Supermallet

You could play the "Who knows how he feels" game till we're blue in the face. It is worth nothing that The Shining documentary was made by his daughter, which probably affected his decision.

biglou114

But the point is he allowed it to be released. He could have easily blocked that.

rbrown498

As I'm in the latter category, I would find an extended cut of the film to be absolutely torturous. However, it's nice to find out that Kubrick knew that he was polarizing viewers.

I'm not sure that I absolutely agree with his statement, however. It's amazing to me how much better THE SHINING plays in its non-US cut; if the powers that be were to come out with an hour-and-a-half-long version of 2001, it could possibly change my mind a bit.

Solid Snake

I don't even know how that'd make sense. A lot of it, in the visual sense, is about the world you're looking at and the feeling you get from it.

Dan Average

Jeffrey Wells has a post (vouched for by Robert Harris in the comments) which provides some info on what's in this footage -- still vague but more specific than most of what I've read. He also states that the whereabouts of this "discovered" footage have been known for twenty years.

Numanoid

Agreed. I generally cite 2001 as my second favorite film of all time, and this is tremendous news. I'm excited. And we already have a near-perfect blu-ray, so bring this one on however you want.

slowcloud

OK, since the can of worms on other alternate cuts of Kubrick films, can I ask any of you whether you know of an alternate cut of Lolita. Before I owned Kubrick’s Lolita on DVD, I had rented it on VHS. I had an English class where I was doing a presentation on Vladimir Nabokov, who, as many know, wrote the book and co-wrote the screenplay of the movie. I rented the movie again on VHS to show the famous hotel room scene to the class, highlighting the dialogue between Humbert and Lo. I cued up the tape and played it in class. I was surprised to notice the scene went on much longer than how I remembered it and had more dialogue in it (no, no skin or any such thing—just more talk). I knew it wasn’t my imagination because another student in the class asked me where I got the video because he never saw the scene extended like that. I was clueless and thought that it was because it was a newer version of the video (it was the reissued 2001 release with the white cover). When I finally bought it on DVD it was the same old version, I remembered before coming across this mysterious extended version, which I had long returned to the video store (unfortunately a Hollywood Video that has since liquidated its stock). I tried hunting down another VHS of this version and bought three different copies and came across the same old familiar cut.

This was a real fluke occurrence and not my imagination. I did a very lucid, sober presentation and I had a witness that noticed the same thing I did. We were focused on the dialogue in the scene, so it came as a clear surprise to us. Can anyone here shed light on the existence of two different cuts of this movie on VHS? As far as I know it does not exist on DVD (I’m sure someone here would have commented on this by now if it did).

caligulathegod

Yeah, the British version has a longer seduction scene (10 more seconds). When they show it on Turner Classic Movies, they show the longer version.

slowcloud

No kidding. Is that the only bit that is extended in the UK version? I just happened to luck into that scene when I played it for the class.

Also is the UK DVD extended then?

Thanks for the insight!

Supermallet

This is all I found on IMDB:

"The scene where Lolita first "seduces" Humbert as he lies in the cot is a good 10 seconds longer in the British cut of the film. In the U.S. cut, the shot fades as she whispers the details of the "game" she played with Charlie at camp. In the U.K. print, the shot continues as Humbert mumbles that he's not familiar with the game. She then bends down again to whisper more details. Kubrick then cuts to a closer shot of Lolita's head as she says "Well, allrighty then" and then fades as she begins to descend to Humbert on the cot. The British cut of the film was used for the Region 1 DVD release."

slowcloud

Yep, that's what I remember seeing. Weird that some US VHS wound up with that cut on it and others did not.

bogrod

That is the best point of all of this. I don't want it in if Kubrick didn't cut it in. As an "extra" that can be accessed outside of the main film, sure. But not cut into it.

bogrod

The rumor that I read is that he had the unincluded footage from all of his Warner Brothers films packed into a truck, and then sent to a landfill and burned personally by Leon Vitali. He could do this, because he had ownership over these films and did his own editing at his house.

2001 would obviously not be included in this category, so I would not be surprised if there were stuff in a vault somewhere that was not cut into the final print.

Dan Average

You might've read it on this very site:

I suspect this footage survived because it actually made it into a publicly-screened version (the premiere, and possibly the roadshow if some people are remembering correctly) and was presumably handled differently than normal outtakes.

bogrod

If that wasn't the direct source, it was certainly copied and pasted on another site. But yes, that is what I remember reading.

Even though I would never want it to be a part of any official version, I would love to see what Kubrick cut out of the US theatrical release of "The Shining".

Numanoid

But this footage seems to be part of Kubrick's original cut. If the preview audience had a different reaction, it may have very well been left in the theatrical prints. So this is kind of a gray area.

Deleted scenes would be fine with me, but if the quality is there I wouldn't be against a special extended version.

Kory

As long as they give us BOTH versions on the same disc (or at least in the same set), I agree.

caligulathegod

If this is stuff that even Kubrick found too boring to leave in the movie, then it would be nearly impossible to watch as isolated extras. The only way to appreciate this would be to see it integrated back in the film as Kubrick's original version, again as just a curiosity for those of us who are fanatics for this movie. It's kind of like the History of Middle-earth volumes of Tolkien's original drafts of Lord of the Rings. Not of interest for most people, but fascinating for those who are interested.

Numanoid

But why is that necessary? The blu-ray of 2001 that is out now is magnificent.

Doctorossi

A) The cut included on the current release is the definitive cut and that needs to be maintained.

B) A new disc could be even more magnificenterer.

Kory

I agree, but they're re-issuing it anyway, right? Give us everything from the current Blu-ray, plus the new stuff, so I don't have to have two copies of the same film on Blu-ray.

Robert

They knew about it all along!

http://www.slashfilm.com/warner-bros...yssey-footage/

Jerome

and in the Slashfilm article:

so, no new Blu-Ray release planned.

Doctorossi

I think you're misreading that release, Jerome; it means no new cut planned.

NoirFan

Wait, people actually thought there was a possibility that WB would go against Kubrick's express wishes and create a new cut of the film? The Slash article just confirms what we already know. If the newly-discovered footage is included on the upcoming Blu-ray at all, it will be as a bonus feature.