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THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK UNRATED DVD REVIEW
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Part I (No Spoilers) |
Part II (Spoilers) |
Part III.1 (Spoilers)
Part III.2 (Spoilers) |
Part III.3 (Spoilers) |
Part IV (No Spoilers)
III. DIRECTOR'S CUT ANALYSIS (Spoilers)
EXTENDED (scene): Convicts talk as Riddick pops the cork
Or “pops the cock” if you’re the guy that put together the case art for the soundtrack CD. By the way, when Windows Media Player does a search on the net to pull in all the album info for the soundtrack, this is the name of the track. It’s official!
Some short mumbling and grousing between the convicts in the control room as Riddick brings it to the surface. The usual “what’s he doing”, “he’s crazy”, “hey, there’s a hot dead chick over here!” kind of stuff. Don't care for this much... more 'crowd noise' kind of stuff that generally never turns out all that well.
MAYBE (scene): Extended mole-hole fight
This seems longer, like there is a lot more shooting back and forth. That’s about all. Mock me November 16th if I’m wrong.
REVISED (sequence): The Crematoria Fight scene, and beyond
Hallelujah, here’s why you’re going to buy this DVD.
With no MPAA exerting their influence and probably with the help of a ton of complaints from the internet, we have ourselves a new Crematoria fight-to-escape sequence. We get it all now, the beheading, the sound, some more Shirah, some blue fire, and hell for good measure there’s even the Magic Furyan Chest Handprint.
Riddick stabs the first guy, uses his gun to shoot someone else, pulls the knife out, gives Vaako a look… then it begins. The One Step, One Kill sequence talked about in the promo material that ended up being impossible to make out in the theatrical version finally debuts, with all it’s sound and steadiness. I think I counted twelve kills before the first cut away to a different character, and with the camera steady it makes a lot more sense. That’s not to say there’s no shaky-cam at all, but it’s just not the whole sequence now. Adding the sound back adds necessary weight to each slice, gunshot, and puncture wound.
There’s a good sense of the progression of the two battles going on, Riddick’s crew coming down off the mountain while the guards are dukeing it out in the hangar. The cutting back and forth is easy to follow, all anchored by Vaako watching Riddick at work. New cool bits are stuffed into every other frame and get enough time onscreen to be memorable. We’ve got a Necromonger head flying off as Riddick cuts him and then leaps over to the next victim. Two Necros hold a guard down while another puts one of those weird axes to good use. Riddick flings Kyra onto the shoulders of a Necro she then stabs with her spurs and flips over. Sniper gets one in the gut and is sent smashing through the rock. Fun!
The luxury to add footage also meant Twohy could fix one thing that bugged me, which was where Vaako shoots Riddick and sends him flying. Since we all know he survives, it made the gravity guns seem useless. But the new cut shows that right before getting shot, Riddick pulls up a dead Necromonger and blocks the blunt of the blast. He still goes flying, but it’s enough to make it believable that he could maybe pick himself up later. Another tiny but critical addition.
But the Director’s Cut doesn’t just stop at a great redone fight. What’s also been brought back is Riddick’s Furyan awakening, which is actually quite a bit of new material. It begins with Vaako and his troops walking toward Riddick who is struggling to get up off his knees after getting blasted. As Vaako is commenting that Riddick “can kneel”, Shirah makes her third appearance and places her hand on Riddick’s chest, and Riddick has his last flashback to Furya, where Lord Marshal's face finally becomes clear. Novelization readers and Hunt For Riddick players know that this is how Furyans pass energy to each other, but movie watchers are about to find out.
Riddick starts to really strain and shake, which makes Vaako start to back away suspiciously. Vin tenses up pretty convincingly, big cords standing out in his neck and the whole bit, and then releases a huge blue ring of energy that blows the Necromongers back and makes him collapse.
More familiar material follows, with the Necromongers leaving figuring that Riddick was dead, and Kyra following them for the same reason. The scene after with the Purifier is largely the same, but with the important addition of him revealing his origins. As Riddick is choking him, he pulls open his coat to show a glowing handprint on his chest, and Riddick looks down to see one on his own.
EXTENDED (scene): Vaako and Dame Vaako conspire
After Lord Marshal makes Vaako his first commander and gives him the helmet, there’s some extra stuff between the conspirators. It’s a pretty long scene, works ok.
MAYBE (scene): Lejjun and Ziza return home at a different time
One of the things that bugged me when I saw TCOR in theaters was how long it takes Lord Marshal to activate the Plunger of Doom on Helion Prime, despite the fact that he did it immediately on Aquila Major. It was just one of those eye-rolling movie clichés where the bad guy delays activating his ultimate weapon for no discernable reason at all. It seems to me that this Director’s Cut changes things around in this part of the movie so what happens between him raising the plunger and having the dead Lensor dropped at his feet could have all been at the same time, causing there to be no real unexplained delay. I’m probably wrong.
MAYBE (shot): Riddick rides out on stabbed Quasi-Dead
So here, we see Riddick ‘ride’ into the Quasi Grotto on top of one of the Quasi-Dead as it’s coffin folds out of the wall. He’s hanging on to his knife, which is plunged into the Q-D’s chest. Can’t remember if this was in the theatrical version or not, but I figured I’d mention it just in case. You see, I love typing.
ADDED (dialogue): Lord Marshal tells Riddick about rising again
A slight extension to the part where LM presents Necro Kyra to Riddick. In this version, Lord Marshal explains a bit about Necroism and death and not really dying and the Underverse.
ADDED (shots): Lord Marshal’s final few seconds
Oh, right, here’s another part that I was a bit disappointed about. In the theatrical version, it’s a bit of a shock when Lord Marshal pulls away from Vaako only to have Riddick stab him and snap off the knife. In the Director’s Cut, now we have a couple quick shots of Riddick winding up, which imo robs the scene of it’s surprise conclusion. Too bad.
ADDED (shot): Riddick’s closing comment
After the big pullback, we see an extreme closeup of the lower half of Riddick’s messed up face, and he whispers “You keep what you kill.” Not a big fan of the line, but this would probably be a good ending for anyone that was.
Part I (No Spoilers) |
Part II (Spoilers) |
Part III.1 (Spoilers)
Part III.2 (Spoilers) |
Part III.3 (Spoilers) |
Part IV (No Spoilers)
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