6 ms·

The article even mentions Star Wars and George Lucas, something that happened 20 years ago, yet pretends this is the start of a dangerous trend. Cause it's TV

The article even mentions Star Wars and George Lucas, something that happened 20 years ago, yet pretends this is the start of a dangerous trend. Cause it's TV (or streaming) instead of a movie / home video release I guess?

munk-a 4y ago
I'd also point at this big old list of media effected by 9/11[1] - I think the most notable one at the time was 2002 Spiderman which released a trailer containing the two towers initially that was then edited (along with the movie) to remove that landmark. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainment_affected_by_the_September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainment_affected...
- ethbr0 4y ago
  Editing something innocuous but associated with trauma just feels... wrong. History happened. No need to create a past and future-projected vacuum as a consequence of past events.
  - alanfalcon 4y ago
    It felt right at the time to many people. The two towers trailer scene was specific to the trailer according to them at the time, so not having that scene was apparently already the plan. The way the film was, I certainly never felt the lack of the towers but would have been pulled out by their presence.
  - yardstick 4y ago
    Spiderman was edited before its release, in April 2002, after the 9/11 attacks. I’m guessing this along with the other changes to the film post 9/11 but pre release were the creators wishes and reflections after the attack. You have to remember it was less than a ~6 months after the attacks. This wasn’t history. This was the here and now and it was a massive trauma on a lot of people at the time.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      Granted. But we're now 20 years later. There are other, older movies with the towers in them, and yes, seeing them certainly stirs up emotions unexpected by the directors at the time. But the World Trade Center existed as a structure. And something terrible happened to it. Avoiding it now, even by omission, feels like avoiding an important part of history.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - xmprt 4y ago
        I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If a movie is released today, it obviously wouldn't have the towers. And a movie released in the past right after 9/11 would edit them out because it was still fresh in people's minds and most people agree that it was the right decision. Are you saying that the movies/trailers/TV shows should be retroactively edited to re-include the towers? Isn't retroactive editing a bad thing that we want to avoid. That's what this entire post thread is about.
        bluefirebrand 4y ago
        > Are you saying that the movies/trailers/TV shows should be retroactively edited to re-include the towers? I didn't get that from their post at all. In fact I think you are in agreement. If your movie is set before 9/11 it should include the towers. If your movie was released before 9/11, it shouldn't be edited to remove the towers.
        yardstick 4y ago
        This movie was released after 9/11, presumably (based on not having the towers) also set after 9/11. I don’t get the original complaint at all.
  - enragedcacti 4y ago
    For a movie coming out in 2002 and set in "the present day", I would think keeping the towers would be distracting and introduce an "alternate timeline" problem that further distracts.
  - evan_ 4y ago
    OTOH if you don't, then you have something like the 2002 Muppet Christmas Special where they put Kermit in an "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario. We see how the world would be different if he had never been born. There's a scene set in New York where a random shot shows the WTC in the background, insinuating that Kermit was somehow responsible for 9/11. Obviously that was never the intention of the producers but it ends up being a huge distraction from the rest of the story of the special.
    - mixmastamyk 4y ago
      It's not easy being green.
jimbob45 4y ago
4chan's /tv/ will produce a list of 100+ examples of censorship by the streaming platforms if you go make a thread about it. To be honest, I just personally don't care because I didn't trust the streaming platform that made 'Cuties' and '13 Reasons Why' with moral matters to begin with.
- tempoponet 4y ago
  "Cunningham's Law" - make a post saying it _hasn't_ happened to get the truly comprehensive list.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  What in particular was wrong with Cuties and 13 Reasons Why? The former is an exposé on pre-teen sexualization and the latter depicts teen suicide.
reincarnate0x14 4y ago
With purely hosted media there is no way for purist fans to ever have the "original" or whatever version of it, unlike the people who were swapping around laserdisc and 35mm versions of the unspoilt cuts of Star Wars, etc.
- rocqua 4y ago
  Torrents work like a charm here.
  - freedomben 4y ago
    That's not something that can be relied upon. I've seen numerous torrents die from all seeders dropping off, to attackers poisoning metadata thus making it impossible for any new downloaders. Torrents as a whole may seem like the cockroach that never dies, but individual torrents die all the time.
    - selfhoster11 4y ago
      Whether the old HN claim that “storage is cheap” is true or not, preemptively downloading everything you might be interested in (or all new releases) is one solution to this problem.
      - reincarnate0x14 4y ago
        Which is what the data-hoarding crowd has been doing for a while. Storage is relatively cheap, you can get extraordinarily large amounts of it for a few thousand USD if you aren't super concerned about five-9s uptime and Google still lets small team-sized business customers store petabytes for basically zero additional cost if you're OK with near-line retrieval times.
- Bedon292 4y ago
  In this specific case you could buy Stranger Things Season 2 on Blu-ray which would have the original version on it. But that is probably getting to be a rare case, especially since you can't buy Season 3.
ggrelet 4y ago
Yeah, Kanye West was notorious for doing the exact same thing for his album « The Life of Pablo » on music services back in 2016. https://www.xxlmag.com/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-changes/ https://www.xxlmag.com/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-changes/
Bedon292 4y ago
I think the medium is the main difference. An old movie you have on tape or whatever physical media and would need to go buy an additional copy of a new version of it. Whereas something primarily on streaming can change on you without notice and you cannot go back and watch the original. Plus in the case of Lucas it was in a new "Special Edition" which contained other edits too. It was never passed off as the original version, and part of the selling point was the edits. Rather than an update in place without any notice.
- closewith 4y ago
  > Plus in the case of Lucas it was in a new "Special Edition" which contained other edits too. Is that true? If so, it didn't last for long. There's no way to legally watch the original Star Wars now, unless you can find a physical VHS or Laserdisc.
  - Bedon292 4y ago
    That's how I remember it being at least but that was in 1997. They had a whole new theatrical releases for them and all that. They even sold a DVD set with the original theatrical versions as bonus material [1]. But they have lost the "Special Edition" moniker at some point. And the edited versions are the only thing available for streaming. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20060517020346/http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/release/video/news20060503.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060517020346/http://www.starwa...
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  Here ya go, Stranger Things season one on DVD, where no one can change it: https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Blu-Ray-Collectors-Exclusive-Packaging/dp/B076HTKKXC https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Blu-Ray-Collectors-Exclusive...
  - Bedon292 4y ago
    Personally I don't mind this change just fixing a plot hole by changing a word. And yes you can buy Season 1 and 2 but what if they did it in Season 3 which you can't buy? It just so happens in this case that they did it to a season which you can buy but being able to buy seasons on physical media is becoming rare these days.
krapp 4y ago
They didn't stop editing Star Wars 20 years ago, unfortunately. See Disney+ editing the scene between Greedo and Han Solo to make Greedo say "Maclunkey[0]" before shooting him. And yes Greedo still shoots first because we live in the worst timeline.
saynay 4y ago
More, the author saw mention of it pop up on thier Twitter feed, so wrote an article to cash in on the current "controversy" with no actual research beyond Twitter.
nonameiguess 4y ago
Even on TV, HBO retroactively edited out George Bush's head from the spikes Joffrey makes Sansa look at in season one of Game of Thrones, all the way back in 2011. George Martin just joked about it in his interview on the upcoming House of the Dragon.

