Waterworld ‘Fan-Edit’ Gets Official Blu-ray Release, a Decade After Pirate Bay Premiere
A fan-edit cut of the 1995 movie Waterworld is now available as an official Blu-ray release. The original "Ulysses" cut was crowdsourced using extra scenes from various TV broadcasts and publicly shared on The Pirate Bay more than a decade ago. The Blu-ray has been released by Arrow Film, but whether the original 'editor' is aware of it is unknown.
While it’s not one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the recent decades, Waterworld has reached cult status among a subgroup of film fans.
The post-apocalyptic film, featuring Kevin Costner in a lead role, first premiered in 1995. Since then, it’s been shown on TV repeatedly and released on various other media including VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray.
The latest Blu-ray version, created by Arrow Films, was actually sent out just this week. Despite Waterworld being more than two decades old, many fans were eager to get their hands on the copy.
The release includes three Waterworld cuts which were newly restored from the original material. That by itself would be enough to get proper fans excited, but it’s the inclusion of the infamous “Ulysses Cut” that was most anticipated.
Waterworld is known for its many different versions, but this one never officially aired anywhere. It was created by a fan who, together with others, set out to make the longest uncensored edit of Waterworld possible.
The origin of this fan-edit, well documented by the Unheard Nerd, started in 2005.
At the time, a user of the Original Trilogy forum asked if anyone had access to the 40 minutes of Waterworld material that appeared in an ABC broadcast. This generated a long thread where users shared and compared different versions of the film.
In 2006, a user named “Mcfly89,” showed his interest in the project.
“This project sounds great! Is this from a VHS or better? Could anyone post some screenshots? I can’t wait to see this on myspleen or another torrent site,” he wrote.
Mcfly89 later took the lead and after crowdsourcing copies of different broadcasts, he set out to combine these into a long uncensored edit of Waterworld.
The project progressed slowly and by November 2007 the name “Ulysses was first mentioned.