Apocalypse Now Redux - Anyone Else See It?

[JeffreyWKramer]

I watched it on DVD last night, and was pretty much blown away. I was wondering what others thought of it.

For those who don't know, it's a director's cut of Coppola's classic war film. There are some significant changes - some of the classic bits are re-edited and/or extended, two scenes (one quite lengthy) are completely added, the ending is changed in some significant ways, and a lot more footage of Kurtz is added, including lots of dialogue between Kurtz (Brando) and Willard (Sheen).

I'm mixed about some of the changes, found one of the added scenes entirely superfluous, but absolutely loved the extra footage of Brando, which made Kurtz a much richer character.

Anyone care to discuss this, or perhaps the original, classic APOCALYPSE NOW?

[elheffe]

I watched it on DVD last night, and was pretty much blown away. I was wondering what others thought of it.

For those who don't know, it's a director's cut of Coppola's classic war film. There are some significant changes - some of the classic bits are re-edited and/or extended, two scenes (one quite lengthy) are completely added, the ending is changed in some significant ways, and a lot more footage of Kurtz is added, including lots of dialogue between Kurtz (Brando) and Willard (Sheen).

I'm mixed about some of the changes, found one of the added scenes entirely superfluous, but absolutely loved the extra footage of Brando, which made Kurtz a much richer character.

Anyone care to discuss this, or perhaps the original, classic APOCALYPSE NOW?
I've been meaning to watch this. Does the extended version make the the ending any less confusing? Any more Dennis Hopper?"You can't land on a half, man!" Suppose I'll have to add it to my Netflix queue.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I've been meaning to watch this. Does the extended version make the the ending any less confusing? Any more Dennis Hopper?"You can't land on a half, man!" Suppose I'll have to add it to my Netflix queue.

I think there is a bit more Hopper, though I'm not certain, as I haven't seen the original release in many years. I feel the added footage with Kurtz makes the choices of Kurtz and Willard seem more natural.

Some people apparently dislike the added Kurtz sequence that shows him in daylight, but I personally think this is a brilliant sequence, and through the power of Brando's performance, we see Kurtz is every bit as powerful and scary an individual in daylight as when he is in the darkness.

I definitely recommend renting this one. Now I want to see the original again, in order to better compare the two.

[StoneGold]

I saw it in the theaters on IMAX when it came out.



Frankly, I wasn't impressed. The new scenes mostly just stretched out the movie. Made it worse, even. That whole bit in the plantation just dragged on forever.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Frankly, I wasn't impressed. The new scenes mostly just stretched out the movie. Made it worse, even. That whole bit in the plantation just dragged on forever.

I'm mixed on the plantation scene. It definitely did interrupt the narrative flow of the movie, and for that reason, I completely understand why it was removed from the original theatrical release. Also, it very much Vietnamized the movie, i.e., made it more a commentary on the history of foreign involvement in Vietnam, and less a commentary on the general horrors of war that just happens to be set in Vietnam. That can be good or bad, depending how one looks at the movie. It is overly long, though.

The scene I found completely superfluous was the one with the two Playboy playmates out in that middle-of-nowhere camp. That scene turned into a rambling examination of sexploitation that might have been interesting somewhere else, but had no real place in this particular film.

I envy you seeing this in IMAX, though. That would be incredible.

[StoneGold]

I envy you seeing this in IMAX, though. That would be incredible.
Honestly, at the time, it mostly just felt long. I much preferred the original cut.

[Buzz Dixon]

The plantation scene does interrupt the smooth flow of the movie (ditto the extended Playmates scene), but the planatation scene is also the only time a sane reason is given for any foreign involvement in Vietnam, and one comes away realizing the answer is nowhere near as simple as the anti-war and/or pro-communist arguments made it seem.

I favor the extended version over the theatrical cut.

[BlairH]

It's an absolutely awesome movie. It has that spark of intelligence that many movies from the '70s have, but yet -at the same time- it looks so far ahead of it's time. The famed helicopter assault scene is the best scene in film history. EVER.

[JeffreyWKramer]

Here's something funky. I just found out a couple hours ago, while doing some online research, that there are variants of the original theatrical cut of the film out there, with somewhat different endings - and that what I've long thought was the original version was actually a variant!

When I first saw APOCALYPSE NOW in the theatre, the ending credits showed Kurtz' complex blowing up, apparently due to an air strike. I don't recall if that was in any of the subsequent viewings (I saw it once in cinema, during college, and a couple years later on VHS), but I recall it quite vividly from my first viewing. That wasn't the way the movie ended in REDUX, which seemed to me to be a major change in the ending... but reading up on the film at Wikipedia and elsewhere, it seems that from the beginning, there were multiple versions released; one included the version of the ending/credits I saw (the 35 mm version of the original release, according to Wiki), while the others did not. Apparently the version of the ending I first saw was *not* the one favored by Coppola. Thus, for all these years, the ending of the film I remembered was the "wrong" one.

How odd.

[Dr. Banner]

I never saw the original cut, but I have seen redux.

If the original cut was shorter, then I like that version better, based on what I saw in redux.

[Jared]

I've never even seen the original. I did see Redux a few months ago, on, I think, AMC or Bravo. The only editing seemed to be blurring of the nudity.

Overall I liked it, though the movie basically falls apart once Sheen reaches Kurtz's compound. After all that build up, it's a just a grazy, paunchy Marlon Brando with people worshipping him for no clear reason. Why exactly doesn't the U.S. simply air strike him? Sheen even tells to the other guy to call in the air strike if he doesn't make it back from the camp. If that was an option, and they obviously already knew where Kurtz was, why did they bother with the suicidal river trek from Hell? And was Sheen suppossed to be some kind of expert assassin? Because all he had to to was walk up to Kurtz and knife him. The surfer dude could have done that.

And yeah, the playmate scenes and the plantation scene were too long. I had them pegged from the get-go was stuff that was most likely added for the Redux version, they seemed so out of place. Didn't Coppalla suppossedly have a 5 hour cut of the movie at some point?

[meethraa]

I believe that the temple being blown up was mostly a Storaro thing that Coppola indulged for whatever reason but didn't really want in the film.
I prefer the Redux as well. It just makes more sense to me and scenes seem to actually flow better for with the extra content.

[Forefinger]

Honestly, at the time, it mostly just felt long. I much preferred the original cut.
Me too. It added some elements that I felt should have been in the original cut, but some scenes deserved to be cut out. The next time I get the urge to watch, it will be the original.

[sgt.candy]

i still havent seen it. and yet.....i had it on tape for years