"It's a complete shame that they choose to release Erik the Viking here in the U.S. in this butchered down version of the movie (25% of it has ben removed in this "Director's Cut"). This wouldn't be so bad if they also included the Theatrical version as they are doing with the UK release. As it is there is no way I'm paying any money for this hacked up piece of a once great film."
Drastically edited version
QuickReview | 11/21/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
"It's worth noting that this is a *drastically edited* version of the original. The original was ~100 minutes, this one is ~75 - 25% of the movie has been removed and the remaining sections reordered/edited. So think carefully if you are going to purchase this expecting it to be the movie you remember."
DON'T BUY IF YOU LOVE THIS FILM!!!!!
Discordia666 | Oregon | 12/06/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
"This "Director's Son's" cut has been edited down significantly. Why? I have no idea."
This is a travesty
Richard L. Hardesty | NW Montana | 11/16/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
"This new release is NOT the movie my wife and I love. It is 25 minutes too short, and God knows what's been done to it. It was fine as it was. Those who purchase this abomination will be subjected to Bill Jones' "vision" of this movie. Forget it. We have the original on videotape, and will just have to be satisfied with that. Better that than encourage this sort of vandalism."
Director's son's hack job
D. Denver | 12/25/2007
(1 out of 5 stars)
"the 100 minute original US release deserves 5 stars, this one gets 0 (but amazon made me give at least one star). here's why: **SPOILER ALERT**
the rearranging of the first few scenes in the film kinda bothered me, but not that much. i guess i just wasn't used to it playing out that way. i gave it the benefit of the doubt at first, then....
the first thing that REALLY stood out as being a bad edit was the chunk of scene that was removed after the ship started sinking. he cut out when they hit the sea floor and noticed it was peculiarly shallow. in doing this, one of my favorite bits was removed "how deep IS the ocean?" "very deep....usually". that scene was essential. if you were in a panic about your ship sinking into the ocean, and all of a sudden it wasn't, you would comment on it, right?! it only got worse from there...
this was the worst part: he cut dialogue and left the scenes in! the second half of the edge of the world scene looked like helen keller edited it. the dialogue track was removed and you SEE the yelling back and forth of lines between tim and imogen, but only hear background noise. then the middle of one of her lines was crappily tacked on at the end. it was painfully obvious that it wasn't what she was actually saying. no effort was made to match it up. unacceptable. they really should have just re-released the original. i did appreciate the sharper picture and widescreen format on the dvd, but other than that, it should have been left as it was. in trying to make the story more concise, he hacked it to nonsensical peices."