Why Taika Waititi won’t release a director’s cut for Thor: Love And Thunder
The Oscar winner doesn't have a high opinion of director's cuts in general
Aux News Taika Waititi
Time to retire the #ReleaseTheWaititiCut campaign before it even really begins. The director himself, Taika Waititi, came out with a harsh stance against director’s cuts, saying he wouldn’t want to release the original version of Thor: Love And Thunder.
As the film’s stars have mentioned during the press tour, the first cut of the film was more than four hours long. Chris Hemsworth called that version “batshit crazy” and “like a Monty Python sketch,” while Christian Bale hinted at even more creepy scenes for his villain, Gorr the God Butcher. These are understandably tantalizing tidbits for fans, but in an interview with NME, Waititi assures us that those things weren’t actually good.
“I’ve been thinking about director’s cuts. I watch director’s cuts of a lot of other directors. They suck. Director’s cuts are not good,” he says bluntly. “Directors need to be controlled sometimes and if I was to say, ‘Ah you wanna watch my director’s cut? It’s four and a half hours long!’ It’s not good, at four and a half hours. There’s a lot of cup-of-tea breaks in there, you don’t even have to pause it.”
Is there a bit of shade thrown across the pond at DC’s Zack Snyder, who released the most infamous director’s cut in recent memory to so-so reviews? Perhaps, but Waititi is mostly being self-deprecating about the quality of his own cut. In other words, Marvel Studios didn’t force a visionary creator to chop up his own work–the director himself thinks that content had to go.
“I’d say my cut would probably have a few more jokes in there. There might be a couple of deleted scenes but as I always say, a scene is deleted because it’s not good enough to be in the film,” he explains. “I think the deleted scenes section on the DVD, not that they use them anymore, should just be a list of the scenes and no links so you can’t click on them!”
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He’s quickly reaching the ‘insufferable’ stage right? It’s not just me is it?
What was insufferable about what’s in this story?
Wait, is this Zack Snyder?
He’s quickly reaching Shyamalan levels of believing his own hype when many are starting to notice that his brand of slapstick humor/morose drama/slapstick humor is beginning to produce fairly severe diminishing returns. If fans didn’t want a Snyder cut they wouldn’t have put one out and both critics and fans agree it is 1000x better than the theatrical version, (which admittedly is a pretty low bar). There are plenty of legitimate reasons to put out a director’s cut. Blade Runner, Aliens, Heat, True Romance, Night Breed, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather 3, Once Upon a Time in America, and Metropolis, (to name a few), to varying degrees, have all benefited from editing after the original version was released.I enjoy his work. But much like Chris Pratt and Ryan Reynolds, for me at least, his schtick is getting old. I hope it’s okay that I have a different opinion than you. Shit, I wish I had Zack Snyder fame and money…
“I think most of the stuff that gets cut should stay cut” doesn’t seem like a controversial opinion even if Night Breed (?!) was improved in the director’s cut.
In fact, outside of Blade Runner, the general public is unaware of those director’s cuts you listed because the original movies are great and the director’s cut is just the equivalent of DVD extras for hardcore fans.
Also, no, the Aliens director’s cut is horrible. We did not need to see Newt’s family do the thing we knew they did — and do it early in the film, robbing the story of a lot its early suspense and being very ‘80s cheesy. (A Weyland-Yutani Big Wheel existing is pretty funny, though. It would have been hilarious if they had sold that in real life.)
The stuff about Ripley having a kid who died of old age is interesting, but the movie already grabs the viewer by the shoulders, shakes them and yells “THIS MOVIE IS ALL ABOUT MOTHERHOOD” as it is, and hearing about Amanda is just gilding the lily. (It did give us Alien: Isolation, but that could have happened anyway.)
You could not be more right about Aliens. Thank you for saving me the trouble of saying it. 🙂
We’ll have to agree to disagree. Knowing how much studios change in films to be as populist as possible, personally, I like the idea of director’s cuts. Also, considering Disney’s penchant for cutting representational content for foreign markets I’m not too keen to frame their ultimate editorial control as being for the better good. Will he still feel the same when they remove any and everything that even hints at homosexuality for China? It’ll be the “official” version there…
If Taika apologizes for killing your cat, or wtf ever it was, could you not with crazy ass strawmen like “oh yeah, but you’re a homophobe because in my imaginary scenario, you’re going to defend a Chinese version of a film that takes out scenes with LGBT content!”
