Censored in the name of the Lord

[emad]

What are decent-minded, US Christian conservatives to do if they want to watch a film without upsetting their sensibilities? Now they can watch their favourite blockbuster stripped of any sex and violence, thanks to two new companies. Andrew Gumbel reports from Los Angeles
Published: 21 September 2005

A few years ago, it dawned on American food manufacturers there was an intriguing hole in the market to fill: vegetarians who wanted to eat hamburgers while remaining vegetarian, or vegans who had a craving for egg salad.

Today, the supermarkets are filled with bean curd-based meatless burgers and eggless egg salads, and they are hot sellers. Vegan cafés boast menus filled with bacon, steak and all manner of other forbidden items that have been made safe for the meat-averse.

As with food, so it is with films.

What are decent-minded middle-American Christian conservatives to do if they abhor sex, bad language, illicit drug use and gut-spilling violence but still have an urge to see Saving Private Ryan? Or Goodfellas? Or The Amityville Horror? The beginnings of an answer came a few years ago with the advent of CleanFlicks, a kitchen-sized Utah company that decided to offer videos and DVD for rental - after they had been edited to remove all content likely to be offensive to the local Mormon population.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article314002.ece

[emad]

1. Wonder what 'Straw Dogs' or Mel Gibson's Jesus film come to think

of it are like....minus the violent bits.

[Turbineguy]

4. The Not-Very Wild Bunch

[flamin lib]

10. The Mild Bunch?? nt

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. heh, heh, heh

Here's the new script for the movie Bad Santa

"Do you want a sandwich?"
"What is it with you and sandwiches, anyway?"

[TlalocW]

3. So...

Pulp Fiction will be nothing but the five minute exchange about what they call Quarter Pounders in France and will still need to have some words bleeped out.

TlalocW

[booksenkatz]

5. Or one of the most violent of films there is:

Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Without the violence, the final cut would be all of, what, 30 seconds?
:eyes:

Leave films alone. If you can't watch them as the director intended, then don't watch them at all. I don't watch edited films, it's the same thing as David with a fig leaf. Absurd.

[mainegreen]

7. of course, most film in the cinema are not as the director intended.

They always have to cut stuff out to make it shorter, etc. Then when the DVD comes out you get the 'director's cut'.

[booksenkatz]

8. Absolutely true

That's why I LOVE it when we are able to see a director's cut!

But truly, what this company is doing is criminal. I can't believe they're allowed to even do it!

[mainegreen]

6. Sounds fine to me

They can watch all the badly mutilated censored mush they want, and I can watch the real deal. This is the RIGHT way to go, with a product for both communities. Everyone gets what they want and leave each other alone.

[Waya]

11. Sounds illegal to me.......

[AllegroRondo]

12. As long as they get permission from the copyright holders first

[NWHarkness]

9. Such hypocrites

They treat copywright violation as a horrible crime if some kid copies a song onto his iPod, but when their precious sensibilities are offended, they think nothing of tampering with copywrighted works.

[ikri]

13. Please re-cut something by Lucas Film, I dare you!

After the release of the woeful The Phantom Menace a strange edit of the film appeared called The Phantom Edit. This was essentially a reworking of the existing film that cut out irritating characters and pointless scenes (no more Jar Jar Binks :woohoo: ).

No lawsuits were ever filed about the film, probably because no one has ever admitted having been the editor and no one tried to make money off the re-cut film. But, I can absolutely guarantee that if George Lucas' lawyers were to discover that a company had edited one of his films and was renting copies of it that company is likely to discover a new definition of the word bankrupt.

Please please please hack apart a film by someone who is fiercely protective of their property.

[AntiCoup2K4]

14. Too bad that the worst offender against Lucasfilm releases.....

...is George Lucas himself :evilfrown:

still hoping the REAL Star Wars trilogy makes it to DVD some day.

Now as for this repressed Mormon editing shit....as long as they keep it to themselves, fine. Just don't put that shit on the shelves at Blockbuster and pretend it's the real movie.

[ikri]

15. The irony of The Phantom Edit

Was that, by all accounts, it improved the film immensely.

And there are rumors of yet another DVD box set of the original trilogy with even more added scenes due to be released by the end of this year.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

16. Reminds me of that South Park episode:

In 2002 the episode "Free Hat" was aired. In this episode, prompted by Kyle's comment on Ted Koppel's Nightline that changing E.T. would be like changing Raiders of the Lost Ark, the South Park depictions of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg decide to alter the first Indiana Jones film. Soon after "Free Hat" aired, the real Lucas and Spielberg announced that they would not be altering Raiders of the Lost Ark for DVD release (contrary to rumors surrounding it). Stone and Parker later claimed that their episode prevented any alterations from happening when they appeared on a VH1 special, Inside South Park.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park

--

as to editing movies -- I have enough problems with the British censors deciding what I can or can't see. Thankfully the Christian-right over here has lost a lot of its power in influencing the BBFC after the good old 'video nasty' days.

[Mutley]

17. It doesn't bother me.

If they want to have films edited for content for themselves, fine. I think they'll miss the best parts of most films but that's their problem. What I have a problem with is the people who say films (and TV, video games, books, etc) can't be made with that content in them in the first place; the people who tell me I can not watch a movie with violence or sex in it.

[emad]

18. Why not start with the Bible? All that incest, rape, torture, murder,

general violence etc. Sounds pretty rough to me.