The Dark Prince

Recently I bought myself a copy of Chronicles of Riddick, the extended two disk edition, and happened upon a horrible possibility that until this disastrous purchase had never even crossed my mind.

See, usually when you get a special edition it’s because there are deleted scenes that get polished up and added, and it fills in the gaps. Perhaps the most famous special editions/directors cuts are Blade Runner (because of the weak ending originally imposed), and Aliens, (because of the huge amount of additional plot material which the original desperately needed). However, what happens if the director isn’t as competant? What happens if it worked in the cinema mostly because all the junk that the director wanted was cut out for time reasons?

Well, in that case you get a massacred version of the film with an entire pointless additional plot which serves to weaken the main one, a clumsy ‘romance’ scene which is both uncomfortable to watch and spoils the old time 70s style of the original movie, and you get a number of weak scenes which are so lamely try-hard that they make the rest of the film seem weak as well. I’ve never had it happen before with any other special edition, but the Chronicles of Riddick was a tightly paced really nice piece, it’s key attraction being the older style of sci-fi, rather like dune. The special edition manages to nicely remove a lot of the good dialogue, destroy the feel and in general make the whole film seem incredibly B-grade. There is a reason why the original costs a whopping $2 more than this pathetic unspecial edition. But it’s still better than those hideous star wars prequels…