In the unknown futuristic year where a dystopian society is separated by two classes; the wealthy upperclass known as "The Mind" who spend most of their days maintaining the utopia as well as enjoying themselves with games and parties, while the working subterranean lower class known as "The Hand" who must toil night and day through 10-hour shifts to keep the machines that run Metropolis running. The son of the man in charge is Freder (Gustav Froehlich) who leaves the security of his Pleasure Gardens to follow a girl named Maria (Brigittie Helm) to the lower depths. He is shocked to discover the cruel treatment of the workers and his protests fall on deaf ears to his father (Alfred Abel) so he switches places with a worker going under the number 11811 (Erwin Biswanger) to discover firsthand not only the pain of 10-hour agonizing work but also the leadership of the kind and loving Maria who promises a mediator to come and bring the two classes together. But this secret meeting is eavesdropped on by Joh Fredersen and the mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klien-Rogge) and Joh orders Rotwang to use his robotic woman to take on the form of Maria and infiltrate them. But things don't go as planned as the robotic Maria causes the workers to revolt and destroy the machinery. Can Freder stop this madness before it's too late or will the perfect utopia be forever destroyed?
Originally released in 1927 under the direction of Fritz Lang, "Metropolis"reveled in the science-fiction genre and has since that time, has been remade in anime form in 2001 and has become one of the most influential science-fiction films since Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."However, it pains me to say that the film is not complete. Not that it wasn't finished, but because there are parts of the narrative that are lost. The reason being that when "Metropolis" was taken over to American to be seen by it's American audience, many parts were edited and cut down for time. Then, in a tragic accident, the original complete copy Fritz had was lost in a fire, thus, leaving the world with the cut down American version and any other existing copies at the time were left to the enemy of time and they aged down. Over the years, negatives and still surviving copies were found in an attempt to bring back the original narrative of what Fritz Lang original had in mind. Over the years, the missing sections of the film from before were relocated and edited into the film but for years, certain scenes such as a fight between Joh Fredersen and Rotwang are still missing and could be somewhere in the world, waiting to be reunited with ti's master and fulfill the creativity of Fritz Lang's vision and his themes of class structure and morality.
But, regretfully, that is not this film and yet, it IS this film.
In 1984, Academy Award-Winning composer of "The Midnight Express","Scarface", and "Flashdance" Giorgio Moroder attempted to bring this beloved science-fiction film to the mainstream with a restoration and re-edit of what he assumed was the original script. Now his version used a soundtrack of artists by popular artists of the time, like Pat Benatar, Billy Squier, Freddie Mercury, Jon Anderson, Adam Ant, Bonnie Tyler and Loverboy (because when I think of a silent movie, I think of Loverboy) as well as music created by Giorgio himself. Admirable as his attempts to bring this film to a new audience.
Well, hate to say it, but, I think he should have left it alone...
It's saddening to think that this incredible film would be edited or released this badly, especially by someone who clearly had all the right intentions in mind but, by a fault, didn't create a restored classic to the mainstream; he just created a giant music video. When you have all these songs that play along with the film for certain scenes. Namely the songs by Pat Benatar and Bonnie Tyler; the songs are just too love ballad-sounding and they don't fit the scene's subtlety that the original soundtrack gave it. It changes what can be assumed as a theme of Class system having to find a middle ground to becoming a contrived love story where the characters barely seem to have any time to develop themselves. However, seeing that this was released in 1984 and certain footage that would have helped the narrative was still unknown at the time, I guess I can sorta let it slide…but to a certain extent...
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