By: Marco Ovies, Staff Writer
After numerous reboots in the last twenty years, Spider-Man seems to finally have found its footing in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The latest iteration is an incredibly enjoyable film that features Tom Holland portraying the famous web-slinger perfectly. He swings across the screen effortlessly and it’s difficult to picture anyone who would be a better fit for the role. Naturally, when Sony Pictures released an extended cut for the film in August, I booked it to my local theatre. I was expecting mind-blowing additions that would turn this already fun movie into an even better one.
To my disappointment, I was treated to a lousy four minutes of bonus footage, all of which occurred within the first ten minutes of the film. It happened so early on that by the time the movie had ended, I had forgotten about the new footage and felt totally ripped off. I had paid full price to see pretty much the exact same movie twice.
The new scenes in question feature Peter Parker running errands, none of which are vital to the film’s plot. First he hits up the passport office, followed by a pawn shop. Then we see an extended scene of Spidie fighting off some bad guys. It was a promising start to the movie and had me excited to see what other additions would be added to the film. But that ended up being the extent of the new footage, and the rest of the movie proceeded without a single change. What was the point of releasing a film that was nearly identical to the original version? More importantly, why did I fall for this money-grabbing scheme like a sucker?
This follows closely on the heels of the Avengers: Endgame extended cut, which also left fans very disappointed by only adding six minutes of extra footage. Most of this footage was a sneak peek at Spider-Man: Far From Home, plus a half-rendered intro scene featuring The Hulk. This was yet another money grab from the studio that pushed Endgame to be the highest grossing movie of all time.
Theatres are being flooded with these unnecessary sequels, remakes, and extended cuts of movies, and this trend raises some important questions. Will directors purposefully leave out scenes from their movies for the purpose of releasing an extended cut? Further, what does this trend say about the original movie? Are we watching a half-finished movie? What’s the point in lining up on opening weekend if we know there will be an extended cut released in theatres later?
Spider-Man: Far From Home is one of the first examples of a disappointing extended cut of a film, and we should unfortunately only expect to see more of these in the future. In this case, an extended cut was not worth it and the content shown should have just been included in the original movie, or, alternatively, added to the BluRay as a bonus feature. My verdict is: don’t waste your money on the extended cut of Spider-Man. Instead, save it for a movie that’s actually worth your time — like the new Joker origin film starring Joaquin Phoenix, out October 4.
