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Which of the 5 DVD's did you watch first?

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Sam

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Post Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:09 am

I went with:

1) Final Cut
2) Dangerous Days (Officially blown away!)
3) Work Print
4) Deleted/Alternate scenes

I haven't watched any archival versions yet.
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Post Sun Dec 23, 2007 8:57 am

Anonymous wrote:Msgeek is right. It really is a sixth version. It's pretty incredible and awesome.

I totally agree with this shadowy individual.
[In reference to A Good Year] "So anyway, fuck 'em. It was a good film."
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Kipple

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Post Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:58 am

deleted wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Msgeek is right. It really is a sixth version. It's pretty incredible and awesome.

I totally agree with this shadowy individual.


:lol:
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Nexus Frog

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Post Sun Dec 23, 2007 4:44 pm

I drank a lot of Morimoto-Soba Ale and watched Final Cut first. When I get back from Christmas vacation, I plan to watch Dangerous Days and then all the other discs.

8)
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Kipple

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Post Mon Dec 24, 2007 3:17 pm

msgeek wrote:
msgeek wrote:Deleted scenes are on Disk 4, the Enhancement Archive. You have to dig for them. Opt to watch them all the way through, and you see a 6th version of the movie. It is quite the experience.

:shock:

That makes six of 'em. And none of them got fried going through an electrical field.



Incredible. Image An absolutely awesome "version".
Image
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Post Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:25 pm

Kipple wrote:
msgeek wrote:
msgeek wrote:Deleted scenes are on Disk 4, the Enhancement Archive. You have to dig for them. Opt to watch them all the way through, and you see a 6th version of the movie. It is quite the experience.

:shock:

That makes six of 'em. And none of them got fried going through an electrical field.



Incredible. Image An absolutely awesome "version".

I LOVE that shot of Roy standing in the elevator with the zoom out showing Sebastian. It looks like Kubrick's opening shot from Clockwork Orange.
[In reference to A Good Year] "So anyway, fuck 'em. It was a good film."
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dmohrUSC

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Post Tue Dec 25, 2007 4:19 am

Here are my initial thoughts about the BR deleted scenes, not only the nearly-indescribable 45-minute Deleted Scenes montage painstakingly pieced together by Lauzirika, but also the remainder of the unbelievably extraordinary footage interwoven throughout all the supplementary documentaries on the Ultimate Collection DVD set.

Let me preface this by A. once again reiterating my complete and utter gratitude for this collection, just as I've done on this website for the last several months; I've expressed (hell, I've @#$% gushed time and again) as much as anyone here about what a truly historic moment in movie and DVD history this new Ultimate Collection represents, and how lucky we are to be alive to see this project finally come to fruition; and B. attesting to the fact that this is SUCH a mammoth project, with so many "variant futures," quote unquote, that there was literally NO WAY for Charles to make "the perfect" BR set that would absolutely satisfy every last BR fan. I believe that he has done the very finest job he could possibly do with a totally impossible task. And now for all his long years of hard work and dedication to bringing this set to life and into stores for all of us to share, he gets to spend the next several years listening to all the BR enthusiasts and 'perfectionists' moan and gripe over the shortcomings of the BR Ultimate Collection, which I'm sure he probably resigned himself to a long time ago...as he's previously stated on BladeZone, he still feels like he only "scratched the surface" with the Ultimate Collection. All the same, it makes me wince to think of all the flak that he'll be taking on from all the BR fans (including myself) with our thoughts and opinions, which may come off as endless nitpicking. So, to everyone here including Charles, please take my next comments not as intentionally derisive, but coming out of a deep sense of love for a movie I've adored along with the rest of you for my entire life.

First, the more-than-well-deserved praise. The Deleted Scenes section of the BR Ultimate Collection is not only extraordinary from the standpoint of BR history, but movie history - it's the very first time I'm aware of that an entirely "alternate" version of a movie has been pieced together from different takes and shots and outtakes that weren't used in the original movie. I've only watched it once, but was absolutely hypnotized almost all the way through not only by the scenes themselves, but the way that Lauzirika pieced the footage together to create its very own narrative arc, so it "plays" not just like a bunch of discarded scenes (like you would see on any other DVD's deleted scenes section), but like a new and never-seen version of the movie. It's a truly audacious cinematic experiment. And, best of all, most of the new footage is brilliant.

