I thought the second Playboy bunny scene was a bit over the top, but other than that I think I prefer Redux.

 

Redux is fine, but I won't say it is better than the original release. In the original release, I felt like I had learned all I needed to know about the protagonist and his mission, and the conflicts he faced. At two-and-a-half hours, it was long enough to capture the sense of that mission and the journey, but it was not so long as to get tedious. Redux's plantation sequence threatens to push the movie into that danger zone where it might be called tedious.

 

With the plantation sequence, the movie is tedious.

 

Definitely much of the dinner scene becomes tedious... simply much too long. But I thought when they first land at the dock with the fog & the soldiers appearing and the final scene with Sheen and the French woman in the bedroom were pretty good.

 

Redux gets a bad rap, but it's still a good movie, just a different movie than the theatrical cut. The motivations of the characters are completely different in the Redux version.


I like both, but the theatrical cut is definitely the better of the two.

 

I like both. I can watch the original almost anytime all the way through. I have to more in the mood to watch Redux all the way through.


larry

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh Z Redux gets a bad rap, but it's still a good movie, just a different movie than the theatrical cut. The motivations of the characters are completely different in the Redux version.

Redux is the only version I've seen in, oh, 20 years or so and, thanks to HDNet, the version I have in HD on D-VHS tape. Could you elaborate on how you feel the characters' motivations differ?

 

Other than the the beginning of the plantation sequence in the fog with the kind words for fall soldiers, that sequence was ****e. Hate it. Most of the other added stuff is great and really works.


I'd love to do a hybrid version myself.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by archiguy Redux is the only version I've seen in, oh, 20 years or so and, thanks to HDNet, the version I have in HD on D-VHS tape. Could you elaborate on how you feel the characters' motivations differ?

They seem to be the same as mine were.


1. Not to die.

2. Get high

3. Get laid.

4. Get back home.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt_Stevens Other than the the beginning of the plantation sequence in the fog with the kind words for fall soldiers, that sequence was ****e. Hate it. Most of the other added stuff is great and really works. I'd love to do a hybrid version myself.

I enjoyed that sequence, but it did need a bit of editing. Not fleshing those people out as much would have increased the eerieness and visceral impact of it and made it a more effective scene, IMO. Make 'em even more ghostlike. But I can see why it didn't make it into the theatrical version.

 

I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview of the film before it came out, with only the soundtrack of the first of the picture with Sheen in the bedroom (the video began with the marines coming up the staircase), and with the beginning of the plantation sequence and the funeral at the end of it. I wanted to see more ever since I saw it.


I liked the plantation scene myself. Other parts seemed too long to me, and the swiping of the surfboard seemed to totally go against Sheen's character. The bunnies scene was weird, but pretty good.


I guess Redux is my favorite, but Murch put too much back in.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaded Dogfood I was lucky enough to see a sneak preview of the film before it came out, with only the soundtrack of the first of the picture with Sheen in the bedroom (the video began with the marines coming up the staircase), and with the beginning of the plantation sequence and the funeral at the end of it. I wanted to see more ever since I saw it. I liked the plantation scene myself. Other parts seemed too long to me, and the swiping of the surfboard seemed to totally go against Sheen's character. The bunnies scene was weird, but pretty good. I guess Redux is my favorite, but Murch put too much back in.

Yeah, I saw the Redux when it came through the theaters; saw most of the original in lit class in high school--we had read Heart of Darkness. And I did like the plantation scene, but, the rest just drug it out. But, the trick is it seems the original pressing is going out of print, so, get it while you can. Maybe they're coming out with a new 'standard' edition, and with the "Hearts of Darkness" documentary.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shaded Dogfood I liked the plantation scene myself. Other parts seemed too long to me, and the swiping of the surfboard seemed to totally go against Sheen's character. The bunnies scene was weird, but pretty good.

The surf-board swipe is a tad lighter in tone than would be expected, but you have to admit the scene where they're listening to Kilgore's recorded message is brilliant. "I will not hurt or harm you. Just give me back the board, Lance. It was a good board - and I like it. You know how hard it is to find a board you like. " That scene is easily my favorite of the new footage included in Redux.


