<story><title>Steven Spielberg: ‘No film should be revised’ based on modern sensitivity</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/26/steven-spielberg-et-guns-movie-edit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>macNchz</author><text>Sometimes these edits can be pretty subtle as well: a while ago my wife and I started watching the original early-90s Beverly Hills 90210 on one of the streaming platforms. It’s a kind of absurd and fun pop-cultural time capsule of a show. After a few episodes, though, I started to realize there was something not quite right.&lt;p&gt;It turns out that much of the music featured in the original airing of the show wasn’t licensed in a way it could be used long term, and over the years it has been replaced with terrible stock songs or jarringly anachronistic choices that sound totally out of place.&lt;p&gt;Entire scenes and episodes have been cut from the seasons distributed on streaming platforms, because they featured live concerts that couldn’t be edited. The original had performances by the Flaming Lips, among many others, that simply can’t be watched now, except if by chance someone copied an old VHS to YouTube.&lt;p&gt;Music was a big part of the original show–in addition to the live shows it featured all sorts of great pop songs from the time, which was part of why it was such a hit with teenagers when it aired. It’s such a bummer they stripped it all out!&lt;p&gt;There are some places online with copies of early DVD releases that have more music, but still not all of it. The original is locked away in a vault somewhere and almost certainly won’t ever be enjoyed in a complete state.</text></item><item><author>safety1st</author><text>The fact that even guys as influential as Spielberg and Tarantino are worried about having their past work censored is the most convincing reason I&amp;#x27;ve seen to own your own data.&lt;p&gt;For movies it&amp;#x27;s as easy as obtaining DRM-free copies of the movies you care about, saving them to an SSD, and installing a copy of Plex.&lt;p&gt;Do that with the movies, music and books you love. They are a part of our cultural history. It&amp;#x27;s almost a guarantee that any copy you don&amp;#x27;t own and control will at some point in the future be revised. I want the real history not what the powers that be tell me it was.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s virtually &lt;i&gt;guaranteed&lt;/i&gt; that Amazon, Netflix et. al. will not store this stuff for you with integrity, it is built into the nature of the system.</text></item><item><author>monero-xmr</author><text>I grew up in a small city and one thing they had was some rich dude who donated a library, and filled the reading room with beautiful statues and paintings which were in the classical style, commissioned completely by himself. This was early 1800s.&lt;p&gt;Then in the later 1800s the townsfolk decided the paintings and statues were scandalous because they had nudes, so they painted over the breasts and genitals, and covered over the statues with togas &amp;#x2F; cloths.&lt;p&gt;Luckily in modern times it was easy to remove the cloths, but unfortunately the paintings are ruined. The cover-job was done poorly and the paintings have an off-color paint on it that looks wrong. There have been talks to fix it but I don’t think anything has been done.&lt;p&gt;My point is that, the desire to censor prior art that disagrees with fad-interpretations of what is taboo and scandalous, will certainly be looked at in a few decades as a very weird and Victorian era. Definitely should not re-cut movies to be “safe” or whatever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryathal</author><text>So many shows are unavailable or different because of ridiculous licensing rules around music. Scrubs has several different versions of music, The Drew Carey Show is basically impossible to find because of music. If Congress wanted to ever do something pro-consumer, passing a law that ends all this nonsense around licensing and require all licensing to be delivery method agnostic. whether a show is premiering, a rerun, syndicated, streamed, or on DVD it should be the same show.</text></comment>
<story><title>Steven Spielberg: ‘No film should be revised’ based on modern sensitivity</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/apr/26/steven-spielberg-et-guns-movie-edit</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>macNchz</author><text>Sometimes these edits can be pretty subtle as well: a while ago my wife and I started watching the original early-90s Beverly Hills 90210 on one of the streaming platforms. It’s a kind of absurd and fun pop-cultural time capsule of a show. After a few episodes, though, I started to realize there was something not quite right.&lt;p&gt;It turns out that much of the music featured in the original airing of the show wasn’t licensed in a way it could be used long term, and over the years it has been replaced with terrible stock songs or jarringly anachronistic choices that sound totally out of place.&lt;p&gt;Entire scenes and episodes have been cut from the seasons distributed on streaming platforms, because they featured live concerts that couldn’t be edited. The original had performances by the Flaming Lips, among many others, that simply can’t be watched now, except if by chance someone copied an old VHS to YouTube.&lt;p&gt;Music was a big part of the original show–in addition to the live shows it featured all sorts of great pop songs from the time, which was part of why it was such a hit with teenagers when it aired. It’s such a bummer they stripped it all out!&lt;p&gt;There are some places online with copies of early DVD releases that have more music, but still not all of it. The original is locked away in a vault somewhere and almost certainly won’t ever be enjoyed in a complete state.</text></item><item><author>safety1st</author><text>The fact that even guys as influential as Spielberg and Tarantino are worried about having their past work censored is the most convincing reason I&amp;#x27;ve seen to own your own data.&lt;p&gt;For movies it&amp;#x27;s as easy as obtaining DRM-free copies of the movies you care about, saving them to an SSD, and installing a copy of Plex.&lt;p&gt;Do that with the movies, music and books you love. They are a part of our cultural history. It&amp;#x27;s almost a guarantee that any copy you don&amp;#x27;t own and control will at some point in the future be revised. I want the real history not what the powers that be tell me it was.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s virtually &lt;i&gt;guaranteed&lt;/i&gt; that Amazon, Netflix et. al. will not store this stuff for you with integrity, it is built into the nature of the system.</text></item><item><author>monero-xmr</author><text>I grew up in a small city and one thing they had was some rich dude who donated a library, and filled the reading room with beautiful statues and paintings which were in the classical style, commissioned completely by himself. This was early 1800s.&lt;p&gt;Then in the later 1800s the townsfolk decided the paintings and statues were scandalous because they had nudes, so they painted over the breasts and genitals, and covered over the statues with togas &amp;#x2F; cloths.&lt;p&gt;Luckily in modern times it was easy to remove the cloths, but unfortunately the paintings are ruined. The cover-job was done poorly and the paintings have an off-color paint on it that looks wrong. There have been talks to fix it but I don’t think anything has been done.&lt;p&gt;My point is that, the desire to censor prior art that disagrees with fad-interpretations of what is taboo and scandalous, will certainly be looked at in a few decades as a very weird and Victorian era. Definitely should not re-cut movies to be “safe” or whatever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xdennis</author><text>Same for &amp;quot;Married... with Children&amp;quot;. They replaced the iconic &amp;quot;Love and Marriage&amp;quot; theme song with elevator music.</text></comment>