Butchered in the editing room


The art direction, costumes, decorations, effects, etc. The entire technical side of things is beautiful, as is usual for Scott.

But despite being two and a half hours, the story has no real depth to it. The characters are all underdeveloped, every single stop on their journey is just breezed through to the degree you barely understand the motivations and psychology of the characters.

For example Sigourney Weaver has like three minutes of screentime - there is no way her role was not completely edited out, otherwise it would make no sense to get such a known actress.

This has happened many times with Scott - he really should have either released a 180 minute version, or adjusted the script so it can be more coherent in 150 minutes.

At the end of the day, these half-baked cuts do not satisfy anyone - casual fans will find the movie too long, impersonal and uninteresting, while movie buffs will find the movie too empty, too brief and disjointed.


Laura:You left a dead prostitute buried alone in the desert?
Kyle:She's not alone.

reply

Scott said his cut was four hours, but his contract forbade it's release in theaters and it's unlikely it will ever be finished. I'm sure the cost of finishing those 90 minutes are part of the reason. Too bad this wasn't like Kingdom of Heaven, where Scott was allowed a 197 minute director's cut immediately on the heels of the theatrical release. The director's cut even played on a couple of screens to quality for Oscars that year. That is how you do a director's cut: right away and with a qualifying run in theaters. Classy. The blu-ray of Exodus only has a fraction of the deleted scenes, so we're even denied a fan edit. Clearly a lot is missing from this movie. Sometimes it feels like entire acts were deleted.

reply

It's a damn shame they couldn't release the 4 hour cut. But hey, fox did the same thing to kingdom of heaven. Too bad Exodus won't get the kingdom of heaven treatment though

reply