@Parlimentarian.Fuck off.This is a comment section about a superhero movie. Calm down. Sorry that my mild criticism of your idol triggers the need to resort to personal insults. We are finished.
You literally invented an issue (Taika Waititi supports an anti-LGBT cut of a film he helped create) to be mad about.
Don’t make strawman arguments if you get upset when people say you’re using a strawman argument.
Taika is arguing in his statement that directors should not have the final say on their film’s cut because they, “Need to be controlled sometimes”. Disney regularly edits films to remove representational content for foreign markets. How else should we take his support for studio control over the editing process other than as an endorsement of Disney’s policies? It’s interesting that what was originally marketed as the MCU’s ‘gayest’ movie has basically had it’s LGBTQ representation stripped down to a few choice instances that can be easily hacked away depending on the audience. This is not a strawman argument. It is a literal example. https://www.newsweek.com/disney-plus-censorship-movies-series-edited-splash-racist-nudity-censored-1498006Just because buzz words exist doesn’t mean you can use them to negate discussion. Not that you have any interest in discussion. You just want to be a dick. Go be a dick somewhere else.
Your opinion is perfectly times with the general internet backlash he’s been getting now.
The only time I feel like a director cut is interesting to watch is when a director had their work taken from them and they actually get to go back and fix it. Even then many times it’s clear the movie was not working and you can see why the studio pulled it away. Like Snyders Justice League was interesting to see but it’s not good(and too damn long, and also in 4:3 for some bizarre reason). In the early 2000s it felt like directors were filming with the idea that they would get that directors cut. The LOTR being prime examples of that. But I recently watched both versions of each movies with my son(he wanted to see both) and came out of realizing that the theatrical cuts are the better presentation of the movie.
As far as the 4:3 resolution goes, it is the size of an Imax frame (it’s really 1:33:1.) Every film shown in Imax usually has a lot missing from the frame. This way EVERYTHING was able to be shown. Same goes for the runtime. We have things like films and games – media in general – shoved down out throats nowadays, and with this, for some reason, comes a lack of negative feedback. People either force themselves to watch / play things and get mad at the studio for wasting their time or they can’t bring themselves to say a bad word whatsoever, adding to the advertising vacuum. This comment is of the former. Yes, 4 hours is a long time. You knew this before indulging on the mass-marketed product. You didn’t need to watch the film. You could have saved yourself 4 hours and joined the latter section with the ignorant and the sycophantic.
The Magnificent Ambersons.
Oh don’t get me started on Welles. If he wanted his movies to be finished properly, she shoulda stuck around and finished them.
Okay, maybe I’ll make an exception for The Other Side of The Wind.
I think the LOTR extended editions hit a point of diminishing returns. Extended Fellowship colors in so much lore and character detail–particularly the hobbits and Aragorn–that I consider it the definitive edition. Extended Return, on the other hand, just piles more stuff on top of an already bloated movie. Extended Towers is somewhere in between.
We own the extended versions and watch them about once a year. At this point, I have trouble remembering which scenes were added unless I watch them with a cheat sheet, but I think your analysis is pretty accurate.
Extended Return definitely makes the movie worse. There’s no reason to show the ghosts agreeing to help Aragon and taking over the pirate ship. It completely ruins the surprise of Aragon arriving to Gondor.
Return of the King: 74 different endings in the theatrical version, but even in the extended version, they couldn’t give us a version with Sharkey and the Shire, which arguably was the whole point of the story.
I prefer the extended versions, but honestly, that’s just for the lembas bread scene in Two Towers, which always makes me laugh.
Fellowship wasn’t a bad re-edit, as the original was trimmed because no one was sure if people would like it and spend so much time in the theaters. The added material was good, even if it did lengthen the movie.In the other two, there wasn’t that dynamic. Jackson could have released whatever he wanted. The extended cuts feel mostly weighted down by material made sense to edit out in the first place.
Kingdom of Heaven is the obvious example of a movie with a much better director’s cut than theatrical cut. I get what Taika and you are saying but there is no definitive rule of “all director’s cuts suck.”With LotR, the extended editions seemed mostly meant for fans (like me) who already loved the movies and wanted more vs an actual cut of the movie that Jackson wanted to get into theaters. Just my assumption though, could be wrong and he may have said the opposite somewhere.