That being said, while much of the extra footage is excellent stuff, none of it really drives the plot forward. I far prefer the pacing of the original cut. The plantation scene, although wonderfully filmed and quite fascinating, utterly derails the film and obliterates the tension that builds continually as Willard moves up the river in the original cut. A sunday dinner and leisurely toke & boff scene right in the middle of the descent into Kurtz's hell? It just doesn't work.

 

Sorry, but Redux comes off like the "Fat" Elvis, bloated and self-indulgent, compared to the original. The extra footage just highlights the excellent editing and pacing of the original.

 

Quote:

but you have to admit the scene where they're listening to Kilgore's recorded message is brilliant... That scene is easily my favorite of the new footage included in Redux.

Ditto, I love that scene, but have had no desire to see redux again since I saw it in the theater.

 

I want Redux Redux, which is redux minus the 20 minute french occupation scene.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by archiguy Redux is the only version I've seen in, oh, 20 years or so and, thanks to HDNet, the version I have in HD on D-VHS tape. Could you elaborate on how you feel the characters' motivations differ?

I'd have to watch Redux again, or dig up some of my old correspondence from when it first came out to go into any detail, but basically Redux humanizes the characters, whereas the original version presents them more as archetypes for the madness of war.


This change adds some depth to the film, but also dilutes the central thesis of the movie.

 

I watched the original when I was pretty young and hated it (didn't get it). I then rewatched Redux later on in life and loved it. I guess I need to get a hold of the original now and watch it (or just watch the parts of the original from my redux dvd).


I would love an edition to come out that has all the footage from the massive 4 hour workprint that floats around. I have never seen it as the quality is supposedly terrible.

 

I just like it better when Martin Sheen's character was more detached from the other guys on the boat, so I have to go with the original.

 

Redux is fascinating....but the original has always bowled me over and would be my first pick.


Now, maybe a Redux Redux might be definitive for me...until/if the cut is done...



Note to FFC: Please put back the OAR when this is released BD!

 

I refuse to watch Redux and taint my viewing of the original cut.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grubert I refuse to watch Redux and taint my viewing of the original cut.

Wow. You are a purist.

 

The original. This film is a great example of how directors' wisdom - studio-driven though it may have been - the first time around may be the best wisdom. While the new scenes in redux are at times interesting, and I do appreciate getting to see them, I prefer the better focused, intense, "stay-on-task" feel of the original. I agree that maybe some Playboy girl rainy camp scenes might have been preserved for the original, but the French colonist encounter goes too far afield in tone and diffuses the power of the storyline.


BTW, there was a recent article in the NY Times about how recent movie releases (King Kong was named) have been longer and more like what used to be "director's uncut versions." And to stray a little more OT, I could see how Jackson may have cut some from Kong, but OTOH I like the extended LOTR versions better.


Dan

 

The sneak preview of Apocalypse Now that I saw (in suburban Atlanta, at Perimeter Mall) had Coppola in attendance. He was tired and looked rather concerned, and had to put up with a lecture afterwards from god-knows-who to the effect of "it's too long, you've got to take stuff out." I countered with "no, no, you've got to put more back in," upon which he wearily replied that there was the whole sequence with Christian Marquand but there didn't seem to be the time to fit it in.


Remember, at the time of the preview he had been working on the film for years and everybody was scared that it would turn out to be a complete bust. Distributors, then as now, hated films much over two hours. I suspect Coppola really wanted a longer film.


Everybody knew the film without the plantation sequence. To me, having had that tantalizing glimpse of it early on, gave a different sense of expectations for the film. Somehow that pause, having the men venturing almost to the edge of the stone age and then finding a pocket of people living a perilous colonial existence despite the war was just another of the absurd contradictions of the modern and the primitive that made the movie so endlessly fascinating. It did bring the forward drive of the movie to a halt, but so did the Playboy bunnies scene that made it to the final cut. Ultimately, though, I had hoped for more in it than a dinner and a bedroom scene.

 

For anybody that still has a VCR, I recommend finding a copy of "Hearts of Darkness", the making-of documentary for Apocalypse Now.


larry