I too was disapointed when I learned there was to be nothing new in the new "Deluxe DVD". However I was not surprised. I was lucky enough to see the film in a pre-release industry screening 23 Nov 2005.. the film we saw was exactly the same film released 09 Dec 2005 and on DVD 04 Apr 2006. The reason is obvious Mr Ang Lee. He created a masterpiece. Da Vinci did not release his sketches of the Mona Lisa. The only "deleted" scenes I know of were: the hippie rescue.. Jack drops off Randal in front of the killer mechanics.. Jack and Ennis in the truck cab...all were removed by Ang in final edit spring 2005.. in my humble opinion they would not add one jot to the film. Brookies do you really want to see Jack embracing Randal ! .. not me...lets leave the masterpiece as it was intended ..framed in our hearts
Sorry. I just read this right now.
I don't exactly agree. Most artists leave a trail of their work in progress. The Mona Lisa is a case in point, as other versions of this work are known to have existed, although controversy still surrounds identification of the versions. The same is true with musicians. Many, as in the case of Chopin, requested that all their unpublished/unfinished manuscripts be burned (although many were careful to preserve the drafts of the published ones). But in Chopin's case (as in many others), those who survived him did otherwise -- and musicology is richer because of them.
I guess what I am saying is that although Ang Lee may prefer not to make available the deleted scenes, he did not have all the deleted footage destroyed. They exist somewhere because he and the custodians of this film know very well the value of such material and that they owe posterity the preservation of the entire corpus. Take the case of Donnie Darko, where the director reinstated practically all of the deleted scenes into the Director's Cut of 2004.
Besides, I seriously doubt that Ang Lee would have much say in the matter, as Universal probably owns the rights to all of the material. In this light, it is reasonable to ask that they consider including the deleted material in the new edition. There is a good reason why so many other editions of other excellent works have included deleted scenes.