I am a huge LOTR fan and fantasy nerd in general and, at the time, loved the extended editions. And to be honest, will watch them again I am sure many more times in my life. But from a pacing and storytelling perspective, I think an above poster is right that they seem to get worse as it goes. Fellowship extended is the best of the bunch and Return of the King is the worst. I think my biggest complaint with Return of the King is that the extended cut shows the whole exchange between Aragorn and the Ghosts ahead of time, even including them taking the boats, so that when they show up during the big battle its not the fun surprise is was in theaters. I get that you get more of the back story and that is great for some people but I think from a first time viewing experience, the suprise of “Oh shit more bad guys, wait nope. They are on are side” works better
If you scroll down a bit, you’ll find I had same complaint on the Return extended edition haha.But I didn’t mind it as much as part of a second or third viewing of the movie as I wanted as much as possible of that world. I would just never recommend someone watches the extended cuts first.
I strongly disagree about LotR. The Expanded Editions flow much better, IMO, to the point that they actually feel shorter, to me.
the dvd market also ran with ‘directors cut’ as marketing language pretty hard. ‘never before seen footage’ was a good line for a good while.snyder cut is obviously it’s own thing, but even reaching back to ‘the donner cut’ of superman 2 is a great example of something that probably shouldn’t even have existed.also most comedies got the ‘uncut unrated directors cut’ treatment on dvd and THOSE are mostly worse products than the theatrical releases.now that the dvd market is basically gone there’s no need to market a specialty version. in fact it kind of fucked the streaming market because there are now so many different versions of something. like, what is the ‘real’ blade runner anyway?
A director’s cut, when the movie was taken away from them or when the movie got released before the director could finalize it the way he wanted (see: Star Trek: The Motion Picture), can be interesting to good. But most of the time, you can see why the edits were made. Go watch the Blue Brothers Extended Cut. Every extension or addition just slows down the movie and adds nothing. At some point, too, you just end up with a mess of versions when a director can’t leave good enough alone (see: Star Wars trilogy or Blade Runner).
His response feels like the reigned in response that’s meant to be given by a director hired to “complete a job” as opposed to one hired to create a piece of genuine art. He is a Disney filmmaker now. They mostly don’t ever Get to make what they want and they’re usually OK with it. There’s nothing wrong with being a filmmaker for hire, but I don’t think simply being a director makes a person qualified to talk about artistic cuts. Waititi is not as much of an artist, so he’s never really had to tread outside of this middle-ground comfort zone he’s found himself in. Honestly, would he really be more use than he is now if he was made to be “bigger” than the filmmaker for hire. Steve Mcqueen, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, Fredrico Felini, Akira Kurosawa, Makoto Shinkai, Momadu Hosoda, Zack Snyder, Joss Whedon, David Fincher, Paul Greengrass, Satoshi Kon, Claire Denis, Ava Duverney, and Quentin Tarantino would all very much disagree with Taika Waititi. All they have done is helped change the face of cinema as the world has known it.
You forgot Ridley Scott, who arguably kicked off the Director’s Cut trend way back when he released the DC of Blade Runner.
I did. Thank you.
I don’t read these quotes as Kevin Feige standing in the wings with a gun.
They read to me like a guy who understands the value of discipline and cutting what doesn’t work, not deluding himself that every bit that seemed fun at some point is worth including.
“Kill your darlings,” and all of that.
Darlings are only killed by the artist. This is the logic behind a director’s cut. If a person is ordering an artist to kill their darlings, like in this situation, it would have to be the director’s boss I. E. Kevin Feige (most likely with gun in hand.)
Almost every bit of art is collaborative other than maybe paintings and those collaborators — editors, producers, assistants — are all a valuable part of the process.
“I don’t understand why you included this” or “this doesn’t work great for me” are valuable and help a creator step back and realize that they never realized the idea they had for whatever element is being reacted to and they can either flesh it out or cut it.
Show me a successful creative person who succeeded without feedback during the creation process and I’ll show you a liar.
In films, including the MCU films, there’s also lots of inputs from the writers, designers, editors, actors, art directors, music directors, etc. It’s never the director’s pure vision, nor should it be.
Now, could they later regret some of the changes made for the theatrical version? Sure. It’s a cliche for a reason: Creative works are never finished, only abandoned.
But there’s nothing inherently better about the director’s vision compared to anyone else’s.
The vision is the job description. My point is that sure film is subjective, so there is no good or bad. But film can be anything and it’s our identities as people that helps create the film’s direction. You can have costume design, lighting etc but the DIRECTION. That is the vision and the true identity of the art form.