I know I'll be spending the next several months (okay, years) revisiting and disseminating the footage in the Deleted Scenes montage, but one of the most striking things for me was the new, or newly rediscovered, opening credits sequence with its visual motif of liquid congealing and dissolving. The friend I watched it with said he understood why it was discarded: he thought it seemed stylistically dated. I think it was (rightfully) discarded for the 'movie proper' because the definitive visual image of the movie might be the opening shot of L.A. 2019, and the visual motif of the liquid may have rendered the opening sequence less powerful than it is with just the titles-on-black opening credits sequence we all know. But I was riveted watching this new, visually haunting alternate titles sequence: it's as if you're actually watching the birth of the replicants before your very eyes. Batty, Pris, Zhora, Leon, maybe even Deckard...this is Tyrell's genetic pool of creation come to life, and a fascinating glimpse at the process of genetic replication. It's another new dimension to the world of BR, and a magnificent opening to the new "alternate" version of the movie. (These new titles actually remind me of some of Saul Bass' legendary title sequences in movies like Hitchcock's Vertigo or Scorsese's Cape Fear.)

And now on to the more openly critical part of my post:

I congratulate and applaud the intentions behind it, but unfortunately I'm not as impressed by the brand new FX shot of L.A. 2019 at the beginning of the Deleted Scenes section as I'd hoped. The main painting that serves as the landscape of the city seems like it's an early sketch for the movie, or belonging to a different movie entirely -- it's more baroque than industrial, and seems much more Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam or Wachowskis than Ridley Scott. Yes, it's good fun to see the Off-World blimp creep into the frame. But I seem to recall being completely blown away by at least 5 or 10 newly discovered FX outtakes of L.A. 2019 that were presented elsewhere in the Ultimate Collection, and I personally think they might've worked better for the opening of the Deleted Scenes montage. Of course, that's just my own take on it, and nobody else's.

Second, and I've thought about this one for the last week: putting ourselves in Charles' position, of discovering all this long-lost BR footage in the vaults at Warner Bros., if we discovered a ton of never-before-seen sequences of a long-cherished movie, and were in charge of presenting this footage to the public, would we just decide to put it all out regardless of its narrative quality, or edit the footage as we saw fit? I'm thinking in particular of the closing moments of the Deleted Scenes section, with Deckard and Rachel driving off into the mountains together. As we all know, this footage was shot at the last minute by the insistence of the movie's producers, and tacked onto the project almost as an afterthought. Historically, this footage is amazing to finally behold. As far as the actual quality of it, much of it is (to put it frankly) quite cheesy, and nowhere near as visually spectacular, well-written or executed as the 40+ minutes of earlier Deleted Scenes footage.

So, once again, Charles finds himself in a bit of a no-win situation: does he decide to end the Deleted Scenes section where the BR-DC and BR-FC now end, with Deckard and Rachel getting into the elevator, and leave all this newly-rediscovered "mountain getaway" footage forever lost, despite its quality being less than that of all the footage which preceded it? Or, does he go the archival-historian route, and include absolutely everything, despite its narrative quality or lack thereof?

Well folks, obviously Charles picked the latter. In his own words on this site, the Ultimate Collection is going to be "fan-film heaven" -- the Deleted Scenes section on the Ultimate Collection is Charles' own take on the BR deleted scenes, and if some of us don't think every last bit of it works as genuinely effective storytelling, then we can damn well upload it into our own editing systems and create our own alternate BR deleted scenes version, or intersperse any of the other 5 versions of BR with all the deleted scenes we wish. We now have all this long-lost BR footage to gloss over and celebrate, even if some of us might think that parts of it are sillier and more disposable than others. Charles has basically said with the Ultimate Collection, "here, I'm giving you everything, and I mean everything, and that's my contribution to movie history, and it's up to you the fans to keep or dispose of whatever you like." In other words, Charles took the high road on this one, and I totally commend him for it.