munk-a 4y ago

I'd also point at this big old list of media effected by 9/11[1] - I think the most notable one at the time was 2002 Spiderman which released a trailer containing the two towers initially that was then edited (along with the movie) to remove that landmark. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainment_affected_by_the_September_11_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_entertainment_affected...

ethbr0 4y ago
Editing something innocuous but associated with trauma just feels... wrong. History happened. No need to create a past and future-projected vacuum as a consequence of past events.
- alanfalcon 4y ago
  It felt right at the time to many people. The two towers trailer scene was specific to the trailer according to them at the time, so not having that scene was apparently already the plan. The way the film was, I certainly never felt the lack of the towers but would have been pulled out by their presence.
- yardstick 4y ago
  Spiderman was edited before its release, in April 2002, after the 9/11 attacks. I’m guessing this along with the other changes to the film post 9/11 but pre release were the creators wishes and reflections after the attack. You have to remember it was less than a ~6 months after the attacks. This wasn’t history. This was the here and now and it was a massive trauma on a lot of people at the time.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    Granted. But we're now 20 years later. There are other, older movies with the towers in them, and yes, seeing them certainly stirs up emotions unexpected by the directors at the time. But the World Trade Center existed as a structure. And something terrible happened to it. Avoiding it now, even by omission, feels like avoiding an important part of history.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - xmprt 4y ago
      I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. If a movie is released today, it obviously wouldn't have the towers. And a movie released in the past right after 9/11 would edit them out because it was still fresh in people's minds and most people agree that it was the right decision. Are you saying that the movies/trailers/TV shows should be retroactively edited to re-include the towers? Isn't retroactive editing a bad thing that we want to avoid. That's what this entire post thread is about.
      - bluefirebrand 4y ago
        > Are you saying that the movies/trailers/TV shows should be retroactively edited to re-include the towers? I didn't get that from their post at all. In fact I think you are in agreement. If your movie is set before 9/11 it should include the towers. If your movie was released before 9/11, it shouldn't be edited to remove the towers.
        yardstick 4y ago
        This movie was released after 9/11, presumably (based on not having the towers) also set after 9/11. I don’t get the original complaint at all.
- enragedcacti 4y ago
  For a movie coming out in 2002 and set in "the present day", I would think keeping the towers would be distracting and introduce an "alternate timeline" problem that further distracts.
- evan_ 4y ago
  OTOH if you don't, then you have something like the 2002 Muppet Christmas Special where they put Kermit in an "It's a Wonderful Life" scenario. We see how the world would be different if he had never been born. There's a scene set in New York where a random shot shows the WTC in the background, insinuating that Kermit was somehow responsible for 9/11. Obviously that was never the intention of the producers but it ends up being a huge distraction from the rest of the story of the special.
  - mixmastamyk 4y ago
    It's not easy being green.