Waititi is not as much of an artist, so he’s never really had to tread
outside of this middle-ground comfort zone he’s found himself in.
Have you seen anything he’s done, other than Thor? What a weird comment.
I’ve seen everything he has made except for this Thor film.
Then, I too can’t really understand how you can call him not much of an artist. You may not love it, or think it’s high art or something- those are all subjective, but there is undeniably a very clear and strong voice running through all of Waititi’s work.
His strength is being a yes man. He has a quirky sense of humor but he has yet to do something as extraordinary and as extraordinarily personal as something like, name any Stanley Kurbrick film. Taika is very comfy where he is. My question is what he would do if he were to be let of his leash. My best guess is that it would probably be the same thing but for another company.
Jojo Rabbit doesn’t count as something incredibly personal and specific? Or What We Do In The Shadows, for that matter?
Being an artist (in the auteur theory of the word) doesn’t require that you reshape the art form from scratch or win a thousand awards or something, it just means you have a clear and distinct voice. I don’t think there’s any way you can argue that Waititi doesn’t have that.You also have to take into account the status of the industry right now. There’s just not a lot of big budget non-franchise movies being made, period, full stop. Directors are gobbled up by these big franchises, and only have so much room to play, unless they go to TV— which, Waititi has done, and again has just as clear a voice in those shows he’s created. If Mel Brooks or Judd Apatow or the Farrelly Brothers were just starting out, they’d end up being in the same position as Waititi is right now- making franchise movies or creating television shows instead of their own features.
This is about direction. Jojo Rabbit isn’t as personal as it could be for Taika Waititi regardless of the subject matter. My argument comes from Waititi’s own words. He’s just admitted that he doesn’t bring fourth his entire identity as a director. AAuteur filmmakers still exist, even within this horribly corporate moviemaking space.
The fact that you saw fit to mention Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon in the same breath as Martin Scorsese, Jean-Luc Godard, Fredrico Fellini and Akira Kurosawa makes me think that perhaps your opinions on “genuine art” are not quite as serious as you believe them to be.
No. Boring AV Club comment. The majority of people on here seem to put the two directors in the same category of “bad guy” when they’re polar opposites of each other – a serial adulterer and a classical family man who’s most famous moments have been while mourning the death of one of his kids. I have them on the list as auteur filmmakers who have helped change the industry. I don’t know why you’ve replied with a random reply about how you feel regarding the QUALITY of their work. I don’t care how you feel about their work.
Literally no one was expecting a director’s cut of Thor 4, but thanks for the update I guess.
I think this is yet another consequence of Zach Snyder rippling out through the Universe for probably the next decade or so. We’re just going to have to prepare ourselves for endless talks about “The [Insert name here] Cut” for the long haul. Red Notice was bad you say? Well coming in 2023, Red Notice: The Thurber Cut. That one was even worse? Well coming in 2023 (Q3), Red Notice: The The Rock Cut.
No, edgy director took a cheap shot at a dead horse to get vrownie points. Came across as being a pissy bitch. End of story.
I don’t know. It’s been well-reported that Lena Headey had a role in it that was cut and there have been other reports that Peter Dinklage and Jeff Goldblum both had scenes cut too. All of the scenes supposedly have to do with developing Gorr and one of the main complaints I’ve heard about the movie is Gorr is underdeveloped as a threat early on. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see their scenes restored on a home release.
Natalie Portman said there was a LOT more shot for it, including sequences on different planets and with a lot of other characters and scenes.
I think it is because Christian Bale keeps talking about cool stuff that got cut.
Apparently, it was “giant necklace of anal beads” night at CitiField, and I missed it.
I think it’s probably Maori.
Yes, and similar to what he had Hulk wearing in Ragnarok.
Who cares what this fucking hack has to say, its obvious that media is working round the clock to make sure his dog shit childrens movie doesnt fail. This director is to homosexuality what joss wedon was to feminism
The only thing you had right in this comment is your username.
Youre right me an actual gay man should love every second of a striaght man trying to sell me nazis as gay allies or whatever. Fuck this hack loser.
Name checks out
seems to confirm that Thor: Love and Thunder was the director’s cut (which, in his own words, sucks)
I want a Director’s Cut where they cut the runtime down by 1/2.“I really only had about an hour of movie planned, but the studio wanted 2.So I added a side story about a son back from the dead, some new characters who are out for bloody revenge, and that whole thing about the alien invasion.Which seemed unnecessary in a kids movie about a frisbee catching dog.”
