About the director's cut vs. theatrical. I would compare it to the old aspect ratio debate. This is the version the director wanted you to see (despite how bad it may be *cough Lucas *cough) is the same as this is how the director wanted you to see it. But it's good both versions are included only because I wish all movies released as director cuts included the theeatrical version as well.

A director agrees to let themselves be censored as soon as they sign a contract promising a certain rating. They also agree to let themselves be censored as soon as they give up 'final cut' and start taking notes from the studio and take part in the test screening process. According to you, almost nobody is a 'filmmaker'. Even Kubrick (who had final cut) was restricted by an R rating.

As far as I'm concerned, a real 'filmmaker' can achieve the same emotional impact with an R-rating as they can without one.

And I'm still scratching me head about why you are puzzled that I didn't find a longer, significantly more bloody boardroom scene more funny. The blood wasn't the funny part. The funny part was leading up to the blood. The blood robbed the preceeding part of much of its humor.

Regarding the 'why would anyone want to own the R version' question. When it comes to censorship. I like being able to compare both versions of a film. So I am all for both versions of a film being included.

When it comes to studios tossing in all the deleted footage they can just to call it 'unrated/extended'. Then I'd prefer the theatrical cut to be available in O.A.R.,and again both versions of the film should be included on the same release. But since most versions of a film are released individually. I will usually only buy one cut of a film.

Thanks for this voice of reason! "suckered by the MPAA"? Funniest thing I've read this week.

That's a bunch of baloney. That was never his original intention. Whether contractually obligated or not. He was given the opportunity to create the version he wanted, and so he did. To suggest that changing it in anyway still makes it the same film is absurd. That's right up there with turning a widescreen film into a fullscreen one (or vice versa).

A rating is so arbitrary anyway. It kills creativity to say that there is only way to do something. If a film is cut then it is no longer the same.

Regardless of which version you may prefer, the R-rated cut is an "official" version of Robocop and, for completeness' sake, I would like to own a copy of both version. Therefore, I appreciate not having to buy both versions seperately.

Actually, I agree with what one person said back when Robocop was first released. The ED-209 scene in the R-rated cut is almost more violent than the uncut version because it lost the comic overkill and became more "realistic."

I'm more than happy to take this discussion elsewhere. Let's keep this thread focused where it belongs - on the DVD. Not the MPAA.

I am also glad that both cuts are included, although it think it's kind of a waste of space (and transfer quality) that they were included seperately.

Wouldn't the quality be better since they are on seperate disks? I assume The birate would be higher.

It's always a balance between how different the versions are and how many extras there are. Seemless branching let's you encode one version and then just the different part of the other version.

For this movie, the differences between the versions are minor, so you probably wouldn't have a decrease in quality to fit "both" versions on one disc. Then you have a whole 2nd disc for the extras.

Splitting it like they did is nice for MGM, because now they can sell either disc by itself without having to remaster the release. It hurts us because whichever disc has the extras is going to suffer in movie quality.

The extras are spread out over both discs.

The R1 Trilogy did not have both versions, the R2 did.