When did film fans become so obsessed with alter­na­tive cuts?

The DC Cin­e­mat­ic Uni­verse is no stranger to fan peti­tions. When Ben Affleck was con­tro­ver­sial­ly cast as Bat­man in 2013, one change​.org appeal demand­ing his removal received close to 100,000 sig­na­tures. Three films into his tenure, fans are mobil­is­ing for a dif­fer­ent rea­son. Jus­tice League​’s poor recep­tion has led to anoth­er peti­tion, this time call­ing for Warn­er Bros to release Zack Snyder’s intend­ed cut of the film (at the time of writ­ing it is tan­ta­lis­ing­ly close to 150,000 sig­na­tures). Call it wish­ful think­ing, call it mob jus­tice, but fans seem con­vinced that the director’s intend­ed vision for this super­hero pile up will right any per­ceived wrongs.

It’s cer­tain­ly an attrac­tive notion, that on some dusty shelf (or hard dri­ve) sits a dif­fer­ent ver­sion of a film that would like­ly change the way you see it. Such think­ing seems par­tic­u­lar­ly apt for mod­ern Hol­ly­wood, giv­en the amount of times a major block­buster has under­gone expen­sive reshoots or else been over­hauled in the edit­ing room. While Jus­tice League’s changes were at least part­ly due to cir­cum­stance (Sny­der left the film due to a per­son­al tragedy), Sui­cide Squad is rumoured to have been heav­i­ly re-edit­ed when the dour tone of Bat­man v Super­man failed to strike a chord with audi­ences. Rogue One enlist­ed Tony Gilroy’s ser­vices for its reshoots, as well as giv­ing him equal say over the final cut. Frag­ments of Gareth Edwards’ orig­i­nal ver­sion remain in the trail­ers, while anec­do­tal evi­dence can only hint at what audi­ences might oth­er­wise have seen.

The gold stan­dard for this cin­e­mat­ic phe­nom­e­non is, of course, Blade Run­ner. The 1989 Director’s Cut solved many of the issues that peo­ple had with the the­atri­cal ver­sion, although Rid­ley Scott only secured com­plete artis­tic con­trol on 2008’s Final Cut. Dif­fer­ent edits have led to a flu­id inter­pre­ta­tion of the film – you can choose the cut that you find most sat­is­fy­ing, or take them all in for a wider under­stand­ing. Before that, Ter­ry Gilliam fought hard to have his inter­na­tion­al cut of Brazil released in the US instead of Universal’s more audi­ence-friend­ly edit, even going so far as to screen the film with­out the studio’s consent.

Hid­den trea­sures such as these are the stuff of nerd­vana, with many a fall­en block­buster hav­ing been sal­vaged this way, par­tic­u­lar­ly since the advent of DVD. Scott repeat­ed his Blade Run­ner feat with King­dom of Heav­en, where 45 min­utes of addi­tion­al footage turned a mud­dled flop into a mod­ern epic. Richard Don­ner rewrote his­to­ry with his ver­sion of Super­man II, a home enter­tain­ment release that incor­po­rat­ed his orig­i­nal script and much of the ​‘lost footage’ he shot before being replaced as direc­tor of the film. Peter Jack­son shot scenes specif­i­cal­ly for the Extend­ed Ver­sions of his Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy, allow­ing hard­core fans to enjoy a com­bined 125 extra min­utes of Mid­dle Earth frol­ics, which fit seam­less­ly into the film’s structure.

Talk of alter­na­tive cuts will always fuel the curios­i­ty of film enthu­si­asts, but things don’t always work out pos­i­tive­ly. Extend­ed Cuts of BvS, Sui­cide Squad and 2003’s Dare­dev­il did lit­tle to ele­vate their respec­tive lega­cies. Indeed, too much tin­ker­ing can have a detri­men­tal effect, some­times prov­ing that direc­tors aren’t always the best peo­ple to trust. The hor­rors of the 1997 Star Wars Spe­cial Edi­tions turned George Lucas from geek god to dark lord, with Gree­do shoot­ing first and a hideous CGI Jab­ba des­e­crat­ing the orig­i­nal saga, and mark­ing one of the few occa­sions when an alter­na­tive cut becomes more read­i­ly avail­able than the the­atri­cal ver­sion. Lucas’ friend Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la mort­gaged his own his­to­ry with The God­fa­ther Saga, a chrono­log­i­cal re-edit­ing of his God­fa­ther tril­o­gy for TV that was essen­tial­ly a cash grab, while Wal­ter Hill’s com­ic book style cut of The War­riors is sim­i­lar­ly baffling.

Direc­tors hold a roman­tic place in the hearts of movie fans because we feel more com­fort­able believ­ing that what we’re watch­ing is the direct pro­jec­tion of an artist’s imag­i­na­tion. You’re unlike­ly to ever find a film poster bear­ing the tagline ​‘from the cor­po­rate exec­u­tives that brought you The Force Awak­ens’. Like high-pro­file sports coach­es, fans need some­one to her­ald or blame for their favourite movies, and the thought of stu­dios with­hold­ing the truth from us will always lead to spec­u­la­tion. Yet trans­for­ma­tive cuts like King­dom of Heav­en or Blade Run­ner are excep­tions to the rule. More often than not a film’s qual­i­ty is deter­mined dur­ing pro­duc­tion, and no amount of scene tweak­ing can alter the proof that’s revealed when the cur­tain comes up.