I’m still waiting for James Gunn to release the Funches cut of Suicide Squad
I am realiable told it contains a buncha muncha cruncha Funches.
dude’s really getting into the infuriating quotes hall of fame.
Hard disagree with Waititi on this one. There are good director’s cuts (Kingdom of Heaven), and Thor: Love And Thunder had a number of moments where it felt like it was missing scenes (lot of missing “connective tissue” scenes in that movie, then basically tied back together through Korg voice-over). That said, I didn’t think “Director’s Cuts” were even really a thing anymore besides the Snyder Cut Justice League. They were something you’d use to sell another Blu Ray or DVD back in the day – that’s why there were so many cuts of Blade Runner.
Yes, especially the way Jane’s cancer was almost treated as an afterthought? It definitely wasn’t given the emotional weight such a circumstance would certainly illicit.
Then there’s also the fact that the Snyder “cut” isn’t really a director’s cut at all, but almost an entirely new movie
I believe Taika knows his own work and process better than anyone writing about it or commenting here does. Ragnarok is widely considered one of the best Marvel films, but have you seen the deleted scenes and outtakes? They’re genuinely BAD. He knows exactly of what he speaks.
I’ve never seen the deleted scenes for Ragnarok. Any in particular stand out?
I don’t recall the specifics of the content, only that don’t advance the plot significantly and they occur in and around the genuinely funny stuff that he left in. Most of them are in the Grandmaster’s palace, as I recall.
Would it even be up to Watiti? Disney owns the film, not him. They don’t even need to call it a “Director’s Cut.” Just call it “Extended Edition.”
The more Taika Waititi talks in interviews the less I can justify being a fan. Something about the guy rubs me the wrong way in that I’m afraid he’s going to be revealed as the Kiwi Joss Whedon. For what it’s worth I liked his two Thor movies and I love Hunt for the Wilderpeople. I’ll just consider Jojo Rabbit a horrible mistake or the result of a lost bet to Rhys Darby.
Why the hell would a director potentially sabotage audience returns while their film is still playing in theatres?“Yeah, I want to do a Director’s Cut which will capture my definitive vision of the film.”
Fine. We won’t call it the Waititi Cut.
Call it ‘Thor Love & Thunder expanded edition: More Gorr’ and put it out in theaters for a couple of weeks before it hits D+.
You would think every movie is a director’s cut.
Why? Studios and producers often get final say and make changes all the time.
What a weirdly broad and generalized comment. Sure, some director’s cuts aren’t better than the theatrical version. If you look at YouTube comments, you can tell that there’s a certain kind of viewer that reads that something was shot but cut out and thinks, “Whhyyy? Release a director’s cut that puts it back in!” On the other hand, movies are art and art is subjective. There are some director’s cuts that I prefer, particularly because the studio or a producer felt that something should be cut out for arbitrary reasons or for marketing purposes – either to get a certain rating or to get the film under a certain runtime. Either way, it’s a win-win for the studio. They get to release the version they think will make the most money, and then they get to double dip and make a few more quid from suckers like me that want to see an alternate version.
It seems like an expanded cut in Waititi’s mind would mostly include more jokes, and not more scenes developing Gorr and Jane Foster’s arc, which seems to be the consensus on where the movie lacking (my own opinion included).
Because it’s mostly Beast Machines fan fiction. Not slash fiction, but the kind of fan fiction where the characters sit around drinking coffee and explaining how they feel about all the other movies in the series.
I wonder if there’s some confusion that people are having here between an initial working cut and a director’s cut. I understand that films can go through multiple edits. You have a first draft. You realize what works and what doesn’t. Usually, more gets initially included than you intend to include in the final release, but because it’s hard to tell what works best for the overall narrative until you piece it all together, you need to have it all in there. Then you start whittling away and rearranging. But that initial cut is not the same thing as a director’s cut.There certainly are often cases where creative control of a film gets taken away from a director, which can turn the final product into a mess. (Blade Runner may be one of the most famous examples.) I highly doubt this was the case for Waititi with this movie. While I’m sure Marvel/Disney had a lot of input on this, I also believe Waititi had a lot of control.And sometimes, a movie needs to have stuff cut for the sake of a running time that the director would have loved to have included and thinks can work in the narrative. The theatrical cut is a good movie, but the director’s cut is for the die-hards who want to see the director’s full vision and don’t mind the extra running time. (Best examples are the LotR movies and Cameron’s Aliens director’s cut.)