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Films that would've been better had they been shorter

Rii

Rii

Rear Admiral
Some films can run three hours and use every single minute. Others fall short of two hours and yet seem interminable. Here are a few films which I believe could have benefited significantly from the judicious application of a pair of scissors; feel free to contribute others.

Casino Royale
Where: the opening action scene for a start. It just goes on, and on, and on. And when it's over, there's an entire film - and not a particularly well paced one - still ahead of the viewer.

Titanic
Where: the water is rising. Jack. Rose. Jack. Rose. Jack. Ro-*snip*. The sinking of the ship is an extended and multifaceted event and should be treated as such. That doesn't mean it has to occur in realtime.

Shutter Island
Where: I haven't seen much of Scorcese's work, and this film hardly encourages me to seek out more. The flashback/hallucination sequences are inexplicable in number, length and lethargy. The 'grand reveal' feels like it takes place over the course of a Simpsons episode.

Avatar
Where: I'm not really sure. Certainly during the parts that involved shooting, but possibly elsewhere too. All I know is that an hour or so in I was enthralled by the experience of Pandora; but by the time Evil Guy fell out of his spaceship, I was looking at my watch. And hell, cut 15 minutes, save $20 million on CGI. :lol:
 
Agreed on Casino Royale. The stuff where Bond was recuperating could easily have been a 1 minute montage.
 
Magnolia. There is a really good shorter movie in there struggling to get out. |Indeed, they could have made it into two movies, like Smoke and Blue in The Face. But instead, it goes on and on and on and ... All the good performances, not least of all Cruise, are overshadowed by the seemingly interminable running time.

Drastic editing was badly needed - this was the sort of situation where the meddling, trimming hands of Harvey Weinstein, usually an unwelcome interference, were exactly what was called for.
 
How does a movie like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen have a 2-1/2 hour runtime when it doesn't even have a script???

I wonder how AI and Minority Report would've fared if they had ended sooner with the "unhappy" endings.
 
^Transformers 2 is a great example. They could easily cut an hour out of that - mostly Megan Fox screaming. In fact, cut all the humans out completely and give the Transformers more easily distinguishable designs and it'd be a much better movie.
 
Superman Returns, 154 minutes???

30 Minutes cut out and lose the kid. :bolian:
 
I notice that most examples I can think of involve extended absences of meaningful dialogue; which perhaps isn't surprising except that some of my favourite films are sparse on dialogue. I guess it's that something has to be holding my attention and, for me, action sequences - the most common reason in Hollywood flicks for a suspension of meaningful dialogue or otherwise interesting narrative development - don't tend to do that for more than a minute or two before I start getting bored.

Captain Zog said:
The Abyss (1989)
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I actually find the extended 'Special Edition' of The Abyss to be a superior film. The added Cold War material lends greater weight to the character's actions.

Aragorn said:
How does a movie like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen have a 2-1/2 hour runtime when it doesn't even have a script???
Click to expand...

:eek:

From what little I've read about the film and its lack of, err, content, I'd assumed it was a 90 minute wonder.
 
Aragorn said:
I wonder how...Minority Report would've fared if they had ended sooner with the "unhappy" endings.
Click to expand...

Cut out the mystery plot, how Max Von Sydow's character was hiding the limitations of the program, make it actually work flawlessly, and really have Leo Crow be the man who killed his son.

Tom Cruise goes into deep freeze.

End of story.

Better movie.
 
T'Baio said:
Aragorn said:
I wonder how...Minority Report would've fared if they had ended sooner with the "unhappy" endings.
Click to expand...

Cut out the mystery plot, how Max Von Sydow's character was hiding the limitations of the program, make it actually work flawlessly, and really have Leo Crow be the man who killed his son.

Tom Cruise goes into deep freeze.

End of story.

Better movie.
Click to expand...

What's the point of that movie?

Amistad (an excellent film) would have flowed better without the unnecessary tangent involving the Bible.

Minority Report included some unnecessary material in the middle (much of it gross for no apparent reason); it could probably have lost somewhere around 5 minutes of that and been a sharper (but outstanding) film.

The Wrath of Khan could have been improved by cutting liberally from the slower early part of the movie. I actually cut everything non-essential by progress slider once, when showing it to a friend who wanted nothing to do with Star Trek. Mostly, the remaining scenes revolve entirely around Kirk.

Return of the Jedi is fairly good if almost all scenes on Endor are removed (the DVD makes this easy via chapter skipping).
 
Cicero said:
Return of the Jedi is fairly good if almost all scenes on Endor are removed (the DVD makes this easy via chapter skipping).
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Say what you like about them, at least they advance the plot, whereas the Tatooine sequence takes about fifty minutes to provide exactly one story point: Han gets rescued, and the price on his head dealt with.


PJ's King Kong, aye.

300.

The Polar Express.

The Hurt Locker. The local kid and Green Zone sequences were mostly padding.

Letters from Iwo Jima. I got bored, which I never did with Flags of Our Fathers.

Matrix Revolutions. It's pretty funny how in the Wikipedia plot summary, nearly half of the movie is condensed to a few lines, whereas comparative brief scenes get paragraphs all to themselves - just goes to show how useless most of the Zion battle footage is.

The Phantom Editor famously cut 38 minutes from Attack of the Clones (more, actually, when you count some deleted scenes he put back in), and while I've resolved not to bother with the PT again, the result is a decently entertaining flick.

Both Donner Supermans.

Love Actually.

Fred Claus.

A Muppet Christmas Carol has several songs that kill the plot momentum dead. Actually, pretty much all musicals do.
 
Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem - The shit about the kid being bullied and all the rest. Basically, anything that gave the human characters pointless backstories. They should have been cannon fodder, nothing more.

Apocalypse Now Redux - You'll have to hear me out here. The original is much better, but I really like the Redux scene with the Playboy Bunnies later on. Basically, re-release the Redux without the French Plantation scenes.

Spider-Man 3 - That whole dance montage and the stuff Peter did to get revenge on Mary Jane. Also, Mary Jane's singing scene. Awful.
 
Cicero said:
T'Baio said:
Aragorn said:
I wonder how...Minority Report would've fared if they had ended sooner with the "unhappy" endings.
Click to expand...

Cut out the mystery plot, how Max Von Sydow's character was hiding the limitations of the program, make it actually work flawlessly, and really have Leo Crow be the man who killed his son.

Tom Cruise goes into deep freeze.

End of story.

Better movie.
Click to expand...

What's the point of that movie?
Click to expand...

You can't escape your fate.

Not a popular opinion, but at least it would have made the film interesting. I'd like to see some unpopular opinions put forth in movies. People love fate in romantic movies, but hate it in "you're doomed to die" stories. It's fun to challenge those conceits.
 
Pearl Harbour.

Drop the Doolittle Raids (in fact lose the entire last hour of the movie) and it would be heaps better.

Lord of the Rings (any of them)

While I love that New Zealand is plastered all over the big screen it is a long journey to get through. After Boromir's death and the arrival at the Rivendell in the first film it starts to drag.

The Matrix Revolutions

Remove all the Neo/Trinity/Smith crap and leave the Zion battle.
 
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