You knew it was coming, Elektra Directors Cut in November rumor (10.18.05)
08-22-05, 06:36 PM
#26
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I just picked up the first one!?!?! I guess I'll do the same thing I did for Daredevil. If I find it used for 3.99-4.99 I'll pick it up. Otherwise forget it. I'm sick of rewarding the studios for screwing me over the first time around by giving me the 'kiddie' version and later releasing the 'adult' version.
08-23-05, 01:34 AM
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this movie was below average, but I did pick up the original solely because I really like Jennifer Garner. I never did pick up the DC of Daredevil, so I probably won't bother getting this one either...
10-03-05, 02:46 PM
#28
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The first review of the DC is out and it's not good.
From http://www.currentfilm.com/dvdreview...ktradcdvd.html
From http://www.currentfilm.com/dvdreview...ktradcdvd.html
This "director's cut" runs an additional 2 minutes longer than the theatrical cut of the film. I was hoping for something along the lines of the "Daredevil" director's cut, which added a lot of story that was taken out in order to get a much tighter cut. "Elektra"'s theatrical cut seemed like the same thing may have happened, but there isn't a wealth of additional footage here. Still, the footage is mildly interesting, as there are a few character tidbits here-and-there that do add a little bit more depth to the character. There is also a few very slight, but yet still noticable additions, such as a few more frames added to an action scene late in the movie that had to be taken out for the theatrical cut. The inclusion doesn't make a major impact on the film, but it does lightly fill out the picture in some regards.
10-03-05, 03:13 PM
#30
Originally Posted by Flynn
this movie was below average, but I did pick up the original solely because I really like Jennifer Garner. I never did pick up the DC of Daredevil, so I probably won't bother getting this one either...
10-03-05, 03:13 PM
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Given the fact that the cover art for the director's cut is absolutely terrible and the review for the director's cut above, I'm glad I picked up the regular edition used at Blockbuster. For $6.99 Cdn I couldn't pass it up to complete my Marvel movies collection. Still have to get around to watching it though.
10-07-05, 05:36 AM
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http://www.nowplayingmag.com/content/view/2362/2/
Bowman Talks Elektra Redux
Contributed by Tony Whitt
Thursday, 06 October 2005
In an exclusive interview with Now Playing magazine, director Rob Bowman recently discussed his director’s cut of Elektra, which hits DVD on October 18. Bowman is enthusiastic, to say the least, about his new cut of the film – a film that so notoriously flamed out during its theatrical run. Bowman says he's finally been able to tell the story that the original movie's limited budget and production schedule kept him from telling.
"The reason a director's cut is important is that you get one artist's point of view of a movie, and what I think is good is not always going to be what everyone else thinks is good," Bowman says. "My intention was to tell the most interesting Elektra story that I could and with the finite resources I had. I think that's the great thing about any director's cut... you don't have to go to the studio and hope they like it. It's just one person. That is a very fun thing to do. It was also good to be able to work at my own pace – I was able to cut something, go away for the evening or the weekend, come back on Monday, review it, and decide I liked that, whereas cutting shots on [the theatrical version] it was so short and so fast that we basically just sort of put it together and then shipped it. There was no time for chewing over things, cogitating, letting them soak in. Hopefully [the director's cut] will be a bit more compelling and intriguing."
One major reason why this version might compel and intrigue the audience far more than its theatrical counterpart is that Bowman has kept in mind the major differences between the home audience and the theatrical audience, including how each responds to a movie and how their viewing conditions contribute to that response.
"When studios generally release DVDs of a movie, they do what's called a one-to-one transfer," Bowman explains. "They basically transfer all the information from the theatrical version into the home theater version. When I heard the first playback of Elektra in a room in 5.1 surround sound, I asked, 'What's wrong with the sound?' You didn't hear a lot of things, and the soundtrack was crowded. And the guy said, 'You've got to consider that this is mixed for, in some theaters, over 30 speakers, and you've got music, sound effects, and dialogue piping through individual speakers. Now you're … jamming it into a 5.1, and it's like a traffic jam.' So I remixed the whole thing for home theaters, deciding what I wanted to hear and what I didn't need. I also re-color-timed specifically for televisions. When you're shooting white light through celluloid 70 feet across a room, it looks different – the colors change, the densities change, the blacks change. The studio graciously allowed me to do all these things. So it's not just the studio making copies of my cut to make more money - this was me spending 14 weeks making this package for home theaters."
The result is a movie that looks and sounds far better than the standard DVD release, one which makes the original release look like a different film. And to be honest, as Bowman readily points out, it is a different film, one which focuses far more on the character of Elektra than on her actions. A comparison of this version to the original makes it clear that the director’s cut is a far more complex movie, of the sort that would most likely lose a theatrical audience but which suits a home audience right down to the ground. It may sound like a statement of the painfully obvious, but at home you can scan back through and figure something out that would pass you by in a theater. Or, to put it more bluntly, it's not "dumbed down."
"For the theatrical audience," Bowman explains, "you have to be sure the story is very, very clear as you go so they can easily travel along through the plot. And because one experience is a group experience and one is a personal experience, you're telling the story a different way, much more intimately. I always felt the more interesting version of the movie wasn't absolutely clear about every single thing that was going on, and it allowed the audience to make their own decisions about what they were seeing. My number one conviction, in both versions, was to try to convey Elektra's psyche, and the tumult, the anxiety, the uneasiness, the isolation, the sort of darkness we see in the beginning of the story that haunts her."
