What about the 3hr. version???


That was prepared for its original 1983 Christmas release, but Warner apparently got unsure about it, postponed its opening, and butchered the film for its April 1984 release!!!

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it will probably never see the light of day, they probably didnt keep all the footage they cut, its like there are missing cues from the soundtrack that no longer exist as well.

'All for one and one for all! You go first, I've got a bad leg.'

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I saw the film recently, and the heavy editing is horribly obvious!!!

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In Ian Holm's autobiography, he talks about the tension between the director and the studio - both having completely different ideas of what the film should be about. I think that contributed towards the poor editing.

Holm also states that 20 minutes were ripped from the the film before it's theatrical release. My DVD copy says the film is 131 Minutes. IMDB and Wikipedia state the length is 143 mins (where is THIS copy???). If the 'twenty minutes' taken out of the film was put back in, the running length would be about 163 minutes which is 2 hours & 40 minutes. I'm not sure a proper 3-hour version ever existed, but I would be VERY interested if someone has the 143m version and can tell me what extra scenes there are in it!

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I was just watching it on TV and wondered if it had been cut (badly) for the early showing. It seems to jump around at points and make no sense. There is a bit where Tarzan decidex to follow the path Ian Holm took toward "civillization" - then it jump cuts to Tarzan in a boat, fully clothed for the first time, with Ian Holm suddenly topless and with scars on his back. What the hell happened? Why isn't Tarzan more surprised to see other humans like himself living in a village? The editor did a pretty bad job I'd say.
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Yeah, I was, but I admit I switched off after Tarzan burnt down the horrible pub full of weirdoes. It seemed like isolated events were just happening without context or reason. Do you know if the version on Channel 5 was cut specially for that showing?
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I just watched this as well with my son. There were severe edits that made no sense.

Like when John/Tarzan returns all bloody to the chimpanzees. Lo and behold he has a panther. And I said to my son, evidently we missed this whole epic battle between man and panther, and ... why it ever happened in the first place.

Horribly edited movie, but I have to say it is a powerful film. With what's left of it that is. My son then wanted to watch the Disney adventures of Tarzan & Jane, and I could feel the "drop" in story/literature like a heavy weight. Yes it's meant for kids. But it forced me to look at Greystoke, which has some failures to it, and realise, this movie is actually very good. Despite all its horrible edits. There's still a story there, and the performances are all wonderful. Was Andie McDowell dubbed though, or was it another actress doing her voice? If not, nevermind

At times I wasn't so sure about the panther roar/mimicry scenes. Still not sure. But the story was actually very sad. Even my son remarked so. And as he's only 7, I felt it important to ask him what he was thinking about John/Tarzan's fate. Should he go back home? Is he happy being the Earl of Greystoke? And if the film can portray that unhappiness to a 7 year old kid, and they can sense it and feel affected by it, then it's a good film. I do wish this film was restored to its original length. I think it's kind of underrated really, but the editing did not help at all.

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VoodooGuru: "Like when John/Tarzan returns all bloody to the chimpanzees. Lo and behold he has a panther. And I said to my son, evidently we missed this whole epic battle between man and panther, and ... why it ever happened in the first place."

Yes, that was the point when I realised that something was really wrong with the editting. I have seen the film all the way through before, as a kid, but could only remember the two tray-sliding scenes... but that random appearance of Tarzan rolling around on a panther carcass was very jarring. And I may be wrong, but did he have a large steel knife in that scene as well?!?

Anyway, I'm going to blame Channel 5 for the editting, because the film itself is well made. The apes were very well done for the time, with only a few moments where they "overdid it" and spoiled the illusion - like when the two apes kiss for no reason and demonstrate clearly that their lips are made of immobile material.

Glad your son enjoyed it, the film does have a strong message and an emotional punch, but the Channel 5 cut was poorly done.

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Thanks for the reply ;) Yup, that scene where the chimpanzees kiss I felt overdone as well. BUT --- the design and implementation of those chimpanzees was very well done for the time. Now it would be CGI. And though this film is flawed, and we can count all those flaws quite easily, I could not help but feel those scenes where Lambert was coping with the death(s) of loved ones were absolutely poignant and incredibly human, even with his limited "knowledge" of what being human is. I thought that was incredibly well done, and it did tug at the heart. Also the opulence of the world he was meant to be part of, and it's absurd rules of knives and forks, compared to what we deem a simple world of live, eat, sleep, repeat was truly shown. So no, after killing a panther, the Earl of Greystoke does not go off and read Plato in a canopy of trees and fauna. It makes you wonder why anyone said we had to read Plato in the first place. Oh yeah! So we can talk about him on IMDb!

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Just to confirm I am watching the channel 5 version too, they have edited out some of the scenes probably due to violence and duration. I have the DVD version somewhere and can confirm it is not heavily edited.

'Dont push it.....il give you a war you wont believe....let it go.....let it go'

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When this was out in the days of VHS and Laserdisc, the short version was on VHS.
In a sparkling new remaster, a 15 min prologue was added to the start of the film (Laserdisc only)

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I just watched this as well with my son. There were severe edits that made no sense.

Like when John/Tarzan returns all bloody to the chimpanzees. Lo and behold he has a panther. And I said to my son, evidently we missed this whole epic battle between man and panther, and ... why it ever happened in the first place.


It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I remember a scene where a leopard attacks young Tarzan and one of his ape friends. The ape is killed, but Tarzan is able to swim to safety. Tarzan later finds his human father's knife. Those scenes established why Tarzan killed the leopard and where he got the knife. Maybe they were cut from the version you saw.

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Glenn Close was used to dub her voice. Apparently after filming, they found her voice too southern and some executives jerkoffs decided to dun it over. Horrible if you ask me....

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