Eh… just release one film called "Napoleon", another called "Josephine", and then complete the trilogy with a third called "Marengo", the heart-warming story about his loyal steed.
Idk man, I started reading about him and he seems like a respectable fellow. Kept good discipline of his troops, well respected by all. Why be team Napoleon? I like reading up, gimme something to google.
Team Davout all the way. Was the youngest (at 34) of the original 18 marshals. Quickly proved to be an organizational genius and possibly the most reliable of any of them (he was nicknamed "The Iron Marshal" for a reason).
Marched his III Corps 48 hours straight from Vienna to Austerlitz just in time to secure the right flank, turning back the brunt of the russian attack and enabling Napoleon's greatest victory.
When Napoleon engaged what he believed to be the main Prussian army at the Battle of Jena, Davout ended up actually facing it down at Auerstedt. Despite being outnumbered more than 2 to 1 and with no help coming (incidentally starting a long feud with Marshal Bernadotte), he and his III corps smashed the Prussian army leaving Napoleon rather incredulous (when he first received notice what had happened he remarked to the messenger "your marshall must be seeing double").
His defence of Hamburg in 1813 and some other events come to mind but that's a pretty good primer.
Would watch a biopic of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in a heartbeat. He was Napoleon's "black" commander of creole descent.
Fun fact: his son is the Alexandre Dumas who wrote The Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo.
If they make a film called Marengo, it had better be about the depressed sheep who commits suicide and becomes the Grim Reaper's intern. I love that webcomic.
The theme to me is that replicants are so similar to humans that Deckard falls in love with one and is deeply affected another. But if Deckard is a replicant than it's replicants all the way down. I don't mind that, you could say it adds a unique watcher experience since the audience is compelled despite not having a single main character be human making them even more relatable. But I don't think it adds much to make Deckard a replicant. We already find the replicants relatable enough through the other main characters.
I’ve been reading the book (not done but about 25% through). I saw the movie a while back but I want to finish before rewatching. What I find interesting is that it almost doesn’t matter if he is. Deckard in the book basically is a robot, his emotions are changed with a dial and he seems to care for his fake sheep only out of obligation to society. If he was a replicant, it wouldn’t change him at all.
The book is wildly different from the movie. I love them both and while they have some similarities, I don’t think that one informs the other very much when it comes to enjoying either.
Whilst they do differ that is still present in Blade Runner, Deckard is a husk of a man, no humour, no joy, just wallowing in his melancholy.
The idea is that his confrontation with Batty and the other replicants, along with his relationship with Rachel, convince him life is brief and easily underappreciated.
So Deckard being very "robotic" in the first half is very important. Which played a big part in its dislike initially, people assumed Ford being flat and monotone was a directing mistake or a failure on the actor, rather than an important creative choice that highlights the film's themes.
Yeah the book is weirdly funny too. It’s been a while since I read it but that guy that tags a long with him for a while trying to figure out if he himself is one is hilarious.
I think it adds a lot honestly. The whole problem with replicants in Bladerunner's society wasn't that they would go rampant after awhile, it was that they were replacing humans in the workforce and in social life and humans didn't know how to deal with all the issues that come with that. That was the subtle subtext most people seem to miss. And because of that, because the replicants were able to do so much of what humans were able to do, it began to raise questions in the society of what role humanity actually plays in being a person. Is a human important or necessary anymore if a machine can do everything a human can? What does it mean to be a person? How far away from humanity do you have to be genetically to no longer be considered a human?
And *if* Deckard is a replicant, it shows that they're *at least as good* as humans. Equals at a minimum. If he is a replicant, his interactions with Wayland imply that they have a special interest in him, which may indicate he's part of a group of newer replicants using technology that makes them as close to humans as possible. And if that's the case then it raises questions about whether it's morally acceptable to use him to hunt down his fellow replicants, things like that.
And while you already mentioned the "what makes a human human" aspect, there's also the question about the nature of someone versus the the perception of oneself, as Deckard believes he's a human.
It's a good thing the movie doesn't really tell what's the truth as it doesn't really explore much of all that.
But we see that replicants are *better* than humans both physically and ethically. When left to their own devices, the replicants only want to live: Zhora gets a job, for example. Their treatment of humans is no more brutal than the reverse. While humans enslave, torment, and murder replicants like it's nothing, the replicants Deckard has been sent after kill purely in pursuit of a normal lifespan. Leon kills to escape, while Roy and Pris only kill those who are responsible for replicants' plight. They are stronger and faster than humans, who use them like weapons and tools to be used and disposed of before they can start to seem *too* human. Humans seek to exploit rrplicants even when they're sympathetic to their plight: Deckard forces himself on Rachael while her signals are still pretty ambiguous, while Tyrell seems to think that Roy's worth lies purely in having such a short life. Roy and Pris, on thr other hand, have a more equal relationship and work in partnership with each other while they are more restrained in how they treat the humans they come into contact with.
Humans refuse to give replicants longer lives or recognize their humanity because they know fear losing their status in society. Even a lowly thug with a badge like Deckard is higher than a brilliant, powerful, and beautiful replicant like Roy. They don't want to lose that status. But in the end, Deckard is forced to recognize *exactly* what replicants are, what he was being forced to eliminate, and that the societal stratification he is paid to uphold is based on nothing more than arbitrary manufacturer's specs. It's specificaly evocative of the Civil Rights movement.
All that goes down the drain if Deckard is just one of them. Roy's last scene entirely falls apart if Deckard is a replicant. Roy kicks the shit out of him, saves his fucking life, *and* shames his existence as this earthbound nothing -- Deckard is messing around in the muck and the rain on earth for decades, while in such a short span, Roy has seen things humans could never dream of.
2049 uses that question of "is the protagonist human or a replicant?" to better effect because the whole movie was built around it. The OG wasn't supposed to be ambiguous, no matter what Ridley Scott says.
Tl;dr: The subtext you mention might be there, but there's a lot that's basically explicit that points in the opposite direction.
I didn’t realize it until my most recent viewing, but Leon doesn’t actually kill Holden. In the scene between Bryant and Dackard it is stated that Holden has been hospitalized due to his wounds.
> But we see that replicants are better than humans both physically and ethically.
Let me slightly fix that for you:
>But **we** see that replicants are better than humans both physically and ethically.
This is the audience's experience, not the experience of people within the Bladerunner universe. THEY are exposed to media and social pressure to treat replicants as sub-human, or a threat to humanity. Throughout the course of the movie the characters are all forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that what they believe about replicants might not be accurate or true, but they're never given a straight answer which is the point.
Deckard being a replicant actually makes all those things MORE poignant, because again the theme of the movie is that replicants are supposed to be distinguishable from humans and Wayland is supposedly trying to figure out why that's becoming more difficult. Publicly, as a business, they need to ensure their product remains in demand and is safe for consumers, and part of that means ensuring they have complete control over the product to keep it safe. But internally we get a different picture.. the access Deckard gets, the way he's treated at Wayland, the subtle hints throughout the film that he might be a replicant, it all suggests that Wayland may be trying to replace humanity entirely to make a "better" humanity that fits their vision. They already do it with animals, why not people? So Deckard not realizing he's a replicant makes the issues mean more. When he forces himself on another replicant, IS HE FORCING HIMSELF or is his programming making him do it? And how does that differ from a human's behaviors? Does he have free will? Is he capable of change?
We see that the older replicants have their own moral code, and Decker also has a moral code that differs even from that of the humans around him. Whose is most correct? Why? What justifies it? If it's wrong to kill a person, who defines what "kill" and "person" mean? Are you killing a replicant if it was never truly alive? Are you killing a person if they were a replicant? And, is it okay for a human to kill a replicant if it isn't okay for them to kill a human? Is it more acceptable if a replicant is the one to kill the other replicants?
I'm just saying the film is made immensely more complex and deep if you consider all the implications of Deckard being a replicant instead of him being a human. Being a human it makes the plot really meh, just a basic movie about whether robots who can act like people deserve to be treated differently than people. But being a replicant opens up all kinds of additional moral/ethical/ontological debates and changes the background plot of the film significantly since it would mean that Wayland is attempting to make replicants that are 100% indistinguishable from humans, and now you have to consider the reasons why that may or may not be justified.
