Last night I watched the 'Final Cut' of Apocolypse Now, that I'd recorded the night before off the TV. It was 3hrs and 10 mins long, but we missed the first 20 mins or so.
Having seen the cinematic version many years ago in the cinema I was interested to see what the differences were. There was quite a bit more of the film in this version than in the cinematic version.
For instance, Col Killgore (Robert Duvall) is seen sending a sick child and its mother off in his own helicopter to the nearest hospital at the end of the segment that had the Ride of the Valkyries battle. So although he was a monster, he did have some redeeming qualities.
They also showed the scene with the French family in the jungle, who had their own plantation, and the discussion around the dinner table with Capt Willard (Martin Sheen). They also included a very edited bit about him getting off with one of the French women after the dinner.
Somehow the bit at the end seemed different as well. The build up to Kurtz's demise and the death of the sacrificed beast didn't seem anywhere near as intense as in the original. Furthermore, I felt that the intensity of the Ride of the Valkyries initial approach to the village was less than in the original.
One last thing I noticed. I've got on DVD a copy of the Director's Cut of this film, and in that there's a very sad scene where the bunny girls from the show on the floating stage, are somewhere up in the jungle, freezing cold, and still in the helicopter they travelled around in. The scene was a bleak interlude in the otherwise constant insanity of the rest of the film, and this wasn't part of the Final Cut. So I guess the editors of the Final Cut wanted to tone down various bits of it for some reason, but cut out the bleakness of the situation the bunny girls ended up in as it didn't affect Willard or his mission.
