THE LONE RANGER ESSENTIAL CUT

Introduction:

The Lone Ranger is a 2013 American Western action film directed by Gore Verbinski. The film stars Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as John Reid, the Lone Ranger.
The film received generally negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, so I didn’t expect much when seeing it for the first time. But after having seen it, I was very surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I had expected. Sure, it had some flaws, especially the “Old Tonto” and “nature out of balance” scenes, but the core of the film is fun to watch. The finale is gorgeous and I think, contrary to the opinion of the critics, Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp gave a very good performance.
The film’s biggest problem were huge amounts of unnecessary content which made the film boring, especially in the middle part. I removed about 30 minutes and I think it’s a lot more fun to watch it now.

As German is my mother tongue I have made a German audio track in addition to the English version. It’s not included in the MKV but can be downloaded as a separate AC3 file.

Prior Changes:

• I removed the whole “Old Tonto” sub-plot. These scenes repeatedly interrupted the film’s flow and weren’t funny at all.
• I removed the “nature out of balance” scenes. Without these fantasy-scenes the film becomes more realistic and feels more like a traditional western film. I kept the scenes with the spirit horse.
• I removed some of Red’s scenes. She doesn’t have an ivory-leg and she doesn’t have a built in shotgun.
• I removed some scenes where the comanches buried Tonto and John.

Detailed changes:

Beginning:

• removed the first “Old Tonto” scene, the film starts on a railway construction site.
• removed the Bank-robbery scene as well. This scene is used later in the film.

Derailed train:

• removed the scene in which Tonto is arrested after the train got off the rails. In the original version it’s never explained how he fled from jail, so I removed his arrest. Tonto just walks away from the train.

John meets Rebecca:

• removed every scene in which you can see Tonto in jail. I had to cut and rearrange some of the dialogue between John and Rebecca.

Canyons:

• removed the next “Old Tonto” scene. After the Rangers got killed, Tonto appears and digs graves.
• removed the scene in which John wakes up on a huge wooden construction. I think this scene made no sense and wasn’t funny.

Campfire:

• removed the rabbits killing each other. The entire “nature out of balance” scenes seemed out of place for me.
• removed/trimmed some of the dialogue

Red’s scenes:

• removed a scene in which Red shoots with her shotgun-leg. I thought the scenes with the leg-gun were stupid.
• removed much of the dialogue between Red, John and Tonto.
• trimmed the scene in which John touches the silver clump.

Desert:

• removed some of the conversation between John and Tonto.
• removed the next “Old Tonto” interruption.

Comanche camp:

• after telling John Tonto’s story, the comanches do not dig our heroes. It didn’t make sense that the comanches turned against John and Tonto, especially because they were friends with John’s brother. My version gives the impression that they made an agreement and let them free.
• removed the whole scene in which John and Tonto are buried. Unfortunately, I also had to remove the cavalry attack. But in the end, I’m glad I removed this whole part. It just unnecessarily elongated the film.

Silver mine:

• removed the scenes that took place in the mine. These were kind of weird.

Lathan Cole’s Train:

• removed/trimmed some of the dialogue between Letham, Rebecca and Danny.
• removed/trimmed some of the dialogue between John, Latham & Captain Fuller.

John’s attempted execution:

• removed/trimmed some of the scenes. They were much too long in the original, especially Tonto’s scene in the mine.

Bank robbery:

• removed the next “Old Tonto” scene.
• after the comanche attack I inserted the bank robbery scene which I removed from the beginning of the film to give it a more linear narrative.

Railroad Corporation Celebration:
I did many changes here. It would be too time-consuming to list all of them, so I only name the most important ones:

• changed the background music in some scenes.
• trimmed Lathans attempt to take over the railroad company.
• trimmed Red’s scenes (she doesn’t have a shotgun-leg in my edit, so she can’t shoot with it either).

Lathams fate:

• removed “Old Tonto” interrupting the great finale.

Ending:

• removed the rabbit killing a scorpion.
• removed the part of the end credits in which Old Tonto walks through the desert. Therefore unfortunately, I couldn’t show all of the end credits.

There are for sure many more little changes, but these were the significant ones!

Final Version & Format:

The final runtime for the movie is 118 minutes (115 min without end credits).

1080p High Quality MKV (21,4gb)
Video: H.264 at 23-28mbps VBR
Audio: - English 5.1 DTS, 5.1 Dolby Digital, Stereo
Extra: Chapter markers

German 5.1 Dolby Digital (AC3) audio track separately available as a download.

Feel free to tell me about any mistakes, I will take a look and try to improve.

Blu-Ray-Cover:

Because links to my films were shared again, I decided to take the films offline. Sorry guys

MMP (ManiacMovieProductions)