Follow TV Tropes

Following

Re-Cut
aka: Directors Cut

Go To

Occasionally, a movie turns out good. Often, a movie turns out bad. Sometimes, a movie turns out good, but not quite good enough. That's where the concept of a Recut comes in.

Kinds of Recuts:

  • Director's Cut: The cut of the film the director 'approves of'. If the director didn't like the theatrical cut because they weren't allowed to cut the film the way they wanted, they may put scenes back in, take scenes out, fiddle with timing, change audio or various other things. This kind of Director's Cut is very common on DVD. Occasionally, the theatrical cut is the true director's cut, because the director's perfectly happy with the theatrical cut. Contractually, since the late '70s onwards, thanks to Robert Aldrich in particular, a mainstream Hollywood professional film has an editing stage in multiple parts. The most important is the first cut which is designated to the director, who must be allowed to complete his version before other studio heads submit their feedback. Before, there was no notion of a director being allowed to make their cut at any stage free of interference. The only instances where a director won't be allowed is if they resign mid-production and recuse themselves before turning in their cut, or if they are fired before they complete a certain percentage of film-making that obliges them creator's rights. This nuance is often unknown outside of film production circles where the "director's cut" is the first cut, and not necessarily the intended final version.
  • Extended Cut: What ended up on the cutting room floor is put back in, without any significant removals. This is different from the director's original vision, as said vision may have excluded scenes mandated by the Producers, and vice-versa.
  • TV Cut: A version of the film edited for the different format. Basically, every movie shown on TV has been changed slightly (every time there's an ad break, the film fades to black) but often there are more significant changes. For instance, for many years violence was often cut, swear words were either bleeped, silenced out, or their scenes altered, and nudity was removed. This is somewhat less common nowadays as most networks either air movies uncut, or after the watershed if necessary. (See any Die Hard movie for some of the most notorious TV edits.) They may also be edited for time - occasionally, this involved making them longer, not shorter. Some movies had deleted scenes reinstated to bulk out the runtime and fit more neatly into a broadcast slot. Before HD television they were also converted to pan-and-scan format from letterbox if such a version didn't exist.

In addition to the above, two types of recuts are common and distinct enough to be tropes of their own:

  • George Lucas Altered Version: Instead of working with footage made during the original production, the filmmaker creates new footage/audio/FX to be spliced in long after the original release. This changes it from an "original vision" into more of a completely new product based on the original.
  • Dub-Induced Plotline Change: Material is radically altered to fit the sensibilities of a target foreign market. Usually this involves removing and reshuffling scenes (or even entire episodes), renaming characters to local-friendly ones, changing demographic elements of characters (e.g. gender or sexuality), and altering dialogue to reflect different tastes. This type of re-cut became much rarer after the 2000's in favor of more straightforward dubs and localizations.

Beyond that, things can get very confusing. The inclusion of one or more Recuts is often one of the selling points of a Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition. The Video Game equivalent is an Updated Re-release. See also Orwellian Retcon for when a recut makes significant changes to the plot or moral of the work. Not to be confused with Repeat Cut.

See Improved by the Re-Cut for when a Recut is considered by critics and fans to be superior to the original.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Dragon Ball Z Kai is a rare case of a recut of an entire televised series (in this case, Dragon Ball Z), cutting away the filler, remastering the show in HD and rerecording the dialogue with as many of the original voice actors as possible to stick as closely to the source material as possible.
  • Much like the games they're based on, Persona 4: The Golden Animation is a re-release of Persona 4: The Animation. However, it acts more as an expansion pack, skipping all the previous scenes, instead focusing on the new content.
  • Attack on Titan: In the form of Director's Cut. Seen in the anime adaptation in which most changes were made on the author's request:
    • Episode 22 includes a lot of Tear Jerker not seen anywhere in the original manga. In fact, there's over 11 minutes of filler that the author thought was good enough to be in.
    • Episode 23 features Annie histerically laughing when confronted by Mikasa as opposed to the calm, defying smile from the manga. The author said the change was made because the expression he gave her in the manga didn't actually fit the moment nor her emotions.
  • The animated film adaptation of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind suffered from an infamously bad recut when it was edited and had its runtime cut by approximately 22 minutes, making it virtually nothing like the original film. Hayao Miyazaki loathed it so much that he would refuse to have any more of his films localized until Princess Mononoke, and even then, only if it was uncut, even going so far as to mail a katana to Miramax with a note reading "NO CUTS".
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion received a Director's Cut in 1997 that altered episodes 21 through 24 to better tie in with the series finale, The End of Evangelion. These episodes mainly add in new scenes & effects taken from Death and Rebirth and redraw the episodes to reduce some of the more glaring Limited Animation, both to appease fans and allow viewers to watch the first 24 episodes and the movie with a bit more clarity, as Hideaki Anno had intended.
  • Robotech: In 2004, the entire series was re-edited using new remastered footage from the original Japanese Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada respectively. Since broadcast was no longer a concern, this new version was able to restore most of the footage that had been cut from the three series for time and content. The series now has more violence and nudity than originally seen. The only footage they couldn't put back in were the ones that involved dialogue. Also, the openings/ending sequences were revised to be unique to each individual series, and any title sequences were redone in modern graphics. The audio was also remixed in 5.1 with new sound effects.

    Arts 
  • The Night Watch: The painting was originally larger, as a 18th-century copy shows. Upon its removal from the Kloveniersdoelen to the Amsterdam Town Hall, the painting was cut down on all four sides, presumably to fit it between two columns. It was sadly a common practice before the 19th century.
  • Portrait of Madame X: She was originally depicted with the right strap of her dress slipping down her shoulder, but this was considered too scandalous, so Sargent repainted that detail.
  • Sleeping Venus (Giorgione): Initially, Cupid was sitting beside the model's feet and pointing his bow to the viewer. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown, his figure was painted over in the 19th century.

    Comic Books 
  • When Marvel Comics reprinted the original series of ElfQuest new pages had to be added by Wendy Pini to fit the total page count. Some of these were new episode titles and recaps, while others were new or expanded story pages. Most of the latter were included in subsequent reprints; due to Art Evolution it's usually not too hard to tell which. A few of the new episode titles were also included, causing some disruption to the original chaptering. Controversially, the series was also re-lettered with bigger balloons which obscured more of the original art and removed some special formatting. This was not corrected until the art was finally "remastered" with computer lettering and coloring, which is the version currently available on the official website. Another reformatting took place when DC Comics reprinted the series in Manga-style volumes, requiring Pini to expand, contract or extend existing comic panels to fit the new page size. This version also included most of the additional art drawn for the Marvel version.
  • The Absolute and Essential editions of Final Crisis featured added pages (including excerpts of DC Universe #0, which was supposed to be the final issue of Countdown to Final Crisis, to act as a prologue with Darkseid falling to Earth and Libra gathering the Secret Society), entire sequences either drawn or redrawn to expand on them (including a battle between Darkseid's force and the Society members under Luthor's control, showing that Dan Turpin survived Darkseid being exorcised from his body, and an extended battle with Mandrakk), as well as two issues from Batman (Grant Morrison) meant to expand on Batman's time as a captive.
  • Anniversary trade paperbacks of famous series (ex. Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, etc.) will on occasion have extra content in them, or edits to the story itself. For example, The Long Halloween included a scene that was cut from the original story due to page constraints. The Killing Joke was recolored, making the scenes darker and more muted, in contrast to its original, more garish colors.
  • Several later works by Los Bros Hernandez have been published initially in the serial issues of Love and Rockets and later as stand-alone graphic novels, sometimes in significantly altered form.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) had issue 50 redone as a Super Sonic Special entitled "Sonic 50: Director's Cut". This was essentially what issue 50 was supposed to have been if they weren't forced to trim down the page count. It's also noticeable as it is considered canon and the original issue 50 is now a Missing Episode.
  • The collected edition of Kingdom Come came with an extra scene on Apokolips and an epilogue.
  • Cavewoman: Reloaded is a revised and expanded version of the original Cavewoman mini-series.
  • The preview issue of The Muppet Show Comic Book, which was originally released at San Diego Comic Con 2008 and also featured in the trade paperback collection of the "Meet the Muppets" miniseries, consisted of Muppet strips that Roger Langridge had originally written and illustrated for Disney Adventures. A story involving Sweetums trying to upstage the current guest star for the Muppet Theatre to impress his mother was revised without Langridge's permission to have Sweetums sing a parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" near the end. The version included in the trade paperback also replaced a cameo by Bert with Dr. Teeth.
  • Many modern collections of Golden Age stories have taken steps to try removing content that is offensive. For instance, many of the Wonder Woman Vol 1 collections replace racist caricatures of black people with more natural-looking black characters.
  • In 2015, The Children's Crusade (Vertigo) received a hardcover collection titled Free Country: A Tale of the Children's Crusade, which underwent several revisions from the storyline's original printing. The most notable differences were that the Annual issues from other Vertigo titles that tied into the storyline are omitted and replaced with a new middle chapter to bridge the gap between the series' two bookend issues, plus the concluding chapter had the changes of including a prologue where Avril Mitchell worried about the whereabouts of her brother Oliver as well as changing the ending so that the slaver who disguised himself as Jack Rabbit to manipulate everyone into aiding his scheme of enslaving the children of Free Country was successfully captured and imprisoned rather than escaping while Edwin and Charles were deterred from going after him on the grounds that he was no longer a threat to Free Country.

