Yup.
40:40
60:60
80:80
100:100
Another easy one, but that 100:100 was too good not to pick it.
The conch is yours, Mr Coffee.
Someday that Roger Deakins is going to learn how to light a scene decently, and when he does I predict great things. We’ll hear from that kid…and I don’t mean a postcard.
-xtien
Yep, it’s actually from the director’s cut.
40:40
60:60
80:80 I love this one
Well that’s great, MrCoffee. Why don’t you put Nikolaj in charge?
So I hate to be that guy, but in this case, I think it’s an important distinction to point out that version of Aliens is instead called a “special edition”.
I suspect there are varying accounts of how Cameron or the studio feels about the theatrical release, but the 17 minutes added into the “special edition” aren’t necessarily the director’s choice. Or at any rate, they aren’t technically labeled as such. I feel, and certainly Cameron and 20th Century Fox agreed, that the movie plays very differently when it shows the events at the colony before the Marines arrive. To my mind, it makes Aliens a much weaker movie in terms of dramatic tension. Calling the special edition a “director’s cut” implies that Cameron disagrees with me. :)
That said, who doesn’t love the sentry gun sequence? What bonehead decided to cut that scene?
-Tom
This. I freaking hate what this cut does to the dramatic tension of the movie.
-xtien
“Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”
From what I’ve read over the years, the SE version was essentially the cut Cameron delivered to Fox, and he stated later that this was the version he intended audiences to see (marketing-speak notwithstanding). It’s not clear whose decision it was to cut what, but apparently the Hadley’s Hope intro cut was Fox’s suggestion. As you point out, that was the right choice. As much as we all loved seeing that when the first SE was released, on reflection it removes much of the tension as the marines enter the colony. You know for sure it wasn’t a “downed transmitter”, and you even know that Burke was complicit. That’s frustrating for the audience, because you’re supposed to be along for the ride with the marines, yet you already know more about Burke than they do. There are a few other unnecessary restored cuts in the SE, but I think overall it’s the better version, though if I was showing it to someone for the first time I might go with the original.
Also, that was the first still for ages that I’ve actually known immediately. Too slow. :)
Nikolaj
1634
Sorry guys, I’ve had a really busy couple of days. I promise I’ll have the next one up tomorrow.
And I love that 80:80 Bill Paxton shot, too, btw. He’s so great in that movie, and that shot really captures his mood towards the end of the movie.
I’m just going off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure Cameron is on record as preferring a cut of the film with the Hadley’s Hope stuff. I have enormous respect for him but (if I do not misremember) I think he is dead wrong in this respect. All you get out of it that has value is a nice match cut between a facehugger and Ripley’s cigarette-holding hand. Gale Anne Hurd spoke at USC when I was a student there and, again if memory doesn’t fail, I think she said it was her suggestion to cut out the big chunk of LV-426 stuff rather than shave away at lots of scenes in order to reach the necessary length for distribution.
In the early '90s there was a televised cut that was longer than the theatrical release but shorter than the extended version. I think it had the Ripley’s Daughter scene, and the Sentry Gun stuff, but not Hadley’s Hope. I think.
My personal cut of the movie would leave in Ripley’s daughter, remove Hadley’s Hope, and I don’t have strong feelings about the sentry guns, Paxton’s “ultimate badass” monologue (probably a bit too comical even for him), or the bit where Hicks and Ripley exchange first names.
Sorry for contributing to a derail…
The only thing you should apologize for is the apology. This is a great post. As per.
-xtien
“Not bad for a human.”
sinnick
1637
Okay, look. What if this derail didn’t even exist? Did you ever think about that, I didn’t know! So now, if I went and made a major security situation out of it, everybody steps in, administration steps in, and there’s no exclusive rights for anybody, nobody wins, so I made a decision, and it was… wrong, it was a bad call, Gordon, It was a bad call.
aeneas
1638
I suspect that the sooner Nikolaj can get a 20 up the better it will be for all of us, cause it’ll be dark soon, and they mostly come at night…
omg it’s a mirage
I’m tellin’ y’all it’s nikolaj!
I knew it was Aliens, too. I just didn’t want to be the jerk who says Aliens right after he said Alien. Like those people that bid a dollar higher on The Price Is Right.
I knew it was Aliens a minute before Mike did.
-xtien
