History Main / ImprovedByTheReCut

* ''Film/DominionPrequelToTheExorcist'': This chapter of ''The Exorcist'' remains one of the most bizarre [[TroubledProduction troubled productions]] in film history. Originally Creator/PaulSchrader was brought to direct a psychological horror movie in the vein of the original; he did his job and almost completed what was called ''Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist''. However, as the movie was being marketed, Morgan Creek Productions [[ExecutiveMeddling decided]] it was not scary enough to fit expectations, so they tossed the unfinished film into a vault and brought an entirely new director, Creator/RennyHarlin, to direct an entirely new movie. This was the final result, a retooling named ''Exorcist: The Beginning'' that only shared Skarsgard in the main role and the outlines of its plot. Only after it failed with critics and at the box office did they allow Schrader to finish and release his film, edging out the previous one in success and giving birth to the strange event of two films in one. Both versions received mostly negative reviews, but ''Dominion'' is generally considered to be the better (or less bad) version.

** Earlier, there was also the "Special Longer Version" of the film, originally broadcast on TV in 1983 before being released on VHS. This version dropped 12 minutes of deleted scenes back into the film: the restored material helped a great deal in making the plot easier to follow and in humanizing the characters with the addition of some philosophical musics and quirky humor. However, the "Special Longer Version" also includes some blatantly unfinished visual-effects shots.

* Episodes 21 to 24 of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' were recut for the UsefulNotes/LaserDisc release with new footage taken from TheMovie ''Evangelion: Death and Rebirth''. The new footage fleshes out the lore, worldbuilding, plot and character development more than the original airings of the episodes. Some of the more JustForFun/{{Egregious}} moments of OffModel and LimitedAnimation have also been fixed (Asuka twitches her nose and blinks during the infamous UncomfortableElevatorMoment now!) on top of linking the penultimate episodes of the series better to the alternate ending movie ''The End of Evangelion''. These Home Video episodes (labelled Director's Cuts internationally) have been released internationally with some remastered [[UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} DVDs]] alongside the original episodes and have since superseded the original episodes for international releases on Creator/{{Netflix}} and UsefulNotes/BluRay. Nowadays, Japan is the only country where the episodes as they originally aired [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes can easily be found]].

* This is a persistent phenomenon for the films in the ''[[Franchise/{{Highlander}} Highlander]]'' franchise.

* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'': The original run of Season Four has the show use a markedly different structure. The cast have separate long-winded adventures, barely interact with each other, and the AnachronicOrder has the story make no sense until the last third of the season where they finally explain a lot of the [[BrickJoke Brick Jokes]] and plot points. In 2018, A ReCut of the entire season called "Fateful Consequences" attempts to assemble the season into a more chronological order, placing more emphasis on developing two or three plotlines in each episode, while also being quicker to reveal certain twists (Lindsay and Tobias both going to India for a retreat is covered in the same episode, rather than revealing Tobias was also in India two episodes later). This, in addition to shorter episode runtime but more episodes total, makes it more in line with the style of the earlier seasons, and fans of the show consider it better than the original release as it fits closer to the prior seasons.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''[='=]s original release was met with modest success, but the ''International Zodiac Job System'' released [[NoExportForYou only in Japan]] on its original UsefulNotes/Playstation2 release is far more enjoyed than the original version, as it forces the player to have characters be more specialized in their roles, rather than have the same License Board for everyone. It also removed mechanics like the damage cap, which made certain bonus marathon bosses a lot more manageable. As a result, all rereleases of the game since the ''IZJS'' have used the ''IZJS'' version as a base. ''The Zodiac Age'' version released on UsefulNotes/Playstation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, PC and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch was considered an even greater improvement because its two-job system corrected the main criticism of the ''IZJS'', which is that jobs made characters [[CripplingOverspecialization too specialized]]. It also removed "effect capacity", hardware limitations forcing spell animations to be "queued-up", making high-level spells far less AwesomeButImpractical. A further update to the game in 2019 added the ability to create and edit up to three Gambit setups and allowed players to reset their character's Licence Boards, further solidifying fans opinion that this was the definitive FFXII experience.
* The 1999 ''VideoGame/ShadowMan'' game had an UpdatedRerelease in 2021 (for PC; released on UsefulNotes/PlayStation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch in 2022), ''Shadow Man Remastered'', created by Creator/NightdiveStudios, that has been generally received positively for not only a few gameplay improvements (tweaking the movement controls, easier camera movement and adding a weapon wheel to streamline combat), but also integrating extra levels that had to be scrapped for time from the original game, as well as including a second copy of the Violator weapon that had previously been exclusive to the UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 version. Due to these factors, it's seen by some as the definitive version of the game.

* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' had two cases of this, the VHS version that added 12 minutes of dialogue that actually advanced the plot and explained what the heck was going on while also giving the rest of the cast and extra more screen time (allowing for some quirky humor and philosophical musings that made them seem more alive and, well, human), and the DVD director's cut, that was thoroughly re-edited to give the derided "Motionless Picture" some better pacing (including a few of the previous cut's deleted scenes), along with getting some new effects to more closely match the original storyboards.

Often occurs when the original cut was the result of ExecutiveMeddling. Compare SalvagedStory and EnhancedOnDVD.

-->-- From '''Creator/RogerEbert''''s review of ''Film/TheBrownBunny''[[note]]The original review savaged the film; the review of the recut gave it three stars out of four, though Ebert maintained that the Cannes edit was still the worst thing he'd seen at the festival[[/note]]

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII''[='=]s original release was met with modest success, but the ''International Zodiac Job System'' released [[NoExportForYou only in Japan]] on its original UsefulNotes/Playstation2 release is far more enjoyed than the original version, as it forces the player to have characters be more specialized in their roles, rather than have the same License Board for everyone. It also removed mechanics like the damage cap, which made certain bonus marathon bosses a lot more manageable. As a result, all rereleases of the game since the ''IZJS'' have used the ''IZJS'' version as a base. ''The Zodiac Age'' version released on UsefulNotes/Playstation4, UsefulNotes/XboxOne, PC and UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch was considered an even greater improvement because its two-job system corrected the main criticism of the ''IZJS'', which is that jobs made characters [[CripplingOverspecialization too specialized]]. A further update to the game in 2019 added the ability to create and edit up to three Gambit setups and allowed players to reset their character's Licence Boards, further solidifying fans opinion that this was the definitive FFXII experience.

* Every single release of ''Film/HighlanderIITheQuickening'' past the first-run VHS cuts out all references to the immortals being aliens from the planet Zeist. None of them are considered ''good'', but this is still generally a massive improvement.
* The version of ''Film/HighlanderEndgame'' aired in theatres had some unfinished special effects and was missing several plot critical scenes. This was all fixed in the DVD and VHS releases.

* ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' was heavily criticized on release for its confusing and crowded plotting. An extended cut was included on the Blu-Ray that is widely considered a vast improvement over the theatrical cut. No major subplots were cut like most of the examples on this page but rather the fourteen minutes of added screen time is mostly expositional in nature. Said exposition serves to smooth out the pacing (especially in the second act which is widely considered the weakest part of the film), make certain characters’ who were victims of the condensed runtime’s choices more understandable, and add to the backstory to make it more accessible to casual fans. The most baffling omission from the theatrical cut is an extended version of Newt’s discussion with Dumbledore that only clocked in at 40 seconds which had the latter explain why he’d sent the former to New York in the first place- Grindelwald had a vision of an obscurial killing him and he wanted Newt to get there first. The extended cut changes the biggest criticism of the film of being poorly written to it being poorly edited.

* ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' was heavily criticized on release for its confusing and crowded plotting. An extended cut on the Blu-Ray contains about seven minutes of runtime of expository scenes that give the film some room to breathe by adding a lot of context and helping to smooth out the pacing, especially during the second act. The most baffling omission from the theatrical cut is a 40 second scene that has Dumbledore directly explain to Newt why he had sent him to New York in the first place.

* ''Film/FantasticBeastsTheCrimesOfGrindelwald'' was heavily criticized on release for its confusing and crowded plotting. An extended cut on the Blu-Ray contains several expository scenes that give the film some room to breath by adding a lot of context and helping to smooth out the pacing, especially during the second act.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/c54330a3_dab8_4429_9c7c_0e34ec5d5cea.jpeg]]

-->--From Creator/RogerEbert's review of ''Film/TheBrownBunny''[[note]]The original review savaged the film; the review of the recut gave it three stars out of four, though Ebert maintained that the Cannes edit was still the worst thing he'd seen at the festival[[/note]]