    Films — Animated 
  • The Thief and the Cobbler
    • It was first conceived by Richard Williams (who would eventually become animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit) in 1964, but spent almost 30 years in Development Hell. Williams eventually signed a deal with Warner Bros. in 1990 to release the film, but they had no faith in it since the film took way too long to release, plus Disney was about to come out with their version of Aladdin, so they pulled out. Then, the Completion Bond Company bought the rights to it in 1992, and a year later, producer Fred Calvert with Majestic Films released it in South Africa and Australia as The Princess and the Cobbler. Many of the scenes from Williams' workprint were cut, plus new dialogue, songs, voices (where there really weren't any before), and scenes (poorly animated by various companies and freelance artists across the world) were hastily added in. In 1995, it would be released in the U.S. by Miramax as Arabian Knight (later under the original title), where even more was butchered. An unofficial "Recobbled Cut" was made by a fan in 2006 that restored Williams' original vision as much as possible, but Williams has since disowned the film regardless.
    • Williams has since screened his own version of the film, dubbed The Thief and the Cobbler: A Moment in Time, which was sourced from a workprint put together the day before he was kicked off the project.
  • Yellow Submarine came out on DVD in 1999 with the "Hey Bulldog" segment (which was not in the original release) added. The 2012 re-release is virtually identical save for it came out on Blu-Ray as well. Added goodies were included with the 2012 re-release.
  • The Iron Giant received a re-release in September 2015, as a new "Signature Edition" featuring two newly-animated scenes.
  • In The Rugrats Movie, when Stu tried to cheer up Tommy, who was having a hard time dealing with the newborn Dil, he gave Tommy a pocket watch with a photo of Tommy and one of Dil, explaining that Tommy now has responsibility. Tommy thought the watch was a "sponsitility" and had the function of what Phil thought was called a "krumpass." However, it was really a pocket watch, not a compass, and it was meant to show Tommy he has responsibility as a brother. In a later pressing of the film, "sponsitility" was changed to "sponsativity," or had both "sponsitility" and "sponsativity."
  • Disney made Special Editions of both Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King for IMAX theaters (and prepared Aladdin). Along with remastering the films for the larger IMAX format, each film got an additional musical number; in both cases the songs were taken from the stage versions, although Beauty's "Human Again" was really a Cut Song from the movie. Unlike Star Wars, Disney had the foresight of making both the original and special editions included on the DVD releases, although neither "original" one was the original animation. (In the case of Beauty and the Beast, a third version was added, a work-in-progress print shown on the New York Film Festival prior to the film's release, previously available as a separate laserdisc.) Pocahontas also had a special edition, although it was not released theatrically. It added "If I Never Knew You", a Cut Song that did poorly in test screenings but better-establishes the lovers' relationship as the film's climax approaches.
  • Studio Ghibli
    • Kiki's Delivery Service got a recut in 2010 that made it closer to the original Japanese version of the film. All of the ad-libbed dialouge by the characters, mainly Jiji's wisecracks, got removed (which in turn lead to the ending being altered from Kiki being able to hear Jiji in the end to her not hearing him at all), as well as the additional pieces of background music that filled silence (such as the xylophone music in the outhouse scene) and replacing the Sydney Forest songs with the original Yumi Matsutoya songs. Fans weren't happy, viewing the removal of Jiji's wisecracks to be disrespectful knowing the tragic death of his English dub actor, Phil Hartman.
    • Castle in the Sky got a similar recut that removed the re-orchestrated soundtrack and the pirates' ad-libbed lines.
  • The Compilation Movie of The Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen also saw trimmed elements restored.
  • Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was actually released into US theaters with two different versions, each featuring minor changes to dialogue and jokes. For example, the scene near the beginning of the film where Miguel pleads with Lyra to call for back-up ends with her either mockingly pointing at him or taking a selfie after telling him that she already did so.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • The version of the 1966 mondo film Africa Addio released in US theaters was a recut that focused exclusively on scenes of carnage, complete with narration that played up the sensationalism and a completely different title of Africa: Blood and Guts. The original filmmakers, Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi (of Mondo Cane fame), were not involved with the US recut and disowned it.note 
  • The 1994 Wong Kar-wai classic, Ashes of Time, has a re-cut released on DVD 14 years later with additional scenes detailing the characters solely dedicated to plot development. It is generally regarded as more comprehensible and easier to understand than the initial theatrical release.
  • While said TV cut is unnotable by itself, the CBC's cut of Home Alone 2: Lost in New York hit the news in 2019 for removing The Cameo of the hotel's owner, future President Donald Trump. Although Trump believed that the edit was made for political reasons (and no doubt his supporters back him up), the edits were actually made in 2014, a year before Trump started his Presidential campaign.
  • Supernova had an R-rated version released on video that was more violent and made the bad guy even worse. These scenes can be viewed on the DVD in the Deleted Scene section.
  • Francis Ford Coppola
    • There was a special showing of the The Godfather films on TV some years ago. Called The Godfather Saga, it clocked in at over twelve hours and showed the events in the first two films in chronological order, adding scenes that were cut from the original theatrical releases. Another cut was created for home video with scenes from The Godfather Part III added. Both versions are not available on DVD or Blu-Ray, but the additional footage are included in the DVD Deleted Scene section.
    • Additionally, in 2020 a recut version of The Godfather Part III had a limited theatrical run and home media release. Called The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone, it is more in line with Coppola and Mario Puzo's original vision for the film as more of an epilogue to the first two films rather than a third entry in its own right. It was regarded by critics as an improvement on the original version but not a substantial alteration.
    • In 2001 Apocalypse Now was re-edited by Francis Ford Coppola into a new extended version titled Apocalypse Now Redux, which adds almost an hour of additional footage and is regarded as an entirely different film by the director, criticsnote , and the British Moral Guardiansnote . Another extended cut was released in 2019 as Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, which is 20 minutes shorter than Redux.
    • The film version of The Outsiders was re-released as The Outsiders: The Complete Novel - deleted scenes that were in the book but not the original film were added back in, and more licensed music from the time period was added.
    • The Cotton Club had a Director's Cut released in 2019 which restored 25 minutes of footage, including musical numbers which were cut at the insistence of the studio, who thought that there was "too much singing and dancing" and "too many black people," as well as cutting 13 minutes from the theatrical version that emphasized the roles played by Richard Gere and Diane Lane at the expense of co-star Gregory Hines. This cut alters the film dramatically that is now the story about two Cotton Club performers (Gere and Hines) and how their lives parallel with each other, whereas the theatrical version was more about the Gere character.
    • In 2021, Coppola announced a director's cut of his first film, Dementia 13, which is 12 minutes shorter than the theatrical version.
    • In 2023, Coppola released a new version of his 1982 box-office disaster One from the Heart.
  • When Ladies of the Chorus was first released in 1948, it was close to one hour and a half long. It was then cut down to one hour flat in order to give more importance to Marilyn Monroe's character (or at least more than she already had) when she started getting very popular in the early 50s. As a result, the character arc of Mae (Adele Jergens) got considerably reduced, which is why her romance with Billy Mackay (Eddie Garr) feels rushed.
  • The horror film Needful Things was shown on TBS some years back with a sizeable chunk of added footage, most adding depth to the characters. This was included as an extra on the 4K Blu-Ray release.
  • Dune (1984): The theatrical version was not director David Lynch's Director's Cut—the producers not only made him cut a lot of material from his script, they also cut a lot of scenes that had been shot out as well—but it's the only one he's very happy with. Then in 1988, an Extended Cut was made to be shown on TV. It used deleted scenes, but reused more footage than Battlestar Galactica. David Lynch hated it, demanding his name be removed from the writer and director credit (this version has since been referred to as "The Alan Smithee Cut"). Then, in 1992, a San Francisco TV station made a mix of a cut between the original theatrical version of the movie and the Alan Smithee cut, which kept the new scenes but also put the violence back in. Finally, a cut known as the Extended Edition came out on DVD, which was a 177-minute edit of the Alan Smithee version.
  • Universal also did this for the Kevin Costner sci fi Waterworld. The Extended Cut originally appeared on ABC television in two parts that clocked in at two hours each (with commercials). It trimmed out the opening pee shot, the excess violence, and replaced most cusswords with "Slime!". It also reshuffled some of the order of events and added a ton of development of both world and characters, mostly for the Deacon and the atollers.
  • While we're on Kevin Costner, this also happened to Dances with Wolves. An Extended Cut was shown in Europe that adds practically an hour to the running time. While the focus on John Dunbar is lost, all the characters get a buttload of development. Also, the precise reason why the Army camp was deserted was explained. This has been released on DVD, and is the only way to get a widescreen version of the film without eBay.
  • Another Costner film that got this treatment was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Not much is added, but the connection between the Sheriff and the old crone is explained, and it is gross. This has also been released on DVD and the Netflix streaming service.
  • Made infamous by George Lucas reworking the original Star Wars trilogy, resulting in the "Han Shot First" campaign.
    • He also did this to THX 1138, which has lots of added CGI, alternate dialogue, and important scenes that are all shuffled around compared to the original version. His Director's Cut is the only version available on DVD.
    • The least egregious of George Lucas' Special Editions is for American Graffiti, in which only the sky of the opening shot was changed and some scenes were extended.
  • Peter Jackson has done this often.
    • He considers the theatrical The Lord of the Rings movies to be his director's cuts, but the Extended Editions were created (by him) to restore deleted scenes to the movie and develop Tolkien's world more on screen.
      • The Hobbit trilogy also got extended cuts, but unlike with The Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson has said that he prefers the extended edition to the theatrical cut, at least for The Battle of the Five Armies. This may be because he had to cut out the majority of the climax of that movie so that it could be delivered in time for its theatrical release.
    • In The Frighteners, he removed some scenes to avoid an R-rating. It didn't work. One scene featured Johnny Bartlett's ghost and his Ax-Crazy live girlfriend engaging in what can only be described as the weirdest foreplay ever. It features her stabbing his ectoplasmic chest with a butcher knife and him acting like he's having sex. Another scene features a more family-friendly death scene for Jeffrey Combs' character that has been shown in the airline and television versions of the film. Both versions have been released on DVD, but the Director's Cut has a behind-the-scenes special that's actually longer than the film.
    • He has also done this to his remake of King Kong (2005).
  • Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione's infamous Caligula exists in no fewer than ten cuts, a result of the gross amount of Executive Meddling that occurred during the film's very Troubled Production and varying decency standards in the US and Europe.
  • Terry Gilliam's Brazil was in the midst of being recut by the film's producer at Universal to give it a happier ending. However, after Gilliam went behind the studio's back and set up private screenings for critics (which netted him a best picture award from the LA Film Critics Association), and humiliating Universal by taking out a full-page ad in Variety, they agreed to release his cut (which was still slightly shorter than his original version, which he had cut to fall within the running time specifications of his contact). The meddled-with "Love Conquers All" cut was the one shown on TV in syndication, and was released alongside Gilliam's original cut by the Criterion Collection on home video.
  • Ridley Scott:
    • Varying releases of Blade Runner over the years have resulted in five distinct versions (just on Blu-ray and DVD alone): The American Theatrical Cut (which includes Philip Marlowe-style voiceovers by Harrison Ford's character, and a happier ending, which used footage left over from The Shining); The International Cut (which is the same as The American Cut save for some additional gore during a particularly violent scene near the end); A Workprint Version (a rough cut which preceded the theatrical cuts, notably put together before scoring, which started being shown in a few repertory houses starting in 1990); A so-called Director's Cut (released in theaters in 1992, then VHS in 1993, and then on DVD in 1997, which removed the voice-over and ending, more to Scott's liking, but was not created with his actual involvement); And lastly, the Final Cut, released in 2007 for the film's 25th anniversary, for which Scott shot new footage featuring actress Joanna Cassidy and Benjamin Ford (Harrison's son) that was digitally superimposed into two scenes of the film with some long-standing & very obvious gaffes, along with adding some new digital mattes, and some slight audio editing (the cut of the film itself is very similar to the 1992 version). The new cut also received an a extensive restoration as this was first time it was being released on high-def formats. It was these 5 cuts that were released together in boxsets on DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray in December 2007, then re-re-released on DVD & Blu-Ray in 2012 for the film's 30th anniversary, and the Final Cut getting another restoration and re-release to take full advantage of the 4K Ultra HD format to celebrate the 35th anniversary and Denis Villeneuve's upcoming sequel.
    • Legend was substantially cut by a half-hour after poor test screenings and was altered further for its U.S. release in 1986 (this included an entirely different music score). Scott prepared a Director's Cut for a 2002 DVD release which reinstated the original score and 20 minutes of additional footage (and was considered lost until the sole surviving print was discovered in 2000).
    • Alien: When Fox requested a "Director's Cut" for the Special Edition release in 2003, Scott felt that an extended cut would ruin the film's pacing, and instead opted for an alternate cut using several deleted scenes. The end result was a "Director's Cut" that was actually two minutes shorter than the original film. He specifically mentions in his introduction of the DVD that it's not a Director's Cut, seeing how he was and still is perfectly happy with the original theatrical cut, but can be seen as simply an alternate version only created because Fox asked him to.
    • Kingdom of Heaven was released in its theatrical cut (which Scott hated), and in a multi-disc Director's Cut, with which director, film critics, and many viewers were much happier. Specifically, the director's cut was over an hour longer and included a whole cut storyline, and several important pieces of character development.
    • American Gangster has an Extended Version that runs for an additional 19 minutes than the theatrical cut, though most of its new material is mostly subtle bits of character rather than anything significant different from what was in theaters.
    • Scott's Robin Hood (2010) lost at least twenty minutes of footage before its theatrical release, including a scene that created a major Plot Hole. The Director's Cut DVD release restores it all.
    • The Counselor got one with an additional 20 minutes thrown in. While the changes aren't exactly enough for the movie to escape it's polarizing reactions, it is enough to fix some of its pacing issues and restore some of it's more naughtier bits.
    • The Martian was confirmed to have an extended version around the time of theater release, with Scott saying it'd run somewhere around 15 to 20 minutes longer than the theatrical cut. In truth, the Extended Cut actually runs ten minutes longer than the theatrical cut and mostly has minor changes, including more scenes of Mark Watney (Matt Damon) and his trek across Mars to get to the rendezvous point so that he can be rescued.
  • The Superman film series:
    • Some of the re-added scenes in the Director's Cut of Superman: The Movie expand on the Kryptonian stuff in the film, as well a scene featuring little Lois seeing little Clark running at superspeed. Her parents are played by the actors from the original TV series.
    • A TV Cut of Superman: The Movie was also released as a dual feature Blu-ray along with the aforementioned Director's Cut in 2017. It included many patched in scenes to supposedly lengthen the movie for additional ad time when first broadcast.
    • After nearly finishing production on Superman II, director Richard Donner was fired and replaced with Richard Lester, who reshot much of the film. The original theatrical cut is about 35% Donner footage and 65% Lester footage. In 2006, Richard Donner released his own cut of the film on DVD, which is composed of about 90% of his material, and makes use of rehearsal footage and screen tests to make up the parts he never got a chance to film properly. The cut purportedly gives the first two movies a more complete story arc but suffers from a lack of post-production for special effects, score and scene pacing.
  • This isn't just limited to theatrical movies. The Pilot Movie of Babylon 5 (called Babylon 5: The Gathering), when it first aired in 1993, was... not edited very well, to put it delicately. In 1998 the whole thing was re-edited from the ground up: deleted scenes were restored, embarrassing scenes were cut, the original audio of Laurel Takashima's dialogue was used, and the whole thing was re-scored by Christopher Franke. While it's still fairly cheap-looking, the result is a much more engaging film.
    • However, while it's possible to miss it, there's a spoiler in the recut for something that isn't revealed until season 3.
  • A similar thing was done in 2009 for the reissue of the Stargate SG-1 Pilot Movie, "Children of the Gods". Not only did the revised version clear up some at-the-time unfixed plot points (like how Apophis and his Jaffa departed through the Stargate in the beginning) and the motivation for Teal'c's Mook–Face Turn, but also removed such cringe-inducing moments like the nudity scene or Carter's infamous "reproductive organs" line. This came about from series creator Brad Wright's growing dissatisfaction with the original version, particularly with the full frontal nudity which was rumored to have been forced on him by then-series owners Showtime.
    • The movie that launched the series also had this done. Some scenes added to the Extended cut of the film show remains of some Anubis guards buried near the gate when it's dug up in the beginning.
  • The Halloween films had many TV Cuts made:
    • During the filming of the first sequel, John Carpenter shot more scenes for the ABC broadcast of the original to help it pad out the allotted time. These scenes don't do much; most of the added scenes occur at the beginning, with Loomis warning a board of health about Michael. One scene does manage to add something - Loomis and the hospital staff examine Michael's old room, where he has written the word "sister" on the wall, presumably in blood. This actually helps establish the twist in part 2, that Laurie is Michael's biological sister.
