Sara Lee I say unto thee...this film has some LOUSY EDITING when one considers that a couple of key scenes are MISSING even on the more recent DVD release!
A good movie RUINED BY LOUSY EDITING. Thanks a lot for releasing a DVD after all this time only to include the hacked up version as opposed to to a more sensible edited version that explains the killing motives.
THE TRUTH LIES IN COPIOUS QUANITIES OF SARA LEE
These scenes you talk about where only on the TV version. The version showing on cable right now is the theatrical cut.
Polls... One of the Main Stream Media's Jedi Mind Tricks.
No. Have you seen the Stepford Wives remake?
!
I second that lousy editing remark. I mean one second that old dude will have the faucet turned on and in the NEXT frame, it's running over with water!! A good editor would've caught that goof. It actually happened tons of times in this movie. Geesh!!
shareThat wasn't lousy editing, the character had just been zapped with the Looker gun, which caused him to lose time, thus explaining why the sink was overrunning in the next scene.
Meat's meat, and man's gotta eat!!
Weak justification. Poorly edited, simple as that.
shareI saw this movie on tv way back, probably '82 or '83, and I UNDERSTOOD what was going on, and I was still in high school!
They were killing the models so YES, they didn't have to pay them. It was GREED! This is going on today.
Baltimora's Tarzan Boy was pulled over copyrighting because he used property belonging to the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, but once he died, the song was played over and over again on the radio.
Same for Thurl Ravenscroft's song from the Grinch cartoon. It started getting more play at Christmas (truthfully, I never heard it on the radio before Ravenscroft died) only AFTER he passed away.
I've often thought back to this movie and how yes, it predicted much of this. Now they are scanning and placing old dead actors in movies and commercials left and right, aren't they?
As for the 'night to day' shots, did no one else catch that? I understood completely it was those guns that were hypnotizing them.
Escape tv is airing this movie several times over the month, at least three more times.
I don't know if the reason for the models' deaths will be cut out, but I'm planning on finding out.
Heartily agree. Just caught an airing on Starz and was flabbergasted that the whole reason the models were murdered was just left out. Strangest thing I've ever seen. One minute the protagonist is telling his female sidekick that he figured it all out. The next minute there's a cut to her sleeping and him getting embroiled in another chase scene.
I remember seeing the original tv airing and thinking there was more to it, but I had to look online just to find out what the whole murder thing was about.
Totally lame move on the part of whoever edited it. The Bermuda Triangle of the movie world...motive and plot just disappeared.
Coming soon to my telly. I'll be back.
When I first saw this I was like 13, so I'm watching it right now on Encore Mystery, and I cannot remember it well enough from the first time, to recall if anything is left out or not. The one airing on the Encore channel, AND the DVD, are edited badly and missing scenes?
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I can't understand your crazy moon language.
Xeokym: Yes, it's horribly edited. They removed that part that reveals why they were killing the girls. The whole point of the movie. It was in the original airing (I remember watching that part when I was a kid) but completely missing on the final cut...even on the dvd...so you know it wasn't a time issue.
Personally, for a fubar this bad, it had to be that part of the film was lost or damaged in some way. I bet they released it, in spite of the missing portion of film, just to make a buck and not caring if audience members and fans realized the error.
Otherwise, they'd literally be the most inept studio of all time.
I've been thinking about the fact of the 'motive' for killing the models' being left out of the Theatrical Print of 'LOOKER'. Maybe the "The Powers That Be" who edited the film originally thought it might be better to leave the viewer with a sense of mystery, thus making the audience try and figure out The Motive for themselves -OR- maybe in some way the editors thought the 'explanation' scene was redundant >>> meaning that when they screened the completed film the moviemakers felt it would be obvious to the viewing audience the reason for the killings so they cut the revelation out thinking the audience would have already figured it out and didn't need to see the scene.
OBVIOUSLY they were wrong! Ergo, they added it back to the Tv print.
Why they didn't add the scene on to the DVD release is a mystery. It could simply be they didn't have the footage readily available and didn't want to bother trying to find it. After all, it's a 1981 movie and it's not going to sell like a 2009 blockbuster where the DVD company throws in all kinds of Deleted Scenes, Outtakes, God Knows what else . . .
It's also possible that WARNER didn't even ~remember~ there was that extra footage. We as viewers who like the movie would know because we've watched it on television but perhaps we assume too much by expecting that WARNER execs have also seen it on the Boob Tube and remember the added scene! Could be that whoever had/has the power to authorize the release of 'LOOKER' might not even like the movie but thought it would sell enough copies to make it worthwhile -OR- it could have been released as a tax write-off!
Ya just never know . . .
No one has ever said there weren't creative accounting methods in Hollywood!
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>>> And, who knows, maybe the reason the footage wasn't re-added for the DVD release is something all together different!
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Only in a rerun.
"Worthington, we're being attacked by giant bats!"