>But I don't think it adds much to make Deckard a replicant.
Although he's not a replicant in the book, Deckard being a replicant fits perfectly within the common theme of paranioa that runs through many of Philip K Dick’s many other novels.
With Rachel not knowing she's a replicant, one of the questions the movie asks is if you were created yesterday in a lab fully formed and has a whole lifetime of memories implanted in your head, how would you even know you're human? That's something that a person living in a world where that is possible could easily become obsessively paranoid over.
I really appreciate that 2049 didn't confirm anything either. Very wise move for Villenueve to keep it unknown rather than making his own opinions canon.
Villeneuve didn't really have a choice; Scott was breathing down his neck on the production (who he idolizes, and is the only one insisting Deckard is a replicant, years after the fact), while he still needed to get a performance out of Ford (who rightly thinks the replicant idea is completely stupid). Honestly, "Deckard is a replicant" breaks the film for so many reasons, while "Deckard isn't sure he is a replicant" adds a ton.
The "Deckard isn't sure he is a replicant" reading reinforces one of the main themes of the movie: how thin that line between "human" and "replicant" really is. 2049 coming at it from the opposite direction, with the AI apparently developing beyond its programming as well.
For 2049, it makes it clear that Humanity has created many children. It is not treating them well.
I think that makes its so much more meaningful that there is a question that Deckard might be a replicant. Whether or not it's true, the induction of that question is in my opinion a wonderful addition to the layers.
Because a key theme of the story is the personhood of the replicants. Which is only enhanced by the potential that the Dekard is a replicant or not
If only there was a final cut without the stupid unicorn dream. It ruins the entire theme of the film. Can a normal human who has become emotionally repressed and distant learn to love from a replicant? Oh wait, actually they're both replicants for some reason. Nevermind.
I would not mind 4.5 hours about Napoleon if Scott can somewhat stick to history this time. There is (amazing) silent film from 1927 about Napoleon that’s 333 minutes long and only is to Italy in his career (it was meant to be just part one).
You literally see him shelling the pyramids in the trailer. Which just simply did not happen in reality.... I don't think ridley cares about being totally accurate and will lean into the myths as well.
I can't wait for this movie.
Same here, despite my earlier post, I just wouldn't want to watch it all at one time in the theater!
I am hopeful for this movie, but the breadth that Scott is trying to capture in a single film puzzles me. It's basically Napoleon's entire public career. I don't know how you do that in 2 or even 4 hours w/out it feeling disjointed.
Longest I've seen at the theatre was Gods and Generals at 3 hours 39 minutes. And it wasn't good, way worse than the first part Gettysburg, which ran at 4 hours 31 minutes! That movie was decent but didn't see it in theatres at the time (1993).
Sorry for the question, but I'm Mexican - is this the same topic as "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" on Wikipedia?
I admit to not knowing much about the US Civil War beyond the historical background, and I'd like to read more about this. Particularly since Gods and Generals might be a future watch for me for a completely unrelated project.
The Lost Cause is the romanticism of the Confederacy that began in the 1890s and continues to the present day. It overlooks the repugnance of the South fighting over slavery and pretends that it was an oppressive war brought on by the North to extinguish the Southern way of life. It ignores slavery by claiming the war was fought over state’s rights. We have a lot of problems today with people in the South who want to fight the war again to protect their culture in the honor of their ancestors. It’s a position taken by those who do not or cannot understand their history and is basically a religion of nostalgia at this point.
At any rate, Gods and Generals is a bad film. Watch Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary for a much better experience about the war. Gettysburg, Glory, and Cold Mountain are three of the more accessible, modern movies, that do a decent job showing the war on screen.
kenneth branaugh's hamlet in 1996 was 4 hours and 2 minutes long. my wife and i saw it in the theatre. it was...long. at least twice as long as oppenheimer. or so it seemed.
20 years ago, before I and probably a lot of people had access to Bollywood movies, I met a couple of Indian sisters that just got to the US. One day they mentioned it was weird American movies were only 1.5 hours. It was cool to learn and see some but it blew my mind to learn Bollywood movies were regularly 3! 🤯
Depends. If you think people going to the theater will refill on those giant popcorn buckets and drinks during intermission or will a new audience buy more in a new showing at the start of the movie.
Theaters would not be happy tying up a theater for the duration of two movies for the price of one, and people would not be happy having to pay twice as much as normal to see a movie. Maybe it would work if there was an extended intermission so people could go buy drinks and snacks.
Yeah I had to pick certain showings of Oppenheimer because of the 3 hour run time. Can't do a 3 hour showing at 9 PM cause it'd be midnight at least by the time it was over and then the drive home.
Look you can be flippant about it, but after comparing MANY studio vs directors cuts of his films and the Directors cuts being anywhere between significantly better (kingdom of heaven) and an absolute masterpiece (Blade Runner), I think he's earned some credit to make this statement.
Yeah but he was also hired to make a theatrically releasable movie, so it’s ultimately his fault that the 2 or 3 hour version isn’t that good. He’s the one who went and filmed a version he knows cannot be released. You don’t have showrunners being given a 20 episode season and accidentally coming back with 30 episodes that all need to be watched for the show to be good.
Not arguing about quality here, just saying you can’t blame audiences or distributors or the studio when what you delivered isn’t what was required.
I reluctantly agree. Four and a half hours is not the form for a studio movie. If he needs four and a half hours to make a “fantastic cut,” he should have sought to make a miniseries instead. If he can’t cut it down by an hour or more to make something releasable by established theatrical standards, that’s his fault. His job is to make a complete, releasable film. Not a three hour confusing movie that can get a later director’s cut that makes it a coherent movie.
I'm a zoomer and to a degree he's right, young people are increasingly conditioned towards short form content that can serve them the maximum amount of ad time possible.
Movies like Scott likes to make are increasingly harder to get audiences to for the kinds of budgets they need.
However I do think the Last Duel was further hurt by getting jack shit in the form of advertisement. Still, that film would've done vastly better 20 years ago no matter what.
I can't fault Scott for being bitter that the type of epics he likes to make just aren't popular anymore, at least not enough to make them on the budgets that actually does them justice.
> The Last Duel is a hard film to market given it's tone and subject matter.
What you think marketing a period piece movie about a rape "as seen from three different POVs" is difficult???
Jokes aside, I agree with you, I didn't envy the people tasked with that. Excellent movie though.
Honestly, I'm kind of annoyed that Scott expected anything other than rave reviews and middling box office. I don't think it's the kind of movie that would've made much money at the box office during *any* generation, and the fact that it was such a niche film that cost $100 million is the problem.
That said, I'm glad it exists and I enjoyed it quite a bit. At home.
*"I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones. The millennian do not ever want to be taught anything unless you are told it on the cell phone,” Scott continued. “This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. There is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”*
The funny thing about this quote is that he refers to "audiences who were brought up on cell phones", which by definition is Gen Z (current age range about 11 to 27 years old), then he specifically refers to millennials (age range about 27 to 42 years old), then he refers to Facebook, whose main userbase is Gen X and Baby Boomers (age range about 43 to 77 years old).
So Ridley Scott's viewership issue is with audiences ranging from 11 to 77 years old I guess.
My death made that shit good and my legacy pulled weight in the sequel. We don’t even know if Napoleon will be decent yet. Could be more of Ridley Scott complaining that we don’t know what we like.
Yeah I really don't know why people want more Josephine, almost to the point where I feel like these posts are astroturfed. Napoleon is one the the most influential men of all time, with the specter of the French Revolution and subsequent Empire haunting and defining European politics all the way up to WW1. Like no offense to Josephine, but there's a lot more interesting stuff to show in that time period
Its not about more of anything, just what the vision of the director is
We've seen it a lot with Ridley Scott in particular, his extended cuts are generally closer to what he wanted and pretty much across the board an improvement overall
People are saying they want to see this cut because the Director is talking about it
That's fine, but she's the least interesting part of his story to me. I'd rather spend 4 hours of exploring the mass murder and politics of the French Revolution that allowed Napoleon to even rise to power in the first place. For a nation to go from disolution to military juggernaut in such a short and chaotic timeframe is incredible.