    • Halloween II has a few added scenes and changes, sparing some of the characters that die in the original; the scene of Mrs Elrod finding a bloody knife in her kitchen is edited in a way to imply Michael kills her instead of the young girl who overhears her screaming, a scene of Janet saying she's leaving the hospital and the removal of her discovering Dr Mixter dead, a few groans inserted after Jill is stabbed from behind to suggest she survives and confirming that Jimmy survives in the final scene (he's last seen passing out in the car with Laurie before the climax). There are also added scenes between Jimmy and Laurie in the hospital, and the hospital staff discussing the night's events. One scene has the power go out and the emergency generators kicking in, explaining why the hospital becomes so dim in the latter part of the film.
    • Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers has the most stunning example of this. Apparently, the film ran over time and budget, so the suits decided to take it over to see how they could screw it up. Their version is the Theatrical Cut. When the film was shown on TV, someone got a hold of the now infamous Producer's Cut. While the violence and cursing were trimmed, an assload of alternate takes and different opening narration were shown, and the entire last 20 minutes of the film is RADICALLY different from the Theatrical Cut. The main change is that the explanation for Michael's killing ways is altered: The Theatrical version offered a scientific reason, but the Producer's Cut says the reason is supernatural (which also explains why Michael is also growing bigger in each previous film. It's because his power is growing). It also shows a final scene with Dr. Loomis realizing that he has been cursed by Thorn. This was likely altered when Donald Pleasance died. An early trailer showed that the film was originally going to called "Halloween 666: The Curse of Michael Myers." This version was only available through bootleg video releases until it was finally released on blu-ray in 2014.
    • Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later has a TV Cut that does the violence and cussword trim, but also has some alternate scenes fun. One added scene gives the counselor played by Alan Arkin some development by revealing that his mother cheated on his travelling salesman father, and he got blamed for knowing, but doing nothing.
    • The Rob Zombie remake and its sequel has an Unrated Director's Cut on DVD.
  • The Highlander film series:
    • Highlander has a director's cut that adds some cut material back in-like the Kurgan licking the priest's arm, which had been cut in the US for being potentially offensive, and the World War 2 scene showing Rachel's origin.
    • Highlander II: The Quickening: When it ran over time and budget, the suits essentially rewrote the plot. As originally intended, (and shown in the Renegade Cut,) the immortals are from the ancient past and predate humanity, and not from outer space. The Theatrical Cut added that outer-space aspect (the planet Zeist plotline), but in doing so created one massive Plot Hole concerning MacLeod's reactivation of his immortal nature.
  • Another film that got a slight tweak was Weird Science. The TV version shows two scenes not in the Home Video Version:
    • In the first few minutes of the film, the boys are in the kitchen during their viewing of the Frankenstein movie to get snacks. Gary grabs a ridiculous handful of frozen mini-pizzas and shoves them into the microwave.
    • During the party, some guys in Devo flowerpot hats show up, and ask to be let in. Lisa asks the guests what they think. The guests vote to toss 'em, but Lisa lets them in anyway.
  • One of the earliest examples is Close Encounters of the Third Kind. After the film's successful initial release in 1977, Steven Spielberg convinced Columbia Pictures to re-edit the film and shoot new footage for scenes he never got to finish — though in exchange, he also had to shoot a sequence that took place inside the mothership, and that became the focus of the 1980 promotional campaign. For years this was the official final cut until the 1998 Collector's Edition (AKA Director's Cut), which includes most of the Special Edition footage and re-adds at least two scenes from the original theatrical release, but drops the McDonalds billboard shot and the mothership interior scene. There was also a TV-only cut that included all of the scenes from both the theatrical and special editions. A list of the various cuts and the differences between them is here. All three cuts can be found in the film's Blu-ray release, with the 1998 Director's Cut getting a new 4K restoration as well.
  • Spielberg later caught some flack from his re-cut of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which like the Star Wars special editions, have redone special effects (mostly CG expressions added to the E.T. puppet) and some cut scenes. Fans were especially upset that the FBI agents had their guns replaced with walkie-talkies, an obvious difference made all the more obvious by the FBI agents holding their walkie-talkies in both hands... with their index fingers extended. With the Blu-Ray, Spielberg has gone in the opposite direction, only releasing the original version. He's changed the stance to an "anti-Lucas" feeling old films should be left alone as they were.
  • Writer and producer William Peter Blatty produced a recut of The Exorcist, creating "The Version You've Never Seen". This version added some CGI fixes to certain scenes, added subliminal imagery, restored a scene where the possessed Regan carries out a contorted "spider-walk," and features a longer ending which sets up the events of The Exorcist III. All the added footage had been shot with the rest of the film back in 1973, but the director, William Friedkin simply didn't want to use it at the time. Blatty did, and eventually got the chance to create his own edit.
  • The broadcast premiere of Who Framed Roger Rabbit had an extra scene cut from the theatrical version. Eddie is caught snooping around in Jessica's dressing room and is taken to Toontown, and the next morning he wakes up with a toon pig's head painted on top of his own. The scene is included as an extra on the DVD.
    • The removal of this scene causes a slight plot hole in the released version. With the scene intact, we see that Eddie returns to his office to shower off the pigs head, which is when Jessica arrives. When he exits the bathroom, he has very clearly just been taking a shower (he's soaking wet). But because Viewers Are Morons, the producers apparently decided no one would be able to tell he had been showering, and added in the sound of a toilet flushing. Perhaps we are supposed to assume he was giving himself a swirlie?
    • An entry on a Cracked list explains why it was good that this scene had been cut.
  • Terry Jones was never happy with the original version of Erik the Viking. Some years later he supervised a re-edit that was carried out by his son, referred to as the "Director's Son's Cut". However, the quality of the recut is up for debate among fans, many of whom consider the recut to mangle the film and remove most of the funny non sequitur scenes.
  • The films Planet Terror and Death Proof were filmed with the specific purpose of cutting large chunks out of them, and were in their theatrical release bundled as the faux B-Movie feature Grindhouse. The DVD releases restore (most) of the scenes cut for the theatrical version. Death Proof in particular actually suffers from this, because the theatrical release takes a good 40 minutes before anything interesting happens. In the extended cut, it's a full hour before it picks up. And the lap dance doesn't count. It was much more interesting when you didn't see it. Plus, the original theatrical cut of Grindhouse wasn't released overseas, and is only on DVD in Japan (it was released on Blu-Ray in America, though); the intermission's trailer spoofs (save Machete) were dropped in the process. However, in the U.S. the pay-cable Encore movie networks have shown this cut.
  • Army of Darkness is especially odd in that there are several cuts depending on whether it's the theatrical release, domestic television broadcast, overseas market release or the Director's Cut. Some include the original ending (which was the one preferred by director Sam Raimi, but was changed at the request of the studio, which considered it "too depressing"), some include the theatrical ending, some include the extended windmill scene (strangely enough, the television broadcast has it, but the theatrical version didn't), some change the dialogue between Ash and Bad Ash, and some include other minor differences. Fans could have a field day just editing in their favorite versions of each scene, though there's the theatrical ending, where Ash confronts a Deadite in S-Mart.
  • The Films of Zack Snyder:
    • Dawn of the Dead has an unrated cut that includes more scenes of gore plus a few more character moments here and there. Most notable includes how the surviors got into the mall in the first place and an extension of the infamous "zombie baby" moment.
    • Watchmen got both a Director's Cut and an Ultimate Cut. Oddly, the Ultimate Cut was given a home-release months after the Theatrical and Director's Cuts. Both new cuts are pretty substantial. The Director's Cut adds pretty much everything that was shot, minus the Tales of the Black Freighter tie-ins on the street corner. It bumps up the running time to three hours, a full half-hour. It's definitely a better movie for it, featuring more character development and more scenes that were in the comic. The Ultimate Cut adds another half-hour (bringing it to three and a half hours), featuring the entire Black Freighter animated feature woven into the movie and the accompanying street-corner bits. Your Mileage Will Vary on that one, since the animated features are more heavy handed and feel dropped in (unlike the careful weaving present in the comic), while the new live-action segments show how normal citizens react to the events around them. Snyder himself has declared preferring the Director's Cut.
    • Sucker Punch in its Extended Cut form is much darker than its PG-13 theatrical version. Mainly, a stronger emphasis on the sexual harrasment that the characters endure, which was notably absent from the regular cut. We also get an extra musical number featuring Oscar Isaac and Carla Gugino's characters, which is seen as something as a highlight for some viewers.
    • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice got a three hour Director's Cut, a la similar to Watchmen referred to as the "Ultimate Edition". The film's runtime went from two and half hours to three and quite a few things have been changed from the theatrical version, such as a stronger focus on characters like Superman and Lois Lane, a better grasp on Lex Luthor's motivations and his involvement on the subplot in Africa, Jena Malone appearing as a S.T.A.R. Labs member helping out Lane, an R rating and more. The R rating actually caught Snyder off guard, as he didn't make the film with that rating in mind. While reviews for the theatrical cut were negative, the overall response has improved thanks to the Ultimate Edition.
    • Zack Snyder's Justice League, because of its nature, is something of a George Lucas Altered Version. The theatrical version of Justice League was a two-hour film composed of almost 50% new footage by Joss Whedon (who took over the film during post-production), whereas this version is a four-hour movie consisting solely of Snyder footage (and also uses Junkie XL instead of Danny Elfman as composer) that was mostly scrapped in the making of the theatrical cut, plus 4-5 minutes that Snyder filmed in 2020.
  • James Cameron's 1989 sci-fi epic The Abyss was cut down by Cameron himself from from around 2 hours, 51 minutes to about 2 hours, 26 minutes for its theatrical release, with short bits removed from many scenes throughout the film, and a massive cut near the end of the film that focused on the aliens threatening mankind with extinction because of their worries over humans destroying the planet in a nuclear holocaust. Cameron said he did this because certain scenes that read well as screenplay didn't translate to film with the effectiveness he wanted. In a bit of Averted Executive Meddling, he revealed that the 20th Century Fox higher-ups were actually, to quote Cameron, "horrified" when he told them he was cutting the end sequence differently. After the success of 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, however, Cameron used some money from a new contract to go back and finalize The Abyss into its initial 2 hour, 51 minute form, and this was later released as the "Special Edition." He later did the same for T2.
  • The Director's Cut of The Butterfly Effect has additional scenes and a much darker ending: pre-natal suicide.
  • All seven of the Saw movies have unrated cuts, each of them being sightly longer and more gory than their theatrical counterparts.
    • Allegedly, the original cut of Saw III was four hours long. The prospect of this version ever seeing the light of day is slim.
  • Vincent Gallo's infamous film The Brown Bunny debuted at the Cannes Film Festival to much disdain; Roger Ebert called it "the worst film in the history of Cannes."note  Later, when the film appeared in United States theaters, it had been re-edited, removing 26 minutes from what had been a 118 minute film, and Ebert gave the new version three out of four stars, saying that it was amazing how much of a difference the editing made.note 
  • Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2 and Lethal Weapon 3 have Director's Cuts scenes on DVD: In LW1, there's the sniper shootout scene, a scene with Murtagh practicing in the shooting range, the hooker scene and a couple more scenes, and in LW2 there's a pool scene in Leo Getz' lobby.
  • Sam Peckinpah's Cult Classic film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was a particularly infamous case of Executive Meddling, culminating in MGM actually taking the film away from Peckinpah and releasing a considerably shorter version that nearly the entire cast panned and refused to be associated with. A director's cut version was shown once, but didn't make it to the general public until 15 years after the film's initial release. And just to make things more confusing, the DVD has 3 different versions.
  • The R-Rated director's cut of 2003's Daredevil totally combined this with Better on DVD, restoring 30 minutes cut from the theatrical version, which included a completely removed subplot where Matt Murdock must prove the innocence of a man played by Coolio, extra helpings of blood, and a couple more nods to the source material. It also altered the rainy-rooftop/screams-for-help scene between Matt and Elektra, making Matt more heroic by leaving Elektra to save a life instead of bedding her as the screams die off. Although it does retain some of the more divisive aspects of the theatrical cut such as the playground fight and the nu-metal soundtrack, general consensus is that the director's cut is a legitimately good movie (compared to the lukewarm response of the TC).
  • The Director's Cut of Dark City makes many changes to the theatrical cut, most of them minor, but one major change is the removal of the Opening Narration which explains the entire mystery that they were forced to put into the theatrical cut. The Director's Cut is universally regarded as a better film.
  • The Director's Cut of Donnie Darko greatly alters the pacing of the film, adding deleted scenes and new special effects, and switching the soundtrack of the movie around. Author Richard Kelly regards this version not as a director's cut (this title was the publisher's idea) as he considers the theatrical version just fine in its own right. Instead, to him the new version is a special edition of sorts.
  • Originally produced as a five-hour Mini Series for German television, Das Boot was edited down to 150 minutes for its original theatrical release. In 1997 Wolfgang Petersen made a new Director's Cut edit for a theatrical reissue, which clocks in at just under 210 minutes. Both the miniseries and 1997 versions have been released on DVD.
  • Every Kamen Rider movie since Project G4 has had a Director's Cut released, adding at least a bit of new footage.
    • In the case of I'm Born!, it also added new songs for both hero and villain.
    • Double and Decade: Movie Wars 2010 gets an important revision in its Director's Cut. In every Movie Wars film (and in the theatrical cut of this film), the format usually goes that the movie begins with the previous Rider's segment (in this case, Decade), follows with the segment of the incumbent Rider at the time of release (Double here) and ends with a team-up final battle. The problem here is that the team-up here has more to do with the Decade segment, meaning the Double segment breaks the narrative flow. The Director's Cut rectifies this by putting the Double segment first. The Director's Cut also explains away the film's trailer at the end of Decade's last episode having absolutely nothing to do with the final product (due to behind-the-scene shenanigans) as being All Just a Dream.
  • In the theatrical version of The Return of the Living Dead "Fuck You" is embroidered across the back of Freddy's jacket. In order to be able to show the movie on television, scenes were reshot with a jacket that reads "Television Version."
  • The films directed by Orson Welles post-Citizen Kane were a magnet for Executive Meddling, and as such can be found in several different cuts on home video. The official DVD releases of Touch of Evil and Mr. Arkadin, for instance, each have three different cuts in the set. A similar release is allegedly planned for Othello (1951).
  • Salt saw two additional cuts on DVD, both with different endings that cut the Sequel Hook: a Director's Cut where The Bad Guy Wins and an Extended Cut where Salt goes to Russia.
  • The American release version of The Man Who Fell to Earth was cut by about twenty minutes; this was partially to avoid an X rating for its graphic sexual content. Other scenes were reordered (this movie is not quite linear). Eventually the original cut was made available in the U.S., and it's this one that appears in The Criterion Collection.
  • Leon: The Professional exists in two different versions. The Professional is the American cut; Leon is the international cut (sometimes called Version Integrale.) The American version is edited down mainly to remove any moral quandaries about Matilda's actions - in the longer international version her crush on Leon is not so innocent, and more training scenes show her assisting with actual hits.
  • While nowadays considered the Franchise Killer prequel to Gettysburg, Gods and Generals actually received a standing ovation at its first pre-release screening. However, it ran for almost 5 hours. The studio's solution: cut it down to a more manageable 3 1/2. This theatrical version, while shorter, didn't have a central theme or even much of a narrative structure. It was subsequently lambasted by critics, ignored by audiences (although many who actually bothered to see it claimed to enjoy it), and wound up being such a financial bomb that the studio didn't even bother releasing the original cut until 8 years later in 2011. Among other things, the longer version edits out some of the religious preaching, adds a subplot with a young John Wilkes Booth, and includes the Battle of Antietam. So far, several people have said that this new cut fixes most (if not all) of the theatrical cut's main problems.
    • Gettysburg itself had a director's cut; this was the version aired on American television, where it was initially intended to have debuted.
  • The Grudge Director's Cut features several new and extended scenes, serving to add more depth to the characters, depict more explicit violence and grisly imagery (such as the Saeki murders being shown in more detail - the theatrical version barely shows any of it - and explaining Kayako's death rattle and her unsettling, jerky movement, as well as longer shots of Yoko's disembodied jaw and, later, her mutilated face), and to add to the feel and atmosphere. Also, Susan's vignette is switched around.
  • The original release of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had two scenes replaced for later DVD versions.
    • In the original theatrical and VHS versions, in the scene where the unfrozen Dr. Evil proposes a plan, after unsuccessfully suggesting to blackmail the royal family by revealing that Prince Charles had an affair and would have to divorce (Number Two reveals that Prince Charles already had an affair and is divorced), Dr. Evil proposes to use a laser to make a hole in the ozone layer to increase the risk of skin cancer, unless the world pays him a "hefty ransom." Number Two says, "That also has already been done." However, in latest DVD releases, Number Two says, "That also already has happened." Two aspects on this line change:
      • The initial release of the film was after the fatal car accident of Princess Diana (the one Prince Charles divorced), so they eliminated the "blackmailing the Royal Family" plot and probably made Dr. Evil just attempt to plan to shoot a laser in the ozone layer and tweak it enough for Number Two to say "That has already been done," minus the "also."
      • The (Real Life) hole in the ozone layer was not created by a single supervillain's laser but by the combined effect of several pollutants, with a significant amount due to by products of specific products/processes from the '50's to the '80's. So what Number Two is referring to in later releases is the fact that the hole has already been made, not that someone (intentionally) beat Dr. Evil to the punch.