Lastly, on that "fan-film" note, one aspect of the Ultimate Collection that's already making me lose my mind (in a great way, hallelujah!) is the seemingly endless stream of additional BR deleted scenes and outtakes that have been added throughout all of the documentaries in the Ultimate Collection. Not to suggest that the interviews in the documentaries aren't relevant or interesting in and of themselves, but part of me thinks it's almost scandalous to present so much of this jawdroppingly awesome never-before-seen BR footage in between so many talking heads, be it longtime fans or people who worked on the movie or whomever.

Granted, Charles created his own 45-minute Deleted Scenes version of the movie which made its own linear narrative sense to him; and bravo, god bless, l'cheim! But it's almost inexplicable to me to watch the documentaries on the Ultimate Collection, and suddenly see the coolest shots I've ever (or never, until now) seen of Deckard in the middle of the city chasing Zhora and running on top of a car (finally, the photo of Deckard jumping from car to car makes sense), or Deckard scurrying around the interior of the Bradbury building just before Roy arrives, and peering over the railing, or additional exquisitely staged and lensed crane shots of Ridleyville, and then think to myself, my god, how could these moments NOT be a part of the Deleted Scenes montage??? Maybe these shots and sequences were missing their audio tracks; who knows? Still, it seems to me there must be an additional 10 or 15 minutes of BR deleted scenes strewn throughout the Ultimate Collection documentaries. If I was still in my twenties and had a Final Cut Pro system at home, I'd enjoy nothing more than to spend months sitting around digitizing every last glorious Jordan Cronenweth-lensed outtake and deleted shot in the documentaries and then interweaving them together with Lauzirika's Deleted Scenes montage to create my own ultimate version of BR's deleted scenes; but right now, the honest-to-god truth of the matter is that I really wouldn't want to jeopardize my marriage by doing so :lol:

So, for all of you BR fans with home video editing systems: any takers? :wink:

(BR-Ultimate Collection hysterics aside, I realize the truth is probably closest to this: Charles put together his 45-minute Deleted Scenes montage in a way that worked best to him, and all the leftover footage that he couldn't find room for or make narrative sense with in his montage, he chose to add to the Ultimate Collection's supplementary documentaries, to add spice to them, and to simply GET ALL THIS GOD-BLESSED BR FOOTAGE OUT THERE, once and for all. Ultimately, it's possible that the documentaries were the most convenient excuse for doing so!)
Last edited by dmohrUSC on Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:03 am

dmohrUSC wrote:The Deleted Scenes section of the BR Ultimate Collection is not only extraordinary from the standpoint of BR history, but movie history - it's the very first time I'm aware of that an entirely "alternate" version of a movie has been pieced together from different takes and shots and outtakes that weren't used in the original movie.

Actually...

Good to see another so enthusiastic about the deleted scenes! Great write-up, man.
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dmohrUSC

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Post Tue Dec 25, 2007 5:21 am

Ha!!! :lol: Thanks very much for the heads up re: movie history, deleted. When the names of Ridley Scott and Charles de Lauzirika are all but forgotten in decades to come, I've no doubts that Will Ferrell will be remembered alongside D.W. Griffith for his bold pioneering in the cinematic form, and that the alternate cut of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy will take its rightful place alongside the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel as one of the preeminent works of human creative endeavor. :roll:
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Post Tue Dec 25, 2007 6:05 am

Oh, the Cut Scenes were awesome!

