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This Film Has Be Formatted To Fit Your Screen
I am flying cross country in a really long flight (at least I was when I typed this ) and they just got done showing an edited version of The Hours. I watched Run Lola Run on DVD on my laptop but it ended in time for me to catch the last half hour of "The Hours". I was surprised to see how they obviously edited out a kiss between two women but all the morbid talk about suicide was a-OK to leave in the movie.
It got me thinking about how the rather surreal forms of censorship editing that some films must go through in order to be cut down to a version that they can show on TV.
First off they either cut the movie down so that they can show it in a two hour block with lots of commercial breaks.
Then they use one of the most bastardizing procedures that a movie can go through. They crop it using pan and scan so that the movie can be shown on TV with out those damn black bars. I am really glad that my note book is a different screen aspect ratio that is closer to most theatrical aspects. Even worse than Pan and Scan is just cropping the picture with no control so that some faces are only half shown and some action take place of screen on the TV version.
Then there is looping of dialog where some actors re-dub certain dialog to take out the swearing and other naughty talk. The funniest edited for TV version of a movie I have ever seen is the ABC cut of the raunchy and immature Kevin Smith movie Mallrats. Jay the drug dealer was almost completely re done by a different actor because there was no lines where he did not throw in a swear word. Also the college age sex humor was edited around with a different subjects that were almost worse than the original raunchy dialog. For example in the movie one of the characters is talking about he inadvertently farted when his girlfriend was going down on him. In the edited for Saturday night TV version he inadvertently threw up on her when they were heavily kissing. What the hell?! That sounds a lot worse than the badly timed farts!
Chasing Amy had the discussions of relationships and sexuality re-written down to an third grade reading level.
And then there was the TV cut of Robocop. All the non stop violence was trimmed down to the point where it did not make any sense of continuity or logical plot. Not to forget the TV version of Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke where they had to edit all the drug jokes out of it.
There are some movies that would be better off left off TV or just bite the bullet and show them at a later time slot without all the kid friendly mutilation editing.
Jake at May 24, 2003 
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Comments
back in the day they even edited out the fart scene from Blazing Saddles...sad...:( i love that scene!! :) (i'm sick like dat...yo! hahahaha...ok, i can't do that w/o cracking up...heh)
Posted by: Lilly at May 24, 2003 11:49 AM
Yo I hate those black bars. I call them wack bars! They cover up the intuitive composition of the image and the picture is all squashed down at the middle of the screen. I only watch movies that take up the whole screen like they were meant to!! Why would anyone want to watch a movie that's all hacked chopped up by those black bars, that is wack dawg! And when you watch it, it just doesn't feel like you're watchin' something, G!
Posted by: Mr. Xbox at May 24, 2003 2:11 PM
WORD! I watched Robocop just the other day B. It was so wack i had to start illin yo?
Posted by: pete at May 24, 2003 4:08 PM
Hey, Mr.Xbox... the movie has to be *EDITED* to make it fit the whole screen. The movie that you see in the theater is projected on to a rectangular screen, thus it's rectangular shaped. The "wack bars" are there because there's no picture there to show!!
Posted by: Emma at May 24, 2003 5:35 PM
yo mr xbox....yo ass is trippin! I think dem whack bars be where they hidin they subliminal messages yo?
Posted by: pete at May 24, 2003 6:09 PM
Mr Xbox is BBQ he is just joking around. You will never find a bigger widescreen advocate than BBQ.
Posted by: Jake at May 24, 2003 6:11 PM
DUH!
Posted by: pete at May 24, 2003 8:49 PM
When I rented "The Bourne Identity" (which like "Run Lola Run" features Franka Potente) and "Insomnia" on DVD from Blockbuster, I found out they only carry "pan and scan" versions of some films, even though a widescreen version is available. Bummer!
Posted by: Monty at May 26, 2003 8:58 PM
My parents can't stand widescreen. Yet, I love it. Dunno why I have more of an affinity towards the two beautiful black bars of revealing. But, I guess I'm more into seeing more of the flick in all ways possible.
Posted by: Arluss at May 31, 2003 5:03 PM
