Via Pajiba:
One thing I feel needs mentioning: this is not Martin Campbell’s cut of the film, but the studio’s. I live in New Orleans where it was shot, I read the shooting script, all of which was painstakingly filmed with intense research, and all of that was left on the cutting room floor — a sort of combination of what happened to Daredevil and Watchmen, respectively — character development sacrificed for CG, scenes made irrelevant by removing their setup. The movie in the theater starts with an explanation of mythos that is made redundant by the more natural, scripted questions from Hal when he gets the ring. Ten minutes of childhood Hal, Carol, and Hector that sets up Hal’s first ring construct is reduced to an awkwardly placed flashback in the middle of another scene. The training with the ring is almost completely excised except for one minor scene. Most appallingly, the ending completely deletes the fact that Kilowog, Sinestro, and Toma-Re arrive at the end and help Hal defeat Parallax. Not to mention Parallax was supposed to be a 3rd act reveal after we spend the film worried about Hammond going evil, not the main villain for the entire film. I sincerely hope we get a director’s cut or at least all the deleted scenes on the video release.
Is it just me, or do those studio changes seem responsible for a lot of what wasn’t good about the movie? This sort of makes it sound like Green Lantern got the Kingdom of Heaven treatment: reasonably decent film cut down by studio into crap-burger.
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So was this stuff just filmed or fully completed and then cut? If Daredevil could get a Director’s Cut, there’s still hope, but it would have to be done. I doubt they’d spend too much extra on it.
I agree the Daredevil Director’s cut IS better. There’s actual narrative tieing the movie together. There’s a fan edit floating around that does an even better job.
Maybe if there isn’t a directors cut, if the deleted scenes show up on the DVD someone will cut together a ‘script edit’ for an unoffical release.
Could be spin control, it could be the cut scenes were awkward, dull, slowed the movie down or just didn’t work.
I’ve seen a few films where the deleted scenes might have saved it (the Ramen Girl comes to mind) but I wouldn’t pin too many hopes on it.
I wonder how many of the scenes were dropped because their FX were too costly or not completed?
But yah, I definetly had the feeling there were some narrative holes in the film.
A studio sanctioned butchering would go a long way to explaining that feeling.
I thought the Daredevil Director’s Cut made a whole lot more sense than the theatrical cut, but is even more of a chore to actually watch.
Of course, I don’t think that a Director’s Cut from a director as good as Campbell would have that problem, so it would be interesting to see it if he did one.
I can’t see a ten minute flashback improving the film…
This is why I rarely blame directors for the crap quality of films.
Take a look at Cool World sometime. It was originally supposed to be about a guy who’s half-toon and half-human wreaking havoc in the real world. But then the producer got a hold of it and envisioned something entirely different. The result is the schlock that got retched onto celluloid.
Certainly seems like a possibility, though I would hazard that the effects-heavy script combined with the (relatively) modest blockbuster budget probably played a role too.
Really, Warner seems to have no coherent plan for their DC licenses. Marvel Studios, on the other hand, does, and I think Warner badly wants to emulate them but can’t get is act together enough to do so. The biggest example is the way this movie shoehorned in Amanda Waller’s character. They were clearly trying to make her into a sort of Nick Fury stand-in.
Aw, I liked Kingdom of Heaven. There was a leper! A good guy leper. Lepers always get a bad rap.
“The movie in the theater starts with an explanation of mythos that is made redundant by the more natural, scripted questions from Hal when he gets the ring”
Those fuckers, they Dark City’d it
The film did seem to be quite choppy. Part of it was likely to get it down to just under 2 hours to get more screenings in. It did seem enjoyable enough, but I would like to see a version closer to the original intent, since there seemed to be a lot just sort of glossed over. (The mid-credits reveal, while expected, wasn’t properly built up). The whole pre-film naration also works against any potential Manhunter involvement in the future. If it came from the Guardians/GLs etc through the later exposition than it’s easy to backtrack it, since it’s not coming from an omniscient narator who you assume tells you the truth. The ‘theme’ of living in the shadow of your father was either just an artifact of basing the script from Secret Origins, or is missing quite a few scenes to make it seem relevant. It was sort of hammered in with Hal, but much less so with Carol or Hammond. Speaking of which, Hector was just dropped into the movie and it took them a while to establish that he had any connection to anyone you had seen before.
A lot of superhero origin movies are going to be slow paced and take a while to get to the “good stuff”, and may suffer from introducing villains very late into the movie. It does seem that the studio editted it down to try to ‘skip ahead to the good parts’, and increase the number of times it can be shown per day, but ended up making it a confusing mess for most. I probably only enjoyed it since I know enough about the story it was adapted from that I could fill in the blanks.
It does end up with a weird situation where some stuff assumes the audience is stupid (the narration to deliver very explicit information that the audience would be given later anyone) wihle other stuff is cut back so much that it’s too subtle to even be considered subtext. (The ‘descent’ of Sinestro, if that’s even supposed to be in there, takes place mostly off camera … it looks like he, like Hal, overcomes his fear, but apparently he doesn’t for the sake of a sequel bait).
Brendan – see, I’m not convinced Marvel’s through things through properly. The second that The Avengers ends, it’s going to be odd to see Iron Man fighting enemies solo when the rest of The Avengers are around.
In the comics you can rationalise it given that everyone has adventures going on at the same time, but film-wise you’ll have at least a year between these flicks.
re studio editing: In the words of Samuel Z. Arkoff (he of AIP), “I may not be able to make a picture better by cutting it, but I sure can make it shorter!”