    • The other scene is when Austin is in the bathroom looking for Number Two, who has set a trap for him. Austin sits on the toilet and is attacked in a compartment by Dr. Evil's Irish assassin Paddy O'Brien. Austin grunts as he fights with O'Brien, and a Texan (Tom Arnold) is in another compartment thinking Austin is crapping. Austin groans "DO...YOU...WORK...FOR...NUMBER TWO!! DO...YOU...WORK...FOR...NUMBER TWO!!", prompting the Texan to respond "You show that turd who's boss!" In the later versions, the "DO YOU WORK FOR NUMBER TWO!" take is replaced by a take filmed around the time of the originally released clip, but this time it's "WHO...DOES...NUMBER...TWO...WORK...FOR! WHO...DOES...NUMBER...TWO...WORK...FOR!" The reason for this minor edit is unclear.
    • Speaking of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, there is a longer international cut that keeps the scenes that test audiences didn't like. The changes are:
      • Evel Knievel is in cryo-status alongside Austin.
      • After a security guard is crushed by a steamroller, we cut to his wife and kid being notified about his death.
      • After a security guard is killed by a mutated sea bass, we cut to his friends celebrating his bachelor party in a Hooter's being notified of his death.
      • The fight with Random Task is longer. Austin tries to grab a knife, candle and rake before smashing him over the head with a champagne bottle.
      • All scenes featuring Christian Slater plays security guard who is hypnotised into getting Austin some Orange Sherbet have been reinstated.
      • The scene where Basil introduces Austin to Vanessa is shorter. Different lines are used.
      • A different take is used when Austin takes photos of Random Task holding a cat. The gap between "I never forget a pussy... cat" is longer. (It was shortened for a PG-13 rating.)
  • Michael Mann
    • He released Director's Cuts for Miami Vice, Ali, The Last of the Mohicans and Manhunter, but all of his films were re-cut in some way following their theatrical runs for DVD release. The changes are minor, and are rarely more than slight changes in dialogue scenes. Manhunter though has one rather significant change in its director's cut: an added epilogue in which Will Graham visits the family that Francis Dollarhyde was planning to kill before his own death at Graham's hands, with Graham's visit being to both assure the family's safety and settle his own conscience after spending much of the film conflicted over whether or not he truly is like the killers he fights. Fans of the film generally appreciate the addition of this epilogue, and Mann himself stated that the director's cut is his preferred version.
    • There was a more substantial director's cut released for his rather divisive hacker thriller Blackhat, which was released only on the FX network. It adds in some new scenes, shifts around a few more (most notably, the opening scene occurs about an hour in), and cuts others out.
  • William Friedkin re-worked The French Connection for its Blu Ray release by putting the film through a digital intermediate and tinting the colors to blue to create a more neo-noir look. Fans of the film were not pleased.
  • Metropolis was only shown in its original form for a few months in Germany. American studios balked at showing such a long film, so Fritz Lang cut the running length nearly in half. And then the cut footage was lost. There were later attempts to reconstruct the original cut, based on existing footage and guesswork. In 1984, Giorgio Moroder made a colorized version with an 80's pop soundtrack. Finally, in 2007, nearly all of the cut footage was rediscovered in a museum in Argentina. The version based on this, called The Complete Metropolis, is probably the closest we'll ever get to a definitive version.
  • There's TV cuts of Zucker Abrahams Zucker films like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, featuring material that wasn't in the theatrical version (presumably to replace the R-rated jokes that had to be cut for broadcast).
  • Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary Edition, which is often regarded as inferior to the original due to an obnoxious soundtrack and badly spliced in new scenes.
  • Despite the reputation directors' cuts have for being self-indulgent and bloated, Stanley Kubrick considered the UK cut of The Shining to be the definitive one (as opposed to the US cut, which is twenty minutes longer).
  • The VHS version of Shredder Orpheus is a minute and a half longer than the DVD version, which trimmed some footage for pacing in Hades and Persephone's scenes, the wedding party, the producer showing Persephone the skateboard to call Orpheus back, and Orpheus and Razoreus's conversation before the finale.
  • The Star Trek film series
    • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
      • The film has gone through a few editions. Director Robert Wise considered the original theatrical release a "rough cut", due to it being rushed to meet Paramount's premiere date (to the point where the film reels were still wet from developing when they were shipped out). An extended cut appeared on ABC and was released on VHS as a "Special Longer Edition" in 1983, though there were issues with some of the added footage, some of which was from the original version of the "Spock Walk" with different spacesuits (with one shot of Kirk featuring a very visible sound stage).
      • Wise would later revisit the work, supervising the "Special Director's Edition" DVD release in 2001, which allowed him to complete the film closer to what he had intended in 1979, had he had more time. In addition to using some of the Extended Cut footage to improve character development while making a few trims elsewhere, Wise supervised a handful of new effects shots created by Foundation Imaging. His goal with the new effects footage was not to be as obvious as some other recent recuts; instead, they were to look as much like they were made with 1979 techniques as possible, based on the original models and plans. The Director's Edition was well-received upon release. In 2022, a 4K remastered version of the Director's Edition debuted on Paramount+.
    • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan also received a "Director's Edition" DVD release. Like The Motion Picture, the ABC airings had included some additional footage not in the theatrical release, and some of that footage was used in the Director's Edition, along with additional previously-unused footage.
    • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country did not get a home video release of the theatrical cut until the 2009 DVD and subsequent Blu-Ray releases. All prior versions (including the Collector's Edition) used an extended cut, which featured a member of Starfleet Command who was entirely excised from the theatrical release (among some other slight changes).
  • Harry Potter
    • The "Ultimate Edition" releases of the first two films include both the theatrical cut and an extended cut. The extended cuts basically just re-incorporate the same Deleted Scenes which were extras on the original DVD releases. The Blu-Rays of the third movie onward only include the theatrical cut.
    • Its Prequel series’ (Fantastic Beasts) second movie: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald was released to middlingly bad reviews for being a confusing slog. An extended cut of the movie was made available on home release which added 14 minutes of cut footage. Many were frankly astounded as to what was cut and why it was cut and now the film is considered poorly edited rather than poorly written. The cut scenes are mostly ones of exposition that added a lot to the backstory and made some of the characters’ choices clearer. What is widely considered to be the most baffling cut scene was one that only clocked in at 40 seconds which had Dumbledore explain exactly why he’d sent Newt to New York in the first movie. The Credence/Nagini and Queenie subplots both are vastly beefed up in runtime in the extended cut and become much more comprehensible, especially the former. Like the Batman v Superman example, the extended cut isn't considered a masterpiece and is still seen as over edited but it at least comes together to form a whole, coherent story rather than some scenes strung together whose quality swings wildly up and down throughout.
  • The DVD version of Grizzly Man removed Timothy Treadwell's interview with David Letterman (where Letterman joked that Timothy would be eaten by the bears), allegedly at Letterman's request. The TV version, however, retained the scene.
  • Dawn of the Dead (1978) is another legendary example of this. There are three "official" cuts of the film: the Romero-cut, the Argento-cut and the so-called Director's Cut. Of these three cut fans usually prefer the cut they watched first. In addition there are many cuts produced for more specific international screenings, TV and home releases based on these three cuts. Most of these was made for censorship, but some merge content from two or more of the "official" cuts or add scenes to explain the source of the zombie outbreak and there is even one version that cuts the film down to only 48 minutes. There's a box set going by the name of "Dawn of the Dead, The Ultimate Edition" which features the three "official" cuts described above (Romero-cut, Argento-cut and the "Director's Cut").
    • The Romero-cut was prepared for the American and UK theatrical releases by director George A. Romero himself. It has some comedic elements and an ironic, "comic-book like" feel. It uses a combination of soundtrack produced by the band Goblins and royalty-free library music. Romero censured a lot of gore he believed to be superfluous from this version. It is Romero's final and preferred cut of the film.
    • The Argento-cut (sometimes referred to as Zombi after its Italian title) was edited by Dario Argento for the mainland European theatrical releases. Compered to Romero's cut it is grimmer with a more serious mood. Argento made it shorter than Romero's cut to be more action oriented and have tighter pacing, but also lost a lot of character development in the process. The gore however is left intact.note  It uses the Goblins score through-out, utilizing none of the library music.
    • The Director's Cut (sometimes refereed to as the Cannes-cut or the extended cut) is usually assumed to be the cut that Romero prepared for the film's screening at Cannes. It is similar to Romero's final cut, but has uncensored gore and is even longer. Because of this it has the most content of any of the cuts, but also is the one with the worst pacing. Furthermore it completely lacks the Goblins score and uses only the library music. As none of these cuts were created from any of the other cuts, but rather made (to some degree) independently, each version has unique scenes and they sometimes use different shots of the same scene.
  • The TV version of Happy Gilmore had Happy confronting the orderly who has been enslaving old ladies including his grandmother and punching him out the window. The theatrical and DVD versions cut this scene, making the orderly a Karma Houdini, and left that subplot unresolved. One DVD release does feature this scene (among others) as a Deleted Scene in the Special Features.
  • The French 1980s art-house classic Betty Blue was re-released in 1991 in a Director's Cut that added over one hour of additional footage to the film. While this may seem excessive (for a film that already seemed to revel in excess), the extra scenes shed considerable light on various plot points; Betty's descent into madness, for example, is better contextualised in this new version.
  • One of Jackie Chan's early forays into Hollywood, The Protector, didn't meet with Chan's approval, so he made a re-cut version for the Hong Kong market, re-shooting fight scenes in his own style, cutting out/replacing gratuitous nudity, and adding a subplot featuring Cantopop singer and actress, Sally Yeh.
  • Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956), itself already a recut of Gojira, received one when an Italian filmmaker by the name of Luigi Cozzi decided to release the movie in Italy. Since Italian theaters were doubtful of black and white films, however, Cozzi also "colorized" the movie as well. This "colorized" version of the movie had scenes cut for pacing, as well as added stock footage from other movies and newsreels accompanied by electronic music. The result is often referred to as "Cozzilla", and sometimes as "Psychedelic Godzilla".
  • The successful international release of Cinema Paradiso was cut by around 50 minutes to entirely remove a whole subplot that the original Italian audiences had reacted badly to in which the older Salvatore and Elena have an unsuccessful attempt to rekindle their love affair, and it's made much clearer how badly Alfredo's sabotage of their youthful relationship affected both their emotional lives. The Director's Cut, which adds this material back in, makes it a much darker and sadder film.
  • Witchfinder General has a particularly complex range of alternate versions. Many versions, especially the UK one, were heavily cut to censor the graphic violence and torture scenes. Conversely, the film's producers added additional scenes, in particular to certain European releases, featuring sex and nudity between Hopkins's henchmen and bar girls, which the director, Michael Reeves, was very unhappy with. Reeves's early death meant that he wasn't around in the home video age to advise on an official "director's cut". There are a number of quite different versions circulating that have been released for home video, screened in cinemas, or broadcast, some of which contain both the violence and the sex, some of which contain only one of them, and some of which have neither.
  • Underworld (2003) has an Extended Cut. Director Len Wiseman makes it very clear in the commentary that he does not consider either the theatrical or extended cuts his true vision, but seems to understand the reasoning behind both; the theatrical cut having been cut down for time, and the extended cut having a mixture of scenes he wanted to add back in, and extra footage he regarded as useless, so that the studio could lure in as many repeat buyers as possible by bragging about the number of minutes added back in.
  • Fritz Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse has seen at least five different incarnations since its 1933 release. Lang's original cut was banned by Nazi Germany but saw release in Austria and Hungary. The Nazis drastically reedited the movie into anti-Semitic propaganda in the late '30s. The American release did the converse, making the (already pretty explicit) Nazi parallels more overt. In 1952 it was cut from 124 to 82 minutes, dubbed into English and released as The Crimes of Dr. Mabuse. Lang's original, German-language cut did not resurface until 1973. All this, plus Lang's French-language version filmed simultaneously to the original but with different actors.
  • The special edition of Avatar added in an alternate opening as well as some dialogue and scenes that better explained the story's universe.
  • Payback has a director's cut called Payback: Straight Up. This version removes the narration, cuts certain scenes and has a completely different ending. Many have said that the director's cut is a stark improvement over the theatrical cut.
  • Two cuts of The Hateful Eight exist: the 187-minute version used for the 70mm Roadshow Theatrical Release and the 167-minute version prepared for the digital wide release. The 70mm version has an overture, an intermission, an old-fashioned Vanity Plate for The Weinstein Company, a vintage Cinerama logo, and several brief scenes which are absent in the digital version, as well as generally having longer takes and slower pacing in order to really let the 70mm photography shine.
  • Bedknobs and Broomsticks had different cuts over the years.
    • Its first cut was its 137-minute London premiere cut that was considered to be the original roadshow version and it was also the fullest with the original audio and video intact. Sadly, its premiere cut was the first and last time that the film was presented in its true entirety.
    • Its second cut was the Radio City Music Hall cut (or the 117-minute cut) that removed "A Step in the Right Direction", "With a Flair", and "Nobody's Problems" and many scenes were shortened and removed, "Portobello Road" got shortened and "Eglantine" was shortened as well. Unfortunately, it ultimately reduced Roddy McDowall's character Mr. Jelk to just two scenes despite the fact that McDowall still gets third billing.
    • Its third cut was the German cut, that cut retained the changes from the 1971 Radio City Music Hall cut, but removed the entire Nazi subplot, more scenes were cut out and was ultimately reduced to 89-minutes. Sadly, Mr. Jelk's screen time was reduced to one scene.
    • Its fourth cut was the 1979 rerelease cut that saw all the songs (except "Portobello Road", "Beautiful Briny Sea" and some parts of "Substitutiary Locomotion") removed, and some scenes reduced or cut altogether. This would even affect the Italian dub, as for years until the 2000s, home video releases for it contained the exact edits as the 1979 rerelease cut.
    • Its fifth cut was the 1996 25th Anniversary cut that restored the scenes from the 137-minute London premiere cut, restored "Portobello Road" and "Eglantine" to their entirety (though some parts of "Portobello Road" had to be restored from a work print with digital re-coloration to match the film quality of the main content), Mr. Jelk became a significant supporting character again and the songs "With a Flair", and "Nobody's Problems" were added back, but since some of the spoken tracks were unrecoverable, it required Disney to have the dialogue re-dubbed, Angela Lansbury and Roddy McDowall re-recorded their own dialogue, but since characters whose original actors had either passed away or become too old had their dialogue re-dubbed. David Tomlinson was still alive while the 1996 25th Anniversary cut was being made, but he was in ill health and could not return to re-record his own dialogue, which meant that Jeff Bennett had to fill in for him. However, there were slight hiccups during the dubbing (such as Mrs. Hobday's accent changing from Welsh to Scottish and back again, Charlie sounding 5 years younger, and Mr. Browne sounding a bit different).
  • Spider-Man 2 has a recut, known as Spider-Man 2.1, which was released concurrent with the release of Spider-Man 3. The cut contains 8 minutes of extra scenes, as well as some alternate takes of scenes that were in the theatrical cut. Among more notable cases is an alternate take of the elevator scene (in the theatrical cut, the man thinks Peter's just a guy in a Spider-Man costume. In the extended cut, the man thinks that he is the real thing, and starts suggesting ways he could improve his public image), a scene of J. Jonah Jameson romping around on his desk in the Spider-Man suit when he thinks no one's watching him, some alternate dialogue during the pizza delivery at the beginning of the movie, and a little bit of additional action during Spider-Man's fights with Octavius at the bank and on the 'L' train.
  • In 2016, all three films in The Human Centipede trilogy were stitched together like... well, you know... The resulting movie was dubbed the "Movie Centipede". A bonus disk is included with it, containing a full color version of the otherwise Deliberately Monochrome second movie.
  • One of the most famous things about The Wicker Man (1973) is the number of cuts of the film there are. The original theatrical version, which is the most well-known cut, is 87 minutes in length. A 99-minute cut was sent to Roger Corman, who suggested that 13 minutes be cut in order to sell well in the United States. A few years later, director Robin Hardy, now living in the US, decided to seek out a copy of the film. He obtained a duplicate of Corman's copy, and cut out the mainland scenes, while restoring some of the longer cut scenes. This version timed out to 95 minutes, and was released in the US in the fall of 1977. It was later released on Blu-Ray and DVD in October 2013 as The Final Cut. In 1988, the 99-minute version ended up being released on VHS in America, distributed by Media Home Entertainment, and later Magnum Entertainment. Hilariously, the front of the Magnum release has pictures of the film's two stars, Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee, that were obviously taken in the 1980s; in fact, the picture of Woodward is a publicity still from the late 1980s CBS crime drama he starred in, The Equalizer (heck, next to the picture of Woodward, it reads, "Starring Edward Woodward (The Equalizer))". In 2001, an NTSC one-inch videotape copy transferred from Corman's copy was released on VHS and DVD in America and Britain by Anchor Bay, thanks to a campaign from StudioCanal, the film's worldwide owners, to try and find the full cut. Christopher Lee went to his grave believing that there exists an even longer cut of the film, longer than the one Corman was sent; considering the amount of mainland scenes that were filmed but never seen in any cut, he's probably right. Oddly enough, there are rumors that a 17-minute version for triple and quadruple bills exists, in which Sergeant Howie (Woodward) is led straight to the Wicker Man; however, nothing really substantial has emerged about this one.
  • The Thing (1982) has a TV cut that due to the amount of Body Horror and gore in the movie, compensates for the removed footage by adding in much deleted content, and voiceovers revealing the characters' lives prior to Antarctica. It also adds in a Downer Ending (namely, a dog looking at the destroyed camp, implying the Thing has survived) that made director John Carpenter very unhappy.

