Movies that are just too long.

[The Burgomaster]

The first time I watched the TERRIBLE movie THE AVENGERS starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, it seemed as though there were scenes missing.  Sure enough, I saw the screenplay in a book store and I read a few sections of it.  There were scenes in the screenplay that did not end up in the final cut of the film, and some of them were important parts of the story!  In particular, the entire opening scene in the screenplay is missing from the movie, and it helps to set up the character of Emma Peel.  The movie probably would have stunk anyway, but I think it would have been better (and easier to understand what the hell was happening) if they had not left these scenes on the cutting room floor (or maybe they never even filmed them to begin with).

[LH-C]

If a movie is truly awful, then if it's long it's even worse.

[Ash]

The Burgomaster Wrote:
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> The first time I watched the TERRIBLE movie THE
> AVENGERS starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman

Dude!  I made the mistake of taking one of the hottest girls I've ever been with to The Avengers.
She fell asleep halfway through it.
No joke!

It was our second date and I remember being bored as s**t watching it and hearing faint snoring to my right.
I looked over and her head was tilted away from me, her eyes were closed and her mouth was open.
She was f**king sleeping!

I ended up seeing Mandy for about 6 months longer after that flick before we finally broke it off.

Her head wasn't in it.

[Mofo Rising]

Well, for my mileage, THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING is a much better movie in the extended edition.  The theatrical cut was basically non-stop, with one intense scene followed up by another.  Still a great movie, but it wears you out after a while.  The extended edition gives some breathing room, allowing a break in between the amped up parts.

Of course, I watched all three extended editions in one sitting, so you can probably guess my opinion on the movies.

I think most movies are too long these days anyway.  Seems like every movie is two hours plus, even if they don't deserve it.  It gets worse if the director is a "name" director.  Scorsese's THE AVIATOR is one of the best movies in recent history, in my opinion, but it certainly did not need to be three hours long.  WEDDING CRASHERS I did not particularly enjoy, and for some reason the movie is over two hours long.  It's a comedy, not GANDHI.

My advice, hire an editor.  Directors tend to fall in love with their own material, and if they have clout, like Peter Jackson, nobody steps in and says anything.  Like the klepto kid and the ship steward.  I realize they are in there for thematic purposes (mainly so Jackson can have an extened HEART OF DARKNESS quote), but they are otherwise unnecessary and should have been cut.  Don't even get me started on Tom Hanks' kid.

[LH-C]

Seriously, on the length of 'King Kong' - I have only 1 opinion now - That some of the characters and plot devices could have made a much better episodic dramedy misadventure film. No King Kong though. And no other extinct creatures or whacked out natives either.

[plan9superfan]

That one of the things wrong with Wong Kar-WAi's "2046": it has no plot, yet it still needs to stretch the ryunning time to nearly 5 hours.

[raj]

Bambi meets Godzilla is way too long.  They could cut out that whole section on character development of second & third string characters.

[Mr_Vindictive]

raj Wrote:
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> Bambi meets Godzilla is way too long.  They could
> cut out that whole section on character
> development of second & third string
> characters.


LOL!

[LilCerberus]

Larry Buchanan's "It's Alive!" (1969) probably would've made for a good episode of Night Gallery, or Tales From the DarkSide, or something, rather than a feature length TV movie. It seems that the story it'self was just too short for the runtime, so each scene is stretched long & drawn out far beyond what is acceptable.

I think It's Alive could've worked, even with the cheesy "Guy in a bugsuit that we're supposed to assume is a forty-foot prehistoric beast", if they tried to tell the story inside of twenty or thirty minutes.

Also, I've alway felt that The Entity (even the editted for television version) was way too long.

Considering that everything about this movie was constantly way over the top, I can't help but feel like they made it too long on purpose. My theory is based on the assumption that Sidney J. Furie probably started out with what could've been a good idea, but got nervous about how the subject matter, as well as it's graphic depiction, would be percieved by fundamentalist groups, or misunderstood as schlock, so they decided to keep piling stuff on until the result was a movie that was overlong, overacted, & overdirected, with a very annoying soundtrack.

[Zapranoth]

Oh, my.

"Meet Joe Black"  !!!

That movie was SO SO LONG.  AND.   SLOW.

Could have cut the middle 178 minutes out and it would have been an infinitely better film.

[Shadowphile]

I think Bambi vs Godzilla screams for a sequel.


"They killed his mother.

They burned his forest.

They even sicced Godzilla on him.

Now he's mad and he's fighting back."

RAMBI: FIRST BUCK


I can just picture a buff Bambi in a head band, armed with a rocket launcher and with a bandalero of shotgun shells around his neck....

[Fearless Freep]

First thing that comes to mind is the Anime short film 'Blood: the Last Vampire.' I bought it on a whim, and sat down to watch it only to have the movie end 45 minutes into it [I didn't pay attention to the running time.] It basically ended the film right when I was starting to get into it, and I felt there was a whole half missing from the movie. The half that was there though was pretty good.

My understanding was that what was released was the middle part of a three part series that ws never finished

Shame too...what was there was awesome

[Mofo Rising]

> My understanding was that what was released was
> the middle part of a three part series that ws
> never finished
>
> Shame too...what was there was awesome

I thought it was supposed to be one of those "media onslaughts", with a movie, manga, television series. . .

I picked up one of the mangas a while back, but I think the whole BLOOD thing eventually went nowhere.

[trekgeezer]

I think Pendragon's War of the Worlds is too long and too bad. It's not bad enough that the movie is so terribly made (I'm talking bad and not laughably so), but it lasts three friggin' hours, 1.5 of  which are of the guy walking around. I could only finish the movie by fast forwarding through all the damned walking.

[Neville]

I don't know if this one has been mentioned yet, because I didn't read all the answers: Michael Mann's "Heat" is a wonderful film, but the mid-section is plain booooring. The movie could have worked as well if they had cut the failed assault to the matal deposit (the moment were Hanna's men think of capturing the band but fail to do it because they reveal themselves) and that coffee table dialogue between Hanna and DeNiro's character.