hmm... special edition?

[AD]

I also liked AI for simmilar reasons. I thought It was really good until about fifteen minutes from the end. Not that I didn't understand it, because I did, but it just fellt like it should have ended when (insert spoiler here). So the last section in the distant future, although interesting, made the movie feel overlong.




!!!!!!Spoiler alert!!!!!!!!!


Do you too feel that it was suggesting that because all humans were dead, all that was left were self sufficient very advanced robots??
Human "spawn" searching for their "origins"? Living Machines??


!!!!!!End of spoiler alert!!!!!!!!!



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[Shane]

Originally posted by Quarto
Hmm, on that note, someone enlighten me - AI was a pretty awful movie according to pretty much everyone I talked to, but how did it do in terms of money?

The latest figures I saw were for the US. It is currently 21st in box office receipts for the year. It brought in $78,620,000. I liked the movie, my wife hated it. She thought it was way too long and was in desperate need of an editor.

As for AD's question, that was my take on it.

Oh, and I thought the robot bear kicked butt.

 

[LeHah]

The problems with AI were the following:

*It was too smart for the majority of the american public, who generally doesn't want to think and wants things clearly defined in a two hour package.

*Spielberg made a movie that will probably stand as the most poignant and emotionally effective movie of the year. (Can't count LOTR yet, since none of us have seen it.)

*The ending wasn't clear, and requires repeat viewings to make things a bit more solid. This makes the common, movie-going idiot infuriated that he must think and resolve the issue using his own cognitive ability.

In other words, AI was a goddamned great movie. Probably Speilberg's best since the last Indy movie (Not counting Schindler's List)

Col.Dom: Theres an old story where James Cameron yanked Paxton out of bed at 6 in the morning, demanding him to see a certain horror movie. Know what it was? The Evil Dead! Hee hee, I'd've loved to have seen Sam Raimi's face when Paxton told him that.

Shane: Your wife is silly. Editors are commonly tools for the devil. Look at the hack job that was done to Wing Commander and, hell, David Lynch's Dune.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Chris Roberts and David Lynch edited their movies themselves, though... pretty much *every* movie has scenes that are cut out of it.

 

[LeHah]

Roberts did edit it, but the fashion in which the actual film editor did it is terrible. I can't believe he allowed that crappy fade transition between Rosie's death and Angel's landing.

David Lynch faught with Universal over the editing of the movie. Lynch eventually gave in and gave them a "Screw you" response to their edit. The extended TV edit later on was done without Lynch, and he had his name changed to Judas Booth in the credits.

To think, Lynch was offered "Return of the Jedi" but chose to make one of the biggest bombs of the 1980s.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Roberts did edit it, but the fashion in which the actual film editor did it is terrible. I can't believe he allowed that crappy fade transition between Rosie's death and Angel's landing.

He actually edited with his own film editing machine. He had one at DA and one at his house.

David Lynch faught with Universal over the editing of the movie. Lynch eventually gave in and gave them a "Screw you" response to their edit. The extended TV edit later on was done without Lynch, and he had his name changed to Judas Booth in the credits.

I seem to recall that he was just fine with the theater version of the movie... it was when they tried to edit *that* that he got angry and had his name removed (he's Alan Smithee, though, not Judas Booth).

The story doesn't make sense otherwise -- if he didn't care for the product in the first place, he wouldn't have been angry about it being further edited... and if being angry about editing the movie caused him to have his name removed later, why wouldn't it in the first place?

 

[Col.Dom]

Originally posted by LeHah
Col.Dom: Theres an old story where James Cameron yanked Paxton out of bed at 6 in the morning, demanding him to see a certain horror movie. Know what it was? The Evil Dead! Hee hee, I'd've loved to have seen Sam Raimi's face when Paxton told him that.

Haha! Me too

On that note, imagine a Sam Raimi Wing Commander movie?? HAHAHAHAHA!! Merlin would start terrorizing the crew and we'd see it happen in fast-moving, shaky "Merl-vision!" HAHAHA!

Never saw AI, a good friend of mine back home recommended it, though. I think I'll see it....

 

[Penguin]

Originally posted by Quarto

And, your dislike of pop-culturey stuff aside, I've heard that Gladiator was a great film (though, oddly enough, I dinna see it myself).

Gladiator's a good action flick. If you know anything about Roman history though, you'll probably want to put that aside when you watch the movie.

 

[LeHah]

Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
He actually edited with his own film editing machine. He had one at DA and one at his house.

I stand corrected. If Roberts did do the editing job himself, he shouldn't quit his day job.

I seem to recall that he was just fine with the theater version of the movie... it was when they tried to edit *that* that he got angry and had his name removed (he's Alan Smithee, though, not Judas Booth).

Going by my memory on Lynch, he was very dissatisfied with the theatrical release, as Universal demanded he cut a lot of footage. When he did, they cut it again. Lynch's original edit was supposedly somewhere between 3 1/2 to 5 hours, according to various sources.

Lynch's title was changed to Judas Booth. I know I have it on paper somewhere, but the IMDB does list him as such.

"Lynch disowned the television cut." - http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0087182

"David Lynch (as Judas Booth: television versions)" -http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087182

Granted, IMDB is filled with loads of crapola, but thats the best I can do for right now. I'm not saying I'm 100% right either, but I'm pretty frickin sure thats the way it went. I know for a fact that Lynch didn't use the Smithee title, since you actually have to have permission from the Director's Guild for that.

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Smithee,+Alan

...and if being angry about editing the movie caused him to have his name removed later, why wouldn't it in the first place?

You can't just run off and disown a film. George Lucas couldn't shake producing Howard the Duck after all these years and he certainly can't live down the fact that "More American Graffiti" grossed $10. He is rich and powerful, but once you commit to a movie, you're stuck with it. Hell, Coppola made a series of movies when he left college that was pretty much the same stuff as soft-core porn on Skinimax these days.

