After the rumour started about a Dark City Special Edition someone who had seen the original Dark City cut even before the test screenings and wrote to JoBlo with details of the differences they saw.
Now pinch of salt and all that, but there seems to be quite a lot. In summary the voiceover and opening explanations were gone, you were straight in and your understanding grew with the main characters; the editing style was much slower and moody than the more action paced you see in the released version, the music tracks also matched this slower pace as well and appears to be totally different. There are a couple of other points that I’ll include in the main part of the story, but be warned, there be spoilers ahead!
To me this all sounds radically different to the final version that we’ve seen, and considering I thought that version was superb, and these original changes sound fantastic, I think the Directors Cut could turn out to be a real revelation. Now we need to hope that these things are true and that we will see them on the SE DVD.
Here are the spoilers, avert your eyes! Check out JoBlo for the full letter…
…the version I saw was far superior to what actually came out. It’s been awhile, but I’ll attempt to elaborate what made the film different.
1. There was no opening scroll with Kiefer Sutherland’s VO telling you about the aliens and how they had been watching us. The film just put you into the environment. We had no idea of time and place or that any “alien” was watching the human characters. We discovered these things slowly as the film developed…
2. The editing style had completely changed! The film originally played out it’s scenes in a more Kubrick like fashion…
3. The music, like the editing had changed. Now the cut I saw might have had a temp track, but the style was mysterious and outer worldly…
4. In the first cut, the aliens themselves were like little scorpions when they left the humanoid shells. They were a more physical effect…
There were more changes including more or less of the guy writing all over the walls of his apartment. I can’t remember if that was new to the later cut or if there was more in the original. The fact is, I haven’t watched DARK CITY in awhile, but that first cut was a great experience which I cannot wait to re-explore on DVD. To all of you who love DARK CITY, you don’t know what you missed. Hopefully this will be the cut that gets released.
If this is right I’m so excited, it sounds like a total transformation of the movie, and for me that’s exactly what Special Editions and Directors Cuts should be about. Not the tacking on of three or four deleted scenes which were deleted for good reason. We need to influence the release of this version, so Studio and Distributor, listen up!
That’s where I disagree then. I think the vision of the movie lies at the Writer, Director, Editor level, not the Studio level. As you said, the Studio are out to make money and will do anything to ensure that happens, even when they completely misjudge what the audience want.
I think DVD SE’s provide the creative teams with a chance to show what they had intended from day one, and as it looks with Dark City, they intended something different and actually completed it.
There’s a string of movies this has happened to, and in fact you’ve prompted the idea for a post which I’ll do later! Thanks Bullet.
In cases such as these it’s wholly justified and I’d rather see the version from the people who actually created, developed and filmed the movie than the dollar focused studios.
Dominion is a bit of a special case as the studio completley hated that movie and went as far as to not only interfere with it but shoot a whole new movie.
Films are often a product of many things including creative input and studio pressure, letting artists run free is not always the great idea it seems as they are too close to their work. It’s the same for authors and novelists who must comply with publishing houses and editors. I am not saying there are not occasions where a studio butchers something and there for the release we see is terrible and in such cases an original version or re-edit would be great. But films like Dark city and The Warriors, all be it they might not be exactly as the creators intended are good and loved enough to not really warrant fans having to buy several editions of the film to get all the different “Versions”
… just my opinion though
There’s nothing being suggested about modernising or making the movie more fashionable. I’m talking about showing the movie that the team originally created. That’s what seems to be happening here and definitely happened with Dominion. These were the first movies and the movies the public saw were the redited after the fact movies.
Maybe as a second disc with another “Version”, but new re-edits years after the fact made with hindsight are not the great idea they seem. For one thing, movies are a product of their time, that is part of their charm, so the voiceover is a product of that time, which sure is not fashionable now, but that does not mean we should keep updating older movies to fit in with a modern viewpoint.
Removing the first voiceover would be great, I was told by friends to mute it till a certain point in the beginning, so I would not spoil it.
And damn, when I went back after watching it to see what he said, I would totally agree. It really helps the movie work, when you don’t have that.
-Owl
What about when a Studio forces a different movie on the public than the one the creatives wanted? For instance Dominion: Exorcist? Wouldn’t you want to see the version you were meant to see before the Studio put an oar in? This might be the same in this case.
Sounds terrible, I am not a fan of these special edition/directors cut/ultimate edition re-edits at all. Fine bring out new packaging and extras, but messing with movies so there start to be multiple edited “Versions” around at once is not great IMO.
Cool! Wasn’t aware that a special edition of Dark City was in the works. If you have not seen this movie, you owe it to yourself to check it out.