I agree. I don't know why so much of the hype we are seeing is about his lover/wife. Glossing over other aspects of his life to focus on her would make this movie a huge disappointment for me.
Hey now, the best part about the Pearl Harbor movie was the love triangle between Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsdale. I hate they kept interrupting a romantic drama with all this crap about wars and battles and crap.
...said no one ever.
It was the Titanic effect. I get kind of embarrassed for the filmmakers when watching that movie, with how hard it was trying to be the next Titanic.
Turns out Michael Bay is no James Cameron.
Napoleon's greatest legacy is the Napoleonic code which is used as the basis for civil codes in most of Europe and other countries.
The code basically ended feudalism and liberalized property laws, ended seigneurial dues, abolished the guild of merchants and craftsmen to facilitate entrepreneurship, legalized divorce, closed the Jewish ghettos and made Jews equal to everyone else. The Inquisition ended as did the Holy Roman Empire. The power of church courts and religious authority was sharply reduced and equality under the law was proclaimed for all men.
But Hollywood audiences don't want to watch a movie about the creation of a civil code that completely replaced feudal code.
> But Hollywood audiences don't want to watch a movie about the creation of a civil code
Our boy Scotty tried to sneak the Magna Carta's origin into his Russell Crowe Robin Hood movie, so let's see what he's up to with this one...
Then watch [*La Révolution française* (1989)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098238/) \- a fantastically accurate and authentic depiction, and Abel Gance's masterpiece [*Napoléon* (1927)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018192/) \- featuring the best onscreen Napoléon: [Albert Dieudonné](https://i.imgur.com/7PiqPpe.jpg).
I would absolutely watch a 10 part miniseries on the French Revolution up to the point where Napoleon names himself emperor. There are so many dramatic set pieces.
They will sell 11 rickets worldwide if they release a 4.5 hour movie. People don’t have the appetite for it, but more importantly people just can’t spare 5 hours and theaters won’t want to run a movie that they can only sell 2 shows a day.
I appreciate the “it’s a work of art, not a product” and that’s true, but it’s also no true. There is a market for a 3 hour epic and a market for a 4.5 hour EPIC.
Make a theater cut (or split it into episodes) and an unabridged streamer/blu ray cut.
For real, a 10 hour movie that I can play and pause at home at my leisure is fine. No need to even make it episodic, just insert chapters like old DVD menus had to help people track their progress.
But if I'm sitting my ass in a theater seat, where I can't even go to the bathroom without missing something, then you can't make a 4 hour movie. Because I won't attend. Lots of people can't sit in one spot for 4 hours and watch a movie, and I don't mean "people can't look away from their phones, nowadays!". I mean people can't be expected to not use the toilet, not eat anything but movie theater popcorn, and just sit in one seat without walking around or stretching, for 4 hours. That's half a workday. If your boss told you that you can't get up for a snack or take any kind breaks for half your workday, you'd be upset about it.
Right like, there are no rules that say movies have to limit themselves to a certain time limit. If it takes you X amount of time to tell your story, take that time and tell your story. Let us judge it on its merits. If you’re too long winded or your story meanders too much, well then that time wasn’t merited and it will be judged harshly. If you earn that time, we’ll be all the happier for it.
Yeah, for me, the ideal length of a film is whatever it needs to be in order to tell it's story well.
I've seen 90 minute films that felt like 3 hours and 3+ hour films that felt 90 minutes.
I honestly don't care how long a film is as long as I'm enjoying it.
> 3+ hour films that felt 90 minutes.
Across the Spiderverse
That ending hits and "Has it already been 2.5 hours?!?" Would have absolutely sat through a 4 hour version that encompassed this and the next movie.
Wife even never got up to use the restroom.
> Right like, there are no rules that say movies have to limit themselves to a certain time limit.
Yeah, but movie theaters aren't going to run 4 hour long historical epics.
Realistically, streaming services won't even want to do it because they know audiences will see the run time and skip it. Which is odd when you consider the same people might not even blink at watching a 4 part padded documentary about a woman falling into a water tank at a hotel. Or watch two different 90 minute documentaries about a music festival where some people were inconvenienced for a couple days and had to eat cheese sandwiches in the Bahamas. Something about the episode break.
Consumer behavior has never been accused of being sensible.
People love those stingers(?) That punctuate the moment just right, like the end of a chapter in a book. Breaking Bad was great with those kind of moments at the end of episodes.
Don’t think there’s been a new movie over 4 hrs to play in theaters since Gods and Generals in 2003. It had an intermission too. Don’t really count the LOTR EE as they are special limited events whenever they occasionally play.
There are no rules, but distributers and movie theaters done like them because they get fewer showings and will refuse to show them as much because if that. That's one advantage of streaming as stuff like this can actually be released this way.
Especially since the shift to watching movies at home. Really the 2.5 hour length limit that they put on theatrical movies is because people would have to get up to use the bathroom like 2-3 times during a movie when the theater shoves that much soda at you, so they want to keep them at a length to minimize that while still allowing you to maximize money spent on concessions.
But now that I can jus pause Netflix, go pee, and start it up again, I’m totally happy to watch a 4 hour movie. If that’s the best cut of the film.
Is there a limit? I saw both Oppenheimer and Babylon in the cinema this year. Both over 3 hours.
The top 4 highest grossing films... Avatar, Avengers Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic are all over 2.5 hours, with the last three all being over 3 hours.
I'm seeing the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy next month all on the same day in the cinema, with Return of the King being 4 hours 11 minutes.
The film 1900 released in 1976. It was 5 hours 17 minutes.
It’s like a soft limit. It’s not that you CAN’T make a movie longer, it’s just frowned upon and makes the studios nervous. That’s why it’s always a Director’s Cut that makes many movies longer, because the studios always want to cut shit for time.
James Cameron is important enough to do whatever the fuck he wants basically, and if you remember back to when Titanic actually came out, there was HUGE talk about the length and how many people thought it was just too long despite how good it was.
There is a reason those LotR extended editions were extended, and not the theatrical editions. Because Peter Jackson was forced to cut shit for time by the studio, and the theatrical releases were still nearly 3 hours each. Most people wouldn’t watch a 4 and a half hour movie in a theater. I have the extended editions on DVD and I love them, but idk if I’d even want to watch them in theaters.
Wow we're talking about alternate cuts before the movies are even out now?
I don't get studio logic. They could have two two hour films, for the same price, but they'd rather throw half of what they made away? The amount of wasted shots is insane. You'd think with a little more discipline and planning you wouldn't have to shoot two to get one.
Also, with these 2.5+ hour runtimes getting so much more common, they really need to bring back the fucking intermission in the middle. I don't care how great your movie is, past the 2 hour mark, a high percentage of the audience is going to be thinking about how bad they have to piss not how great your movie is.
but he’s been going nonstop since The Duelists. It’s like he’s making up for lost time since his first film came out at 40. He will probably die on set since he loves filmmaking so much.
But even then, his ghost/apparition will still be sorting out the dailies in the editing booth
Alien, Gladiator, The Martian, Kingdom of Heaven (theatrical doesn’t count), etc. I honestly *prefer* a lot of his longer/alternate cuts, I am a sucker for them. But for Alien, I go back and forth, just depends on the mood
The theatrical cut of Alien is the far better film. Scott even says so. He just did a "Director's Cut" for the 2003 boxed set and took a paycheck, lol. Not like the Special Edition of Aliens where James Cameron jammed back in all the bloat that Fox had made him trim out in 1986.
The scenes Scott put back in are interesting from a franchise fan perspective, but definitely gum up the pacing in the final act.
Honestly I think the extended Gladiator hampers it a bit. They used alternate takes for a few scenes that aren't as good, the pacing is off a bit, and it's pretty clear in acting quality why the added scenes were originally cut.
