COMMANDO (DIRECTOR'S CUT)

[The Burgomaster]

Another rip-off marketing ploy by the movie industry!

I just bought the COMMANDO director's cut DVD and it's a huge disappointment.  The only differences between the director's cut and the theatrical cut are a few short dialogue scenes that add nothing to the movie.  In fact, all they do is slow down the pace.  There are also a few extra frames of violence (nothing spectacular, and very brief) and some different dialogue.  For example, in the theatrical version, Arnold's daughter says, "Not as nice as watching him smash your face in."  In the director's cut she says, "Not as nice as watching him kick your ass."  There are also 3 deleted scenes in the special features section that are all stupid.

No need to buy this if you already have the previously released version.

[Jim H]

This is the major violence addition, I believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpugzBuCbGs

Too bad the whole "Arnold beats guy with his own arm and tells him to stop whining" scene is just a legend.

[trekgeezer]

I didn't see anything in that clip that was different. 

[Kooshmeister]

Well at least it has a commentary track and stuff, whereas, as far as I can remember, the original DVD had nothing besides the movie.

[Torgo]

It is not a ripoff IMO.  The visual quality of the old DVD was non-anamorphic, very dark and just plain bad.  This new DVD is anamorphic, the picture quality is brighter, colors pop off the screen and it just plain looks fantastic.  A massive step up from the old DVD. The audio is also much better as well. 

The tool shed scene was the only violence that the director had to trim to avoid an R rating and he was given a chance to make a bit of an alternate cut to give fans to watch instead of just the theatrical cut. 

The extras are fun and the I'm really happy with the job they did with it. I got mine for only 11 bucks and am loving it.

[The Burgomaster]

It is not a ripoff IMO.  The visual quality of the old DVD was non-anamorphic, very dark and just plain bad.  This new DVD is anamorphic, the picture quality is brighter, colors pop off the screen and it just plain looks fantastic.  A massive step up from the old DVD. The audio is also much better as well.

I never saw the original DVD release, so I can't comment on the picture & sound quality.  I was referring more to the content of the movie itself.  There isn't anything in the extended scenes that make it better than the theatrical cut.

The tool shed scene was the only violence that the director had to trim to avoid an R rating and he was given a chance to make a bit of an alternate cut to give fans to watch instead of just the theatrical cut.

Actually, the theatrical cut was rated R.  They had to edit the tool shed scene in order to maintain the R rating.  Today, that slight extra bit of violence would probably get an R rating without any editing.

[Torgo]

Actually, the theatrical cut was rated R.  They had to edit the tool shed scene in order to maintain the R rating.  Today, that slight extra bit of violence would probably get an R rating without any editing.

But it was cut out in 1985 to avoid getting an X rating so the fact that it was reinstated does in fact make it an unrated cut.  As to whether the ratings board would allow that to be in there now uncut, they would've had to re-submit it to the MPAA which can be a bad thing in some cases.

When they did the theatrical re-release for The Wild Bunch about 15 or so years ago, they submitted it for a rating and they actually slapped it with a NC-17 rating when it had been rated R back in the day.