History Main / ReCut

* Nick did a similar thing with Legendary Battle, the finale of ''Series/PowerRangersSuperMegaforce''. Two days after it's US premiere, a longer version was aired on Nicktoons.

* ''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. Unconnectedly, 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.

** There are also alterations for home video releases. Mostly this simply involves adding optional CGI special effects to replace particularly glaringly bad original effects. A few stories, including "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.

* When [[Creator/TerryPratchett Sir Terry Pratchett's]] publishers finally got fed up of sending out thousands of letters saying there was no demand for a reprint of ''TheCarpetPeople'' (his first novel and bordering on OldShame), it was only after Pratchett rewrote substantial amounts of the novel to correct what he saw as poor writing by his younger self.

* ''TV Cut'': An edited version of the film. 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, violence is often cut, swear words are covered up, and nudity may be removed. (See any ''Film/DieHard'' movie.) As well, they may be edited for time.

* Varying releases of ''Film/BladeRunner'' over the years have resulted in ''five'' distinct versions: The original Domestic cut (which includes a Raymond Chandler-style voiceover, and a happy ending, which used footage left over from Film/TheShining); An International Cut (which has more 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 clandestinely at sci-fi conventions in the 90's); A so-called Director's Cut, which came out on DVD in 1998, which removed the voice-over and ending, which was more to Creator/RidleyScott's liking, but was not created with his actual involvement; And lastly, the Final Cut, released in 2008 for the film's 25th anniversary, which Scott shot new footage featuring actress Joanna Cassidy and Benjamin Ford (Harrison's son) that was digitally superimposed into the film, along with giving the film an a extensive restoration since this was first time the film was released on high-def formats. It's these 5 cuts that were released together in boxsets on DVD, HDDVD, and Blu-Ray in 2008, and then re-released on DVD & Blu-Ray in 2013 for the film's 30th anniversary.

* ''Film/BladeRunner'', which is now available in ''five'' versions: the Domestic and International Theatrical Cuts (both with voiceover by Harrison Ford and a happy ending -- the Domestic version has about 30 seconds of violence from the International version trimmed off); the "Workprint" (a rough cut which preceded the theatrical cuts, notably put together before scoring); the "Director's Cut" (created with Creator/RidleyScott's notes but without his actual involvement); and the 25th Anniversary "Final Cut" (Creator/RidleyScott's ''actual'' director's cut, complete with digital restoration -- he wanted to just call it ''Blade Runner'', but was overruled).

* Creator/TerryGilliam's ''Film/{{Brazil}}'' was recut [[ExecutiveMeddling against his wishes]] to give it a happier ending. However, after Gilliam went behind the studio's back and set up a private screening for critics (which netted him a best picture award from the LA Film Critics Association), the studio agreed to release his original, much darker cut. The meddled-with "Love Conquers All" cut was shown on TV, and was finally released alongside the original cut on the Criterion DVD.
* Ditto ''Film/BladeRunner'', which is now available in ''five'' versions: the Domestic and International Theatrical Cuts (both with voiceover by Harrison Ford and a happy ending -- the Domestic version has about 30 seconds of violence from the International version trimmed off); the "Workprint" (a rough cut which preceded the theatrical cuts, notably put together before scoring); the "Director's Cut" (created with Creator/RidleyScott's notes but without his actual involvement); and the 25th Anniversary "Final Cut" (Creator/RidleyScott's ''actual'' director's cut, complete with digital restoration -- he wanted to just call it ''Blade Runner'', but was overruled).

* The TV version of ''HappyGilmore'' had Happy confronting the orderly who has been enslaving old ladies including his grandmother and punching him out ther window. The theatrical and DVD versions cut this scene, making the orderly a KarmaHoudini and [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse left that subplot unresolved]].

* One of the earliest examples is ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''. After the film's successful initial release in 1977, Creator/StevenSpielberg 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. A list of the various cuts and the differences between them is [[http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075860/alternateversions here]]. All three cuts can be found in the film's Blu-ray release.

* One of the earliest examples is ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''. After the film's successful initial release in 1977, Creator/StevenSpielberg 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, which includes most of the new footage and adds shots cut from the original release, but drops the inside-the-mothership ending. A list of the various cuts and the differences between them is [[http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075860/alternateversions here]]. All three cuts can be found in the film's Blu-ray release.

* The {{Disney}} Cinemagic airings of ''WesternAnimation/{{Recess}}'' usually have the theme song play slightly faster.
** Isn't it a PAL Speedup effect?

* Whenever ''[[Disney/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians 101 Dalmatians: The Series]]'' is aired on Disney Cinemagic in the U.K., some lines were cut out for no reason than to add more commercial time.