To completely answer the question, Lynch was allowed to have his named changed in the TV release because he had nothing to do with the re-edit of the film. Since he wasn't involved, he could be omitted.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

He's certainly credited as Alan Smithee -- I'm watching the credits on the R2 DVD right now. (The IMDb *is* full of crap... and if you check the 'alternate versions' link, it claims he's credited as Smithee... go figure).

The difference is that you're claiming he wanted nothing to do with the film *before* it came out. Howard the Duck, Wing Commander and so forth all seemed like good ideas in the mind of their directors until *after* they were finished, released and met with public reaction. If Lynch had issues with editing Dune, he would have brought those up *before* the movie came out, when he could have conceivably demanded an altered credit (which, of course, he later did with the re-edited version before it came out).

 

[LeHah]

I don't remember saying he didn't want to do Dune from the beginning. I did state he turned down Return Of The Jedi to do Dune, and thought that might make it clear that Lynch wanted to do Dune. I guess we didn't make that clear to each other?

Lynch wanted to do Dune. Universal Studios said "Cut it; it's too long.". Lynch cut it and handed it over to the studio. The studio cut it and said it was the final print. Lynch disliked the final print. The End.

Thats the story Im trying to say.

I've never seen a print of Dune with the Smithee credit. I'll have to dig around.

 

[AD]

Never saw Dune (either versions, TV or Movie Or New Scifi channel version.) Is it worth it. Books were interesting but only read about half of the first one... and in french at that. I needed to do a book review/ paper in french class and I hated all the ones they provide in school system but happend to find a copy of Dune in french... My heart wasn't in it and thus after labouring with a book that is complicated enough in english I got about half way and gave up. Mostly because I have this bad habbit of staying up late and then falling asleep when i was supposed to do school work!

How about wing commander a la David Fincher (the game/ fight club)? That would be strange!

AD

 

[LeHah]

Christopher McQuarrie would make an interesting one.

 

[AD]

He would definitly write an interesting screenplay. You would never guess who the traitor was.

AD

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Originally posted by LeHah
I don't remember saying he didn't want to do Dune from the beginning. I did state he turned down Return Of The Jedi to do Dune, and thought that might make it clear that Lynch wanted to do Dune. I guess we didn't make that clear to each other?

Lynch wanted to do Dune. Universal Studios said "Cut it; it's too long.". Lynch cut it and handed it over to the studio. The studio cut it and said it was the final print. Lynch disliked the final print. The End.

Thats the story Im trying to say.

I've never seen a print of Dune with the Smithee credit. I'll have to dig around.

Again, I've never heard any of this... and I'm a bit of a follower of the Dune movie's history.

Anyhow, the Smithee credit is in the version the Sci Fi channel shows as the 'extended' cut, and it's available as an DVD from the UK...

 

[LeHah]

You forget he directed "The Way of the Gun", probably the best movie of 1999 that no one saw.

 

[AD]

Hey, I saw it! But I think that they screenplay was more outstanding than the direction. Don't get me wrong the direction was good, just not really anything that set it appart stylisticaly.

 

[Quarto]

Originally posted by LeHah
Lynch wanted to do Dune. Universal Studios said "Cut it; it's too long.". Lynch cut it and handed it over to the studio. The studio cut it and said it was the final print. Lynch disliked the final print. The End.

I disbelieve this for one simple reason. Had Lynch indeed been unhappy with the final print because of the amount of cutting, it would be difficult to understand why he'd then be sooo unhappy with the long version that he'd disown it. Logic suggests that he would have tried to push Universal into making the long version the way he wanted - instead, he didn't seem to want to have anything to do with it.

I've never seen a print of Dune with the Smithee credit. I'll have to dig around.

Well, I haven't watched any print of Dune since about '94, but all the long version boxes, be they DVD or video said Alan Smithee.

About AI - I did see it, and I didn't like it. I felt that it was too... well, Kubrick meets Spielberg, ironically . It seemed to me that the way it was done, neither the intellectual nor the emotional stuff really worked very well. Pinocchio works as a story, and so does Blade Runner. But putting the two together did not work, at least not for me.

 

[Frosty]

Originally posted by Quarto
Pinocchio works as a story, and so does Blade Runner. But putting the two together did not work, at least not for me.

Obviously you've never seen neither Pinocchio nor Blade Runner.

"Hmm... a story about a robot boy in the future... how can I sound really smart without actually being smart? I know! Pinnochio was a puppet boy, that's almost as good as a robot bot, and Blade Runner occured in the future! PINOCCHIO MEETS BLADE RUNNER!"

And then all the stupid people kneel down and pray to your godlike wit.

 

[PopsiclePete]

Originally posted by Frosty

Obviously you've never seen neither Pinocchio nor Blade Runner.

"Hmm... a story about a robot boy in the future... how can I sound really smart without actually being smart? I know! Pinnochio was a puppet boy, that's almost as good as a robot bot, and Blade Runner occured in the future! PINOCCHIO MEETS BLADE RUNNER!"

Frosty, everyone knows AI is a pinnochio story set in the future, even Kubrick said it when he handled it to Spielberg... and that's part of why Kubrick didn't want to do it himself; he didn't think he would be able to make this kind of disney-like fantassy movie. He thought it was more Spielberg's style.

IMHO, Quarto right on one point: AI sometimes feels like a Kubrick movie, and a minute later like a Spielberg. This is the only thing that bothered me a bit. Regardless of that AI is still the best movie I've seen this yet this year (LOTR is yet to come out ). The fact that I didn't immediatly understood the ending actually made me enjoy it more. I hate those movie where you can guess the ending in the first hour.