn't be able to tell that parts of the story were missing.
ReplyDeleteBefore DVD, they had to cut out scenes to make movies fit on a single tape. Putting a movie on 2 tapes was very uncommon, and annoying, because you had to switch the tape. Not too many dual head VCRs. With DVDs, you can fit a longer movies on a disc. Also, when scenes are cut, they usually aren't fully filled in with sound and visual effects. The extra scenes that come with most DVDs are fully production ready, and are clearly in there to make the DVD more appealing.
I don't think that's the way it went. I think that movie makers are trying to tell a story and try and tell it in a timely matter. It's entertainment, so they usually try and make it 2-3 hours long. Some directors (Lucas) always aim for the 2 hour mark.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that VHS tapes were designed around the fact the moves are 2-3 hours, not the other way around. And I always thought that the number of "heads" of a VCR determined the times the tape was sampled, not how many tapes you could put in. (I remember a 4 head VCR that only played one tape at a time.)
I think before dvd, directors could never show the extra scenes that they loved but had to cut out. If you can't show them, why bother to polish them up?
Now with DVD they have a chance to show the world. If they put a ton of work into making the movie, I doubt that they would do a half-sassed job of the extra scenes. That's probably why they are so fixed up. I feel it's the directors taking advantage of the medium, not trying to make a couple of extra bucks.
For the most part, I think that the people who would buy the dvd because of the extra scenes would do so whether they were fully production ready or not. I'm not saying that it's not a plus, but I don't know if the movie makers actually make their money back in increased sales with the "finished" versions of the cut scenes.
That dual head thing caused a bit of confusion. I was referring to slots where you put the tapes, not the read heads inside the VCR. I'm not sure what you're supposed to call them. Maybe decks, like those old dual-deck cassette players.
ReplyDeleteI think that film, and movies are an art form. It is not merely entertainment, at least not in its pure form. What the director should be trying to do, is to make the movie as good as possible. Cutting out important scenes, only to put them in later to meet some time limit or release date shows that they don't really care how well the movie turns out. Also, selling 2 versions of the movie, 1 with extra scenes, and 1 without extra scenes shows that the only reason that the scenes are in there, is so that they can charge more. If it wasn't, they would be released on the same DVD, with 2 play options, play normal version, and play extended version.