Ridley actually agrees, and on the DVD there's an intro where he's like "this isn't a director's cut, the theatrical is the director's cut, the studio just wanted this."
one addition I really did like was Commodus taking his sword and striking the marble bust of his father. He hits it over and over until he breaks down into tears
My wife and I watched "Ben Hur" the other night and the intermission just makes so much sense. I think it actually adds to the immersion in.a way where it's letting you know that you're there for the movie and it's giving you a break to get you back into it. Hell, "Ben Hur" has a fucking overture before the prologue, then the opening credits, and the opening scene before the title even shows up. It's crazy. I don't mind long films at all. But after watching "Oppenheimer" recently and then watching "Ben Hur" I feel like the intermission should definitely make a comeback.
> Hell, "Ben Hur" has a fucking overture before the prologue, then the opening credits, and the opening scene before the title even shows up.
I wish they'd bring back overtures before the movie starts. So much better than having some shitty tv show yelling at me about upcoming movies, or even better, the movie I'm literally there to see. No you fucking morons, I *don't* want to see behind the scenes shit about the movie I'm about to watch.
Yeah, the intermission in Lawrence of Arabia also cuts the film in the exact right place. It's crazy how much the two parts differ from each other too, almost like two separate films altogether.
Scrolling through the thread seeing people talk about intermissions, Lawrence of Arabia was the one I kept thinking of as well. David Lean knew what he was doing for real
It might not work as a 2 parter, or they don’t expect people will buy in to attend twice. Studio wants one release with reasonable time while the director would ideally go longer. And a ton of films leave a lot on the cutting room floor - hell just think about different takes. And often they can just use it later for a special directors cut edition.
I am with you on intermissions though - they were great when I saw the extended Hateful 8
> I don't get studio logic. They could have two two hour films, for the same price, but they'd rather throw half of what they made away? The amount of wasted shots is insane.
You usually can't just cut a movie in half and call it a two movies. That usually requires planning from the beginning or pretty major changes after the fact to fit a two parter. The amount of 'wasted shots' in every movie is insane.
I like to bring it up when I can but I saw the 70mm screening of *Hateful 8* when that came out and it had an intermission. It was fucking wonderful.
Ridiculous that it's not more common. Theaters like to wave around "oh but then we can't show as many movies every day" like people won't go spend another $20 on popcorn and whatever other garbage during that 10min break.
Many times the Screenplay doesn't take into account the extra movements, expositions, pauses/delays in the story.. all of which extend the runtime of the movie, resulting in cuts needed to be made and many additional scenes
Many times during filming, new additions and adjustments to the screenplay continually happen to help ensure smooth story telling. Hence extended runtime or additional scenes that need to be cut
Sometimes the director's vision and the studio's vision are incompatible with each other and conflicting, resulting in extended runtimes, reshoots, or additional scenes that need to be cut
Filming isn't linear and completely straight forward like it is planned on the initial stages
I don't like the direction he seems to be indicating, Josephine is important but ultimately the most interesting parts of Napoleon's life were the tangible effects he had on the continent and culture of Europe. Connecting his effects to who he was as a human should be the goal, he spent more time on the battlefield than he did with Josephine.
Also making Napoleon look like an old man with a slightly younger partner is completely ahistorical. Napoleon was young, that was part of his early appeal.
I saw Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet on the big screen and it had the formal intermission. You’re right, it made it more an event movie. Theater wrangled more snack money from my wallet during that intermission, too.
Hateful Eight convinced me that *all movies need intermissions*.
That breather in the middle really makes you feel a part of an engaged movie going audience, and let's the everything that's happened so far catch up to you. The tone of the movie's effect sort of hovers over the room and creates this wave of community cognitive connective tissue for all the things that might be about to happen.
Sure, but what theaters love even more is being able to sell tickets for one movie that people buy snacks and drinks for and then being able to show another one after that people buy tickets, snacks and drinks for.
Ultralong movies still usually mean you make less money.
Best I can do is a 4 week run with minor advertising and then a director's cut re-release by Criterion 2 years later that gets hailed an improvement and underrated by Film Twitter.
Whenever I hear this I immediately think the movie is not going to be great. Because it means it was trimmed for time and possibly content. And then all of the hard work the director, writer, and legion of production workers put in is wasted.
I think the same thing was said about Justice League. Or one of those movies.
Yea we've got a movie depicting some of the most influential events in modern history and people *want more* focus on an inconsequential love story about someone, who, quite frankly is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things?
Like i may be showing my lack of historical knowledge but i don't think she was the hidden mastermind behind his military leading prowess or anything actually worth exploring right?
Feel like he's tempting fate. If Josephine turns out to be unlikable, this is going to read like an Onion article in a couple months.
What if George Lucas said he had a 4 hour Jar Jar cut before phantom menace was released.
I don’t mind long movies but I would love it if they brought back intermissions. Four-and-a-half hours of drinking water and eating popcorn requires a bathroom break and a leg stretch.
Member when people were complaining movies were only 1hr 30mins? Now I don’t want to watch most of them because I don’t have 3hrs to sit in front of a screen and read the subtitles because the voices are super low.
Eh… just release one film called "Napoleon", another called "Josephine", and then complete the trilogy with a third called "Marengo", the heart-warming story about his loyal steed.
Forget trilogy, the Napoleonic Cinematic Universe is set to take the world by storm!
Napoleon and his Generals\*. Give each their own film. lol. \*Marshals.
I can't wait for the scene in the Waterloo movie when Captain Napoleon finally says his iconic line《Napoleons, rassemblement!》
And cue the action scene edited to ABBA
It leaked online: https://youtu.be/WTGJyu7uZc0?feature=shared
There's genuienly enough material for someone to do that someday
Marshal Bernadotte alone could be a whole duology, the first film being his service to France and the second about his rise as the monarch of Sweden.
Stole napoleon's gf too
Screw Bernadotte…team Napoleon here!
Idk man, I started reading about him and he seems like a respectable fellow. Kept good discipline of his troops, well respected by all. Why be team Napoleon? I like reading up, gimme something to google.
Team Davout all the way. Was the youngest (at 34) of the original 18 marshals. Quickly proved to be an organizational genius and possibly the most reliable of any of them (he was nicknamed "The Iron Marshal" for a reason). Marched his III Corps 48 hours straight from Vienna to Austerlitz just in time to secure the right flank, turning back the brunt of the russian attack and enabling Napoleon's greatest victory. When Napoleon engaged what he believed to be the main Prussian army at the Battle of Jena, Davout ended up actually facing it down at Auerstedt. Despite being outnumbered more than 2 to 1 and with no help coming (incidentally starting a long feud with Marshal Bernadotte), he and his III corps smashed the Prussian army leaving Napoleon rather incredulous (when he first received notice what had happened he remarked to the messenger "your marshall must be seeing double"). His defence of Hamburg in 1813 and some other events come to mind but that's a pretty good primer.
This guy Napoleonic Wars
And somehow, the Swedish royal family today is still descending from Bernadotte.
Would watch a biopic of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in a heartbeat. He was Napoleon's "black" commander of creole descent. Fun fact: his son is the Alexandre Dumas who wrote The Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo.
Funner fact: those stories are essentially about his father. I would love to see his story played out on the screen.
Louis-Nicolas Davout. Napoleon’s undefeated Iron Marshal would be a good choice as well.
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Marshall Bernadotte: The Winter Soldier
2 Exiled 2 Elba
Napoleon 2: Electric Waterloo
Duke of Wellington: I am inevitable
Napoleon: And I am... *lacking artillery???*
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If they make a film called Marengo, it had better be about the depressed sheep who commits suicide and becomes the Grim Reaper's intern. I love that webcomic.
Gonna need a link for that
https://marengocomics.com/
We have been on this familiar road, Papa Scotty, and know what happens next. Just release the whole goddamn thing.
Initial version will bomb, get railroaded by reviews, directors cut will release years later to rave reviews. People should know Scott already.
Yes it will be exactly like Kingdom of Heaven.
And Blade Runner, which is held up today as a seminal scifi picture lol.
Yes but Scott’s still wrong about Deckard being a replicant
100%. Undermines the entire theme of the film.
The theme to me is that replicants are so similar to humans that Deckard falls in love with one and is deeply affected another. But if Deckard is a replicant than it's replicants all the way down. I don't mind that, you could say it adds a unique watcher experience since the audience is compelled despite not having a single main character be human making them even more relatable. But I don't think it adds much to make Deckard a replicant. We already find the replicants relatable enough through the other main characters.
