My Re-Analyzing of The Patriot/Analysis of the Extended Version · 4:20am Jul 5th, 2023
Happy Independence Day, my friends.
Sound the trumpets! Play the drums! Light the fireworks! And wave the American flag! Because it's once again the time of year to celebrate American becoming its own country.
Today, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I'm gonna give you guys my first re-analyzing in over a year:
A re-analyzing/review on the extended version of "The Patriot".
As with my re-analyzings/reviews on the extended versions of "King Kong (2005)" and "Rango", I'm gonna skip giving a summary of this film since it was already explained in my review of the theatrical version.
If you'd like to know what the movie's about and see what I thought of the theatrical version, click on the link below:
Around last year, I discovered that there was an extended version of "The Patriot". One that was 11 minutes longer and contained scenes that weren't present in the theatrical cut. I became interested in checking the E.V. out, mainly because I remembered that the T.C. had some plot deficiencies and choppy editing; and I wanted to see if the newly-added scenes would be worth seeing, so I rented the E.V. on YouTube.
To review it this year, I watched the E.V. for the 2nd time thanks to purchasing it on AppleTV. I figured that this would be a perfect way of celebrating Independence Day this year, even if it is a little late to celebrate the holiday.
And you know what?
Even after seeing it again recently, I believe that the extended version of "The Patriot" is significantly better than the theatrical cut. Despite the new scenes not being longer than 1 or 5 minutes, they contributed greatly to the film as a whole.
Scenes that notably helped give the narrative a more natural flow include the following:
- In the T.C., Colonel Tavington meets up with a badly-wounded British soldier who was the only survivor from the attack by Benjamin Martin, Nathan, and Samuel to rescue Gabriel. Most people may find this befuddling because it seemed like every soldier escorting Gabriel to be hanged was killed, and it's hard to tell which soldier he was.
In the E.V., the soldier who fell in a small creek after being shot is shown watching Benjamin before he seemingly disappears into thin air. This openly confirms that he's the wounded survivor, and it really brings into perspective what was going on from his perspective.
- In the T.C., there is an offscreen voiceover of Captain Bardon reporting to Tavington that Cherokee scouts found the wounded soldier.
In the E.V., Tavington is first shown watching fireflies until he catches one with lightning fast precision. And as he closely inspects the insect, Captain Bardon comes up behind him before giving the report, with two Cherokee Indians standing a few feet away from Bardon. This addition openly provides a steadier ease into the scene where Tavington meets with the wounded soldier.
Other scenes that weren't included in the theatrical cut were ones that I believe provided excellent buildup to certain parts in the story, especially to where things wouldn't seem too random or sudden. They even gave the characters more opportunities to naturally develop.
Examples include these:
- In the E.V., there are more scenes featuring Benjamin and Charlotte together in the first act. Each of them gave a greater glimpse into their overall chemistry and relationship, and buildup towards the two characters becoming a couple later on.
- Between the moments depicting the British victoriously taking a field & Benjamin and Gabriel later walking amongst wounded Continental soldiers, there's a scene where Tavington visits General Cornwallis in a tent as he's celebrating the victory with the other generals. The interactions the two shared in that scene gave a great first look into the tension between them, and brilliant buildup towards their first confrontation at the fort. The scene itself also gave greater notice of the animosity between Tavington and General O'Hara, as well as an early introduction to Cornwallis's Great Danes: Jupiter and Mars.
As for the rest of the films's aspects, my opinion on them remains the same. John Williams's music score for this movie is still what I consider to be one of his greatest, and the melodies that were incorporated in the new scenes were marvelous. Likewise, the acting, characters, and character developments were as fantastic as ever.
Just like in the theatrical cut, Mel Gibson was marvelous in the role of Benjamin Martin, and so were Jason Isaacs as Colonel Tavington and Heath Ledger as Gabriel. Plus, all three of the aforementioned characters are still what I'd like to call the most developed out of everyone.
For the extended version, I'd like to say that a couple new standouts to me are Joely Richardson as Charlotte and Tom Wilkinson as Cornwallis. All of the additional scenes featuring the two characters gave Richardson and Wilkinson great opportunity to further showcase their talents as performers, and both Charlotte and Cornwallis were able to develop even more as characters.
In conclusion, the extended version of "The Patriot" provided an incredibly productive 11 minutes. The new scenes it had made the film as a whole even better than how it was presented in the theatrical cut, and there really wasn't any reason to cut them from the latter version to begin with.
With that being said, the extended version not only gets to share the theatrical cut's 5 out of 5 star rating, but...the theatrical cut is now nonexistent in my book.
On a side note regarding "The Patriot", seeing the extended version has helped me remember one very important thing:
In my opinion, "The Patriot" is the very best motion picture Roland Emmerich directed. His #1 best film, if I may add.
I’ve never seen this movie, so I’ll take your word for it