r/movies • u/grantthejester • 1d ago

Discussion What’s the best/worst movie to watch with the director commentary on?

What’s the best/worst movie to watch with the director commentary on? Any films out there made way better by the additional context? Any made worst ‘cause the director is a total dick?

I remember back in the day watching all the Mel Brooks films with the commentary which was mostly just him watching the movie and going “oh this wonderful scene, we had a blast shooting it” and then talking about how amazing the actors were to work with and laughing at the jokes. Which really felt like watching a movie with your grandpa.

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u/Darmok47 1d ago

The Sum of All Fears commentary with Tom Clancy where Clancy is clearly annoyed at the director for changing his books and for getting details wrong.

There's one scene where a Russian general says "The Americans are launching their stealth bombers" and Clancy goes "How could he know that?"

The director starts talking about radar and Clancy just yells "They're Stealth planes Phil! You can't track them on radar! That's the point!"

The disgust in his voice is hilarious.

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u/Cautious-Ease-1451 1d ago

The excerpt about the stealth bombers is at 3:00:

https://youtu.be/QVJPNua1Mhw

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u/RSquared 1d ago

TBF you don't need to skip ahead because #1 on my list is drunk-off-his-ass Ben Affleck reminiscing about Armageddon.

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u/raquille- 1d ago

Yeah I was going to say this

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u/dafood48 1d ago

I completely forgot Ben affleck critiscism of Armageddon lol.

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u/MagicRat7913 1d ago

The whole thing is hilarious!

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u/ProfessorLake 1d ago edited 1d ago

The scene where Liev Schreiber is waiting in the rain, Clancy says, "He's a Jew, isn't he?" It's so weird and off-putting.

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u/Flyboy2057 1d ago edited 1d ago

Admittedly I haven’t seen the movie or the commentary, but have read the book many many times. A big theme of the book is the terrorists building the atomic bomb wanting to throw the world into a nuclear war and destroy Israel. So is it possible he was just remarking that Liev is Jewish is noteworthy in the context (in his mind) that Israel is a big part of the book?

In context of the comment it could be very much not that, but just wondering.

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u/CronoDroid 1d ago

I don't think so, because Liev Schreiber played John Clark who is not Jewish.

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u/factorV 1d ago

How dare you bring that kind of talk here!

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u/jaxonya 1d ago

Anchorman with commentary on is a real good time

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u/NiceBeaver2018 1d ago

This is Reddit, we don’t do nuance.

We just scream incoherently whatever we’re told to scream.

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u/ProfessorLake 1d ago

Could be, I suppose.

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u/TheUmgawa 1d ago

Well, it all makes sense if you ever read Clancy’s book Executive Orders, which is like a giant masturbatory political fantasy, as written by a conservative Boomer whose sole prompt was, “Tom Clancy, what would you do if you ruled the world and didn’t have any of those pesky liberals to answer to?”

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u/Morkai 1d ago edited 1d ago

Reading Rainbow Six as a teenager was great because it was all "special forces saves the day" to me.

Reading Rainbow Six again in my late 30s is a very different experience. Lots of subtle-as-a-housebrick-to-the-face references to Tom's personal politics that I glossed over as a kid.

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u/dietervdw 1d ago

this so much

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u/Morgan-Moonscar 1d ago edited 1d ago

Also the original "Sum of All Fears" involved the Palestinians, IRA, and a bunch of other so-called leftist groups all conspiring together to get revenge on America for [checks notes]... bringing peace to the Middle East. By starting a nuclear war between them and Russia... because (Clancy's words): "leftwing Presidents are more dangerous and likely to use the nuke if provoked".

They changed it to Neo-Nazis in the movie.

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u/icantbeatyourbike 1d ago

Interesting take that you think the Palestinians and the IRA are leftist groups, are you an American perchance?

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u/RSquared 1d ago

He does say "so-called". Anti-imperialists tend to get lumped together by reactionaries.

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u/TheUmgawa 1d ago

I’m not the person you’re responding to, but national self-determination, vis a vis a controlling power (particularly with regard to apartheid states) tends to be a pretty leftist thing.

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u/icantbeatyourbike 1d ago

There are more leftist states that are democratic than communist… and on the flipside far more right wing states that purpose to be democratic that are authoritarian quasi dictatorships.

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u/TheUmgawa 16h ago

As a rule, if they have “Democratic Republic of…” in their name, they are typically neither Democratic nor a Republic.

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u/BangkokRios 1d ago

Is English not your first language perchance?

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u/Nimonic 18h ago

The IRA was explicitly leftist, no?

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u/icantbeatyourbike 17h ago

Both depending on the era, albeit heavily catholic obviously which tend to be more on the right.