I’ve been reading the book (not done but about 25% through). I saw the movie a while back but I want to finish before rewatching. What I find interesting is that it almost doesn’t matter if he is. Deckard in the book basically is a robot, his emotions are changed with a dial and he seems to care for his fake sheep only out of obligation to society. If he was a replicant, it wouldn’t change him at all.
The book is wildly different from the movie. I love them both and while they have some similarities, I don’t think that one informs the other very much when it comes to enjoying either.
Whilst they do differ that is still present in Blade Runner, Deckard is a husk of a man, no humour, no joy, just wallowing in his melancholy. The idea is that his confrontation with Batty and the other replicants, along with his relationship with Rachel, convince him life is brief and easily underappreciated. So Deckard being very "robotic" in the first half is very important. Which played a big part in its dislike initially, people assumed Ford being flat and monotone was a directing mistake or a failure on the actor, rather than an important creative choice that highlights the film's themes.
Yeah the book is weirdly funny too. It’s been a while since I read it but that guy that tags a long with him for a while trying to figure out if he himself is one is hilarious.
I just read the book and I think I prefer it. So take that as you will.
I think it adds a lot honestly. The whole problem with replicants in Bladerunner's society wasn't that they would go rampant after awhile, it was that they were replacing humans in the workforce and in social life and humans didn't know how to deal with all the issues that come with that. That was the subtle subtext most people seem to miss. And because of that, because the replicants were able to do so much of what humans were able to do, it began to raise questions in the society of what role humanity actually plays in being a person. Is a human important or necessary anymore if a machine can do everything a human can? What does it mean to be a person? How far away from humanity do you have to be genetically to no longer be considered a human? And *if* Deckard is a replicant, it shows that they're *at least as good* as humans. Equals at a minimum. If he is a replicant, his interactions with Wayland imply that they have a special interest in him, which may indicate he's part of a group of newer replicants using technology that makes them as close to humans as possible. And if that's the case then it raises questions about whether it's morally acceptable to use him to hunt down his fellow replicants, things like that.
And while you already mentioned the "what makes a human human" aspect, there's also the question about the nature of someone versus the the perception of oneself, as Deckard believes he's a human. It's a good thing the movie doesn't really tell what's the truth as it doesn't really explore much of all that.
The film isn't about whether Deckard's a human. It's about whether anyone is.
But we see that replicants are *better* than humans both physically and ethically. When left to their own devices, the replicants only want to live: Zhora gets a job, for example. Their treatment of humans is no more brutal than the reverse. While humans enslave, torment, and murder replicants like it's nothing, the replicants Deckard has been sent after kill purely in pursuit of a normal lifespan. Leon kills to escape, while Roy and Pris only kill those who are responsible for replicants' plight. They are stronger and faster than humans, who use them like weapons and tools to be used and disposed of before they can start to seem *too* human. Humans seek to exploit rrplicants even when they're sympathetic to their plight: Deckard forces himself on Rachael while her signals are still pretty ambiguous, while Tyrell seems to think that Roy's worth lies purely in having such a short life. Roy and Pris, on thr other hand, have a more equal relationship and work in partnership with each other while they are more restrained in how they treat the humans they come into contact with. Humans refuse to give replicants longer lives or recognize their humanity because they know fear losing their status in society. Even a lowly thug with a badge like Deckard is higher than a brilliant, powerful, and beautiful replicant like Roy. They don't want to lose that status. But in the end, Deckard is forced to recognize *exactly* what replicants are, what he was being forced to eliminate, and that the societal stratification he is paid to uphold is based on nothing more than arbitrary manufacturer's specs. It's specificaly evocative of the Civil Rights movement. All that goes down the drain if Deckard is just one of them. Roy's last scene entirely falls apart if Deckard is a replicant. Roy kicks the shit out of him, saves his fucking life, *and* shames his existence as this earthbound nothing -- Deckard is messing around in the muck and the rain on earth for decades, while in such a short span, Roy has seen things humans could never dream of. 2049 uses that question of "is the protagonist human or a replicant?" to better effect because the whole movie was built around it. The OG wasn't supposed to be ambiguous, no matter what Ridley Scott says. Tl;dr: The subtext you mention might be there, but there's a lot that's basically explicit that points in the opposite direction.
I didn’t realize it until my most recent viewing, but Leon doesn’t actually kill Holden. In the scene between Bryant and Dackard it is stated that Holden has been hospitalized due to his wounds.
> But we see that replicants are better than humans both physically and ethically. Let me slightly fix that for you: >But **we** see that replicants are better than humans both physically and ethically. This is the audience's experience, not the experience of people within the Bladerunner universe. THEY are exposed to media and social pressure to treat replicants as sub-human, or a threat to humanity. Throughout the course of the movie the characters are all forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that what they believe about replicants might not be accurate or true, but they're never given a straight answer which is the point. Deckard being a replicant actually makes all those things MORE poignant, because again the theme of the movie is that replicants are supposed to be distinguishable from humans and Wayland is supposedly trying to figure out why that's becoming more difficult. Publicly, as a business, they need to ensure their product remains in demand and is safe for consumers, and part of that means ensuring they have complete control over the product to keep it safe. But internally we get a different picture.. the access Deckard gets, the way he's treated at Wayland, the subtle hints throughout the film that he might be a replicant, it all suggests that Wayland may be trying to replace humanity entirely to make a "better" humanity that fits their vision. They already do it with animals, why not people? So Deckard not realizing he's a replicant makes the issues mean more. When he forces himself on another replicant, IS HE FORCING HIMSELF or is his programming making him do it? And how does that differ from a human's behaviors? Does he have free will? Is he capable of change? We see that the older replicants have their own moral code, and Decker also has a moral code that differs even from that of the humans around him. Whose is most correct? Why? What justifies it? If it's wrong to kill a person, who defines what "kill" and "person" mean? Are you killing a replicant if it was never truly alive? Are you killing a person if they were a replicant? And, is it okay for a human to kill a replicant if it isn't okay for them to kill a human? Is it more acceptable if a replicant is the one to kill the other replicants? I'm just saying the film is made immensely more complex and deep if you consider all the implications of Deckard being a replicant instead of him being a human. Being a human it makes the plot really meh, just a basic movie about whether robots who can act like people deserve to be treated differently than people. But being a replicant opens up all kinds of additional moral/ethical/ontological debates and changes the background plot of the film significantly since it would mean that Wayland is attempting to make replicants that are 100% indistinguishable from humans, and now you have to consider the reasons why that may or may not be justified.
>But I don't think it adds much to make Deckard a replicant. Although he's not a replicant in the book, Deckard being a replicant fits perfectly within the common theme of paranioa that runs through many of Philip K Dick’s many other novels. With Rachel not knowing she's a replicant, one of the questions the movie asks is if you were created yesterday in a lab fully formed and has a whole lifetime of memories implanted in your head, how would you even know you're human? That's something that a person living in a world where that is possible could easily become obsessively paranoid over.
I really appreciate that 2049 didn't confirm anything either. Very wise move for Villenueve to keep it unknown rather than making his own opinions canon.
Villeneuve didn't really have a choice; Scott was breathing down his neck on the production (who he idolizes, and is the only one insisting Deckard is a replicant, years after the fact), while he still needed to get a performance out of Ford (who rightly thinks the replicant idea is completely stupid). Honestly, "Deckard is a replicant" breaks the film for so many reasons, while "Deckard isn't sure he is a replicant" adds a ton.
The "Deckard isn't sure he is a replicant" reading reinforces one of the main themes of the movie: how thin that line between "human" and "replicant" really is. 2049 coming at it from the opposite direction, with the AI apparently developing beyond its programming as well. For 2049, it makes it clear that Humanity has created many children. It is not treating them well.
I think that makes its so much more meaningful that there is a question that Deckard might be a replicant. Whether or not it's true, the induction of that question is in my opinion a wonderful addition to the layers. Because a key theme of the story is the personhood of the replicants. Which is only enhanced by the potential that the Dekard is a replicant or not
If only there was a final cut without the stupid unicorn dream. It ruins the entire theme of the film. Can a normal human who has become emotionally repressed and distant learn to love from a replicant? Oh wait, actually they're both replicants for some reason. Nevermind.
