I used to think director's cuts were definitive, but these days, "special editions" seem to be little more than a marketing ploy to get people to buy the DVD twice. Or thrice.

Han did not shoot "First"

Han was the only one to shoot. Greedo never fired.

That's not what George Lucas says.

Does it matter?

The definitive version of any movie is whichever one I like. Of course, your definitive version of the same movie may be different. And that's ok.

My opinion is that some Director's Cut editions improve on the originals and some make them worse, but that it's also in the eye of the beholder. I know that some people prefer the Special Edition Star Wars releases. I don't.

Of course there are also those special cases where no amount of tinkering can help. For example, I feel that the only definitive version of The Phantom Menace that I would be interested in would be the yet to be released version where they replace all the dialogue with the soundtrack of What's Up, Tiger Lily?

I think I would say it depends on the reason for the differences. If a director creates a new version to cut out studio dictates that altered his or her real intent, then I would consider the director's version to be definitive.

The same goes for the inclusion of scenes which were deleted or shortened to reduce running time. (LotR is a good example for this.) One of my gauges for this is if the DVD puts the scenes right into the movie or has the deleted scenes as an extra. The latter are usually forgettable.

Lucas' ham-handed remakes and remixes are another story entirely. I might give him his enhanced CGI FX and the Han/Jabba scene does add slightly to the story, but the rest of it is revisionist bullcrap that only serves to make George more money.

From your list, I'd say Blade Runner, The Abyss, and Brazil, director's cut; Star Wars, original; and for the others, I really don't know enough to judge (though Alien and Aliens were pretty damn near perfect in the original form).

The lines have blurred a lot. For example: the LotR movies all have 'extended editions' as does the Watchmen movie. But I'd argue they wouldn't have HAD those editions if they didn't have plug-in audiences created by the actual theatrical release. They shortened the movies for practicality's sake.

On the other hand, when a movie is tampered with by people other than the director(s), then it stands to reason that the definitive cut will be whatever the director actually WANTED, not what the studio forced to be made.

Then there's the third case, that of Lucas and Spielberg. Does 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Special Edition' count as the correct version or does the 'collector's edition'? When does a director have to STOP tinkering with his baby? Lucas' changes have come over a 30 year period...who can say that they're the same person they were 30 years ago? Lucas can't stop trying to 'fix' Star Wars and that his problem. He created the effects industry that made his films, practically, with ILM. Then, 20 years later, he saw how CGI could improve his work. But rather than just clean up the original and add detail, he also chose to use it to do questionable things like recast scenes (CGI Jabba over human Jabba, fr'ex) and re-edit (Greedo, over and over again).

For the record: I still refer to it as STAR WARS. Not Episode IV. Not 'A New Hope'. STAR WARS. That's what it was called when I saw it in the theater, and that's what I'll continue to call it. Just like I rejected Lucas' attempt to rename 'Raiders' as 'Indiana Jones and...'. LEAVE IT BE, GEORGE.

My heart agrees with DemetriosX, right down the line.

But I have to come down on the side of the original being the definitive version, mostly because a film is a collaborative effort with many artists contributing their unique visions to it. Shouldn't the costume designer have a voice in a "director's" cut? The cinematographer? The actors? I'm sure that everyone involved had ideas swimming around in their heads about how some aspect of the movie should have been different. A director may be monarch of the set, but is not a god, and a film is the result of the decisions made by many people, not just the director.

(But even a writer, on the other hand, who is the god of a book, still sometimes can't publish the "writer's cut". Heinlein's "Stranger In A Strange Land" comes to mind. Which version of that book is the definitive one?)

Lonnie has the right of it. What does it even mean to say one version or another is 'definitive'? The real question is "which version should I watch", and that just depends on the specifics. (As Scalzi notes too.)

It does complicate things when the versions are drastically different and all widely known. Blade Runner probably falls in this category. Then you have to be specific when you start talking about it with someone else, because you run the risk of literally talking about different films.