My jaw dropped as I saw a version of BR from another dimention. The Voice over worked on it. Very cool.
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Post Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:14 pm

dmohrUSC wrote:Ha!!! :lol: Thanks very much for the heads up re: movie history, deleted. When the names of Ridley Scott and Charles de Lauzirika are all but forgotten in decades to come, I've no doubts that Will Ferrell will be remembered alongside D.W. Griffith for his bold pioneering in the cinematic form, and that the alternate cut of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy will take its rightful place alongside the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel as one of the preeminent works of human creative endeavor. :roll:

HAHA. :lol:
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Post Wed Jan 02, 2008 1:57 pm

I watched the theatrical release first. Odd choice, but I hadn't seen it in 25 years and I wanted to see how it all began. I haven't watched a version with the voice over since the day the director's cut was released, so it really stood out to me. The narrative seemed extraordinarily cheesy at times.

Next I watched the deleted scenes. I was completely blown away. My wife walked in the room a few minutes in and sat down. About 20 minutes in she mentioned that they had skipped a whole scene. I said "yeah, well it's deleted scenes so there is going to be a lot missing" and she was blown away. She totally thought this was a different cut of the film. Bravo to all those involved that the casual observer (I think she's seen the movie once or maybe twice) would think this was a different version!

Next up was the workprint. I haven't seen this since I went to the Nuart theater in the early nineties. That night is still seared into my mind like it was yesterday. My favorite moment was walking in as Hampton Fancher was standing at the ticket window pleading with the attendant "You HAVE to let me in, I WROTE the movie!" Tickets were rather scarce :-)

In between I've watched a huge pile of the documentaries and such, but I've left Dangerous Days and the Final Cut for the end. I feel like the Final Cut is a reward for watching this film for 25 years. I was astounded by the quality of the set, the quality of the deleted scenes, the quality of the features etc. I was only disappointed by one thing: the lack of inclusion of the items that were on the criterion collection laserdisc. There were a TON of production photos and a written summary by a fan of all the various problems with the film etc. It was great stuff.

I think I will watch the original director's cut next, followed by the rest of the documentaries, followed by dangerous days, and then, finally, at long last, the final cut.

I'm toying with the idea of a blu-ray player, so I might buy the non-briefcase version of that on blu-ray to watch the final cut if I land that before I get through everything else. I started later than all of you because this was my Christmas gift from my wife (she got the hint when I told her to order the briefcase the day it was listed on amazon, and then asked her everyday if she had ordered it...)

What an amazing gift to the fans by warner brothers. It would have been so easy for them to simply shovel a bunch of crap on a bunch of dvd's and do it all wrong. I feel like they did it all right. I'm blown away by how great this collection is.

Joel
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Post Wed Jan 02, 2008 2:25 pm

mythrenegade wrote:I haven't seen this since I went to the Nuart theater in the early nineties. That night is still seared into my mind like it was yesterday. My favorite moment was walking in as Hampton Fancher was standing at the ticket window pleading with the attendant "You HAVE to let me in, I WROTE the movie!"

Priceless! Thanks for sharing this...
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Post Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:30 pm

I watched the deleated scenes first

The highlights were that alternate opening titles with the water drops works great in hindsight "tears in the rain" but not surprised it was dropped

absolutely loved Bryant and gaff spying on Deckard and Holden-and Gaffs "I spit on metaphysics" line-I always wanted more Gaff in the movie:)

Than the screen tests-what a headspin with that other actress as rachel!

Dangerous Days was next=great doco.

Than Workprint with commentary

Than BRFC with Ridley Commentary

and BRFC with Peoples, Fancher, Haber and Deeley-still more to go-love it!
Deckard: I don't work here anymore. Give it to Holden. He's good.

Bryant: I did. He can breathe okay as long as nobody unplugs him.
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Post Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:46 pm

msgeek wrote:Deleted scenes are on Disk 4, the Enhancement Archive. You have to dig for them. Opt to watch them all the way through, and you see a 6th version of the movie. It is quite the experience.


Thank you for pointing this out! I'm looking forward to watching this "6th Version". :wink:

I ended up watching the WP first off the set (yesterday), since BR-FC is still playing in my town :shock: (at least through this Thursday), and I've managed to see it twice in December. I'm going to try and see it again tomorrow, and if it stops playing locally, I'll bust out other versions on the set, most likely the WP w/commentary. Not sure after that.
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