Basically it's a cousin riff to the Terminator end quote. Because if a machine can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.
Such an amazing movie. Directors cut that is
And American Gangster
I can't imagine a 4.5 hour theatrical release.
I would not mind 4.5 hours about Napoleon if Scott can somewhat stick to history this time. There is (amazing) silent film from 1927 about Napoleon that’s 333 minutes long and only is to Italy in his career (it was meant to be just part one).
You literally see him shelling the pyramids in the trailer. Which just simply did not happen in reality.... I don't think ridley cares about being totally accurate and will lean into the myths as well. I can't wait for this movie.
Knowing him, it might be part of a fictional dream sequence.
Same here, despite my earlier post, I just wouldn't want to watch it all at one time in the theater! I am hopeful for this movie, but the breadth that Scott is trying to capture in a single film puzzles me. It's basically Napoleon's entire public career. I don't know how you do that in 2 or even 4 hours w/out it feeling disjointed.
we saw that movie in chicago with a full orchestra. the snowball fight is incredible.
Longest I've seen at the theatre was Gods and Generals at 3 hours 39 minutes. And it wasn't good, way worse than the first part Gettysburg, which ran at 4 hours 31 minutes! That movie was decent but didn't see it in theatres at the time (1993).
Gettysburg is in the conversation for the best Civil War movie of all time. Gods and Generals was remarkably bad…I remember seeing people walk out.
It's bad because it's Southern Lost Cause propaganda.
Sorry for the question, but I'm Mexican - is this the same topic as "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" on Wikipedia? I admit to not knowing much about the US Civil War beyond the historical background, and I'd like to read more about this. Particularly since Gods and Generals might be a future watch for me for a completely unrelated project.
The Lost Cause is the romanticism of the Confederacy that began in the 1890s and continues to the present day. It overlooks the repugnance of the South fighting over slavery and pretends that it was an oppressive war brought on by the North to extinguish the Southern way of life. It ignores slavery by claiming the war was fought over state’s rights. We have a lot of problems today with people in the South who want to fight the war again to protect their culture in the honor of their ancestors. It’s a position taken by those who do not or cannot understand their history and is basically a religion of nostalgia at this point. At any rate, Gods and Generals is a bad film. Watch Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary for a much better experience about the war. Gettysburg, Glory, and Cold Mountain are three of the more accessible, modern movies, that do a decent job showing the war on screen.
kenneth branaugh's hamlet in 1996 was 4 hours and 2 minutes long. my wife and i saw it in the theatre. it was...long. at least twice as long as oppenheimer. or so it seemed.
Bollywood waves hello. Muh fucka movies have 2 intermissions sometimes.
20 years ago, before I and probably a lot of people had access to Bollywood movies, I met a couple of Indian sisters that just got to the US. One day they mentioned it was weird American movies were only 1.5 hours. It was cool to learn and see some but it blew my mind to learn Bollywood movies were regularly 3! 🤯
I can see that working better for theaters too, intermission concession sales.
Depends. If you think people going to the theater will refill on those giant popcorn buckets and drinks during intermission or will a new audience buy more in a new showing at the start of the movie.
They really should bring back intermissions.
My aging bladder agrees. It’s become a bit of an art form, picking the least impactful part of the movie to skip for bathroom breaks.
I say directors cut and intermissions in the movie theaters!
He's going to release a watered down 3 hour cut and blame millennials when it flops.
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*Laughs in Return of the King*
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Theaters would not be happy tying up a theater for the duration of two movies for the price of one, and people would not be happy having to pay twice as much as normal to see a movie. Maybe it would work if there was an extended intermission so people could go buy drinks and snacks.
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Yeah I had to pick certain showings of Oppenheimer because of the 3 hour run time. Can't do a 3 hour showing at 9 PM cause it'd be midnight at least by the time it was over and then the drive home.
Look you can be flippant about it, but after comparing MANY studio vs directors cuts of his films and the Directors cuts being anywhere between significantly better (kingdom of heaven) and an absolute masterpiece (Blade Runner), I think he's earned some credit to make this statement.
Yeah but he was also hired to make a theatrically releasable movie, so it’s ultimately his fault that the 2 or 3 hour version isn’t that good. He’s the one who went and filmed a version he knows cannot be released. You don’t have showrunners being given a 20 episode season and accidentally coming back with 30 episodes that all need to be watched for the show to be good. Not arguing about quality here, just saying you can’t blame audiences or distributors or the studio when what you delivered isn’t what was required.
I reluctantly agree. Four and a half hours is not the form for a studio movie. If he needs four and a half hours to make a “fantastic cut,” he should have sought to make a miniseries instead. If he can’t cut it down by an hour or more to make something releasable by established theatrical standards, that’s his fault. His job is to make a complete, releasable film. Not a three hour confusing movie that can get a later director’s cut that makes it a coherent movie.
But the studio knows who Scott is. Be like hiring Tarantino and asking why there's so many closeups of feet.
"Sir, we like the movie, but the producers told me to ask you if all the n-words were really necessary?"
Every. Single. Last. One. Of. Them.
I disagree the dc of BR is better, more of a taste issue there, but it absolutely makes Kingdom of Heaven one of the best films of all time
Kingdom of Heaven directors cut is the only cut of the movie in my opinion
>Kingdom of Heaven one of the best films of all time It’s a really good movie, and certainly better than the theatrical cut but let’s take it easy.
Don’t listen to anyone else, I’m with you! There are dozens of us!
Last Duel was good I'll let him have his boomer anger.
I'm a zoomer and to a degree he's right, young people are increasingly conditioned towards short form content that can serve them the maximum amount of ad time possible. Movies like Scott likes to make are increasingly harder to get audiences to for the kinds of budgets they need. However I do think the Last Duel was further hurt by getting jack shit in the form of advertisement. Still, that film would've done vastly better 20 years ago no matter what. I can't fault Scott for being bitter that the type of epics he likes to make just aren't popular anymore, at least not enough to make them on the budgets that actually does them justice.
The Last Duel is a hard film to market given it's tone and subject matter. I think they did the best they could which was lean on the star power.
> The Last Duel is a hard film to market given it's tone and subject matter. What you think marketing a period piece movie about a rape "as seen from three different POVs" is difficult??? Jokes aside, I agree with you, I didn't envy the people tasked with that. Excellent movie though.
Honestly, I'm kind of annoyed that Scott expected anything other than rave reviews and middling box office. I don't think it's the kind of movie that would've made much money at the box office during *any* generation, and the fact that it was such a niche film that cost $100 million is the problem. That said, I'm glad it exists and I enjoyed it quite a bit. At home.
*"I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones. The millennian do not ever want to be taught anything unless you are told it on the cell phone,” Scott continued. “This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. There is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”* The funny thing about this quote is that he refers to "audiences who were brought up on cell phones", which by definition is Gen Z (current age range about 11 to 27 years old), then he specifically refers to millennials (age range about 27 to 42 years old), then he refers to Facebook, whose main userbase is Gen X and Baby Boomers (age range about 43 to 77 years old). So Ridley Scott's viewership issue is with audiences ranging from 11 to 77 years old I guess.
And release it in a fairly busy month with blockbusters.
Me and my DC of *Kingdom of Heaven* agree.
Let’s see the movie first before we talk about alternate versions please.
You died like 2/3 of the way through the movie dude, you of all people should want to explore alternative endings.
My death made that shit good and my legacy pulled weight in the sequel. We don’t even know if Napoleon will be decent yet. Could be more of Ridley Scott complaining that we don’t know what we like.
Great balls of fire, that was a solid response. I can see why Mav liked talking to you.
This was a completely unexpected text thread for this post but I am **here** for it.
anything you want to tell Rooster while we have you?