It's been said, sort of, above, but it's easy for me. What was the original intent of the creator? If the studio forced changes, and the "Director's Cut" restores original intent, then it's the DC. Special Editions that restore missing scenes, or whatever rarely capture the intended end result, but instead capture every scene shot, and few directors intend ultimately for every scene to be in a movie.

That's not to say that the original intent equals the best product. I actually prefer the voice over version of Blade Runner.

I think context is a huge factor in deciding the definitive version of a film. Sometimes the director's cut is just a money grab (Almost any of the modern "director's cuts"/Special Editions) but in some cases the studio clearly had creative control of the project and forced the director to make changes. In this case the director's cut is the definitive version. In other cases the technology of the age limited what the director could show on screen. The director could then go back and "fix" anything that he didn't like.

You can decide which version you like the best but only the director/creator can decide which version they want to define the film. The latest version of the film endorsed by the original creator must be considered the "definitive" version including the original Star Wars (Episodes 4, 5 ,and 6 included).

What happened to George Lucas between 1977 and 1983/1997? Did success really do that much damage to your ability to self-regulate bad ideas? Were people simply afraid to tell him when he had a bad idea? There are so many problems with the Special Edition and Episodes 1,2, and 3 that an alien abduction/lobotomy/religious cult are the only explanations. In the end the Star Wars franchise belongs to Lucas and what he produces defines the definitive edition.

For millions of fans George Lucas has done the impossible. He has taken a franchise that was once loved and made it into something at times embarrassingly bad and at other times painfully mediocre. He has chosen a version the Star Wars universe that compromises the characters and story that made the original movies so widely liked and in the process saved me thousands of dollars in stupid merchandising tie-ins and toy purchases.

In 1997 I was too young and naive to see the "definitive version" of Star Wars for what it was, a warning shot that the worst was yet to come.

Rabid Android

I'm not sure there is a definitive version and many times I think the director should leave well enough alone. That said, I think every single additional scene in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy helped, although some were probably not necessary. That said, there's a flashback where we see Boromir and Faramir just as Boromir gives a speech to his people and Faramir says, "Nice speech. Short." And Boromir says, "Leaves more time for drinking." Then they go off as comrades and brothers, then encounter their father. This scene should NEVER have been left out of the theater version, it extrapolates a whole series of important relationships.

As for Lucas's tweaking, eh. Some of it's nice, but none of it changes thing that much.

And I've always liked the voiceover in Blade Runner, for what that's worth.

The definitive version of any (not just artist) endeavour is that endorsed by the principal contributor. When he/she, be it director/writer/photographer/artist/[insert here], stands behind their piece of work and saying “This is what I meant,” we can’t say “No it isn’t.” We might not like it, we may prefer a different version and think they should have stopped messing around with CGI explosive effects, but there it is. I can only argue this from the POV of the classic “how would you feel” argument. (Maybe I would have prefered draft three of "Old Man's War"!)

Of course it gets really completed when you consider, for example, classical music. A raft of definite versions of the same piece of music!

preferred, not "prefered"!

For those of us who mis-spent our intellectual capital being English majors (come on yinz, I know you're lurking out there), this all sounds REEALLLY familiar: intention, history, context.

Wise gets no excuses. After all, the crew of the Enterprise had to rush off ahead of schedule in an unfinished starship, and they still managed to save the world.

For me, the "definitive version" is the one most likely to be known to the widest audience, the version I would most likely be talking about with somebody I met randomly in the street. In almost every case, this is the original version released to theaters. Sometimes the original version is superior, sometimes it isn't. It doesn't matter. That's the one most people will automatically go to.

I think a lot of people in these discussions tend to overemphasize the intent of the director, discounting the creative input of the studio and completely forgetting the existence of the writer. The truth is, movies aren't solely the product of a director's vision. They are the product of a conglomerate vision of many people embodied by the studio. They are the studio's movie. It pains many to think that a collection of corporate interests would have a creative vision, as that seems somehow less pure, but nevertheless that's the reality in movie world.

