Hacker News Reader

Comment by forgotpwd16 | Hacker News Reader

The main reason director's cut is recommended for first-time viewers is theatrical version having an intro that reveals many elements. That said the list of all the differences is quite extensive: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/alternateversions/.

View on HN

Interesting. Will definitely watch the director's cut.

I must say though that I don't think the opening monologue reveals too much. It reveals something but the city still feels weird, you don't truly understand the strangers' goals at the beginning, and there are still plot twists. If you don't even know about the strangers at the beginning, I wonder how the movie would play... a pity I cannot wipe my own memories and re-experience it ;)

A general rule of thumb that I've adopted is to intentionally skip the first 10 minutes of any movie.

This happened accidentally with Memento [0], it it became an incredible film. Without all that setup in the first scene, you exist with the protagonist as he discovers his world.

I've tried it with other films and they give away too much information, you the viewer are practically handed the whole script.

Give it a shot, you might like doing it that way.

[0][https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/ ]

I observed a similar effect with University lectures: being there from the start I often lost myself in some embarrassing state of deep distraction, but when I missed the beginning I went into attentive panic to make up for what I missed that echoed on even after I fetched up.

The difference between university lectures and movies is, of course, that one is not normally trying to derive a lesson from a movie; there's nothing to "optimize". Every part of the movie is necessary unlike a lesson.

So you use the Wadsworth constant on movies?

"The Wadsworth Constant is the idea (and 2011 meme) that one can safely skip past the first 30 percent of any YouTube video without missing any important content."

I don't quite think the UI_at_80x24 constant has the same ring to it.

I really don’t see how that changes Memento.

Part of the tension is knowing Leonard is going to kill Teddy, we just don’t know why.

I think it does change Memento... for the worse. The beginning is a powerful, integral part of the movie.

Skipping the first 10 minutes is like skipping the last 10, "I just know where this is going anyway". Nope. So much can happen in 10 minutes! Plus, you know, they filmed that part for a reason.

It's also like skipping the first chapter of a book: sure, some books would be improved by trimming their clumsy beginnings, but good books aren't.

Yea, it's just an incredibly silly "general rule of thumb".

I think skipping the beginning of Memento is a mistake. It's a powerful beginning that sets up expectations (the movie is "pre ordained", but we just don't understand why) but at the same time it explains nothing.

In general, I disagree with your rule of thumb. My favorite movies have cool beginnings, and it'd be a shame to miss them.

Just don't do it with The Lobster.

The first scene really drew me in to wondering WTF is this movie going to be about?!

The first scene created the mystery. One of my favourite movie openings.

In the past, I used to rent DVDs for director’s cut where the director explains the scenes. Do we still have rental services where we can get director’s cut DVDs?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com