Eight More Films Spielberg Should Recut

Steven Spielberg can’t leave well enough alone. He loves fiddling around with his finished movies, even years after they’ve gone out and made their billions. Spielberg is single-handedly screwing up the concept of “director’s cut.”

The successful rejiggering/reediting/re-release of “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” has only encouraged him. If he’s done “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” can a toothier “Jaws,” a more scientifically correct “Jurassic Park” or an even longer “Schindler’s List” be far behind?

Sure, you could lose Liam Neeson’s Oscar-bait “I could have done more” scene from “Schindler,” maybe make the maudlin finale of “Saving Private Ryan” less so.

But Steve, Steve, Steve, why not go back and fix the broken films in your back catalog? Remember those? You haven’t always worn the mantle “America’s Greatest Living Filmmaker.” Take a trip down Humble Lane and recall all those movies critics and peers pummeled you over.

Here are some suggestions, in order of urgency:

“Amistad” (1997)--Edit in a better actor than Matthew McConaughey, one who can hold his own with Anthony Hopkins and Morgan Freeman, one who can manage a New England accent and one who doesn’t look ridiculous in granny glasses.

“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984)--Edit in some heart, cut some violence and delete the shrieking blond. I don’t care if Kate Capshaw did become your wife. If you put her in “Indiana Jones 4,” as is rumored, there’s more deleting in your future, pal.

“Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989)--Sean Connery is supposed to replace the ancient knight guarding the Holy Grail at the end. It’s much more emotional that way. Fix that.

“Empire of the Sun” (1987)--A tiny bit of cutting, maybe toning down the saccharine and tightening up the narrative would help this film, a child’s view of World War II seen from a Japanese prison camp in China. A lovely, underrated movie and very faithful to J.G. Ballard’s autobiographical novel.

“A.I. Artificial Intelligence” (2001)--Stanley Kubrick would never have made a movie this emotional, which is to your credit. But this techno-humanist “Pinocchio” about the robot that wants to be a boy is obscenely long, with an epilogue that seems to never end. Shorten the Thunderdome scene of robot destruction, hack the ending, add more Jude Law.

“The Color Purple” (1985)--This movie seemed wrong-headed at the time, but the 1983 Alice Walker novel was still considered sacrosanct when the film came out. Shorten it, reemphasize the shots you “borrowed” from John Ford’s westerns, maybe try to mimic Walker’s style of narration. See how it plays now that Walker’s novel has settled on a lower rung on the literary pantheon.

“Always” (1989)--Who convinced you that remaking the 1940s weeper “A Guy Named Joe” was a good idea? Swap out that awful actor who plays Holly Hunter’s love interest, Brad Johnson, the one the ghost of Richard Dreyfuss keeps trying to save as he fights forest fires. Heck, cut everything in this bomb except for the Audrey Hepburn-as-an-angel scene.

“1941” (1979)--This comic account of California panic after Pearl Harbor always struck me as salvageable. You shot miles of footage, included lots of hilarious stuff, but lost your way in the cutting room. Revisit it; remember that wonderful, jaunty John Williams score. Forget the ordeal it was to make it, forget all the (alleged) cocaine excesses of some of the cast. Rescue John Belushi’s “Wild Bill” Kelso from himself. And for God’s sake, shorten it. The current “director’s cut” is two hours and 26 minutes long.

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Roger Moore is a staff writer at the Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune company.