    Literature 
  • When Sir Terry Pratchett's publishers finally got fed up of sending out thousands of letters saying there was no demand for a reprint of The Carpet People (his first novel and bordering on Old Shame), a new edition of it was released, though it was only after Pratchett rewrote substantial amounts of the novel. Part of this was to correct what he saw as simple poor writing by his younger self, but he also felt the need to change the political messages of the novel from the original's simplistic High Fantasy monarchism to reflect his grown-up respect for democracy.
  • Doubleday Publishers thought Stephen King's The Stand was too big, so the original edition had about 500 pages trimmed. Twelve years, later they released the Complete and Uncut edition, with the pages restored and some updating by King.
  • Some foreign versions of the BIONICLE toyline's tie-in book Tale of the Toa add a significant amount of extra material, descriptions and dialogue. However, it's not clear whether these can be seen as additions, since some paragraphs of the original English version don't flow as well without them. It is possible that the English release got trimmed before release, while translations in other languages were based on the complete writing.
  • The original version of John W. Campbell's seminal sci-fi classic Who Goes There? was a longer book titled Frozen Hell. The original book was found among some of Campbell's Harvard papers by author Alec Nevalla-Lee and published under its original title as a separate book from Who Goes There? in 2019 following a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign.
  • The first nine Young Wizards books were released as New Millennium editions from 2012–2019, creating a more cohesive timeline among other changes.
  • The Warrior Cats book The Ultimate Guide was originally released for the series' 10-year anniversary. It got an updated edition for the 20th anniversary to reflect plot developments from the previous decade, with additional characters and new art.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The syndicated version of Family Matters replaced several of the first season's cold openings to include fan-favorite Steve Urkel. Since the creators weren't expecting him to become the massively popular character he turned out to be when they first introduced him in episode twelve of season one, they decided that introducing him in small portions during reruns was a good way to help more naturally integrate him into the cast, as opposed to him suddenly showing up in every episode out of the blue after his debut appearance, with zero indication by the Winslows that they even knew he existed until then.
  • The original Battlestar Galactica Pilot Movie was first shown as a film in Canada to raise capital for the series. This version is trimmed. Then, it was subsequently released as a three-part episode for re-runs. The full, uncut pilot is available on the DVD set, as are a slew of deleted scenes from every single episode of the series.
  • Battlestar Galactica (2003)
    • It has a slew of "Extended Unrated Versions" of many episodes and telemovies. These versions are available on DVD.
    • It has had some scenes edited to fit with current-day Sunday-morning Japanese broadcast censors.
  • Have I Got News for You and QI have extended versions of their shows, broadcast the following night: Have I Got A Bit More News For You and QI XL respectively. However, some of these were not shown on The BBC for various reasons (The next night having sport on instead, and sometimes due to sensitivity of the material.) These episodes tend to get their first airing on Dave.
  • This was standard procedure on Highlander: The Series, due to a quirk of production. The show was produced simultaneously for the European and American markets. However, where American TV broadcasters devote 16 minutes out of every hour to ads, European broadcasters at the time aired only 12 minutes of ads per hour. This meant doing two cuts of every episode: a 44-minute version for the US market and a 48-minute version for the overseas markets. In most cases, the producers were able to produce an American cut that left out only insignificant bits. However, a few episodes were so tightly written and shot that the four "extra" minutes contained significant story points.
  • Rather than make new episodes for whatever reason, Disney recut the first season of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers in 2010, mostly just adding a few cheap visual effects - well, a few more cheap visual effects. Part of it was that censors are stricter than they used to be, so Hit Flashes needed to be added. Episodes also tended to get a minute or two of Filler edited in due to slightly longer runtimes.
  • iCarly: Nickelodeon aired a special extended version of iSaved Your Life a week after the original airing, that included seven minutes of previously cut footage. The pilot episode also has an extended version, as does the special iCarly Saves TV.
  • Similarly, when it premiered after the Kids Choice Awards, an extended cut of the first episode of Victorious aired, with three minutes of added footage. It has not aired since but can be downloaded on iTunes.
  • Nick did a similar thing with Legendary Battle, the finale of Power Rangers Super Megaforce. Two days after its US premiere, a longer version was aired on Nicktoons. The extra scenes included an extended version of the final fight between the Rangers and Emperor Malvo. There are also a few extra scenes with the returning Rangers, including one scene where Karone pulls off an extra Legend Shift showing her as Astronema.
  • The Adventures of Pete & Pete:
    • The first season (1993) was eight episodes long, and succeeded by five "special" half-hours made over the span of three years (1991-1993). These were used to fill out the first season, and therefore had the opening credits sequence edited in. Mike Maronna, Big Pete's actor, had gone through puberty in between the first special and first season, meaning that the theme song depicted him as much taller and more-mature looking than he was in the actual episode. Very jarring.
    • Before the specials, there were eighteen shorts, a handful of which were included on the DVD. In order to replace the old Vanity Plate from the 1990s with Nick's current one for the release, the last few seconds of each episode become only voiceover running over the vanity plate.
  • The 3-2-1 Contact series was condensed and re-edited into 3-2-1 Classroom Contact in 1992.
  • Red Dwarf
    • The "Director's Cut" of Red Dwarf: Back to Earth as seen on the DVD release, which edits the three 25-minute episodes together into a single one-hour-long special. As you can see, the Director's Cut is actually significantly shorter than the full broadcast version, trimming all the jokes that didn't really work and other filler — the end result is generally regarded to be much better.
    • Three episodes of Series VII had 'Xtended' versions released on VHS (as a separate release to the as-broadcast episodes - the later DVD releases included both the broadcast and extended episodes). As Series VII was the only series not filmed in front of a studio audience, but had the finished cuts shown to an audience later on, these episodes also had no laugh track (as it would have been awkward to have a laugh track on everything except the new material).
    • The opening story of Series VIII, Back in the Red, had a notoriously troubled production; it was intended to be a 60-minute special but ended up as three 30-minute episodes, with a considerable amount of the latter two parts just being padding to bulk it out as a result of the change. The DVD release included the originally broadcast episodes, plus a new feature-length edit of the entire story with some of the worst filler being cut out and some deleted scenes reinstated.
  • Saturday Night Live
    • Network reruns sometimes differ greatly from the originally aired live show; this can range from minor fixes of technical glitches and removal of promotions for the next live show (especially common when Don Pardo announced them over the end credits), to changes in the running order, to even the removal of controversial or poorly received material, replaced by sketches from other shows or unaired material. Since 1985, the dress rehearsal is recorded for all shows, and the rerun version may either use the dress take or a combination of scenes from dress and air.
    • Usually the musical performance, or skits with music, is removed in its entirety for 1 hour rebroadcasts. The musical clearance costs can be very expensive, and either 1/0 songs from the musical guest are selected or generic music is used in the skits. This includes On-Demand Rebroadcasts and Hulu (including the musical goodbye/ending segment for Kristin Wiig) that might otherwise run the full 90 minutes.
  • Two versions of the 1979 adaptation of Salem's Lot exist: the original three-hour mini-series version and a two-hour movie version released in Europe that was also briefly distributed on video in the United States. The European version is unique in that it also contains some violent content omitted from the mini-series.
  • This has happened a couple of times in Doctor Who.
    • During the 1970s there was a tradition of repeating one of the year's stories as a continuous "movie" rather than episodic broadcast at Christmas time. For six-episode stories, this sometimes involved significant cuts to fit a 90-120 minute timeslot.
    • There are also alterations for home video releases. Mostly this simply involves adding optional CGI special effects to replace particularly glaringly bad original effects. Four stories - "Enlightenment", "Planet of Fire", "The Five Doctors", and "The Curse of Fenric" - have had much more significantly altered versions released on VHS or DVD. These have deleted scenes added back in, and some scenes swapped around, shortened, or deleted to make the pacing better for viewing at one sitting. Probably the most justified case is "The Curse of Fenric", where many fans consider that the plot is much easier to follow in the home video cut. The worst is "The Five Doctors", which simply added all deleted footage back in without much consideration of whether it was worthwhile, and is most notorious for including a scene which was cut due to a moment of unintentional, in-universe-incestuous, sexual chemistry between Peter Davison and Carole Ann Ford as the Fifth Doctor and his grand-daughter Susan.
  • It was not uncommon in the 1970s for American-produced telefilms to receive a theatrical release overseas to recoup production costs. As such, many of these films had additional footage shot for theaters – mostly nudity, violence, and harsh profanity - that couldn't be presented on American television at the time.
  • When Universal was preparing a theatrical release for Spielberg's Duel, the studio realized the film was too short (without commercials it ran 74 minutes). As such, the studio recruited Spielberg and star Dennis Weaver to shoot new footage to bring the film to feature-length. The 16 minutes of new footage included Weaver talking to his wife on a pay phone, an encounter with a stranded school bus, and the truck pushing Weaver's car towards a passing train.
  • The Pilot Episode for the full season of The Kicks is visibly altered from the one that was released during the 2015 Amazon Pilot Season. Notably, the Confession Cam asides have been removed and a couple of extra scenes were added.
  • On most VHS releases of Teletubbies, the Tummy Tales segments only play once to save on film.
  • The VHS release of the Shining Time Station special "Tis A Gift" uses different Thomas & Friends stories from the television version.
  • The eponymous final Quatermass TV serial was specifically written so that it could be recut as a cinema movie for US distribution. One subplot, the one dealing with the old people living in the junkyard, was specifically designed to be cut without affecting the main plot.
  • Barney & Friends went through this on a few occasions.
    • The video Barney Songs originally used "Who Took The Cookies From The Cookie Jar?", but it (along with two other songs note ) was cut from the DVD release for unknown reasons.
    • The videos Rhyme Time Rhythm, Let's Go on Vacation, and Barney's Jungle Friends were all recut into TV episodes.

