Review Detail

The places where the scenes were inserted were expertly selected; if I didn’t have the change list, I would have missed a few of the new scenes, thinking they had been there on the original. All the cuts were also flawless.

I did get a notion about why all of these extra scenes were cut in the first time, though. There’s an argument to be made about the total runtime having become too long. In the end, though, the film turns into even more of an epic narrative.

Pretty much all the extra scenes give additional info / more development of the characters. The one notorious exception was the action scene between Jack and Lovejoy in the sinking dining room. This scene messes with the flow of the “sinking ship” Arc. All the other scenes since the ship starts sinking move the story forward in way or another; the Jack and Lovejoy fighting scene feels like going backwards in the narrative. “Let’s stop this story about the sinking ship to give more scenes about Jack and Rose fleeing from Lovejoy”, when we’ve seen a few of those already on the second Act. The scene is similar to what we’ve seen throughout the film, just with extra water.

I would be in favor of removing this scene all together, just like the alternate ending that was not included. I fully agree with that choice, that weird ending actually destroys some of the characters’ growth, while removing agency from old Rose.