I think the answer that makes most sense is to look for what the original creators were trying to achieve at the time they made the film.

For Star Wars, in 1977, CGI effects were not part of the plan for Lucas (or anyone else) then; the film released in 1977 was the original intent.

For films where commercial pressures forced the changes and the director or other creatives (actors, cinematographers, SFX, etc) were given a later opportunity to reverse those changes (or for TMP, to finish the job rather than release a rough cut) then the director's cut is the original intent.

For films where the plan was always to have different theatrical and DVD releases (e.g. Lord of the Rings), then both are definitive, each in its own medium.

For films where there is yet another cut being released to make more money, then the original theatrical release remains the definitive.

Of course, some director's cuts or special editions can be highly regarded works of art in themselves, but they derive from the original, rather than replacing it.

Which is the definitive Hamlet? That one's been made and remade for hundreds of years, and very few people have a good idea what the original staging was like. Barring further legal shenanigans, eventually Blade Runner is going to go out of copyright, and some bright young filmmaker will do a new version, updated for a new place and time that will speak more clearly to contemporaries -- many of whom will then complain that the version with Harrison Ford was the definitive one... And then fall to arguing amongst themselves about which Ford version was definitive, while everyone else enjoys the new version and asks "Who the heck is Harrison Ford?" the way young people today don't know who Laurence Olivier was.

It seems to me that the default storytelling mode for humanity has traditionally been to tell different audiences different versions of the story, tailored to their interests. The Iliad was told this way, and Beowulf. Fairy tales and ghost stories were told this way. This idea of having a fixed form (and thus a 'definitive version') is partly an artifact of our limited technology for mass-distribution of creative works. We're forced by technology, money, and copyright into having pretty much only one version, so we convince ourselves that there is only one Platonic ideal of Blade Runner.
Ridley Scott and his financial backers told one version of his (well, PKD's) story that was bland enough for mass consumption, and then told another version of the story that would be appreciated by a certain subset of the population (preferably clutching dollars). I have so much respect for Mr. Scott's creative vision that I am curious what version of the story he privately prefers, of course. But to call one version "definitive" is, I think, to unfairly deny the amorphous nature of stories in human tradition.

I think DemetriosX and WizarDru get it right. Here's the condensed rules of thumb:

*If the alterations from the original were forced upon the director by executive meddling, the director's cut is the definitive version. If the director made the cuts himself, either during the original edit or subsequently, the theatrical release is the definitive version.

*In doubtful cases, if the deleted scenes are included in the movie itself, presume that they were cut due to executive meddling. But if they are included as "extras," presume that they were cut by the director

We watched the new director's cut of Blade Runner and for me that blew away the previous versions.

My wife and I are hooked on the LOTR extended versions as well. As was posted above, that scene with Boromir and Faramir should have been in the movie, as well as a dozen others. Gimli winning "the orc killing" contest in Two Towers is another example. Gandalf pointing out the mithril mining in Moria. The drinking song in the Green Dragon. I can understand that Jackson had to walk a narrow line between including things fans would love and keeping the running time down to a level the theaters would accept but a lot of the cut scenes really expand on the characters even if they don't drive the story.

For Star Wars, it matters not so much to me -- I saw the original release so many times in the theatre, that the cosmetic fixes in the special editions are almost jarring.

For LOTR, no question I like the Extended versions better.

One of my all-time favorite movies is Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. The US version is way short compared to the versions released in theatres and DVDs elsewhere in the world. I'd really like to see some of the 5 and 7 hour versions! But that's me.

Then there's Marooned, which Wikipedia says, "In the 1980s, Marooned was redistributed under the name Space Travelers by Film Ventures International, an ultra-low-budget production company that prepared quickie television and video releases of films that were in the public domain or could be purchased inexpensively. As Space Travelers, Marooned was mocked on a 1992 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, becoming the only Oscar-winning film ever to receive the MST3K treatment."