    Music 
  • The Beatles, after recording The White Album, tried to get back to their roots in spontaneous, energetic rock-n-roll with a film/album titled Get Back. Internal tensions and creative differences prevented Get Back from being completed; instead, material from these sessions was released as the film and album Let It Be. Phil Spector produced the album and added overdubs to some songs. Paul McCartney (who was the main advocate of the "back to the roots" approach in the first place) wasn't happy with Spector's production. Decades later, when the opportunity arose to re-edit Let It Be, Paul jumped at it. This new version (titled Let It Be... Naked) stripped away Phil Spector's overdubs, featured a different song selection and track order, and used different takes of some of the songs. Naked also used digital editing (which obviously hadn't been available when Let It Be was originally released) to remove tape noises and to pitch-correct a few of the vocals.
  • Franco De Vita: Stop + Algo Más is an updated version of the 2004 album Stop. In addition to featuring the original's nine songs, it also adds four remixes where Franco is performing a duet with another musician (for example, "Ay Dios" with Olga Tañón), plus an English version of another song from the original album.
  • The Prayer Chain's 1995 album Mercury had been subject to a great deal of Executive Meddling prior to release: three songs were dropped, another song was added, and the whole thing was remixed to be less rough around the edges. In 2011, the band took the original master tapes and rereleased the album (via their Bandcamp page) "in its original order, with the original mixes, just as it was sent off to the label", under the new title Humb.
  • Sleep's Dopesmoker is essentially the director's cut of Jerusalem, although it's a bit more complicated than that: their label balked at their turning in an album that was one song stretched out to over sixty minutes of Epic Rocking, so Sleep compromised a little by cutting about ten minutes and splitting it into six arbitrarily divided tracks, with no silence between them. The label still wouldn't release it and the band broke up over the ordeal, but Jerusalem, the edited version saw release on a different label afterwards. A few years later came the Dopesmoker version, which used a different mix, restored the ten cut minutes, and indexed it as one long track as intended.
  • Russell Elavedo originally mixed The Dandy Warhols' 2003 album Welcome To The Monkey House, but Capitol Records had it given a glossier mix by Peter Wheatley without the band's permission and released that instead. In 2009, The Dandy Warhols released the album as originally intended under the title The Dandy Warhols Are Sound: Aside from the different mix, the tracks are presented in a different order, the song titles are sometimes slightly different, and the song "Welcome To The Monkey House" itself is cut, while the previously unreleased song "Pete Int'l Spaceport" is added.
  • Morrissey's Special Edition reissues of his first two albums, Viva Hate and Kill Uncle, both alter the original running order. On Viva Hate, the song "Ordinary Boys" is replaced with an unpolished, unreleased demo "Treat Me Like a Human Being", and "Late Night, Maudlin Street" is slightly shortened. On Kill Uncle, two B-sides are inserted into the middle of the album, and the original version of "There's a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends" is replaced with a new, live-in-the-studio version.
  • Talking Heads:
    • Speaking in Tongues has two different versions: a 41-minute cut released on LP and a 47-minute cut released on cassette. The 47-minute version includes extended versions of the tracks "Making Flippy Floppy", "Girlfriend Is Better", "Slippery People", "I Get Wild/Wild Gravity" and "Moon Rocks", included to capitalize on the greater storage capacity of and growing market for tapes at the time. The 41-minute version is used for early US CD releases, international CD releases prior to the 2005 remaster, and non-remastered digital releases, while the extended version appears on US CDs from 1990 onwards and on the 2005 remaster (on both physical and digital formats).
    • The Live Album Stop Making Sense (meant to accompany the concert film of the same name) only had 9 of the 16 songs from the film, and most of them were heavily edited. David Byrne stated that he wanted the album to be a separate experience from the film, rather than just a soundtrack. However, in 1999, it was remastered and re-edited as Stop Making Sense: Special New Edition. This version was a proper soundtrack for the film, as it had all 16 songs and minimal editing.
  • The Yes album Union (generally regarded as one of Yes' worst) got an updated re-release called (Re)Union that actually removed content compared to the original version. While the removal of some of the weaker and more bizarre tracks arguably made the album stronger musically, the fact that none of it was replaced with anything new meant it was not embraced by fans and is considered Fanon Discontinuity by most of the fanbase.
  • After being advised by the record label to release a cut down version of his Degradation Trip album, Jerry Cantrell was allowed to release Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2, the whole original album as he intended.
  • The year of its original release, Type O Negative also put out a slightly altered version of Bloody Kisses in a digipak case - this version cut all of the short interlude tracks along with two of the actual songs ("Kill All The White People" and "We Hate Everyone"), changed the order of the tracklist and added one previously unreleased song ("Suspended In Dusk"). Since the two dropped songs had somewhat of a thrash metal influence, fans saw this as an attempt to make it feel more like a purely gothic metal album. Also of note, the liner notes to the digipak version include totally different lyrics to "Summer Breeze" than what is actually heard on either edition of the album: These were the lyrics the band wanted to use, but "Summer Breeze" is a cover song and they couldn't get permission from Seals & Crofts unless they kept the original lyrics intact.
  • When Camper Van Beethoven reissued their first 3 albums, they added bonus tracks, but tended to weave them in with the rest of the tracklist instead of putting them at the end of the album as is conventional - for instance the reissue of Telephone Free Landslide Victory puts all the B Sides of the "Take The Skinheads Bowling" single right in the middle of the album.
  • After the Manic Street Preachers released This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours, they planned to release two distinct albums as a followup, Solidarity and Door To The River, but during recording sessions they got cold feet and opted to do Know Your Enemy instead, a single album that included a good chunk of the songs they'd recorded for both albums. They felt afterwards that this had meant forcing the often conflicting ideas of Solidarity and Door To The River together on a single record. When Nicky Wire went through the Manics' archive to put together a twentieth anniversary edition of Know Your Enemy, he found the original tapes for Solidarity and Door To The River and suggested they recreate them. James Dean Bradfield agreed on condition he could remix the record with their longtime studio partner Dave Eringa, resulting in Know Your Enemy being rereleased as the two distinct albums the Manics had originally intended.
  • David Sylvian: The CD release of Gone to Earth removes the tracks "Silver Moon Over Sleeping Steeples", "Camp Fire: Coyote Country", "A Bird of Prey Vanishes into a Bright Blue Cloudless Sky", and "Sunlight Seen Through Towering Trees" in order to fit the double-LP album onto one disc. Japanese CDs since 1988 would restore the full-length version across two discs, with this configuration being followed by both the 1989 Boxed Set Weatherbox and the 2003 remaster.
  • Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady is a compilation of singles and B Sides, and a 2001 reissue added eight more songs: the A and B-Sides of 4 singles that came out between the compilation's original release in 1979 and the band's breakup in 1981. The original track-list put all the single a-sides on one side of the album and the b-sides on the other, so the expanded version follows the same format: half of the added tracks are placed in the middle of the tracklist, the rest are at the very end.
  • Ten years after its original release, Guided by Voices' Bee Thousand received a vinyl-only "Director's Cut" box set: the first two LPs make up an early, 33-song double-album draft of the track-listing, with a very different running order and including many songs that didn't end up making the original release, while a third LP is all the remaining songs that were on the original release but weren't included in the "Director's Cut" version, plus material from two EPs released around the same time.
  • When Pavement were creating the track-listing for Terror Twilight, they conflicted with Record Producer Nigel Godrich - Nigel wanted the album to start out with a few of it's longer, more complex songs before gradually becoming more accessible; the band wanted to start the album with something "easy" and proposed a track-list that opened with "Spit On A Stranger", a melodic folk-rock ballad that would have been the final song on Nigel's version of the album. The band won out, but eventually expressed second thoughts about it in interviews - so when they released a deluxe remastered version under the title Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal, the vinyl and digital versions used Nigel's running order (including the cut instrumental "Shagbag"), while only the CD edition retained the originally released track-list.

