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If it is the 224 minute cut I would imagine the feature will be spread over two discs with the extras on the other two. I would be surprised if the theatrical cut were included as well.

I'm also very excited they got David Byrne for an interview.

Antoine Doinel wrote:If it is the 224 minute cut I would imagine the feature will be spread over two discs with the extras on the other two. I would be surprised if the theatrical cut were included as well.

The Criterion site does specifically mention two separate cuts, it's just a little fuzzy as to what two cuts they are.

Criterion wrote:- All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro

- All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer of the extended television version

Dammit! If this were a two-discer, it'd be in my price range. Oh well, doesn't dvdplanet usually have a sale around April?

Jeff wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote:If it is the 224 minute cut I would imagine the feature will be spread over two discs with the extras on the other two. I would be surprised if the theatrical cut were included as well.

The Criterion site does specifically mention two separate cuts, it's just a little fuzzy as to what two cuts they are.

Criterion wrote:- All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro

- All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer of the extended television version

I would assume the new "director's cut" (or whatever you would call it) and the extended tv cut. I don't expect to see the theatrical cut on this set.

I don't understand why Criterion wouldn't release the theatrical cut. That's the version that won Best Picture and the other eight Academy Awards they tout in their synopsis. It doesn't make much sense to release two cuts, neither being the original one.

Also, regardless of which cuts they use, I wonder if both will have the same aspect ratio. Only one is mentioned on the site as being approved by Vittorio Storaro.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this whole deal going to bring a simultaneous release of a standard edition by another label and then the deluxe Criterion edition? I'm guessing it'll be on that other release

domino harvey wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this whole deal going to bring a simultaneous release of a standard edition by another label and then the deluxe Criterion edition? I'm guessing it'll be on that other release

This is news to me. Where did you hear this? Meanwhile, this looks like a fantastic set; wonderful cover art.

Dylan wrote:This is news to me. Where did you hear this?

Image announced that several films (including The Last Emperor) would be released simultaneously on Criterion and Image a few months ago.

the others were Insignificance, Marry Christmas Mr. Lawrence and The Hit...

I know that the exact transcript is somewhere on this board, but wouldn't know exactly where.

Here's the press release from way back when. Earlier in this thread there's a link to another thread with a link and quote from this article which indicates the release should contain the theatrical release and, tentatively, a 4-hour version. No one ever gets run times right, let alone Criterion on their coming soon page, so 209 may just be a guestimation.

Yep, Time Out has the original cut as 163 minutes, and the Director's Cut at 227 minutes, so 209 minute cut is new...

I can't fathom that they wouldn't have the theatrical cut in here and not explicitly say so. When they release director's cuts without the theatrical version, they always put something like "new, restored transfer of the director's cut", not just "new, restored transfer". Heck, they even put it here for the TV version. Plus, mentioning the Academy Award winning cut and then NOT including it would be kind of shady on their part and I don't think Criterion would do that.

I don't think Bertolucci ever really liked the American theatrical cut. He had to trim it for time to please U.S. distributors, but the longer cut was released just about everywhere else.

The criterion site is now showing a 218 minute running time for this.

How did Columbia lose the rights to this? It is, after all, the last film they distributed to win best picture.

Well, the PAL Optimum release lists 209 minutes for the Director's Cut. Taking into account PAL speedup, that should be 217 minutes on NTSC.

Considering that I still haven't watched my Optimum disk, I have absolutely no interest in buying this (and, of course, see my criticism of SD Criterion releases elsewere). But, I will be curious to see what the differences are between the two "director's cuts"

As I understand it, the first Director's Cut was made for television. So, I suppose the newer Director's Cut will probably restore a little bit of sex and/or violence that had to be trimmed and presumably use restored film elements (previous DVDs of the Director's Cut are reputedly very dark and murky). But, if those were the only changes, that would make including the "original" Director's Cut rather pointless.

Or, perhaps, Bertolucci will be re-editing the film entirely from scratch (like Coppola did with Apocalypse Now Redux) so, while it will be essentially the same, there might be a few alternate takes, slightly longer or shorter shots, etc. for the trained viewer. I'm guessing, also, the first Director's Cut will probably be presented 2.35:1 but the new Director's Cut will be (in order to get Storaro's approval) 2:1

Or, cynically, perhaps as with King Of Kings and The Leopard (or putting 150 minutes of movies on 4 single-layer DVDs in the M&M set) including both director's cuts is just a move to increase the number of disks and 'justify' a higher price point.

is the whole film in English or part of it is in Chinese?

This set looks fantastic, but...I still have the Optimum. I'll wait until the year-end Planet sale to pick it up.

I'm probably only picking up the Lubitsch set this February. Pierrot le fou can wait until the end of the year as well, and Walker, well...probably shouldn't bother to wait for me.

funkcisco wrote:is the whole film in English or part of it is in Chinese?

There may be a tad bit of incidental Chinese spoken in a scene or two, but it's an English-language film all the way.

Meanwhile, a screengrab from the Optimum release:



And here are the two maestros:

Is that screengrab a photograph of the television screen?

The television screen? You mean the second image? No, it's from the (unrestored 1987) documentary on the making of "Last Emperor" that's included on the Optimum set. The (gorgeous) first screengrab is from the theatrical cut (disc one) of the Optimum set.

I knew it was too good to be true. Criterion has stealthily changed the aspect ratio listing from 2.35 to 2.00:1. Damn.

Antoine Doinel wrote:Is that screengrab a photograph of the television screen?

You still never clarified what you meant by this. I'm just curious.

I knew it was too good to be true.

I was positive Criterion would change the aspect ratio because there are already images floating out there of Storaro's restoration and it's 2.00:1.

So the question is does it affect both versions or just the new cut?

Let's hope one of the cuts isn't cropped all to hell.

Dylan wrote:

Antoine Doinel wrote:Is that screengrab a photograph of the television screen?

You still never clarified what you meant by this. I'm just curious.

That screengrab from the movie on the last page does look like a snap shot of a TV screen. The picture bows out at the sides, which is usually a sign of a photo of a TV.