Dr. Phil

I would lean on the Director's Edition a definitive edition of a film. It is the version free of time constraints with presumably the same resources on hand.

It is telling that none of the re-edits of the original Star Wars Trilogy are called Director's Editions. George Lucas hasn't been as interested in polishing dialogue, expanding characters, or cleaning up wasted run time as he is about showing off digital tricks.

Two exceptions to this are the Jabba and Biggs scenes in A New Hope. In both cases, the scene fills in some story gaps and actually adds some character color. The Biggs scene isn't a perfect fit as it is really a bookend to the lost scenes intended for the beginning of the film.

For that matter, I've wondered why Lucas just didn't ask Hamill to re-dub "Biggs is right. I'm never gonna get out of here!" with dialogue omitting the reference, perhaps to something like, "My friends are right..." since that dialogue is already obviously dubbed. Again, why play around with Greedo and Han's confrontation when you can just easily just clean up some story gaps elsewhere? He could drop the Biggs scene on Yavin altogether, saving a minute or so of run time. I doubt Lucas is ever going to try to put the Biggs scenes from the beginning of the film back in. It would ruin a well-established well-paced first act.

I think I would have to quibble about "the original version is the one most filmgoers have seen" in regards to ST:TMP (well, I would until the Blu-Ray was just released since it contains the original and not the DE):

Granted, I was a wee bairn (pre-teen/early teen), but I seem to recall that the DE had a HUGE marketing push when it was released on VHS - and I also seem to recall that there was also a lot of hype when the DE was shown on TV initially (I don't recall if the original version was ever shown on Network tv - I think it was, but I just don't remember very well). For instance, I just saw the original version again and only just now realized that most of the scenes that stuck out in my head were DE versions.

But again - what is "definitive"? I don't think that can ever really be assessed - as someone mentioned, my "definitive" is not necessarily the same as someone else's. Going to music as an example - there are a lot of different recordings of John Coltrane's version of "My Favorite Things" - which one is "definitive"? His original 1960 studio recording? the '63 or '65 Newport Jazz festival versions? Or the hour-long behemoth from Tokyo in '66? Personally, I prefer the '63 version and that's the one I play in my head - but others like the more restrained - "original" - studio recording.

I think trying to come up with "definitive" is chasing a chimera.

Just to add another movie with a radically different director's cut that smells of release meddling: Lawnmover man. While neither cut has anything to do with the Stephen King story, the theatrical release was a brainless CGI/VR semi-horror. Not sure what made me even consider watching the director's cut after suffering through the original, but i'm glad i did, because it was a wholly different movie with character motivations that actually made sense of the plot.

I do wonder why we do constantly get Director's Cuts. It would seem that history has shown them to be more popular in the majority of cases. Doesn't that mean it would make more sense for studios to just learn the lesson already?

Or have they become just another sales device that let's them sell you the DVD shortly after release and the special edition Director's Cut DVD again another 6 months later?

I've always held the view that it's what the original director says is the definitive cut.

However the "director's Cut" seems to have become more of a marketing tool in recent years than a genuine attempt to recover a lost vision butchered by soulless marketing types (I exaggerate for effect).

As for the films you mentioned I've always preferred the original Blade Runner. I saw it so many times as a student that even when the version without the monologue was released my mind was still filling it in as I watched. I feel that that version also had a better balance on the question of whether or not Deckard was a Replicant. (His answer in the monologue was the best possible one, "It doesn't matter")

I liked the bits added to Aliens (Especially the sentry guns) but don't feel they added much to the overall experience.

We only ever got the "Director's Cut" of Brazil in the UK. I saw Terry Gilliam give a talk once where he complained about how the film was being handled in the US. (And also told us about his plans for a new film called "Watchmen". Those were the days.)