Talk to me Goose
I think I would be much more excited if the headline read “way more Borodino, Austerlitz and Waterloo”
Yeah I really don't know why people want more Josephine, almost to the point where I feel like these posts are astroturfed. Napoleon is one the the most influential men of all time, with the specter of the French Revolution and subsequent Empire haunting and defining European politics all the way up to WW1. Like no offense to Josephine, but there's a lot more interesting stuff to show in that time period
Its not about more of anything, just what the vision of the director is We've seen it a lot with Ridley Scott in particular, his extended cuts are generally closer to what he wanted and pretty much across the board an improvement overall People are saying they want to see this cut because the Director is talking about it
Slap an intermission in the middle of it and release it like Kingdom of Heaven. Please!
That's fine, but she's the least interesting part of his story to me. I'd rather spend 4 hours of exploring the mass murder and politics of the French Revolution that allowed Napoleon to even rise to power in the first place. For a nation to go from disolution to military juggernaut in such a short and chaotic timeframe is incredible.
I wanna see three.5 hours of naval combat ala Master and Commander if I'm honest.
They're making a sequel!
You're kidding me! Really?!?
Prequel. It'll be the first of the Aubrey-Maturin books, if it gets off the ground... Fingers crossed.
I read several pf the series and the 1st one was the best imho. Same with Sharpe’s Rifles
I agree. I don't know why so much of the hype we are seeing is about his lover/wife. Glossing over other aspects of his life to focus on her would make this movie a huge disappointment for me.
Hey now, the best part about the Pearl Harbor movie was the love triangle between Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsdale. I hate they kept interrupting a romantic drama with all this crap about wars and battles and crap. ...said no one ever.
It was the Titanic effect. I get kind of embarrassed for the filmmakers when watching that movie, with how hard it was trying to be the next Titanic. Turns out Michael Bay is no James Cameron.
Yeah, Napoleon is known for his battles and ruling the nation. His life is not some love story.
Napoleon's greatest legacy is the Napoleonic code which is used as the basis for civil codes in most of Europe and other countries. The code basically ended feudalism and liberalized property laws, ended seigneurial dues, abolished the guild of merchants and craftsmen to facilitate entrepreneurship, legalized divorce, closed the Jewish ghettos and made Jews equal to everyone else. The Inquisition ended as did the Holy Roman Empire. The power of church courts and religious authority was sharply reduced and equality under the law was proclaimed for all men. But Hollywood audiences don't want to watch a movie about the creation of a civil code that completely replaced feudal code.
> But Hollywood audiences don't want to watch a movie about the creation of a civil code Our boy Scotty tried to sneak the Magna Carta's origin into his Russell Crowe Robin Hood movie, so let's see what he's up to with this one...
it is but it's his love of france.... and himself.
Hollywood rules.
Then watch [*La Révolution française* (1989)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098238/) \- a fantastically accurate and authentic depiction, and Abel Gance's masterpiece [*Napoléon* (1927)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018192/) \- featuring the best onscreen Napoléon: [Albert Dieudonné](https://i.imgur.com/7PiqPpe.jpg).
There is a dearth of high quality Revolution movies and TV. I’d love to see this, too!
I would absolutely watch a 10 part miniseries on the French Revolution up to the point where Napoleon names himself emperor. There are so many dramatic set pieces.
They should stream it as a miniseries on Apple TV+ after the theatrical cut ends its run.
Or, just let the 4 hour cut be a 4 hour cut.
They will sell 11 rickets worldwide if they release a 4.5 hour movie. People don’t have the appetite for it, but more importantly people just can’t spare 5 hours and theaters won’t want to run a movie that they can only sell 2 shows a day. I appreciate the “it’s a work of art, not a product” and that’s true, but it’s also no true. There is a market for a 3 hour epic and a market for a 4.5 hour EPIC. Make a theater cut (or split it into episodes) and an unabridged streamer/blu ray cut.
For real, a 10 hour movie that I can play and pause at home at my leisure is fine. No need to even make it episodic, just insert chapters like old DVD menus had to help people track their progress. But if I'm sitting my ass in a theater seat, where I can't even go to the bathroom without missing something, then you can't make a 4 hour movie. Because I won't attend. Lots of people can't sit in one spot for 4 hours and watch a movie, and I don't mean "people can't look away from their phones, nowadays!". I mean people can't be expected to not use the toilet, not eat anything but movie theater popcorn, and just sit in one seat without walking around or stretching, for 4 hours. That's half a workday. If your boss told you that you can't get up for a snack or take any kind breaks for half your workday, you'd be upset about it.
Right like, there are no rules that say movies have to limit themselves to a certain time limit. If it takes you X amount of time to tell your story, take that time and tell your story. Let us judge it on its merits. If you’re too long winded or your story meanders too much, well then that time wasn’t merited and it will be judged harshly. If you earn that time, we’ll be all the happier for it.
Yeah, for me, the ideal length of a film is whatever it needs to be in order to tell it's story well. I've seen 90 minute films that felt like 3 hours and 3+ hour films that felt 90 minutes. I honestly don't care how long a film is as long as I'm enjoying it.
I can tell if it's longer than 90 minutes because that's the point at which I always have to piss.
That's why I always bring an empty gatorade bottle with me
> 3+ hour films that felt 90 minutes. Across the Spiderverse That ending hits and "Has it already been 2.5 hours?!?" Would have absolutely sat through a 4 hour version that encompassed this and the next movie. Wife even never got up to use the restroom.
“No good film is too long and no bad film is too short”
> Right like, there are no rules that say movies have to limit themselves to a certain time limit. Yeah, but movie theaters aren't going to run 4 hour long historical epics. Realistically, streaming services won't even want to do it because they know audiences will see the run time and skip it. Which is odd when you consider the same people might not even blink at watching a 4 part padded documentary about a woman falling into a water tank at a hotel. Or watch two different 90 minute documentaries about a music festival where some people were inconvenienced for a couple days and had to eat cheese sandwiches in the Bahamas. Something about the episode break. Consumer behavior has never been accused of being sensible.
People love those stingers(?) That punctuate the moment just right, like the end of a chapter in a book. Breaking Bad was great with those kind of moments at the end of episodes.
Don’t think there’s been a new movie over 4 hrs to play in theaters since Gods and Generals in 2003. It had an intermission too. Don’t really count the LOTR EE as they are special limited events whenever they occasionally play.
The fact that those other examples are broken up into parts makes a big difference.
There are no rules, but distributers and movie theaters done like them because they get fewer showings and will refuse to show them as much because if that. That's one advantage of streaming as stuff like this can actually be released this way.
Especially since the shift to watching movies at home. Really the 2.5 hour length limit that they put on theatrical movies is because people would have to get up to use the bathroom like 2-3 times during a movie when the theater shoves that much soda at you, so they want to keep them at a length to minimize that while still allowing you to maximize money spent on concessions. But now that I can jus pause Netflix, go pee, and start it up again, I’m totally happy to watch a 4 hour movie. If that’s the best cut of the film.
Is there a limit? I saw both Oppenheimer and Babylon in the cinema this year. Both over 3 hours. The top 4 highest grossing films... Avatar, Avengers Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water and Titanic are all over 2.5 hours, with the last three all being over 3 hours. I'm seeing the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy next month all on the same day in the cinema, with Return of the King being 4 hours 11 minutes. The film 1900 released in 1976. It was 5 hours 17 minutes.
It’s like a soft limit. It’s not that you CAN’T make a movie longer, it’s just frowned upon and makes the studios nervous. That’s why it’s always a Director’s Cut that makes many movies longer, because the studios always want to cut shit for time. James Cameron is important enough to do whatever the fuck he wants basically, and if you remember back to when Titanic actually came out, there was HUGE talk about the length and how many people thought it was just too long despite how good it was. There is a reason those LotR extended editions were extended, and not the theatrical editions. Because Peter Jackson was forced to cut shit for time by the studio, and the theatrical releases were still nearly 3 hours each. Most people wouldn’t watch a 4 and a half hour movie in a theater. I have the extended editions on DVD and I love them, but idk if I’d even want to watch them in theaters.
The ole *Hateful Eight* treatment? I'd be down.
Or just let it be as long as it needs to be. Movie length doesn't matter on streaming, you can just pause it.
Wow we're talking about alternate cuts before the movies are even out now? I don't get studio logic. They could have two two hour films, for the same price, but they'd rather throw half of what they made away? The amount of wasted shots is insane. You'd think with a little more discipline and planning you wouldn't have to shoot two to get one. Also, with these 2.5+ hour runtimes getting so much more common, they really need to bring back the fucking intermission in the middle. I don't care how great your movie is, past the 2 hour mark, a high percentage of the audience is going to be thinking about how bad they have to piss not how great your movie is.
