I've never seen the film before, and I was wondering which version is the definitive cut. I prefer to watch a director's cut if it is the author's original vision; I dislike it when people release a director's cut just as a gimmick to sell dvds(who does?).
That being said, which version would anyone recommend?
The director's cut is horrible. Watching the theatrical cut was pretty much the best thing ever. Watching the director's cut was pretty much the worst thing ever.
After watching the director's cut with the director's commentary, I no longer have the same respect for the movie. Learning that instead of being open to interpretation he wanted it to be a story about how you can't escape the path of god. I liked it much better before I knew this.
The director's cut provides some really mundane, science-fiction based explanations for what's happening in the story; the theater cut leaves the mysterious events as they are, without explaining them. The theater cut just works better by leaving those explanations out.