Has A Director's Cut Ever Changed The Way You Look At A Movie?

Hey folks, hope you’re having a good Wednesday so far. I was thinking about something last night while looking for something to watch that I figured I’d throw to you guys for some recommendations and revelations. Has a director’s cut ever changed the way you look at a movie?

For me, the answer is an easy yes, but it’s because of a movie you’d probably scoff at and never expect.

The Director’s Cut of Daredevil starring Ben Affleck changed the way I look at that movie.

Daredevil came out when I was five years old, and I couldn’t have loved it any more. My older brother took me to see it in theaters, and I instantly wanted all of the action figures, comics, and merch I could get my hands on. I specifically remember the day I got the VHS tape of the movie, being gassed up over the “bonus features” that were included…AKA one Daredevil-inspired music video for Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life”.

Now as I grew up a bit and learned a thing or two about movies, and revisited the Bennifer-led superhero story, nostalgia wore off and I came to the sad realization that it was a massive piece of shit. I mean, it’s genuinely horrible. It gets a little bit of a pass because it was released before Spider-Man 2 and X2, and nobody knew what the hell they were doing with dudes in tights before those flicks came out, but it’s still something I’d never go back to, even if I saw it on FX at 3 in the morning.

Years later I came across the movie in a $5 Blu Ray bin at Best Buy, and it had a red “Director’s Cut” bar at the top of the cover. I whipped out my phone and Googled “Daredevil 2003 Director’s Cut” to see if it was intriguing enough to throw an Honest Abe at, good or bad, and was met with all of these die-hard Matt Murdock fanboys claiming it was the Ark of the fuckin’ Covenant. So I bought it, popped it in that night, and was stunned. Because I loved Mark Steven Johnson’s cut of the flick. I actually went back later that week and watched the theatrical version, because I thought, “Maybe that’s good too?”, and it most certainly isn’t, but the Director’s Cut really is. A lot of the Electra side-plot is removed, we get to see more of Murdock as a lawyer doing some sweet detective work, it’s grittier and more violent, and Coolio plays an awesome role. It is so worth a watch just to see what could’ve been.

It’s still very early-2000s, and not the perfect superhero movie by any means (especially after Marvel has laid out like 12 “perfect” superhero movies since in addition to a badass Daredevil Netflix show that’s been met with universal acclaim), but the Director’s Cut completely changed the way I looked at that film. So now I’m throwing the question out to you…

Has a director’s cut ever changed the way you look at a movie?