    Puppet Shows 
  • In the original airing of the Bear in the Big Blue House episode, "The Big Little Visitor", when Bear describes families to the viewers, he says that "families come in all shapes, colors, and sizes" and "families live together". In late 2002, these particular pieces of dialogue were rewritten to better represent the wide diversity of families. The former line was rewritten as "it's really kind of hard to define a word like family" and the latter was rewritten as "no two families are alike". The original airing can be seen on Disney+.
  • The street story of Sesame Street's 4029th episode had to be re-edited for its release on the You Can Ask! resource video, as Sesame Workshop had received complaints over the scene involving Telly and Izzy's argument when said episode was originally broadcast.

    Web Originals 
  • Discussed/Parodied in The Angry Video Game Nerd's Back to the Future Re-Revisit in the style of the infamous "Han shot first" scene.note 
    The Nerd: In the Friday the 13th video, I shot Jason Voorhees in the head. That made me look like a cold-blooded killer. I always felt Jason should have shot first.
  • The Dysfunctional Pirates has an extended, multi-chaptered version of the oneshot Da Hungah Games. It is called Da Hungah Games Director's Cut.
  • The Hardcore Kid reviewed The Secret of NIMH 2 early in his career. He reshot the episode later down the line, not only to give higher quality footage, but also to fix some errata and rewrite some jokes that he (unintentionally) cribbed from others.
  • StacheBros has an extended cut of "The Year Luigi Stopped Believing In Santa Claus!" on its alternate channel, StacheBrosTWO.

