Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis
In 1984, Academy Award winning composer Giorgio Moroder introduced Fritz Lang’s science fiction epic Metropolis to a new generation of filmgoers. Working in collaboration with film archivists globally, Moroder supervised a special reconstruction, with color tinting, fewer intertitles and newly restored footage. A pioneer in the field of digital music, Moroder backed this special edition with a throbbing new score, punctuated with pop songs from some of the biggest stars of the early MTV era: Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar, Adam Ant, Bonnie Tyler, Loverboy and others.
DanTheMan2150AD@DanTheMan2150AD
Having seen the 2010 restoration multiple times, it's probably blasphemy to say that Giorgio Moroder's restoration is my preferred way to watch the Fritz Lang classic. There's just something about how well 1920s German Expressionism marries with 1980s synth-pop, it's undoubtedly an artefact from another time and most likely nothing more than a curiosity to people nowadays but as an attempt to bring Lang's classic back to the masses, Moroder succeeded. It was the first serious attempt at trying to restore Metropolis to Lang's original vision after the 1972 attempt that had been plagued with multiple issues, so in that regard, I have to give Moroder some credit.
This edit barely clocks in at 84 minutes long which is nearly an hour shorter than the modern restorations, however, you can still follow the story very easily despite chunks of the film being missing. It manages to hit all the major plot points of the original while forgoing intertitles of character dialogue for subtitles, the addition of new visual effects will probably sour purists but they fit the stylings of the film very well. It's really the music where most will draw the line, personally, I love Moroder's score and all the contemporary pop songs, it just strikes all the right notes for me, his opening piece titled Machines especially.
With Moroder's colour tints, snappier pace and occasionally incredulous music, this version of Metropolis is often a great deal more fun and certainly something more along the lines of a cult classic than a masterpiece of world cinema.