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Wim Wenders' original rough cut for this film was twenty hours long.

When many of the European characters leave the Mbantua settlement and take a group photo, believing the adventure to be over, the voice-over mentions that it is February, 2000. Yet shortly after we see Henry Farber trying a new series of experiments on recording dream imagery, and a computer display for the current experiment says January 21.

The film exists in four separate versions. The first is the significantly cut American 158-minute version released by Warner Bros. in theaters, and on VHS, LaserDisc, and some streaming platforms. Wenders has disparagingly referred this cut as the 'reader's digest version'. The second is a 179-minute cut that existed only on Japanese LaserDisc. The third is Wim Wenders' director's cut, which runs 300 minutes. This cut significantly expands scenes, motivates Claire's romantic involvement with Sam Farber and keeps it from seeming less frivolous and more the expression of a wounded heart, additional scenes in Japan, and in San Francisco with Allen Garfield as an evil car salesman (a take-off on his character in another Wenders film), and numerous other expansions/additions. This full-length version divided the film into three parts, all given episode names, and all with opening credits because it was originally intended for this version to be shown as three separate films, or as a mini-series. This 300-minute cut was only available on DVD in Germany, Italy and France. It was screened several times over the years in America and the UK: the National Film Theatre in London on Saturday 2nd July 1994, December 6, 1996 at the University of Washington, with director Wim Wenders attending, Jan. 14, 2001 at the American Cinematheque (with Wenders attending), February 24, 2001 at the Directors Guild of America Theater with Wenders announcing the film would be released on DVD.

Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: Memo to the Academy - 1992 (1992)