Worst edited movies?

[Richard Ragon]

Solaris .. The movie with George Clooney. I know they purposely edited it that way, but after about 5 minutes into the film, I wanted to start screaming!! I was begging to cut it!! Crap.. talk about just pain.

-Richard

[Chris Bové]

[Richard] “Solaris .. The movie with George Clooney”

Eeew… yeah, I’d rather count how many times per hour the Windows hourglass spins itself than watch that one again!

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[Debe]

Now there’s a case where a mediocre editor, or a good editor trapped by bad direction or producing, can destroy a beautifully shot piece!

I don’t remember if it even had a decent script. If it did, it was made moot by the editing decisions.

I good editor can do good things with good material. A great editor can do good things with mediocre material. A bad editor (or one not allowed to edit, just made to push buttons…) can make a decent script and well-shot film utter trash!

debe

[Bob Cole]

[debe] “A bad editor (or one not allowed to edit, just made to push buttons…) can make a decent script and well-shot film utter trash!”

Debe, of course you’re right, and there are bound to be some films where the bad editing is obvious. But in most cases, how can you tell whether it was bad editing, or bad material?

conversely…

Haven’t you ever had a project that you saved by using every last shred of decent material? And afterwards, if you did your job right, probably nobody noticed that you had done a brilliant edit.

[Debe]

I certainly don’t disagree with you, Bob!

I’ve had a few projects where they were amazed it ended up as good as it did. Still, I didn’t get nearly the credit I deserved. When you polish a turd, the one who made the turd still thinks it’s the original quality of the turd, not the polish, that made it good!

Well, there was one. I edited a short film starring one of the cast members of MadTV quite a few years back. Everyone had high hopes for the project, but when filming was done, the DP just didn’t have the feeling in his gut that it was going to turn out as well as everyone had thought. I ended up missing the premiere for some reason, and later the producer told me the DP was so sorry I couldn’t be there, because he wanted to congratulate me on some damn fine work. The DP told the producer that I made some edits that he didn’t even know he’d shot for! The director, of course, had a hand in many of those decisions. However, had I not found the edit, she wouldn’t have and anything to decide on!

So, yes, it all depends on the situation, and each edit is a unique animal, Bob!

debe

[Gishdog]

Anything that involves Michael Bay in any capcity… Most of the stuff that he directs or produces seems to have such a “condensed” feeling… I can’t imagine the same person that cut collateral so well destroyed something as promising as the island unless the director completely screwed him out of material to work with.

[Tae]

I just saw King Kong, I don’t think they even hired an editor(3:07)

Just because you thought it was too long doesn’t mean it was poorly edited. I thought it was wonderfully edited and paced. It certainly did not feel slow, and that’s there the editing comes in. The run time is all Peter Jackson.

[Jamie Worsfold]

This may be a controversial choice but I voluntarily endured the Last Samurai a few weeks ago.

And Russian Ark: A good example of why films usually ARE edited!

[Lu Nelson]

for that matter, the whole lord of the rings trilogy was awfully edited; but especially the first one. And they won an oscar for editing….

[Rocco Rocco]

RE: Sideways: Time slows down considerably when you spend a weekend in Santa Barbara. It’s meant to be a relaxing, comfortable stroll. Time to get away and spend quality time with good friends and good vino. That’s what you got. Swingers in ain’t. Another purposefully slow film: Withnail & I.