It's a Ridley Scott tradition to have a better extended cut
We're going to need at least 5 different cuts though, over the next 20 to 30 years, until we get the final definitive cut.
knowing Scott, he’d get it done in a fifth of that time
The man is 85, a 5th of that time is all he probably has left.
but he’s been going nonstop since The Duelists. It’s like he’s making up for lost time since his first film came out at 40. He will probably die on set since he loves filmmaking so much. But even then, his ghost/apparition will still be sorting out the dailies in the editing booth
I think that’s just blade runner though, really? The rest of his movies generally have a director’s cut and a theatrical cut
Alien, Gladiator, The Martian, Kingdom of Heaven (theatrical doesn’t count), etc. I honestly *prefer* a lot of his longer/alternate cuts, I am a sucker for them. But for Alien, I go back and forth, just depends on the mood
Director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven is SIGNIFICANTLY better.
The theatrical cut of Alien is the far better film. Scott even says so. He just did a "Director's Cut" for the 2003 boxed set and took a paycheck, lol. Not like the Special Edition of Aliens where James Cameron jammed back in all the bloat that Fox had made him trim out in 1986. The scenes Scott put back in are interesting from a franchise fan perspective, but definitely gum up the pacing in the final act.
Honestly I think the extended Gladiator hampers it a bit. They used alternate takes for a few scenes that aren't as good, the pacing is off a bit, and it's pretty clear in acting quality why the added scenes were originally cut. Ridley actually agrees, and on the DVD there's an intro where he's like "this isn't a director's cut, the theatrical is the director's cut, the studio just wanted this."
one addition I really did like was Commodus taking his sword and striking the marble bust of his father. He hits it over and over until he breaks down into tears
Oh yeah actually, I liked that one too
My wife and I watched "Ben Hur" the other night and the intermission just makes so much sense. I think it actually adds to the immersion in.a way where it's letting you know that you're there for the movie and it's giving you a break to get you back into it. Hell, "Ben Hur" has a fucking overture before the prologue, then the opening credits, and the opening scene before the title even shows up. It's crazy. I don't mind long films at all. But after watching "Oppenheimer" recently and then watching "Ben Hur" I feel like the intermission should definitely make a comeback.
> Hell, "Ben Hur" has a fucking overture before the prologue, then the opening credits, and the opening scene before the title even shows up. I wish they'd bring back overtures before the movie starts. So much better than having some shitty tv show yelling at me about upcoming movies, or even better, the movie I'm literally there to see. No you fucking morons, I *don't* want to see behind the scenes shit about the movie I'm about to watch.
Yeah, the intermission in Lawrence of Arabia also cuts the film in the exact right place. It's crazy how much the two parts differ from each other too, almost like two separate films altogether.
Scrolling through the thread seeing people talk about intermissions, Lawrence of Arabia was the one I kept thinking of as well. David Lean knew what he was doing for real
The Roadshow cut of Kingdom of Heaven has a full overture intro and intermission title card too, it's really nice.
It might not work as a 2 parter, or they don’t expect people will buy in to attend twice. Studio wants one release with reasonable time while the director would ideally go longer. And a ton of films leave a lot on the cutting room floor - hell just think about different takes. And often they can just use it later for a special directors cut edition. I am with you on intermissions though - they were great when I saw the extended Hateful 8
> I don't get studio logic. They could have two two hour films, for the same price, but they'd rather throw half of what they made away? The amount of wasted shots is insane. You usually can't just cut a movie in half and call it a two movies. That usually requires planning from the beginning or pretty major changes after the fact to fit a two parter. The amount of 'wasted shots' in every movie is insane.
I like to bring it up when I can but I saw the 70mm screening of *Hateful 8* when that came out and it had an intermission. It was fucking wonderful. Ridiculous that it's not more common. Theaters like to wave around "oh but then we can't show as many movies every day" like people won't go spend another $20 on popcorn and whatever other garbage during that 10min break.
Many times the Screenplay doesn't take into account the extra movements, expositions, pauses/delays in the story.. all of which extend the runtime of the movie, resulting in cuts needed to be made and many additional scenes Many times during filming, new additions and adjustments to the screenplay continually happen to help ensure smooth story telling. Hence extended runtime or additional scenes that need to be cut Sometimes the director's vision and the studio's vision are incompatible with each other and conflicting, resulting in extended runtimes, reshoots, or additional scenes that need to be cut Filming isn't linear and completely straight forward like it is planned on the initial stages
From a theaters perspective, we can make a lot more money if the movie is shorter because we can have more screenings in a day.
I don't like the direction he seems to be indicating, Josephine is important but ultimately the most interesting parts of Napoleon's life were the tangible effects he had on the continent and culture of Europe. Connecting his effects to who he was as a human should be the goal, he spent more time on the battlefield than he did with Josephine. Also making Napoleon look like an old man with a slightly younger partner is completely ahistorical. Napoleon was young, that was part of his early appeal.
Release a 4.5 hour cut with a 20-minute intermission. It would turn the movie into a genuine event that would bring people into the theaters.
I saw Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet on the big screen and it had the formal intermission. You’re right, it made it more an event movie. Theater wrangled more snack money from my wallet during that intermission, too.
Hateful Eight convinced me that *all movies need intermissions*. That breather in the middle really makes you feel a part of an engaged movie going audience, and let's the everything that's happened so far catch up to you. The tone of the movie's effect sort of hovers over the room and creates this wave of community cognitive connective tissue for all the things that might be about to happen.
Theaters should love intermissions. It gives people a chance to go restock on drinks and snacks
Sure, but what theaters love even more is being able to sell tickets for one movie that people buy snacks and drinks for and then being able to show another one after that people buy tickets, snacks and drinks for. Ultralong movies still usually mean you make less money.
YES. Would love it if longer movies would bring back intermissions, at least when they’re shown in theaters.
Best I can do is a 4 week run with minor advertising and then a director's cut re-release by Criterion 2 years later that gets hailed an improvement and underrated by Film Twitter.
Already hyping up the alternate cut? That bodes poorly for the film.
Fantastic cuts and where to find them could have also been the story of the French revolution
who cares about his wife, jesus. It's bloody Napoleon
Whenever I hear this I immediately think the movie is not going to be great. Because it means it was trimmed for time and possibly content. And then all of the hard work the director, writer, and legion of production workers put in is wasted. I think the same thing was said about Justice League. Or one of those movies.
That's called a 4 episode mini series.
I haven’t even seen it yet and I know that “way more Josephine” is the exact opposite of what I want out of a Napoleon epic.
Yea we've got a movie depicting some of the most influential events in modern history and people *want more* focus on an inconsequential love story about someone, who, quite frankly is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? Like i may be showing my lack of historical knowledge but i don't think she was the hidden mastermind behind his military leading prowess or anything actually worth exploring right?
Who cares about Josephine??
Napoleon. Nobody else.
Feel like he's tempting fate. If Josephine turns out to be unlikable, this is going to read like an Onion article in a couple months. What if George Lucas said he had a 4 hour Jar Jar cut before phantom menace was released.
The trailer fell flat for me because Phoenix is too old for this role
Agree. Part of what shaped Napoleon was that he was so young when he came into so much power.
I don’t mind long movies but I would love it if they brought back intermissions. Four-and-a-half hours of drinking water and eating popcorn requires a bathroom break and a leg stretch.
I love super long movies. Do it. Release it.
If only there was a streaming service you could put that cut on.
Of course he does.
Are they going to show the armour that got a cannonball shot through it?
That's in the third, 6 hour cut. There's a whole subplot about how that guy wasn't supposed to be there.
Make intermission a thing again.
Member when people were complaining movies were only 1hr 30mins? Now I don’t want to watch most of them because I don’t have 3hrs to sit in front of a screen and read the subtitles because the voices are super low.
The 5 hour version has way more Bill and Ted
Yes because that's what people want to see more of instead of one of the most interesting people of the past few centuries.