jimbob45 4y ago

4chan's /tv/ will produce a list of 100+ examples of censorship by the streaming platforms if you go make a thread about it. To be honest, I just personally don't care because I didn't trust the streaming platform that made 'Cuties' and '13 Reasons Why' with moral matters to begin with.

tempoponet 4y ago
"Cunningham's Law" - make a post saying it _hasn't_ happened to get the truly comprehensive list.
Dracophoenix 4y ago
What in particular was wrong with Cuties and 13 Reasons Why? The former is an exposé on pre-teen sexualization and the latter depicts teen suicide.

reincarnate0x14 4y ago

With purely hosted media there is no way for purist fans to ever have the "original" or whatever version of it, unlike the people who were swapping around laserdisc and 35mm versions of the unspoilt cuts of Star Wars, etc.

rocqua 4y ago
Torrents work like a charm here.
- freedomben 4y ago
  That's not something that can be relied upon. I've seen numerous torrents die from all seeders dropping off, to attackers poisoning metadata thus making it impossible for any new downloaders. Torrents as a whole may seem like the cockroach that never dies, but individual torrents die all the time.
  - selfhoster11 4y ago
    Whether the old HN claim that “storage is cheap” is true or not, preemptively downloading everything you might be interested in (or all new releases) is one solution to this problem.
    - reincarnate0x14 4y ago
      Which is what the data-hoarding crowd has been doing for a while. Storage is relatively cheap, you can get extraordinarily large amounts of it for a few thousand USD if you aren't super concerned about five-9s uptime and Google still lets small team-sized business customers store petabytes for basically zero additional cost if you're OK with near-line retrieval times.
Bedon292 4y ago
In this specific case you could buy Stranger Things Season 2 on Blu-ray which would have the original version on it. But that is probably getting to be a rare case, especially since you can't buy Season 3.

ggrelet 4y ago

Yeah, Kanye West was notorious for doing the exact same thing for his album « The Life of Pablo » on music services back in 2016. https://www.xxlmag.com/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-changes/ https://www.xxlmag.com/kanye-west-the-life-of-pablo-changes/

Bedon292 4y ago

I think the medium is the main difference. An old movie you have on tape or whatever physical media and would need to go buy an additional copy of a new version of it. Whereas something primarily on streaming can change on you without notice and you cannot go back and watch the original. Plus in the case of Lucas it was in a new "Special Edition" which contained other edits too. It was never passed off as the original version, and part of the selling point was the edits. Rather than an update in place without any notice.

closewith 4y ago
> Plus in the case of Lucas it was in a new "Special Edition" which contained other edits too. Is that true? If so, it didn't last for long. There's no way to legally watch the original Star Wars now, unless you can find a physical VHS or Laserdisc.
- Bedon292 4y ago
  That's how I remember it being at least but that was in 1997. They had a whole new theatrical releases for them and all that. They even sold a DVD set with the original theatrical versions as bonus material [1]. But they have lost the "Special Edition" moniker at some point. And the edited versions are the only thing available for streaming. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20060517020346/http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/release/video/news20060503.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060517020346/http://www.starwa...
jonny_eh 4y ago
Here ya go, Stranger Things season one on DVD, where no one can change it: https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Blu-Ray-Collectors-Exclusive-Packaging/dp/B076HTKKXC https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Blu-Ray-Collectors-Exclusive...
- Bedon292 4y ago
  Personally I don't mind this change just fixing a plot hole by changing a word. And yes you can buy Season 1 and 2 but what if they did it in Season 3 which you can't buy? It just so happens in this case that they did it to a season which you can buy but being able to buy seasons on physical media is becoming rare these days.

krapp 4y ago

They didn't stop editing Star Wars 20 years ago, unfortunately. See Disney+ editing the scene between Greedo and Han Solo to make Greedo say "Maclunkey[0]" before shooting him. And yes Greedo still shoots first because we live in the worst timeline.

saynay 4y ago

More, the author saw mention of it pop up on thier Twitter feed, so wrote an article to cash in on the current "controversy" with no actual research beyond Twitter.

nonameiguess 4y ago

Even on TV, HBO retroactively edited out George Bush's head from the spikes Joffrey makes Sansa look at in season one of Game of Thrones, all the way back in 2011. George Martin just joked about it in his interview on the upcoming House of the Dragon.