I’m guessing edits were made to fit the film in a pre-set running time in order to get an extra screening in each day.
ugh!
i hate when studios do crap like that
I know they wanted to try to fit everything in to one movie, but I almost wish they hadn’t had the Corps in this one. Maybe in flashback, as the ring itself fills Hal in on the basics.
I think this would have been a much better movie if they had Hal entirely on Earth, fighting Hector Hammond, then have Sinestro and Tomar Re show up at the end to bring him to Oa. Maybe have the last 10-15 minutes be Hal meeting the rest of the Corps. Then you start the second movie with Hal’s training on Oa. They could have had the Manhunters as the villains in the second one, with Sinestro possibly betraying the Corps during the battle and being exiled (big Hal/Sinestro fight in the 3rd act). Movie #3 is the Sinestro Corps and Parallax.
KILL IT WITH FIRE
Would it have killed you to include a spoiler warning? Or at least mention the title of the film you are giving away the plot to? Or at least wait until it’s been out a week?
I really expect better of this site.
Please, let´s spread this link all over the net & start a petition for a Director´s cut.
I was thinking that it felt edited to death. And that sequel set up scene could make a /lot/ more sense if it were differently placed. Maybe he’s thinking they need the extra power and then decides, no, we can do this…. Something something.
The pacing is what threw me off. I have no problem with a superhero being 105 minutes like this regardless of the tendency to make them over two hours nowadays as long as they do it right. They didn’t. I knew the time going in, and I thought things were JUST starting to build to an eventual climax when I checked my watch and saw that we had ten minutes left. The film was kind of slow-paced up to that point, and the ending felt both rushed and forced. I feel they should have either made it faster-paced or added a half hour to runtime. If they removed all of those things like you said they could have easily had that. The film was enjoyable, but not to the extent I really hoped considering my love of the characters.
The stinger at the end also felt out of place, like perhaps they should have left it for the sequel itself.
To ChrisW: I’m sorry but I just disagree with your comment that they should have focused more on Earth and less on the Corps. The things involving the Corps and Oa were some of the best parts of the film in my opinion (and from what I’ve seen many others as well) and I think the training sequence, short as it was, was one of the film’s highlight. I don’t understand how anyone would want to cut that out in favor of focusing even more on the things on Earth.
I’ve been saying that there was probably a director’s cut that would make the mid-credits scene not come out of nowhere since I got out of the movie last week, so it’s good to know that I was probably right.
This really upsets me. Can someone make the popular comic sites aware of this please?
The second that The Avengers ends, it’s going to be odd to see Iron Man fighting enemies solo when the rest of The Avengers are around.
While this is a concern, at this point we can’t really say how big a concern it will be. Because, first, we don’t really know how The Avengers is going to end. We don’t know if something will be written that tries to pre-address this. And, second, because it’s just a writing issue.
By which I mean — unless all of the people making/writing the Marvel movies is oblivious to this issue, then it’s a problem that can be taken care of via how the post-Avengers solo movies are written. (It can even start to be taken care of in the Avengers movie itself by how the “team” is defined to operate.) It can probably be explained, without getting too convoluted about it. Some of the drama/tension of the solo movies may in fact directly reference the solo hero’s inability to call on the allies he would logically call upon.
The fact that the Marvel Studios films have already committed themselves to addressing the idea of things going on in the world outside of whatever the current movie is makes me think that they are similarly capable of offering an explanation for why things outside the movie “can’t” be brought into it.
So we won’t really know how odd it will seem until we see what they do with it.
With all the money the studio sunk into this, that makes some sense that this turned out to be their version.
A lot of what you said was left on the floor could’ve improved this movie. It wouldn’t have made it perfect because there are still other issues with it, but it would have helped significantly.
@Cookie McCool: King Baldwin IV was awesome. Child king of Jerusalum, leper, managed to defeat Saladin and generally hold things together better than one would have expected him to.
On the movie: how long was it meant to be? The ‘uncut’ version sounds like it was going to be a 3 hour monstrosity.
I wish people would stop saying that Amanda Waller is DC’s Nick Fury. Why are you saying that anyway, because they’re both black?
Nick Fury is in charge of government espionage.
Amanda Waller is a research scientist.
They’re not equivalent in their movie incarnations.
Kelly: people are saying that on the perceived impression that shoehorning Waller into a movie she would otherwise not belong in was to lay the groundwork for interfilm continuity.
The uncut Daredevil is also 2:40, and therefore not usable in a modern movie theater world. Good film, but there are constraints of the medium that MUST be meant.
Couldn’t agree more.
So WB leaves Nolan alone, little interference on Batman Begins and absolutely no interference on TDK or Inception. So only Nolan is good enough to make a good film? Ouch to every other decent director out there. Nolan’s great by the way.
I mean, I would even be okay with it if I was in the producers position and the film wasn’t working and I was literally worried to death because my job was on the line but that’s not the case here. It’s just the execs and producers wanting to cut away as much as possible because they want the film to be shorter. Cutting 15 to 20 minutes of film means they can show it one more time during the day, multiple that by thousands of theatres and you are supposed to make even more money. I would argue FORTUNATELY, WB’s plan backfired just like it did for X-Men 3. They will never learn though.
I honestly hope some heads roll for this. A couple of the execs should be fired or demoted as least. Producers are rich so they’ll get away with it but if I were the Head of the motion picture division, I would be truly angry. What a waste of money.
As for a sequel, it won’t happen now. Just like Superman Returns. Even with a promise of being better, people would stay away from it because there’s a bad taste in their mouths. It would have to be rebooted (sigh…again) or a whole new team would have to take over. Maybe replace Lively to get more women to watch it.
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