TIME: "The Top 10 Movie Re-Releases"

[JamesG]

Top 10 Movie Re-Releases


This weekend, an expanded version of James Cameron's 'Avatar' hit theaters with an additional nine minutes of footage.

TIME takes a look back at other famous cinematic re-introductions:






1. The Star Wars Trilogy


The original Star Wars films deserve to be on the top of any list of re-releases if only for the fact that George Lucas never seems to stop re-releasing them.

Each time, he tweaks them a bit more in the search for some sort of narrative perfection that likely doesn't exist.



In 1981 — one year after the release of the sequel The Empire Strikes Back — Lucas brought Star Wars back to theaters. Among other things, he reworked the now famous opening crawl to read, "Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope" (even early on he was thinking of all the films fitting together as one large story).




In 1997, to celebrate the original film's 20th anniversary, all three films were digitally remastered and re-released to great fanfare. Again, Lucas made some minor but significant changes, such as making Han Solo less of a rogue by changing a scene in which he had previously shot a bounty hunter in cold blood.




In 2004, all three films were again released (this time on DVD) with changes that brought them in line with the story set out in the series' prequels.

Not surprisingly, Lucas has talked about sending the original trilogy back to theaters once again — this time in 3-D.












2. Blade Runner


There are directors like George Lucas who like to continue to toy with films that were pretty good to begin with. And then there are directors like Ridley Scott, who has spent decades trying to fix a movie butchered by the moneymen.



In 1982, Blade Runner was nearly ruined when execs gave the film a noiresque voice-over (to provide explanation for audiences they assumed would be too confused to enjoy the film otherwise) and a happy ending that seemed to come out of nowhere.



In 1992, Scott released a director's cut, which nixed the voice-over and replaced the sunny ending with one that entirely changed the main character's story arc (if you haven't seen the film, all we're going to say is the word unicorn).




He followed that in 2007 with Blade Runner: The Final Cut, which is supposedly the absolute last version. We're just going to have to take Scott's word on that.












3. Metropolis


Fritz Lang's silent dystopian masterpiece had long been shown in a somewhat abbreviated form.


Following its release in 1927, close to an hour's worth of footage was snipped by displeased studio executives and lost forever. Or so it was thought.

Two years ago, a version of Metropolis discovered in Argentina included some of the footage that was presumed destroyed.

This year, the full (or as close to full as we might ever get) version was shown in theaters, an improvement from the 1984 re-release of the film masterminded by synthesizer-heavy composer Giorgio Moroder.





Accompanied by songs from Pat Benatar, Freddie Mercury, Adam Ant and other early-'80s artists, the Moroder version of Metropolis is considered by many to be an embarrassment.

Naturally, there are also those who consider it to be an unfairly attacked work of artistic bravery.












4. Apocalypse Now Redux


The filming of Apocalypse Now, easily one of the most insane war movies ever, almost broke Francis Ford Coppola. But the long months of shooting gave him a hell of a lot of extra material, some of which he used for the film's 2001 re-release.



As TIME's Richard Corliss wrote, "'Apocalypse Now Redux' is more than a tinkering, with a brief scene added here, some computer effects daubed in there. It is a complete re-cutting of the original 5-hr. assemblage; the 2½-hour running time of the 1979 version has been expanded to include 53 minutes of previously un-shown footage.

If any recut can be a 'new' movie, this one is."












5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind


For most of Steven Spielberg's 1977 classic, the audience watches a group of people affected by their encounters (close, of course) with alien spaceships.

We see bright lights through windows and doorways, we see tiny, mosquito-quick craft, but we don't see the big mama until the very end. And when that mother ship — seemingly as big as Devil's Tower itself — comes floating onto the screen, it's truly an awe-inspiring moment.





So when Spielberg wanted to release a director's cut (what eventually became the 1980 "Special Edition") execs agreed on the condition that he include scenes filmed inside the mother ship, a condition that Spielberg came to regret.

Apparently some things are better left to the imagination, and he was able to rectify the mistake in the 1998 "Collector's Edition."












6. The Wizard of Oz


For many decades, those who experienced The Wizard of Oz on television assumed that the movie started off in black and white before making its mind-blowing shift to color.

False. Those opening Kansas scenes were actually sepia-toned, a detail that was lost between the film's first theatrical re-release in 1949 and its second in 1955.

But for various technical reasons, TV stations never showed those scenes as they were originally meant to be seen.






All that was restored in 1989, as part of a 50th anniversary VHS re-release.

In November 1998, a 60th anniversary "Special Edition" was shown in theaters, remastered and with a spiffy new digital soundtrack. One of America's most beloved films, it's easy to imagine it being trotted back out every decade or so.

There's no place like ... a movie theater to see The Wizard of Oz. The color yellow will be imprinted on your corneas for days.












7. The Toy Story Films


Toy Story was Pixar's first feature film, the one that kicked off an incredible streak (still going) of critically acclaimed animated movies that have managed to delight both children and their parents alike.

Toy Story 2 followed four years later.

A decade after that, in anticipation of summer 2010's Toy Story 3 and looking to take advantage of Hollywood's burgeoning 3-D obsession, Pixar re-released the series' first two films as a 3-D double feature.












8. Avatar


Why, why, why would a film that is now the highest-grossing movie of all time — $2.4 billion worldwide — need to be re-released?

With only nine minutes of additional footage (mostly more blue stuff) and released on a mere 800 or so screens, Avatar's end-of-August slot seemed like nothing more than an attempt to capture just a smidgen more box office in what is typically a dreadful time for new films.





Audiences were not fooled. The film scored only about $4 million in its re-opening weekend.

Unlike many of the other films on this list — which went decades between showings — Avatar seems to have exhausted its audience's patience.












9. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial


The 20th anniversary re-release of one of the most tear-jerking films of all time made some minor changes that ticked off movie purists.

The most glaring example can be seen near the end of the film, when federal agents are in pursuit of the young kids who have stolen E.T. in an attempt to get him back to his home planet.

All of the federal agents' guns were digitally replaced with walkie-talkies, presumably in an attempt to make the film more kid-friendly.



Now all Steven Spielberg has to do is replace the scene where the young boy gets telepathically drunk on beer and he'll be set.












10. Bambi


We call out Bambi, but it could be almost any classic Disney film, because many of them have been re-released several times, first theatrically, then on VHS and DVD.

Bambi was re-released in American theaters in 1947, 1957, 1966, 1982 and 1988. A similar pattern can be traced for other Disney features.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...014364,00.html

[Torgo]

I'll add The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen, and I hear it's being released into the theaters again.

[MrCleveland]

How about the 50th re-release of "Snow White" or "Fantasia"?

I'm surprised that they weren't on the list!

[Torgo]

Originally Posted by MrCleveland

How about the 50th re-release of "Snow White" or "Fantasia"?

I'm surprised that they weren't on the list!

Read number 10 on the list.

[MrCleveland]

Originally Posted by Torgo

Read number 10 on the list.

Okay...

I think it's because Ted Turner's favorite Disney Movie was "Bambi"!

Mine's "Three Caballeros", but it was only released once in 1977, but "Fantasia" was re-released in 1968 and 1991.

[dakert]

Where is Grease

Where is Zebra In The Kitchen
Where is the 1933 King Kong--that I saw in the 70s

[HuntingtonM15]

I'm surprised that Gone with the Wind isn't on the list. With its original release and re-releases over the years, it sold more tickets than any movie in history.