We're waiting. Did you finish watching it yet?
shareIt seems pretty obvious to me why that scene was hacked out of the theatrical print. "Looker" is a slow-paced movie. I mean, if they were to pick up the pace, there's probably less than an hour's worth of material. The scene where the motives for killing the girls was revealed came at the beginning of a near-ten-minute-long sequence in which not much else happened. Finney and Dey are captured, the plot is revealed, they escape. From an editor's perspective, the reveal isn't interesting enough to justify keeping an overlong sequence. From a filmgoer's perspective, it's infuriating.
As for its lack of inclusion on the DVD, DVD makers just aren't wise to the fact that older films frequently had alternate TV versions which fans got to know. Every now and then there's a "Halloween: Extended Edition" or a "Mallrats" or "Goonies" disc with TV scenes buried in the special features -- but for every one of those releases there's 50 films with alternate TV scenes that'll probably never officially see the light of day again.
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I agree this was pretty badly edited. Maybe with Michael Crighton's death there will be a collection lovingly put together by a reputable dvd company. Even Anchor Bay would do a good job.
Having said that, though, I think Major Dundee is one of the major hack-jobs in movie history, along with Peckinpah's last movie, The Osterman Weekend. He must have pissed off the editor's union.
If we all liked the same movie, there'd only be one movie!
There is nothing wrong with LOOKER - ALbery Finney is a man's man and he gets Susan Dey - don't dis the Fin Man!
shareDon't expect "Looker" to get any special edition DVD. It bombed at the box office with LOTS of critics complaining that there was no explanation of why the models were killed. Why it was cut out I don't know--maybe somebody at the time had a vendetta against Crichton. I heard the footage was added to the TV print just so it would play for 2 hours (with commercials). Who knows? Maybe someday it will be reisdsued with the footage put back in.
shareFirst, we don't know the condition or the status of those added scenes, maybe the negatives containing those extra scenes, or the negative for the TV edit was deteriorated or in poor condition for a DVD release. Maybe they were missing from the WB vaults?
Maybe it's just my DVD, but the print used for the DVD appears to have a flaw in of itself. A small speck appears in the upper-left side of the frame at the beginning of the photo studio scene where Finney asks Dey for a date.
Given that Crighton was involved with the DVD commentary and introduction, he may have had final say as to what was the "final cut" on DVD.
Either way, it's still a great film. The death of the models was a way of indirectly saying to us that our services as humans are "no longer needed", and computers were taking over, with the corporate world not wanting us to know about it.
Hey - the condition of the negatives doesn't matter any more. Just CGI the scenes we need.
Then they can release "The Ironic Edition"
Mainstream? All these comments about the movie, and no one has noticed that the original poster said this movie was mainstream? How so? I only saw on cable--I'm pretty sure it was the G channel. It was hardly mainstream.
shareI've never seen the deleted scene everyone is talking about, and know nothing about what it says. but didn't at any time feel there was a lack of explanation in the film, i thought the reason is blatantly obvious why the models were killed? that was the whole point of the technology, wasn't it!? to replace the need for the model. Record model, dispose of model, person not required anymore and payment not required, and never need pay them ever again as they have them as a virtual actress for whatever they want to use them for, what's hard to comprehend about that!?
if i'm wrong at the reason then ok, but that was my interpretation, and felt it was obvious? need to be a zombie not to be able to see that
so i disagree with everyone, and say any extra scene not required whatsoever
plus, this film is much more than just about tying up all the loose ends perfectly for all the zombies, it's about the era, the atmosphere, the music, it's a brilliant film, i love it, doesn't lack anything, and imdb score is too low, shows how lacking in basic appreciation for original concept and style people are, people wouldn't know a good film if it slapped them in the face
I'm cleaning out my old VHS collection and came across this title... which I haven't watched in over 20 years. I remember been a teenager and liked it and had watched it at least 3 times.
I remember the reason for killing (in general) is that once they copied the perfect model to be the VR-actor for film production, they wanted them dead... in a sense, so they have the rights to that model.
Fast forward today, theres not much need to kill actors/models with our 3D rendering technology. As movies like Avatar still requires ACTING to get the most out of a CG characters. And with contracts that prevent studios/etc from using a person's likeness without their permission or the estate.
So, by OWNING the model, they can make it do whatever they want. G or rated X movies, TV ADs, stunts, etc... without involving a real person. No royalties, no complaints and the model never ages. But REAL PEOPLE is what people want in the
reality. CG characters cannot win an award for acting (Final Fantasy). A movie made like Avatar can allow an actor to win an award since the CD-Model is using the actor's faces and voices for the scenes. And they can actually walk the red carpet)
So in a sense Looker was a head of its time, it was a pretty good B-grade movie IMHO. Compare it to other movies, like Star Wars or Jaws which hold up a lot better after all these years.
I'll watch it soon. But all my tapes are pretty much gone! :)
Good call. The people looking for everything tied up neatly in the end are the general dumbed-down audience. People with half a brain can figure it out without it spelled out for them.
And yes, the film has a lot of atmosphere, style, and 80s sounds and music. Good stuff.
The editing was terrible. And not becuase of the deleted scene. That edit from the apartment into to the car chase was the most egregious example
I am the Alpha and the Omoxus. The Omoxus and the Omega