After the rumour started about a Dark City Special Edition someone who had seen the original Dark City cut even before the test screenings and wrote to JoBlo with details of the differences they saw.
Now pinch of salt and all that, but there seems to be quite a lot. In summary the voiceover and opening explanations were gone, you were straight in and your understanding grew with the main characters; the editing style was much slower and moody than the more action paced you see in the released version, the music tracks also matched this slower pace as well and appears to be totally different. There are a couple of other points that I’ll include in the main part of the story, but be warned, there be spoilers ahead!
To me this all sounds radically different to the final version that we’ve seen, and considering I thought that version was superb, and these original changes sound fantastic, I think the Directors Cut could turn out to be a real revelation. Now we need to hope that these things are true and that we will see them on the SE DVD.
Here are the spoilers, avert your eyes! Check out JoBlo for the full letter…
…the version I saw was far superior to what actually came out. It’s been awhile, but I’ll attempt to elaborate what made the film different.
1. There was no opening scroll with Kiefer Sutherland’s VO telling you about the aliens and how they had been watching us. The film just put you into the environment. We had no idea of time and place or that any “alien” was watching the human characters. We discovered these things slowly as the film developed…
2. The editing style had completely changed! The film originally played out it’s scenes in a more Kubrick like fashion…
3. The music, like the editing had changed. Now the cut I saw might have had a temp track, but the style was mysterious and outer worldly…
4. In the first cut, the aliens themselves were like little scorpions when they left the humanoid shells. They were a more physical effect…
There were more changes including more or less of the guy writing all over the walls of his apartment. I can’t remember if that was new to the later cut or if there was more in the original. The fact is, I haven’t watched DARK CITY in awhile, but that first cut was a great experience which I cannot wait to re-explore on DVD. To all of you who love DARK CITY, you don’t know what you missed. Hopefully this will be the cut that gets released.
If this is right I’m so excited, it sounds like a total transformation of the movie, and for me that’s exactly what Special Editions and Directors Cuts should be about. Not the tacking on of three or four deleted scenes which were deleted for good reason. We need to influence the release of this version, so Studio and Distributor, listen up!
