wait, you had the 3 hour version of Excalibur? and this thread just dies off?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Excalibur
coex — 12 years ago(January 10, 2014 12:13 PM)
wait, you had the 3 hour version of Excalibur? and this thread just dies off?
can you tell us more? where you got it? why is it coincidentally gone "a few days ago"? and are there commercial breaks? -
dragon33 — 2 years ago(April 20, 2023 08:09 PM)
Hello Everyone,
I know that this thread is dated, but I also have been looking for the full version of Excalibur. The way it was described to me was in line with shinobiung's description.
When Excalibur was released in NYC I remember the movie poster in the newspaper saying UNRATED. There was no "R". Someone who went to see the movie when it came out had this to say about Dame Helen Mirren: That chick can f_ck!
When Ted Turner took over Channel 5 (here in NYC), his station broadcast Excalibur. The scene that took place between Arthur and Morgan had about 1 second of Morgana's "bounce", enough to raise an eyebrow, given the conservative nature of television at that time. I did not think much of what I saw at the time; only, that it was part of the cache of films that Ted Turner saved from destruction. Maybe, the unrated version still exists within the Ted Turner movie archives (or whatever he calls it nowadays). That one second does not exist in the "R" version of this film.
When Excalibur received an "R" rating, it may not have been enough to stop ALL the movie houses from showing the unrated version. In NYC, such was the case with Sonny Chiba's Streetfighter and with Caligula, movies that received an "X" rating.
Notice that I am using the word "unrated". There is a chance that it may take the use of that word to unearth the pearl we are looking for. If I remember correctly, that term was used by video rental stores, and Excalibur was one of those films that was available for rental in regular and unrated versions. -
v3rlon — 1 week ago(March 24, 2026 06:03 AM)
I found this looking for the 3 hour cut. I saw this movie in Houston, Texas in theaters during its initial early release. I went with my friend and his family as I was 13 at the time.
We were in the theater for over 3 hours.
We were talking about it in school the next Monday being "3 and a half hours long," but that would have included trailers and other stuff. A 2.5 hour movie wouldn't cut it.
I have been looking on and off for that very long version since VHS days. The whole part about such a cut not existing would be a very hard sell given how many of us remember seeing it independently. -
Observer_2020 — 11 years ago(December 31, 2014 06:53 PM)
I recorded a broadcast of the movie on the DVR from the Encore Action channel earlier this year. The recording is 150 min. long, but the summary says the movie is 140 min. I'm guessing that the extra 10 minutes is just the filler and promos that Encore runs in between movies to start the next movie at the beginning of an hour or on an even number. (Ex., 9:20 pm instead of 9:13 pm.)
The year is listed as 1981. The summary reads as follows:
"Re-edited version of John Boorman's film about the King Arthur (Nigel Terry) legend. (Action/Adventure, 140 Mins.)"
So Encore is still advertising a "re-edited version" of the film, but it appears to be the standard theatrical release, 140 minutes in length.
The only online webpage that mentions different versions is the IMDb page, and that mentions only the theatrical version (140 min.) and the PG version for TV/movie channels (119 min.).
http://www.imdb.com/board/10082348/alternateversions -
cjleith — 10 years ago(February 09, 2016 11:32 AM)
According to John Boorman
Q. Now I understand the original cut of Excalibur was turned it at three hours, is there any chance of this version ever being released?
A. No, Im not planning to. The original cut of Excalibur was really only bordering the 3 hour mark in the region of 2 hours and 50 minutes. There were two or three scenes that I left out simply because I had to get the film below 2 and a half hours.
Q. Diehard fans would love to know the nature of those scenes
A. Well during the sequence before Arthur comes to power there were some additional scenes of knights marauding around the countryside, burning villages and killing people. I wanted to express the confusion and turmoil of a land without a king but they werent really essential. Often necessity is the mother of invention and with Excalibur I found the more I paired it down the stronger it became because everything in the film then meant something, there was no flab. Whats important for me when I watch films is that after a few minutes one begins to realise everything in that film is intended by the director it then assumes great power. This is the quality which the films of Kubrick possess; everything within every frame is important and intended, theres nothing extraneous and this is what I tried to achieve with Excalibur.
Q. We can rule out a Definitive Edition on Blu-Ray then?
A. Yes, because I think whats left out is just as important as whats left in. You make your decisions and you have to stand by them.
http://filmireland.net/2011/03/16/in-john-boorman/ -
duke-verity — 10 years ago(February 10, 2016 07:43 AM)
Yes, he talks about these deleted scenes in the DVD commentary. There was also originally a lot more of the sequence where Perceval crosses the frozen wastelands during the grail quest. Boorman and his editor eventually cut this long extended sequence down to a series of brief shots of the lonely Perceval on his journey.
There was also (as has been mentioned on this message board) a deleted scene involving Lancelot on horseback in combat against attackers in a forest. Brief shots from this sequence can be glimpsed in the theatrical trailer. The trailer was assembled from Boorman's original rough-cut, and went out theatrically with brief shots from scenes which had (by the time the feature was playing theatrically) been removed from the release-print version.
It might have been nice to at least have a deleted scenes gallery as an optional extra on a new Bluray special edition, but Boorman seems to have dug his heels in on this. Idiosyncratic to the last. His own standards vary considerably. There have been oft-mooted plans to release his extended director's cut of
Hell in the Pacific
(1968).
Also contradicting his statement (about how his release-print versions always reflect his final intentions) is the longer extended version of his deeply flawed production
Exorcist II: The Heretic
; which was restored to full length for DVD and Bluray release. Boorman himself personally ordered cuts totalling almost fifteen minutes from this movie after its disastrous initial opening weekend in 1977.
So which version represents his '
final statement
' of directorial intent? Shorter general release print, or longer DVD/Bluray version? Boorman has rather contradicted himself throughout his career - a statement in one interview completely contradicted by another later on. He has always seemed to be teasing and misleading his interviewers, perhaps purposely. Critics can never quite get a handle on him A distinctly mercurial (and mischevious) talent.