    Western Animation 
  • The original release of Volume 2 of Disney Sing-Along Songs (Heigh-Ho), had (Yo-Ho) A Pirates' Life for Me! During the song's end, an animatronic pirate explodes the barrels. Parents wrote to Disney that the song terrified their kids and resulted in it being cut from the 1994 reprint.
  • Dora the Explorer: The Season 4 special "Dance to the Rescue" had an alternate version released during production, which changes Dora's lines when asking the viewer to stand up to make the special more understandable for children who are disabled or mobility-impaired, and added in scenes of characters in wheelchairs and crutches during the dance contest scenes. This version was released on Nick Jr. airings since The New '10s, and is the one used for digital and Paramount+ releases. The DVD keeps the original version.
  • Gargoyles had this foisted on its Pilot Movie. According to Word of God, it was originally aired as a five-parter, this was trimmed into much shorter version to be shown in conjunction with a Disneyland Gargoyles ride. When the House of Mouse decided to release it on videocassette, they chose the shorter version because it had already been cleaned up. The longer has since been released on DVD.
  • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
    • The movie has used at least three different endings over the years: one which pays off Yukon Cornelius' pickaxe-licking, one that shows Rudolph and Santa gathering the Misfit Toys, and one that combines both of them. Three versions also exist of the scene in which Rudolph and Hermey become friends, the second containing a completely different song. Freeform's airing of the special in 2019 brought back Yukon finally striking peppermint and Clarice and Donner watching Santa taking off while keeping Santa and Rudolph gathering the Misfit Toys.
    • In 2000, none of the scenes listed above were shown. Instead, the credits were rolled over the music video for the Destiny's Child version of the titular song.
  • The Transformers went through this twice.
    • After the show had first ended its run, a fifth season was made that consisted of 15 episodes from the previous series and The Transformers: The Movie edited into a five-part episode. The episodes in question had footage cut to provide room for live-action segments where the episode's events were being told by Optimus Prime to a human child.
    • From 1993 to 1995, the show was rebranded Transformers Generation Two, which took 52 of the original series' episodes and added a "Cybernet Space Cube" that provided new Idiosyncratic Wipes.
  • Whenever 101 Dalmatians: The Series was aired on Disney Cinemagic in the U.K., some lines were cut out to add more commercial time.
  • Played for laughs with an in-universe example in The Simpsons episode "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" where Homer is watching Free Willy, but instead of making the famous jump, the whale doesn't and crushes the boy.
    Homer: Oh, I don't like this new director's cut.
  • After parents complained about how some of the lyrics in "The Bunny Song" were not appropriate for children to be singing, later pressings of the VeggieTales episode Rack, Shack and Benny, as well as the sing-along video Very Silly Songs!, used different versions of the song.
  • Several of the later episodes of Spider-Man (1967) were just previous episodes with altered footage. One example was "Spider-Man Battles the Molemen", a revised version of "Menace from the Bottom of the World" that changed it so that the mole people were being led by an actual mole-man instead of a disguised criminal.
  • The Bump in the Night episode "Neat and Clean" was the episode "Adventures in Microbia" heavily edited and changed so that the episode concluded with a musical number about how important it is to be neat and clean.
  • While most Kideo personalized videos were exclusive episodes of the shows chosen (like Arthur's New Friend and My Party With Barney), two of them were edited episodes of the TV show upon which they were based.
    • The Dora the Explorer video was the episode "Whose Birthday Is It?" but edited to add the child in question and have the characters say the child's name.
    • Both Care Bears videos were re-edited episodes of Care Bears Family: The first, "Fitness is Fun", edited the child into "The Care Bears Exercise Show" and "Under the Bigtop", and the second, "Winter Adventures'', was a re-edit of "No Business Like Snow Business".
  • After parents complained about the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood episode "Daniel Can't Ride Trolley; Daniel Can't Get What He Wants" teaching kids to stomp their feet when they were mad, a new version premiered in the fall of 2019 on PBS and Amazon Prime Video that redubbed each instance of "stomp three times" with "take a deep breath". Also, some scenes were changed around or omitted, like parts of the ice cream truck segment before the second segment.

    Other 
  • David Morgan-Mar edited and resubmitted one of the Irregular Webcomic! podcasts to add some missing sound effects and commented that he had "done a George Lucas". He's also gone back and edited an earlier strip (Strip #1639), which featured an appearance by The Pope, because someone sent him a customized Lego Pope figure and he wanted to include it in place of his own version.
  • The James Bond-Heineken ad "Crack the Case" has an extended version that serves as a music video for the song that plays, Gin Wigmore's "Man Like That".


Alternative Title(s): Done A George Lucas, Directors Cut, Han Shot First

Top