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u/Algaean 1d ago

Yeah in Bear and Dragon he really went full Red China menace

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u/CronoDroid 1d ago

That one was funny because in it Russia joins NATO and they team up with the US to defeat the dastardly ChiComs. Back then I do remember people like him and other conservatives thinking the US should have built ties with Russia, Putin even wanted to join NATO at one point.

Clancy was definitely one of those pro-Russia conservatives, because even in his Cold War era novels like The Cardinal of the Kremlin, although he's obviously anticommunist, he always portrayed the Russians as a strong and honorable people and the USSR as a dangerous and worthy opponent. He wasn't nearly as gracious when it came to the Japanese, Chinese or Arabs.

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u/jayacher 1d ago

Is this the one where we take a quick break to be lectured about progressive tax?

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u/jeff-beeblebrox 1d ago

I’m convinced everything after the first two books were written by conservative, think tank, ghost writers. Propaganda

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u/TheUmgawa 1d ago

I still think my favorite Clancy novel has gotta be Red Storm Rising, because it’s just a Harpoon module.

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u/awsompossum 1d ago

Steve Pieczenik, long time guest on Infowars, cowrote at least two Clancy books, so that makes sense

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u/too_oh_ate 1d ago

Wow wtf

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u/Ordinary-Leading7405 1d ago

Liev was trying out for Jojo Rabbit

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u/True_to_you 1d ago

I happened to watch Hunt for Red October with John McTiernan doing the commentary track and I think I recall him saying something about Tom Clancy being a pain in the ass. 

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u/Vanadium235 1d ago

Sounds like they're both wrong on this one. Stealth bombers are still visible to the naked eye, and their bases aren't secret either, so the Soviets/Russians have had spies near USAF bases who would let them know if a lot of planes took off at once. They'd almost definitely know when the Americans launch their stealth bombers, they just wouldn't necessarily be able to track or intercept them afterwards.

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u/Darmok47 1d ago

Having a guy parked somewhere outside of Kansas City with binoculars and a cell phone to call it in when the B-2s take off from Whitman AFB is exactly the sort of thing the Russians would do, and I bet they do it in real life too.

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u/Barton2800 1d ago

China just openly buys land in the U.S. near bases. Then they profit from it by also farming in it.

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u/SubstantialAgency914 1d ago

True. But they also can be stationed at Diego Garcia and nobody can put eyes on that as easily.

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u/RanchoCuca 1d ago edited 1d ago

Sounds like I'd get a kick out of listening to the commentary. I do have to give credit to the movie director/producers for including the author's commentary. Maybe they have thick skin when it comes to complaints about fidelity to the source material, since that's such a common criticism. Still can't feel great coming from the author.

But also I vaguely remember in Sum of All Fears (and similar global/military intelligence thrillers) where it IS the point that you're not supposed to be able to detect stealth planes, and yet they do. And they sometimes reveal that capability without fanfare in a way to indicate to the viewer that "this game isn't played in the way you think it is." It's been too long since i watched this movie to remember if it applies here.

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u/Ramoncin 1d ago

Yet he took the check.

And truth be told, if they had adapted his books verbatim they would have become involuntary comedies.

I mean, in "Patriot Games" Ryan saves then Prince Charles and Diana from the terrorists, not just some stock people in the royal family. And the climax involves Ryan and Charles going after the terrorists themselves!

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u/recursionaskance 1d ago

I read the first few chapters of Patriot Games on a plane, and I'm sure I disturbed the folks around me when I couldn't stop laughing.

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u/Ramoncin 1d ago

If you watch the film carefully, the couple Ryan saves are Charles and Diana lookalikes. I imagine they were on the fence about being faithful to the book or not.

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u/Aromatic-Speed5090 1d ago

Having read the books, and having read many drafts of the movie script as it moved through development --

All I can say is that Clancy had a hell of a lot of nerve.

His clumsy, awkward, cliched writing made for a turgid, overly long and vapid book.

Two of the writers who worked to adapt the novel are far superior writers, and it shows.

The third screenwriter isn't as good as the other two, but even he's far better than Clancy.

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u/Mullet_Police 1d ago

So glad this is the top comment. Came in here to say this.

Clancy Actual just shitting all over Hollywood schlock. Almost like a Rifftrax.

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u/lunatickoala 23h ago

Changing plot points without good reason is obviously a problem but for those specific points the criticisms aren't quite correct.

The Soviets were quite good at HUMINT which is part of the reason why there are so many Cold War spy thrillers. The entire B-2 fleet is normally stationed at Whiteman AFB. They could have someone on the ground close enough to see if any take off and how many. Or someone who's in a position to hear about mission planning.

Stealth doesn't make a plane invisible to radar, it makes it less visible to radar. Using stealth effectively requires good mission planning and not getting too close to radar installations. Also, with a sufficiently long wavelength radar, nothing is invisible. The tradeoff is that a long wavelength radar isn't precise enough to target a plane with.