AThere is officially only one Director's Cut. Running 117 minutes, it contains approximately 4 minutes of material not in the theatrical version. For an overview of the additional scenes, with images, see here, and for specific details on the additional material see here.However another (unofficial) version of the film does exist which has been sold under the titles 'Director's Cut', 'Uncut' and 'Uncensored'. This version restores all of the deleted scenes found on the DVD and uses the alternative ending (see below), and is approximately 26 minutes longer than the theatrical version. This version of the film is a bootleg. The official Director's Cut contains only 4 minutes of extra material. However, the existence of this bootleg version has led to some confusion amongst fans as to exactly how many Director's Cuts there are.There are only two official versions of the film only: the theatrical version and the Director's Cut, which runs 4 minutes longer than the theatrical version.
AWhen Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis) are in the desert at the start of the film, they are looking up at the stars, and Mickey muses, "The whole world's coming to an end Mal." Mallory responds to this by dreamingly saying, "I see angels Mickey. They're coming down for us from heaven. And I see you riding a big red horse. And you're driving the horses, whipping them, and they're spitting and frothing at the mouth. They're coming right at us. And I see the future. There's no death, cause you and I, we're angels."Perhaps the most obvious interpretation of this cryptic vision is a biblical one. In the Book of Revelation, the second of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rides a red horse; Revelation 6:4, " And another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another; and there was given to him a great sword."The rider of the red horse is usually taken to represent war, hence he takes peace from the earth, leading people to kill one another. The horse itself is often interpreted as being red to signify the blood spilled during battle. Interestingly, of the Four Horsemen, the rider of the red horse is the only one who represents a specifically manmade agency. The other three riders all represent disasters that are above or beyond the immediate power of man; the first (on a white horse) represents strife, the third (on a black horse) is famine, the fourth (on a pale horse) is death. Only the red rider represents something which Man can visit unto himself, and as such, he is the only one of the four who actually represents humanity itself. In this sense then, the obvious symbolism is that Mickey is the red rider who will remove peace from the earth, slay his fellow man, and cause blood to be spilled. The rider of the red horse is described as having a great sword with which to kill all those he encounters. Mickey is armed for almost the entirety of the film, and seems capable of killing just about anybody at any given stage of the movie.In the bible however, the red rider's primary function is not to kill people himself, but to remove peace from the earth, prompting Man to kill his fellow Man. In this sense, a biblical reading of Mallory's vision also makes sense. One could argue that Mickey is responsible for Jack Scagnetti's (Tom Sizemore) murder of the prostitute Pinky (Lorraine Farris), insofar as Scagnetti uses this murder to jack himself up so as to go after Mickey (as Oliver Stone makes clear on his commentary track). One could push this even further and argue that Mickey is responsible for the prison riot, which is, in very real terms, a war in which blood is spilt and in which people kill other people. In this sense then, the rider of the red horse has done his job, he has removed peace and caused the shedding of blood by means of human conflict. As such, Mallory's vision has come true.See "The Four Horsemen (Part 3): The Red Horse", an article by Richard T. Ritenbaugh at Church of the Great God, for more information on the symbolic meaning of the red horse in the bible.
AYes it is. The original UK edition released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (UK) in 2008 contains the same special features as the original R2 UK DVD, and includes the theatrical cut of the film only.In the US, the film is available in both a theatrical version, released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in 2008, and an Unrated Director's Cut Version, released by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in 2009. Both contain the same special features as their DVD counterparts (ie "NBK Evolution" is available only on the Director's Cut version). The booklet from the 2009 2-Disc R1 US Director's Cut DVD is included with both Blu-ray editions of the film.Also available in both a US edition and a UK edition is a 2 disk 20th Anniversary Edition which includes all the special features from all previous DVD and Blu-ray copies of the film, both the theatrical cut and the Director's Cut, as well as a new featurette called "Natural Born Killers: Method in the Madness", which features interviews with Oliver Stone, Dale Dye and editor Hank Corwin.
