There were a total of 3 different releases of the ending:
1. First: Separate Episode release
2. Second: Movie Mash-up of the 3 episode ending
3. Third: Director's cut with an additional 27 min runtime over the Second Movie release.
The differences between First and Second release are minimal. For the movie version, the ED song got cut, the OP scenes got cleaned (basically removal of credits), and on the final episode (263) it looks like the left out the 100 fan letters. This is based on a quick skim.
The more interesting comparison would be between the Second Movie release and the Third Director's cut release, which has an additional 27 mins.
For these two, the differences I found after watching the 2 side by side in order of appearance (no sound though):
- Tang San visits that one disciple he accepted on his way to sea god island and gifts him Xiao Wu's extra spirit ring reward. (about 2 mins extra)
- All 6 of the monsters get their own transformation, introduction, and grand entrance/confrontation scene (about 2:40 extra)
- Tang San grand entrance and reactions at Jialing Pass (about 2:20 extra) - this one is badly edited in because there are 2 entrances/show-off of rings now and 2 separate reaction clips.
- Shortly after the previous one, Qian RenXue and Tang San use their divine techniques where both get an "ultimate move" animation" and a confrontation between avatars, Qian RenXue gets hurt and is saved by the ice phoenix elder (about 3:50 extra)
- Tang Hao pushing back Bibi Dong after Tang San gets backstabbed scene extended (about 0:40 extra)
- Extended last stand and final farewell for Sword and Bone Douluo (about 3:30 extra)
- Added Scene Tang Hao grieving and vowing revenge (about 1:00 extra)
- Extended Asura God Grand Entrance scene (about 1:10 extra)
- Extended first attack by Qian RenXue and Bibi Dong on Asura Tang San with "ultimate move" vibes (about 2:00 extra)
- Extended celebration for victory before a poorly done cut to Bibi Dong's final confession to Xiao Gang then back to victory celebration [the weather makes the bad editing obvious] (about 3:40 extra) - this is from the novel, but it is really only half of what the novel had.
- Battlefield resolution/cleanup scene (about 2:55 extra)
- Additional "waiting for the bride" scene before the wedding (about 1:45 extra)
Personally, I think the only scene that really had any impact was the final confession scene by Bibi Dong to Xiao Gang, it gave her character closure and gave us a chance to take a deeper look into her character and suffering, but like I said, it was really only part of what was in the novel, so it didn't really give us as much as it could have.
PS. Wow, this took me about 3 hours to do this comparison. |
