The Last of the Mohicans [Blu-ray]

I consider Michael Mann's 1992 version of "The Last of the Mohicans" to be a great movie, and one of the best date movies of all time. You think I am kidding? Find a better combination of action and romance that this film. Nathaniel (Daniel Day-Lewis) runs through the forest with an intensity that is frightening and when he finally gets tired of just looking at Miss Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe), he does not need words, just the sound of a fiddle being filled in by a string section. That is why I can also say try to find a movie with better music for both the action and the romance (I figured out how to play the main theme on a cheap mini-organ). But I will not belabor the point because I have to think I am preaching to the choir when it comes to speaking of the quality of this film (Just avoid the book, because I could not get halfway through Cooper's novel).

But this Special Edition DVD is a disgrace and the fact that here we are more than a half a decade latter since this DVD came out and we still do not have something worthy of this film. This DVD loses one star right off the bat because here is what it describes as being "BONUS FEATURES": widescreen format, scene selection, and subtitles. Excuse me for living, but I would consider those standard. I have a DVD of "Zulu" that has all of those things (albeit only four chapters) and still has biographies to read. The standard for special editions has been set by James Cameron, first with "The Abyss" (on Laser Disc originally) and then on "T2." Just look at what ever DVD you think gives you everything you want and more about a favorite movie and compare it to this barren effort.

This DVD loses a second star because what has been added to the film as part of the "Director's Expanded Edition" actually takes away from the film. To tell you the truth, I did not think that was possible. But the scenes that are added to the film do not add anything significant. They come across as padding rather than adding depth, so just make them deleted scenes. But even worse, there are a couple of well remembered scenes for which the music and editing have been changed to the point that the scenes are just not the same. Even my kids picked up on this (we still have the laser disc). There are few films I have enjoyed more than "Last of the Mohicans," but it is currently the most disappointing DVD in my collection because I know what it should be.

The one strength of this disc is that the screen ratio is back to the original, which is NOT TRUE about the Laser Disc or the Widescreen Video Tape. For proof look at just one scene, the one where the British leave the fort and get attacked on both sides by the Magua's warriors. When I saw the film in the theater it was this scene that made me immediately think: "They HAVE to do this widescreen. Anything else destroys the film." I remember that Cora and her sister rode their horse over to a tree on the right, got off, and hid behind it. On the VHS and the Laser Disc I could not see that. I thought I was crazy and had imagined that part of the action, but when the movie aired on TV the scan and pan caught the scene. So the good news is that on this DVD you can see everything.

If you loved this movie, by all means, rent the DVD and check it out. But be prepared to be disappointed. I watched the movie again and there are still scenes I love, but then one of those "expanded" moments comes along and it makes me want to cry. I have been waiting this entire century for them to go back and juice up this DVD as Cameron finally did with "Titanic." I want a DVD edition worthy of this film and my patience will run out by the end of this decade.

This is my fourth post on this movie now, and I think I have finally figured it out.

In 1992, I watched this movie in a local theater in Southern California. I was enthralled and loved the movie, and watched it a second time. And that was the last time I ever saw this version of this movie.

In 2000, I got the Director's Cut version of the DVD. I was appalled by how different the Director's Cut was from the version that I remembered from 1992 (I hadn't seen the movie in the interval eight years). I posted my comments at the time on Amazon.com as to what I remembered to be the differences between the two versions on March 23, 2000. That post is still on this website, if you can manage to slog through the hundreds of posts ahead of it.

If you read that post, you will notice that I am describing a really different movie - at that time I really thought that the movie that I saw in 1992 was what everybody else saw in the theaters.

Recently, I discovered, to my chagrin, that the version that I saw in the theater in 1992, was most likely a "preview" version, not the Main Theatrical version that was released later, which probably most everybody else saw in 1992. I don't have the foggiest idea how I ended up watching a "preview" version of this movie, but that's what must have happened, based on a lot of researching around.

And so, I only recently discovered that this Main Theatrical version was the one that was put into all of the VHS tape versions of this movie. The VHS tapes have not changed versions. DVDs in Region 4 (Australia) and Region 2 encoding have been released recently that also contain this Main Theatrical version.

Having finally figured out that there were really three versions of this movie, I can say now that the differences between the Director's Cut version and the Main Theatrical version are actually relatively minor, compared to the differences between the "preview" version that I saw. In the Director's Cut, Hawkeye has some of his snappy one-liners cut out, Cora has a line at the waterfall cut, the Clannad song is cut, Duncan has an extra scene fighting with his men at the fort, and Chingachgook has some more words to say at end. That's pretty much it.

In my Amazon.com review of March 23, 2000, I went into a good amount of detail as to what the major differences were between the "preview" theatrical version that I saw and the Director's Cut. I won't repeat all of these details. There were so many scenes changed or removed that the preview version was practically a different movie.

The preview version was a significantly longer movie - it had more scenes of Hawkeye and Cora together at the fort, with a greater buildup to their romance; it had a true Uncas- Alice love story, and makes clear in their final scene at the cliff that they died for each other, and died together (in the preview version, there was a clear-cut shot of their bodies together at the bottom of the cliff, which was changed to a wide-angled shot of the bottom of the cliff where their bodies are just tiny indistinguishable specks).

The preview version also had more of an anachronistic, hip, Miami Vice sort of stylishness. Miami Vice, had been, after all, Michael Mann's previous gig. My guess is that it was mainly to get away from this previous style and to give it more of a gritty, historical feel that the movie was heavily re-edited for the Main Theatrical release; it seems to have been re-edited again in even more of this same make-it more-historical vein in 1999 for the Director's Cut.

To the best of my knowledge, this "preview" version of "The Last of the Mohicans" has never seen the light of day again since 1992.

Which is truly a pity, because the newer fans of this movie ought to know that there were indeed THREE versions of this movie. The preview version was a much more romantic, visually powerful film. Fox should release it again - so many "Special Edition" DVDs are being released now with deleted scenes, "making of" stories and so forth. If Fox were to release this preview version, packaged together with the Main Theatrical version, as well as deleted scenes (there was apparently more of the Uncas-Alice love story at the waterfall), they would have a real winner for the Region 1 market. Currently, in Region 1 (US/Canada) the DVD of this movie is available only in the Director's Cut version. What a shame.

I'd be the first in line to buy this preview version of this movie.

I have the VHS version and just love the movie. I wanted it on DVD. Daniel Day-Lewis is very handsome in this movie.