Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest (MTVD) Issue #2 This is the second issue of an ongoing monthly series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Here you will find links to articles published over the course of August 2022 on Textual Variations, archival links to…

MTVD Issue #1 (July 2022) This is the first issue of a new ongoing monthly series that I like to call Mikhail’s Textual Variations Digest or MTVD, for short. Each issue generally is comprised of: links to articles previously published on the Textual Variations newsletter, which primarily focuses on how…

And Other Reveals From Early Drafts of “The Matrix” — Though The Matrix (1999) was released over 20 years ago, relatively little has been said of its revision history, an examination of which can lend considerable insight into the fluid nature of the writing and storytelling processes. In an attempt to fill this gap, my article begins tracing and analyzing…

So, why didn’t the director’s cut ever come out on video? — Perhaps, you’ve heard about what happened behind the scenes of Dune (1984), the big-budget epic sci-fi flop directed by arthouse surrealist David Lynch. You might’ve heard that Lynch essentially disowned Dune because he never had the right of final cut and so was unable to realize his true vision. …