Well I just found this interesting little Guardian story:
Cruise and Kidman wrecked Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick claimed Staff and agencies Thursday October 5, 2006 Guardian Unlimited
Stanley Kubrick regarded Eyes Wide Shut as a "piece of shit" that had been ruined by the interference of its A-list stars, a friend of the director claimed this week. The character actor R Lee Ermey starred in Kubrick's 1987 film Full Metal Jacket and remained in close contact with the director until his death in March 1999. He described the film-maker as a "shy, timid" man who was effectively bullied by his stars, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
"Stanley called me about two weeks before he died," Ermey told Radar Online. "We had a long conversation about Eyes Wide Shut. He told me it was a piece of shit and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch. He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him - exactly the words he used."
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I do like the film overall, but I can totally believe this. There are some real 'clunker' scenes, especially the "pot-fueled argument" scene, which unfortunately is crucial to the whole movie. The two main stars are definitely the worst thing about EWS.
UPDATE: The original source is here. Interesting comments about Seven as well.
Well Tomland, I see your points, but I think I am still in a position to help. In addition to my R3 DVD, I also have the Canadian VHS release. So when I find the time I can at least confirm whether these two versions have different "chanting" during the scene in question.
To the best of my recollection, the chanting is the same, but I can't say for sure.
Unlike the "cloaked figures," I'm not really bothered by this alteration. It seems that Kubrick would definitely have approved of this change (didn't he in fact authorize it? ... I forget). In any case, I'm still curious about resolving this "mystery" about the different video versions.
I'll be a little busy for the rest of this week, but I have this thread bookmarked, and when I get a chance I'll do a little side-by-side comparison and let you know what I have found.
But I'd like to see MP3s (LAME rip, preferably) of these commentary tracks. Are there still plans afoot to make something like that available? I haven't read through every page of this thread, but I know there was some discussion of this earlier. Cheers.
Tomland -- I'd be happy to settle this question for you. If you could tell me exactly when the chant is supposed to happen, and give me some idea of what exactly I'm looking for, that would help. A couple of minutes of googling didn't turn up this info. I know I once read some details of this whole controversy on some Kubrick site, but I can't find that particular one just now.
My R3 disc is ripped (exact copy, with all copy protection and region coding removed), and sitting on my hard drive, so it would be very easy for me to check this out.
Just 'bumping' this ancient thread to mention that I have the Hong Kong release, Region 3, unedited DVD-9 version of 'Eyes Wide Shut.' Product code: "Standard NA18085"
I understood from reading some web site (can't find it just now) that my version has the excised Hindu chanting or whatever. But I haven't checked that yet. I can check for that, or help in some other way.
Also: the movie was shot in 4:3 by Kubrick, and that was his expressed preference for home video viewing. He allowed it to be presented in 1.85:1 in theatres, yes (with some of the bottom/top of the full frame matted out). There will be no "widescreen" video release of this film. Likewise for a few other Kubrick movies, as mentioned above. I would expect that Kubrick's expressed preference on this question will be honoured by Warner video.
Something to keep in mind: be careful you don't get a dual-layer DVD burner that can only burn DVD+R format discs. For compatibility with most home console players, you should burn DVDs in DVD-R format. I know of a model that is DVD+R only -- pay attention to the specs before you buy one of these suckers.
Jashun44 -- the consensus seems to be, that the best laser disc version is the 'Definitive Collection' box set, but just be wary of some early pressings which are missing the Leia-welding bit. You can find the set on eBay easily enough. It was released in 1994 and again in 1995, I believe.
Someone on this thread made the assertion that the later LD release with the 'Faces' cover design had a more 'cleaned up' image, but I think someone else on this thread refuted that (?).
- about 3/4 of the way down the page; you need to be a registered Filesoup user to access this page
The two torrents use two different trackers; for me, the torrentbox torrent is currently much faster than the filesoup torrent. I'm currently uploading via both trackers....
I agree with Laserman that folks who have downloaded the 'anamorphic' bootleg set should reseed. I am still seeding Empire, Jedi and the 4th disc. Just restart the .torrent and 'replace' the directory you already downloaded -- after an integrity check it will start uploading your files to others.