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Hi everyone,
I'm happy to finally present my fan edit of Oliver Stone's critically maligned 2004 film Alexander.
Brief synopsis
This is my best attempt to rework an admittedly flawed film. I hearken back to the Theatrical Cutâs chronology, interweave much of the Final Cutâs additional material, and excise anything that A) Insults audience intelligence, and B) Prevents this film from being the sweeping, ever-moving-forward epic it so desperately wants to be.
Technical details
Resolution: 1920x820
Frame rate: 23.976
Video codec: H265 (HEVC)
Audio codec: HE-AAC
Container: MP4
File size: 4.4 GB
Total runtime: 210 minutes
Full write up
After the critical shellacking of the 2004 epic Alexander, I imagine director Oliver Stone wringing his hands, thinking, âThey didnât like it because they didnât understand it. Iâll spell out every detail to a âTâ. Then theyâll like it.â
And with that, all subtlety went out the windowâand all respect for the audienceâs intelligence with it. Four director-approved edits later, and itâs more of a mess than ever.
The truth is, I think the critics harpooned this film not because it was incomprehensible, but because writing bad reviews is fun. It was one of those films that the critics loved to hate. Once their peers started in with the scathing criticism, they all piled on. A game of witty and vitriolic one-upmanship ensued.
It was too easy to pass over its many merits and focus solely on the Irish accents, Colin Farrellâs hair, the soap opera level of melodrama, and the subtle but not-so-subtle homosexual undertones (remember this was 2004). Itâs not a perfect film by any stretch. But to quote Anthony Hopkinâs Ptolemy, âWhat failure? [Alexanderâs] failure towered over other manâs successes.â And so I believe it to be with this filmâI would take its failures over other filmâs successes any day.
But I'd like to minimize its failures as much as I can. Thatâs why I created this fan editâAlexander: The A to B Cut.
An epic covers great distances and a great span of time. A great span of time. There is no better way to properly convey a great span of time than by presenting your story in chronological order. After three-plus hours you see where you are and remember where you started, and think, Iâve really taken a journey here. When you break the chronology and layer time on top of itself, you fail to properly convey that span. It becomes a muddle. It becomes less epic.
With all due respect, Mr. Stone, you messed up when you made this film a tossed salad. I can only speculate why you did it. The pessimist in me surmises you hold your audience in contempt. Perhaps you think that without opening the film on your signature battle scene at Gaugamela youâve lost your low attention span viewers. Or, perhaps itâs less audience contempt and more a lack of confidence in the material that makes up Alexanderâs upbringing. I canât help you with either.
Beyond Gaugamela, perhaps you strayed from the chronology because you felt it lacked good flow. If you truly believe that, you should have scripted a better film. There are large jumps in time, most notably between Philipâs murder and Gaugamela. You should have shot more, and you didnât. Itâs too late now.
What I truly suspect is that the broken chronology serves to keep certain characters in the film throughout the durationâsuch as Olympias. Did you want to sustain a strong female presence in this largely male-dominated cast to broaden the filmâs appeal? I can understand that from a marketing perspective, but brass tacks: who are you trying to win over 12 years later? Alexander is a boyâs club, like so many epics that have gone before it. Just own that already. Do you know whatâs even more of a boyâs club? Lawrence of Arabia. Youâre in good company.
This is the worst part about the broken chronology: weâre never free from the past. Weâre never permitted to truly stride forward with Alexander off the edge of the map. Olympias is always there, even though Alexander never sees her again after Philipâs murder.
Maybeâjust maybeâthis is a purposeful creative decision on Stoneâs part. He wanted to show that Alexander was always shackled to his past, and particularly his mother. But going about it this way is like a sledgehammer over the head. Itâs heavy-handed to the extreme.
This idea comes across subtly but clearly in my edit, where the last 2.5 hours are blissfully Olympias-free. Itâs obvious exactly how much and in what ways his mother messed with his head, because we already had an hour of it. Itâs obvious heâs running away from her. The nagging voice of her letter writing is an insult to our intelligence. It brings nothing new to the table. It does nothing but drag us backward when an epic should never stop moving forward.
