Dark City (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]

It was pure chance that I watched Alex Proyas's masterpiece back in 1998. Nothing better to watch, so although the trailer left much to be desired, in I went. Lucky me: the movie blew me away, in much the same way that Neo's "this isn't real?" would blow me away the following year. I won't spend more time discussing the merits of the movie itself, let's just say it ranks in my top 3 as a stunning work of art and philosophy.

The changes in the Director's Cut are actually quite significant, and watching it I repeatedly raised my eyebrows and even gasped at a few of the scene changes. I still haven't decided which version of the movie is better, but thankfully both are on the disc for your viewing pleasure.

The image quality is everything you would expect from Blu-Ray... Watching it on my friend's Pioneer Plasma was a fantastic experience. As you can imagine, black levels are extremely important in this movie, and Proyas's excellent cinematography can really shine in this format. The surround sound is equally amazing.

I haven't checked out the extras but this is a great movie in a great presentation. It's a must-buy.

This is the dumbest sci-fi movie I've seen aside from Battlefield Earth. I'm a diehard Star Trek and Star Wars fan and this movie does not have the character development needed to make a great movie. It also doesn't have a plot that makes sense. These aliens were dying so they kidnapped a bunch of humans to find out what makes them human? What kind of sense does that make? WHY were the aliens dying on their own world? What do humans have to offer to change their situation? Why take them off of Earth and make an "island" floating in space to house them for this experiment? Nothing in this movie made any sense. And if they have super powers to fling things at people, why did they always try to stab people with knives in this movie? STUPIDDDDDDDD!!!! If I could give this zero stars, I would.

An excellent film, good picture and superb audio. I owned the dvd version and it simply doesn't compare. Great features and a great film. After watching it again, you get a sense that the Matrix films borrowed heavily from the film.

The great vision of this movie is enhanced with the Blu-Ray format.This movie is made for High-Def and a big screen.

I believe Dark City to still be one of the greatest sci-fi movies around, and despite having seen it innumerable times, I still find new ideas and concepts emerging from the rich material. Like many people, I've owned the standard edition for years, but felt compelled to buy the Director's Cut when it was released.

Not only does the Director's Cut have added footage, but scenes are rearranged, extended, and subtly modified in terms of visuals, which have been retouched, and music. The opening narration has been removed, plot points are made clearer, and there is a little more depth to several characters. And yet, I can't completely recommend the DC. A lot of the scenes added feel unnecessary, and with the extended and added footage, the pace is more slack and the movie doesn't pack as much punch to me. For instance, the second song Jennifer Connelly sings was severely abridged in the original cut; here, the song is presented in full form, and while it's entertaining, it derails the movie for a couple of minutes.

The original DVD Dark City (New Line Platinum Series) was a flipper disc housed in a paperboard snapper case; the DC is in a standard Amaray plastic DVD case, is one-sided, and is housed in a paperboard sleeve with embossed lettering. In addition, it includes an insert that provides a code you can use to download a digital copy of the movie, although I'm not sure if the digital copy is the standard or DC edition.

This edition gets four stars because, while it's still a wonderful movie, I prefer the original cut, and with that cut going out of print, it should've been included with this cut on the DVD (maybe as a 2-disc edition). As a note, the Blu-Ray edition Dark City (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray] contains both cuts.