Question for you: Why don't writers do Author's Cuts of their favourite works?

Another wrinkle to the "authoritative version" thing is that versions of films are often different depending on where in the world one lives. A lot of the time this has to do with censorious meddling (e.g., whenever British censors demand a headbutting be removed from a film, or the "people standing in the way" version of Eyes Wide Shut that was meant not to frighten bluenoses in America by showing them teh boobies), and those are easily handled: if versions differ because of censorship, the uncensored version always wins.

But there are other cases. F'rinstance, Highlander. The version most Yanks (and Canucks like me) saw in the theater and early video releases had sections missing, most notably the World War II flashback and, of course, the amazing backflipping Polish swordsman from the opening duel. In Europe, those were de rigueur. But I can't fathom that the WW2 scenes were cut for censorship. Studio meddling, perhaps, but not censorship. The longer cut is now available here, but I'd bet that the vast majority of the public who have seen Highlander in North America have never seen that version. Still, it has more scenes, so I'd tend to use the "authoritative" stamp on it.

I'm less certain what I'd say about The Exorcist, which was reissued about 10 years ago with some extra stuff thrown in, like spooky faces in the shadows and that nightmare-fuelling spider-walk scene. But most people who've seen The Exorcist have seen the original theatrical cut. Not sure which I think is the authoritative version.

Alien's an even thornier, because the new edition that was in theaters a few years ago, and is included on the Quadrilogy set, didn't just add stuff; it also cut some material too, generally to improve the pacing (a rationale some might consider sacrilege). It was done under Ridley's aegis, so that would say "authoritative" to me, but I still have my reservations.

Oh, and I would say that the Lester version of Supes II is the authoritative one, for two reasons:

1. Donner was fired, and Lester was hired, and at that point it became his film.

2. The Donner edit is noticeably unfinished.

I'd personally add that I think the Donner edit isn't really all that great, although I know a lot of people online would reach for a handy blunt instrument if they heard me saying that.

Another interesting example of regional differences, like cpeirson mentions, is The Blood of Heroes/Salute of the Jugger. An odd one because I can't for the life of me figure out why the US cut was changed. What? Do we Americans prefer ambiguity and dangling plot threads over the idea that you can get everything you want and still not be happy?

I think it was in the bonus clips on the Big Trouble in Little China DVD where Carpenter, in the commentary, talks about pacing being a primary reason good stuff was cut. The extended Apocalypse Now is, IMO, a perfect example of a new cut that shows exactly why stuff is removed for pacing purposes.

I second the idea that the term definitive may be mis-used here. We need to define what definitive means in order to have a proper answer to "what is definitive?".

If definitive is supposed to mean which film do WE the viewer believe is the best, then this question is subjective in nature and it can never really be 'answered' except to each in his own way. And then the discussion is simply, "Which version of the film do you like better?" and the idea of definitive having any real global meaning goes out the window.

If we define definitive as meaning which version of the film is closest to the vision of the writer(s)/director(s) then we can only go by what they tell us, if they do at all.

The place I see the term definitive used the most of course is with Star Wars. And for that movie we seem to have agreed on definitive to mean either the version of the film that we saw in theaters or the version of the film preserved on Laser Disc that is not time compressed and does not have anyone messing with it later.

Personally if I had the time and energy I'd edit the new versions to remove Hayden from the original trilogy and that would probably be all I would need to do to consider them my favorite versions. I was fine with the adding of CGI effects and the touch-ups here and there. I just despise Hayden and his horrible excuse for acting so it pains me to see him ruin my original movies. Horrible acting aside, it's also quite disrespectful to replace one actor with another like Lucas did. Nobody is really paying close enough attention to notice that the Anakin next to Obi-Wan waving doesn't match, and if they do, then they're probably more offended (like me) that the original actor was cast aside for Hayden.