In keeping with the âever forwardâ concept, I cut little snippets of rehashed footage all over the place. If it occurred earlier in the film and Stone replayed it to remind us, or point out something he thinks we overlooked, I excised it without a second thought. Only near (and on) his deathbed, when Alexander had pretty much lost his mind, do I allow early movie footage to replay. It makes sense that his life is flashing before his eyes in this context.
Stoneâs notable exception to the Theatrical Cutâs chronology is the flashback to Philipâs murder. It was never intended to play where I relocated it, and itâs still problematic to say the least. The scene directly preceding it has Philip banishing Alexander. To see them riding together, on friendly terms, 30 seconds later is⦠not ideal. But what can be done? This was one of those jumps in time that I can only wish Stone had padded. As it is, I truncated that preceding scene short of the banishment. It serves, instead, as rather a bad fight that we the viewers just have to accept they made up off-screen.
Then there are the title cards: I cut out pretty much every title card from the film. I did add one title at the very beginning of the story to set the stage: âPella, Macedonia 351 B.C.â That seemed appropriate. Tell the audience where and when we are, and then leave them be. What more does the viewer need? Do we really need a title card that says âIndiaâ? I know weâre in India because Iâve been paying attention. If you've truly lost your place, the filmâs narrator Ptolemy won't let you stay lost for long. Does the audience really need a title card that says âMacedonian Centerâ? What is this, a lesson on military strategy? I thought I was watching a Hollywood film with an Irishman in a bad wig. Stop trying to teach me. This is not the medium for it.
Lastly, youâll find that thereâs now an Overture and Entreâact. This is an epic, and the epics of yesteryear had them. Call me a traditionalist; I suppose I am. The music that plays, I took from the soundtrack.
Oliver Stone wrote of the Final Cut, âFor me, this is the complete Alexander, the clearest interpretation I can offer.â With all due respect, Mr. Stone, the clearest interpretation of your story is the one presented here. What could be clearer than an unbroken chronology? What could be a more true and honest epic?
I look forward to sharing this with you!
I'm happy to finally present my fan edit of Oliver Stone's critically maligned 2004 film Alexander.
Brief synopsis
This is my best attempt to rework an admittedly flawed film. I hearken back to the Theatrical Cutâs chronology, interweave much of the Final Cutâs additional material, and excise anything that A) Insults audience intelligence, and B) Prevents this film from being the sweeping, ever-moving-forward epic it so desperately wants to be.
Technical details
Resolution: 1920x820
Frame rate: 23.976
Video codec: H265 (HEVC)
Audio codec: HE-AAC
Container: MP4
File size: 4.4 GB
Total runtime: 210 minutes
Full write up
After the critical shellacking of the 2004 epic Alexander, I imagine director Oliver Stone wringing his hands, thinking, âThey didnât like it because they didnât understand it. Iâll spell out every detail to a âTâ. Then theyâll like it.â
And with that, all subtlety went out the windowâand all respect for the audienceâs intelligence with it. Four director-approved edits later, and itâs more of a mess than ever.
The truth is, I think the critics harpooned this film not because it was incomprehensible, but because writing bad reviews is fun. It was one of those films that the critics loved to hate. Once their peers started in with the scathing criticism, they all piled on. A game of witty and vitriolic one-upmanship ensued.
It was too easy to pass over its many merits and focus solely on the Irish accents, Colin Farrellâs hair, the soap opera level of melodrama, and the subtle but not-so-subtle homosexual undertones (remember this was 2004). Itâs not a perfect film by any stretch. But to quote Anthony Hopkinâs Ptolemy, âWhat failure? [Alexanderâs] failure towered over other manâs successes.â And so I believe it to be with this filmâI would take its failures over other filmâs successes any day.
But I'd like to minimize its failures as much as I can. Thatâs why I created this fan editâAlexander: The A to B Cut.
An epic covers great distances and a great span of time. A great span of time. There is no better way to properly convey a great span of time than by presenting your story in chronological order. After three-plus hours you see where you are and remember where you started, and think, Iâve really taken a journey here. When you break the chronology and layer time on top of itself, you fail to properly convey that span. It becomes a muddle. It becomes less epic.