Even the music is different in the director's cut: While a large portion of Christophe Beck's original score has been left untouched, including the hard rocking background tunes of the action sequences, there's also a good bit of far more introspective music to fit in with the newly meditative approach to the movie's themes that Bowman takes.
"I was able to change the music so that it wasn't always the kind you get in general, where it's just noisy," Bowman says. "This is a television, even if it's a high-definition screen, and the audience is there, they're sitting at home, they're comfortable. Where I thought it was appropriate, I backed off, lifted the old music out, put in new stuff, and had Chris come back in himself and redo some of the scenes. We didn't bring an orchestra back, but he did write some new stuff that was not so loud."
Bowman makes it clear that without the unprecedented studio support (especially in the financial realm) for this release, this more dynamic, literally more colorful version of Elektra might never have been made.
"[The studio] never said 'no' to me, no matter what I did," says Bowman. "And that is unusual. It's not just the studio knocking off or making copies of my cut and trying to make more money - this was me spending 14 weeks making this package for home theaters."
Be sure to check back next week for the rest of our Rob Bowman interview.
Bowman Talks Elektra Redux
Contributed by Tony Whitt
Thursday, 06 October 2005
In an exclusive interview with Now Playing magazine, director Rob Bowman recently discussed his director’s cut of Elektra, which hits DVD on October 18. Bowman is enthusiastic, to say the least, about his new cut of the film – a film that so notoriously flamed out during its theatrical run. Bowman says he's finally been able to tell the story that the original movie's limited budget and production schedule kept him from telling.
"The reason a director's cut is important is that you get one artist's point of view of a movie, and what I think is good is not always going to be what everyone else thinks is good," Bowman says. "My intention was to tell the most interesting Elektra story that I could and with the finite resources I had. I think that's the great thing about any director's cut... you don't have to go to the studio and hope they like it. It's just one person. That is a very fun thing to do. It was also good to be able to work at my own pace – I was able to cut something, go away for the evening or the weekend, come back on Monday, review it, and decide I liked that, whereas cutting shots on [the theatrical version] it was so short and so fast that we basically just sort of put it together and then shipped it. There was no time for chewing over things, cogitating, letting them soak in. Hopefully [the director's cut] will be a bit more compelling and intriguing."
One major reason why this version might compel and intrigue the audience far more than its theatrical counterpart is that Bowman has kept in mind the major differences between the home audience and the theatrical audience, including how each responds to a movie and how their viewing conditions contribute to that response.
"When studios generally release DVDs of a movie, they do what's called a one-to-one transfer," Bowman explains. "They basically transfer all the information from the theatrical version into the home theater version. When I heard the first playback of Elektra in a room in 5.1 surround sound, I asked, 'What's wrong with the sound?' You didn't hear a lot of things, and the soundtrack was crowded. And the guy said, 'You've got to consider that this is mixed for, in some theaters, over 30 speakers, and you've got music, sound effects, and dialogue piping through individual speakers. Now you're … jamming it into a 5.1, and it's like a traffic jam.' So I remixed the whole thing for home theaters, deciding what I wanted to hear and what I didn't need. I also re-color-timed specifically for televisions. When you're shooting white light through celluloid 70 feet across a room, it looks different – the colors change, the densities change, the blacks change. The studio graciously allowed me to do all these things. So it's not just the studio making copies of my cut to make more money - this was me spending 14 weeks making this package for home theaters."
The result is a movie that looks and sounds far better than the standard DVD release, one which makes the original release look like a different film. And to be honest, as Bowman readily points out, it is a different film, one which focuses far more on the character of Elektra than on her actions. A comparison of this version to the original makes it clear that the director’s cut is a far more complex movie, of the sort that would most likely lose a theatrical audience but which suits a home audience right down to the ground. It may sound like a statement of the painfully obvious, but at home you can scan back through and figure something out that would pass you by in a theater. Or, to put it more bluntly, it's not "dumbed down."
"For the theatrical audience," Bowman explains, "you have to be sure the story is very, very clear as you go so they can easily travel along through the plot. And because one experience is a group experience and one is a personal experience, you're telling the story a different way, much more intimately. I always felt the more interesting version of the movie wasn't absolutely clear about every single thing that was going on, and it allowed the audience to make their own decisions about what they were seeing. My number one conviction, in both versions, was to try to convey Elektra's psyche, and the tumult, the anxiety, the uneasiness, the isolation, the sort of darkness we see in the beginning of the story that haunts her."
Even the music is different in the director's cut: While a large portion of Christophe Beck's original score has been left untouched, including the hard rocking background tunes of the action sequences, there's also a good bit of far more introspective music to fit in with the newly meditative approach to the movie's themes that Bowman takes.
"I was able to change the music so that it wasn't always the kind you get in general, where it's just noisy," Bowman says. "This is a television, even if it's a high-definition screen, and the audience is there, they're sitting at home, they're comfortable. Where I thought it was appropriate, I backed off, lifted the old music out, put in new stuff, and had Chris come back in himself and redo some of the scenes. We didn't bring an orchestra back, but he did write some new stuff that was not so loud."
Bowman makes it clear that without the unprecedented studio support (especially in the financial realm) for this release, this more dynamic, literally more colorful version of Elektra might never have been made.
"[The studio] never said 'no' to me, no matter what I did," says Bowman. "And that is unusual. It's not just the studio knocking off or making copies of my cut and trying to make more money - this was me spending 14 weeks making this package for home theaters."
Be sure to check back next week for the rest of our Rob Bowman interview.
