Yes, but did it have adverts.
Let Zygons Be Zygons.

Well there was a 3hr 7min version, I had it on VHS up to a few days ago, I remember I had to use a 4hour tape due to its length (most 3hr tapes them days didnt actually last 3hrs). Among the scenes was the merlin + Morgana love scene, also the scene where Morgana mates with Arthur was A LOT more explicit (ie she was riding him for some time), I have the 2hr 20min blu ray version, and alot of dialogue and scenes are not there. Yes the love scene between Lancelot and Guinever was also more explicit. . . all the other stuff etc . . I understand people say it was a lot of boring scenes, but if you want to watch a film as the makers originally wanted it.
http://www.imdb.com/board/20165551/?ref_=tt_cl_t3

I am inclined to believe you richard.

sorry.but the scene of having sex between merlin and morgana does existit was on a stone altar.I remember it distinctly cause I brough my two boys (age 10 and 11)and thinking at the timeholy crapthis is pretty adult stuff for them.

Don't know jh66, but I am really thinking that the R and PG versions were "Americanized:, and the 3 hour version was some European version. Grounds for that is the scene of Uther and Igrayne preparing for foreplay that is far more graphic than anything shown in the R version. I think back in 1981, if a man and woman were shown getting ready to do what those two were clearly getting ready to do, the R rating wouldn't be sufficient. A movie like that would have been "NC 17" but NC 17 probably didn't even exist in 1981. So for the US market it is cut out entirely.
Merlin and Morgana. The old rumor was that Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren simply didn't like each other. Also, Helen Mirren has always been involved in provacative stuff. There would be no reason to ask her about a simulated sex love scene with some ancient actor (that probably isn't that well know in the USA) when she has done far more controversial things (going topless, Caligula, etc).
The fact that all of this extra footage is presented in trailer form is probably proof that there was another version out there longer than the PG or R versions extant in the USA. You don't put something in a trailer unless it is actually in the movie. The R version is something like 2 hours and 20 minutes long. So a 3 hour version has just a liiiittle bit more left in to make it that much longer.
If you want to gossip, the real question is: Did Helen Mirren and Nicol Williamson ever make it? Being as the guy was so tall and she was always a freak from day one, plus the fact that if there was no sexual tension they should've never hated each other to begin with, I think the chances are pretty high that Nicol and Helen may have connected, once upon a time.

Possibly, I have seen the trailer of course, and remember a charging Llancelot throwing an axe at a Cossack-looking warrior to save Guenevere.
But how come none of the cast or Boorman have mentioned the Merlin/Morgana or Uther/Igrayne sex scenes since?

For sure, but I think the point we're trying to get across is that the 3 hour version may in fact have existed just as one of the previous posters has claimed.
On Youtube there also might be scenes of Lancelot in the forest, scenes nowhere in any version of Excalibur, either rated PG or R.
Here, look at this trailer:
In this official trailer, you see Igrayne and Uther doing more foreplay than the R version featured. You also see Lancelot whacking a forest bandit. That scene is in no PG or R version. You also here Nicol Williamson's real undubbed voice as he channels the Dragon and attempts to double cross Morgana.
Did a 3 hour version exist? I think it did.

That happens in just about every movie.
We shoulda rented a car.
We have my pony.
Your pony is an old nag.
Powwow Highway

If you watch trailers of Excalibur, you'll see clips of scenes that are not included in today's versions. Yuo have to watch them all and watch carefully. There were scenes of Uther and Igrayne cut out.

Link?
All this talk of 'extended' versions is either American fans suddenly seeing UK cuts (not as strict as US censors) or original Cannes festival releases before the theatrical edits?
I doubt the supposed 'love scenes' between Merlin and Morgana.

There was one scene involving sex between Merlin and Morgana (I'm not kidding.) that I only saw a still shot of in a Japanese movie book. The shot was of her in his arms, apparantly after the act.

just found this "According to Boorman, the film was originally three hours long; among scenes that were deleted from the finished film but featured in one of the promotional trailers was a sequence where Lancelot rescued Guenevere from a forest bandit." its here on its official fb page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Excalibur/105933682771316?nr#
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die
H.P.LOVECRAFT

try a site called fan edits some there try to create the full lenth like the dawn of dead 156 min version
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die
H.P.LOVECRAFT

I was about to say the commercials as well!
But
I also have this childhood memory that, at the start of the final battle, when Arthur's knights charge, I seem to recall the Mordred soldier turning around to get the lance in the chest was shown twice in the battle.

May it be that the so-called 3 hrs version was jus the 140 min plus the commercial breaks ?

I've seen many films listed as "extended versions" that were simply 15-minute featurettes tacked onto the end of the movie.
Yeah, they're dead; they'reall messed up!

This message has been deleted.

Well you can believe what you wish but I'm not the only one who remembers that listing. Several of my family and friends remember seeing it listed in the TV Guide that way AND I recently touched base with the son of the original owner of the rental store who ALSO remembers having that VHS in his father's inventory.
But, as I said..you can believe what you wish, but I know my memory isn't "false".
D. v~~v

I would wager at least half of the people reading this post have scoured the Net for any trace of the elusive "extended cut." If it ever existed it would have been, by definition, a bootleg. It also would have been found and accessible. I think this extended cut (or European cut) is a false memory. No offense to the OP, but all the evidence (lack of) points to that conclusion.

Again..I recall the ad saying it was a "extended version" of the movie which, if it was the original theatrical version, they, as a movie channel wouldn't say. And I've never known a pay channel to round the time of a movie up that long. The original version has since run on the same channel several times and it was never advertised as such, nor was the time rounded up.
And, as I've said, my friend in Tampa (who use to run a rare VHS rental store) remembers having it as a "European cut". But it might have been a bootleg of the original 3 hours versionI have seen more than a few movies like that floating around
So, who knows? .
D. v~~v

I think the problem may simply be that the movie was 140 minutes, which is exactly 2.5 hours it was not unheard of in the day for a movie on encore to extend beyond the normal hour or half hour cut off time by as much as 15 minutes if a movie had over played by 15 minutes and ran until 7:15 it is then entirely possible that the TV Guide could list Excalibur as starting at 7:00 and ending at 10:00 Now look at someone how is writing the mini reviews in the TV Guide he isn't going to look at the actual time of the movie he is likely going to just look at the grid which makes it look like a 3 hour movie.

Im watching what they call a re-edited version that runs 2:25 on encore action. It looks like it has been cleaned up and it plays a bit more understandably than the version I remember seeing at least 12 times.

ekmyers.. great write up. My thoughts exactly.

Please SEE the "Production" portion of this Wiki on the making of the film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excalibur_(film)
-Charles W. Bailey
http://www.imdb.com/board/22351682/