Comparison between the Director's Cut and the Roadshow Version of the Director's Cut, both included on the internationally identical 4K UHD Blu-ray (including 2025 Remastered Blu-ray) from Disney / Buena Vista / 20th Century Studio / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

- 2 differences
- Difference: 261.3 sec (= 4:21 min)

The minimal differences in the Roadshow version

We have already written in detail about Ridley Scott's technically virtuoso monumental film Kingdom of Heaven in our report on the Director's Cut, noting that this version is virtually a different film in its own right. It is also clearly preferred by fans, and after the longer version was fortunately released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2006, the 4K UHD premiere in 2025 (in the US on May 27, on June 9 for our copy from the UK, and in Germany from July 4) even completely dispensed with the theatrical version. The 4K disc appears to be identical worldwide; containing the German audio track as well.

The present report on the cuts is, of course, rather unspectacular in terms of the actual differences, especially in comparison to the report on the theatrical version mentioned at the beginning. But the reason for this was that the 4K disc still advertises two versions: The Director's Cut and a Roadshow version of the Director's Cut. To this end, both the 4K disc and the new 2025 remastered Blu-ray in the set use largely the same footage, and thanks to playlists (similar to Seamless Branching), the film only differs at the beginning and in the middle. The report thus illustrates primarily that the only differences are in the Overture, the Intermission, and the Entr'acte. With well-known songs from the soundtrack, the overly long film is embellished a little, as was often done in large film productions up until the 1960s.

It is important to mention that both versions already existed on previous home media releases: The DVDs only contained the longer Roadshow version, while the Blu-ray contained the shortened version or the “pure” Director's Cut. The Italians got the Roadshow version on their local Blu-ray from Medusa, while in Germany, the UK, and other countries where the Blu-ray was released by 20th Century Fox, the version without the roadshow elements was in circulation. So it's a classic case of some fans mourning the loss of the other version, which is why it's nice that both versions are now available together on the new 4K medium. Only fans of the theatrical cut, if there are any, will be disappointed.

A brief digression on the quality of the 4K version

There has been critical discussion that, for example, the image comparison on Caps-a-holic once again illustrates how the same master was basically used here. It is a 2KDI upscale as the film was finished this way in 2005. Those who reject the 4K UHD medium may rejoice and see the barely visible differences here in such screenshots with SDR conversion, as confirmation. However, this once again has little to do with the actual impression you get with HDR on reasonably decent playback devices. Here, it is better to trust the glowing reviews (see, for example, High-Def Digest, Digital Bits or Blu-ray.com). An upgrade that is definitely worthwhile in terms of picture quality; the film looks really good.

Fortunately, some people aren't so sensitive in this regard, but what is certainly more critical for some German viewers is that the processing initially confirmed by LEONINE upon inquiry suggested that the German DTS soundtrack would be clearly inferior to the English Atmos soundtrack. On the one hand, the sound is generally less dynamic than on the previous Blu-ray (see comparison by Kumbbl on Movieside). This is the case with most recent Disney releases, including the Marvel films and Avatar. The English Atmos audio is also slightly less powerful than before on Blu-ray, but in many scenes it is mixed much more impressively than its German counterpart. But review sites that focus on this will certainly write more about this.

On the other hand, as worried about by many German fans, no pitch adjustment was made. Of course, this is only a side note for our international readers, but since ONLY the German audio track is also included on the releases abroad, it is certainly worth mentioning here. At the time of the DVD release, the Director's Cut was dubbed at 25 fps and with PAL pitch, resulting in a questionable mishmash of unaltered music and effects tracks and adapted dialogue from the theatrical version. On Blu-ray, the pitch wasn't really adjusted and the M&E was now correct again, but the dialogue was consistently too low. Email inquiries to LEONINE after the rather short-notice announcement of the release in April 2025 probably came far too late to achieve anything abroad. This track, which had already been ruined twice on DVD and the previous Blu-ray, has now been recycled virtually unchanged for the new release, and reduced in dynamics. It's not the end of the world, and for many viewers it's probably still a more or less “good” sounding result. But knowing the background, it's a bit of a tragedy that more care wasn't taken here.

Running times are listed according to the following scheme
Director's Cut in 23.976 fps / DC Roadshow version in 23.976 fps