With all due respect, Mr. Stone, you messed up when you made this film a tossed salad. I can only speculate why you did it. The pessimist in me surmises you hold your audience in contempt. Perhaps you think that without opening the film on your signature battle scene at Gaugamela youâve lost your low attention span viewers. Or, perhaps itâs less audience contempt and more a lack of confidence in the material that makes up Alexanderâs upbringing. I canât help you with either.
Beyond Gaugamela, perhaps you strayed from the chronology because you felt it lacked good flow. If you truly believe that, you should have scripted a better film. There are large jumps in time, most notably between Philipâs murder and Gaugamela. You should have shot more, and you didnât. Itâs too late now.
What I truly suspect is that the broken chronology serves to keep certain characters in the film throughout the durationâsuch as Olympias. Did you want to sustain a strong female presence in this largely male-dominated cast to broaden the filmâs appeal? I can understand that from a marketing perspective, but brass tacks: who are you trying to win over 12 years later? Alexander is a boyâs club, like so many epics that have gone before it. Just own that already. Do you know whatâs even more of a boyâs club? Lawrence of Arabia. Youâre in good company.
This is the worst part about the broken chronology: weâre never free from the past. Weâre never permitted to truly stride forward with Alexander off the edge of the map. Olympias is always there, even though Alexander never sees her again after Philipâs murder.
Maybeâjust maybeâthis is a purposeful creative decision on Stoneâs part. He wanted to show that Alexander was always shackled to his past, and particularly his mother. But going about it this way is like a sledgehammer over the head. Itâs heavy-handed to the extreme.
This idea comes across subtly but clearly in my edit, where the last 2.5 hours are blissfully Olympias-free. Itâs obvious exactly how much and in what ways his mother messed with his head, because we already had an hour of it. Itâs obvious heâs running away from her. The nagging voice of her letter writing is an insult to our intelligence. It brings nothing new to the table. It does nothing but drag us backward when an epic should never stop moving forward.
In keeping with the âever forwardâ concept, I cut little snippets of rehashed footage all over the place. If it occurred earlier in the film and Stone replayed it to remind us, or point out something he thinks we overlooked, I excised it without a second thought. Only near (and on) his deathbed, when Alexander had pretty much lost his mind, do I allow early movie footage to replay. It makes sense that his life is flashing before his eyes in this context.
Stoneâs notable exception to the Theatrical Cutâs chronology is the flashback to Philipâs murder. It was never intended to play where I relocated it, and itâs still problematic to say the least. The scene directly preceding it has Philip banishing Alexander. To see them riding together, on friendly terms, 30 seconds later is⦠not ideal. But what can be done? This was one of those jumps in time that I can only wish Stone had padded. As it is, I truncated that preceding scene short of the banishment. It serves, instead, as rather a bad fight that we the viewers just have to accept they made up off-screen.
Then there are the title cards: I cut out pretty much every title card from the film. I did add one title at the very beginning of the story to set the stage: âPella, Macedonia 351 B.C.â That seemed appropriate. Tell the audience where and when we are, and then leave them be. What more does the viewer need? Do we really need a title card that says âIndiaâ? I know weâre in India because Iâve been paying attention. If you've truly lost your place, the filmâs narrator Ptolemy won't let you stay lost for long. Does the audience really need a title card that says âMacedonian Centerâ? What is this, a lesson on military strategy? I thought I was watching a Hollywood film with an Irishman in a bad wig. Stop trying to teach me. This is not the medium for it.
Lastly, youâll find that thereâs now an Overture and Entreâact. This is an epic, and the epics of yesteryear had them. Call me a traditionalist; I suppose I am. The music that plays, I took from the soundtrack.
Oliver Stone wrote of the Final Cut, âFor me, this is the complete Alexander, the clearest interpretation I can offer.â With all due respect, Mr. Stone, the clearest interpretation of your story is the one presented here. What could be clearer than an unbroken chronology? What could be a more true and honest epic?
I look forward to sharing this with you!