Lastly... when *I* first saw Star Wars, my take on the whole Han situation was that Greedo was about to fire and Han was acting defensively to prevent his own death and fired just milliseconds before Greedo. The argument for Han shooting first usually states that Han shooting first makes him more evil, but as a kid watching the movie I already thought he shot first but simply because he was quicker on the trigger. I didn't for a second then (or now) see his shot as unprovoked or unnecessary. It's been too long since I've actually watched my Laser Disc copies that I'd have to watch it again now and see how my childhood impression compares to how I take in the scene now, but that's what I was left with at the time anyway.

The one where Jar-jar dies, in a fashion loud, messy and embarrassing, that's the ticket.

The director's cuts of Lord of the Rings are much preferable to the theatrical releases, even if they do add TWO HOURS if you watch them straight through! (11 hours and 23 minutes of hobbits, elves, men, and dwarves FTW!!!) They are much closer to the vision of the director and therefore the vision of JRR Tolkien (or at least, closer to the books).

I haven't seen many Sci-Fi extended versions, but I did have a problem with the director's cut of Star Wars. The one that combines CGI with old-school effects. The one that airs exclusively on Spike like once a month. Yeah, I didn't like that. Not at all.

Somewhere at the top of this string is the original question - how to determine the "definitive" version. And right/wrong/indifferent, I think that's the one with the first/original copy write on it - the one that either hit the theater or mass media first - because that's the one we refer to so that we can differentiate anything after that from the original. Yeah - there can be VAST improvements on that first edition - sometimes made by the director, sometimes by someone with an entirely new vision for a classic - but definitive? Sorry - in my view it's the first on record. Now – Your Favorite?? - remains your favorite and should be referred to that way. As is also true for the Director's Cut - that's presumably his/her favorite.

Of course, John has fun with us by later asking a different (to my mind) question - which version is the "real" deal? That one is always the one that is my favorite!

"Han was the only one to shoot. Greedo never fired."

"That's not what George Lucas says."

Which just makes Lucas a stinkin' liar.

Director's cut, all the way. The director's cut is the best approximation of the creators' vision.
The original release, IMO, is just a workprint when something else tangible comes along. Like something leaked on the Internet.

With a cavet: Some director's cuts are just the original plus added scenes. Some make the understanding of the entire project clearer. But when they do, they change its nature.

Just one example from TV: Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica. Season 2, episode "Pegasus". The first version, shown on the Sci-Fi channel is good, but the director's cut, which is about 20 minutes longer, turns it from a good episode to awesome. Moore had time to explore the motivations of the characters, particularly Admiral Cain (Michelle Forbes), which in the original version, didn't make a lot of sense to me. She was just a black-hat baddy, but in the director's cut, you get where she's coming from.

Which in turn, made the next two "Ressurection Ship" episodes much, much better. You realize that there is really no one really is in the wrong here.

I'd say if the film was done before about 2001 the theatrical version is definitive and after 2001 the director's cut. I think an important factor in this discussion is time frame. With the advent of DVD it has become increasingly easier for directors to give studios whatever they want because they know they can get the version of the film they want out to the world through home distribution. (And, no, the era of VHS does not count.) Big name directors with clout can maybe force the issue with the studios but sometimes it's easier for them to go the home video route. For instance, Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven'. The theatrical release was ridiculous in comparison to Ridley's director's cut. The theatrical cut doesn't really even make too much sense with what was left out. What Ridley put back in made the film not only way more coherent but infinitely more enjoyable. Then there's Ridley's Blade Runner. I prefer the original cut with the narration. Here's why: I was a kid at the time it came out and the narration helped me understand the film a great deal. I understand why the film is better without the narration and as an understanding adult get it, but the kid in me that first saw it back then takes precedence. And the ultimate solidifying point is Han shot Greedo. Period. Greedo NEVER took a shot. George fiddling with that ONE detail is why I picked the date separation as well. He redid the saga in the late '90's and right after he did his fiddling Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings films came out. And the spec. ed. of those are definitive.