* [[Underworld]] 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, [[ViewersAreMorons so that the studio could lure in as many repeat buyers as possible by bragging about the number of minutes added back in]].

* ''Film/Underworld'' 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, [[ViewersAreMorons so that the studio could lure in as many repeat buyers as possible by bragging about the number of minutes added back in]].

** During the 1970s there was a tradition of showing 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, but a few 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, with 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.

* ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' has gone through a few editions. Director Creator/RobertWise considered the original theatrical release a "rough cut", due to it being rushed to meet Creator/{{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 Creator/{{ABC}} and was released on [=VHS=] as a "Special Longer Edition" in 1983. 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. Interestingly enough, the first Blu-Ray release of ''The Motion Picture'' is the theatrical cut.

* ''[[Film/DawnOfTheDead Dawn of the Dead]]'' 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. 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 it's Italian title) was edited by DarioArgento 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 proses. The gore however is left intact.[[note]]It does however not future the infamous chopper scene that the two other cuts have. Probably because of the scene's humors undertones.[[/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 film's screening at Cannes. It is similar to Romero's final cut, but have uncensored gore and is even longer. Because of this it have 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 use 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 have unique scenes and they sometimes use different shots of the same scene. 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 [[CompressedAdaptation 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").

** During the filming of [[Film/HalloweenII1981 the first sequel]], JohnCarpenter shot more scenes for the ABC broadcast of [[Film/{{Halloween 1978}} the original]] to help it pad out the alotted 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 [[spoiler: helps establish the twist in part 2, that Laurie is Michael's biological sister.]]

* In 2001 ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' was re-edited by FrancisFordCoppola into a new extended version titled ''Apocalypse Now Redux'', which adds almost an hour of additional footage and is regarded by the director as an entirely different film (and held by most viewers and critics to be inferior to the original).

** While we're on Creator/RidleyScott, his film ''KingdomOfHeaven'' was released in its theatrical cut (which he hated), and in a multi-disc Director's Cut, with which director, film critics, and many viewers were much happier.

* ''[[Franchise/EvilDead 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 Creator/SamRaimi, but [[ExecutiveMeddling 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 the theatrical ending, where Ash [[spoiler:confronts a Deadite in S-Mart]] usually ranks as just one more CrowningMomentOfAwesome for fans of the series.

* JamesCameron's 1989 sci-fi epic ''TheAbyss'' 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 [[spoiler: 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 ExecutiveMeddling, 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'', 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."

* ''Film/LethalWeapon'' and ''LethalWeapon2'' have Director's Cuts scenes on DVD: In ''[[http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=5879626 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 ''[[http://www.movie-censorship.com/report.php?ID=5695762LW2 LW2]]'' there's a pool scene in Leo Getz' lobby.

* The R-Rated director's cut of 2003's ''{{Daredevil}}'' totally combined this with BetterOnDVD, 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 ''DonnieDarko'' 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.

* Ditto ''Film/BladeRunner'', which is now available in ''five'' versions: the Domestic and International Theatrical Cuts (both with voiceover by Harrison Ford and a happy ending -- the Domestic version has about 30 seconds of violence from the International version trimmed off); the "Workprint" (a rough cut which preceded the theatrical cuts, notably put together before scoring); the "Director's Cut" (created with Ridley Scott's notes but without his actual involvement); and the 25th Anniversary "Final Cut" (Ridley Scott's ''actual'' director's cut, complete with digital restoration -- he wanted to just call it ''Blade Runner'', but was overruled).
** While we're on Ridley Scott, his film ''KingdomOfHeaven'' was released in its theatrical cut (which he hated), and in a multi-disc Director's Cut, with which director, film critics, and many viewers were much happier.

** Another case of a Ridley Scott Recut is ''Film/{{Alien}}''. When Fox requested a "Director's Cut" for the Special Edition release, 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.

** Ridley Scott's ''[[Film/RobinHood2010 Robin Hood]]'' 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.

* Another victim of ExecutiveMeddling was ''HighlanderIITheQuickening''. When it ran over time and budget, [[ExecutiveMeddling the suits]] just couldn't ''wait'' to screw ''this'' pooch. The main difference between the Theatrical Cut and the Renegade Cut is that the immortals are NOT from freakin' space, but from the ancient past and predate humanity. The planet Zeist plotline was so clumsily added that it created one massive logic hole concerning [=MacLeod's=] reactivation of his immortal nature. This was handled in the Theatrical Cut with what had to be the ''worst'' explanation scene ever. Both have since been released on DVD.
** The original film also 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.
* Another film that got a slight tweak was ''WeirdScience''. The TV version shows two scenes not in the Home Video Version: