STARTING WITH THE DIRECTOR'S CUT...Byline: - Glenn Whipp Ridley Scott's first version of ``Kingdom of Heaven'' was three hours, 40 minutes long. Nobody told him he needed to cut it down; he knew this wasn't a movie the studio - or audiences - wanted to endure, particularly for something being marketed as a slam-bang summer epic. ``It meandered,'' Scott says. ``Everything was beautiful, everyone was really good. But too often we'd build momentum and suddenly the brakes would go on. Dramatically, some things just didn't go anywhere.'' But for anyone wondering why the love scene between Orlando Bloom Orlando Jonathan Blanchard Bloom[1] (born 13 January 1977) is an English actor. He had his break-through role in the early 2000s as the elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings[2] and blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean and Eva Green Eva Gaëlle Green[] (/ɛva gʁeːn/) (born July 5 1980) is an actress, raised in Paris and living in London. is over before it begins, or hankering for more background about Bloom's Balian before he sets off for Jerusalem, there is good news. The full-length version of the movie will be available later on a special-edition DVD DVD: see digital versatile disc. DVD in full digital video disc or digital versatile disc Type of optical disc. The DVD represents the second generation of compact-disc (CD) technology. of ``Kingdom of Heaven.'' The biggest beneficiary of the restored version will be Green, whose character, Sybilla, sister of Jerusalem's King Baldwin IV Baldwin IV, Latin king of Jerusalem Baldwin IV (Baldwin the Leper), c.1161–1185, Latin king of Jerusalem (1174–85), son and successor of Amalric I. Raymond, count of Tripoli, was regent from 1174 to 1176. , suffered the unkindest cuts. In trimming the movie to its final, two-hour-and-22-minute length, Scott shortened the courtship scenes between Balian and Sybilla and completely removed a subplot sub·plot n. 1. A plot subordinate to the main plot of a literary work or film. Also called counterplot, underplot. 2. A subdivision of a plot of land, especially a plot used for experimental purposes. involving the death of Sybilla's child. ``My character (in the final version) is completely different from what I filmed, but, you know, that's life,'' Green says with an air of fatalism fa·tal·ism n. 1. The doctrine that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable. 2. Acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable. . ``What can I say? It's frustrating frus·trate tr.v. frus·trat·ed, frus·trat·ing, frus·trates 1. a. To prevent from accomplishing a purpose or fulfilling a desire; thwart: . It's a completely different story, and people today are not patient enough to sit through longer movies. They'd be bored, maybe.'' ``It will be a wonderful movie, and I still think it's a very good movie, but it's more focused on the relationships between the Christians and Muslims,'' Green continues. ``Like most movies, it's all about men.'' Scott, while sympathetic, doesn't quite agree, saying it's all about ``balance.'' Scott took a cleaver to his last epic, too. ''Gladiator'' originally topped three hours; nearly a half-hour of the deleted scenes were included on the double-disc DVD. ``Eva always knew it was a long shot to pull this off,'' Scott says. ``It's hard to cut scenes. It's agony. The nice thing is that the whole story with the child will drop right into the movie when we restore the longer version. And it's fine. But tighter is always better.'' CAPTION(S): photo |
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