Then I watched it again with the audio commentary, which featured Bruce Willis, director Len Wiseman and the man who edited the footage into a PG-13 movie, Nicolas De Toth. And I have to tell you, the commentary is also very revealing, as it makes the end product that much more surprising, as it truly seems like they were writing the movie as they were filming it. I don't mean they were changing it to try to make getting it a lower rating, rather whole action sequences seemed to develop organically while the principals were on set while others were discarded just as quickly, and the accompanying plot point along with them. And because it is a very stunt-intensive movie with a minimum of CGI, the difficulty in developing such sequences on the fly as it were and the fact that the filmmakers were nonetheless able to pull it off is stunning to me. The end product doesn't really feel like it is improvised, and I think a lot of other movies would have fallen apart under similar circumstances, but somehow the movie came together quite well.
And as suspected, those involved did indeed start production making an R-rated Die Hard, and it wasn't until much later that they were made aware that the studio was angling for a PG-13, so they basically had nearly an entire R-rated movie filmed at that point, so this unrated version is pretty much the movie that they had wanted as the final product, so again, I think the unrated version is a must see for any fan of action movies, and a requirement for Die Hard fans.
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2 comments:
great insight into the film. I'll have to check out this version soon. While I enjoyed the pg13 version, I think I'll enjoy the R rated one more.
Any deleted scenes on the DVD?
I think that is a feature of the 2 disc special edition as there was mention of some making of documentaries in the commentary. I can't confirm that though.
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