Dumb TV / Film censorship moments

Dwarvenhobble

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So I figured I'd do a thread here about the Dumb and or outright silly moments of censorship that happened with TV shows or film. Be it the infamous attempts by Disney to get changes made to Gravity falls or other instances that happened that are just plain stupid, backfired or made the shows or films actively worse.

I'll start with a few

Censoring swearing especially the word Fuck in "The Magicians"
Context: The Magicians is basically a grim dark deconstructivist series doing a version of what Game of Thrones did to fantasy tropes. It's Skins meets Harry Potter with some Chronicles of Narnia. The Network it was shown on were fine with the drugs, the sex, the violence, the heavily implied bestiality. But when the show was broadcast the network insisted on toning down the language used especially the word fuck. On later released all the fucks were back but the first broadcast and initial subscription / non buy the show whole streaming version were also censored. Luckily Eventually the network realised how stupid they were being and later series got to have all the swearing they wanted.

Stargate Universe: Matthew Scott and 2nd lieutenant Vanessa James's relationship.
So this is a weird one and another one for a show that was going for a more grim and dark take on stuff in this case a dark show about trying to survive on an ancient spacecraft set in the Stargate universe. Oddly some broadcasts of the show decided to cut out a scene in the shows first episode where main character Matthew Scott was having a rendezvous with 2nd lieutenant Vanessa James. The thing being once they end up aboard space craft Destiny Scott gets close to and starts a relationship with senators daughter Chloe Armstrong.

What should have been quite a good set up for interpersonal conflict ended up having to be thrown out because of some networks deciding the scene (though showing no real nudity) was too steamy for viewers and the plotline was cut from the show, expect in a later episode where 2nd lieutenant Vanessa James talks about said relationship and shows she's still a bit bitter of Scott basically ditching her to be with Chloe instead. Worse still the networks that cut that part of episode one didn't cut this part of the later episode leaving some people confused as at no point for them had the series shown or even told them about this relationship.


Continuum - Emily's first fight in the show.
So a show about time travel where the genius dude who becomes part of the future rulers of earth ends up mixed up in with a future police officer tracking down escaped terrorists who have jumped back in time from the future.
Cue Emily, a girl Alec meets and falls in love with, nothing strange, nothing out of the ordinary, something normal in his life.
After spending the night together Alec has to leave for work and says for Emily to help herself to breakfast and stuff and stay if she wants to or let herself out and do stuff in town or whatever. Emily is in clearly thrown on sleep where, a top without a bra (you can see little nipple level lumps) and sort of pyjama / Yoga pants things, and this is where the SyFy networks problem came in apparently. In the full uncensored version of the sequence two armed men break in and Emily reveals she's very much not a normal girl as she very efficiently beats the crap out of them while still in her sleepwear with it being implied she either killed them or seriously hurt them before phoning an unknown person and saying she need help and some-one to come clean up the mess. It's a well shot well choreographed fight.

The Networked objected to the sleepwear and hints at the shape of the female body so in the censored initially broadcast version thy applied a blur over Emily's nipples on the stairs and when the fight broke out the editor zoomed in and out and jerked the camera round such that the previously clear fight scene looked like a Shaky cam fight scene mess all to avoid showing that Emily has nipples or an ass. Worse still it makes the scene look chaotic rather than Emily being a well trained skilled fighter, it makes it look like she only just won mostly by luck.



The entire Avengers episode - A Touch of Brimstone.
This is an old one for you and not Marvel's Avengers related but an English property that shares the same name. The entire episode sees special Agent John Steed and Mrs (Dr) Emma Peel infiltrating a secret society of the wealthy called "The Hell Fire Club". A club supposedly based on previous incarnations of such club that met for debouched celebrations of feed, sex and violence. Only it's suspected this latest incarnation has a sinister agenda behind it. Steed infiltrates pretending to be wealthy landed gentry and Emma infiltrates by becoming one of the act for the club calling herself the queen of sin turning up in in a spiked choker, a bustier / corset on top and short underwear like pants and a whip (Worth noting that the actress Dianna Rigg who played Emma Peel is said to have designed the outfit herself to wear). The issue being this was seen as too sexy and immoral for US tv networks who refused to show the episode at all initially and it only got show in reruns many years down the line.

The hilarious backfire / blow up. At some point an artist for a little comic company called Marvel saw the episode and was inspired. Around the time he was working on Xmen comics and it was the Dark Phoenix arc the artist needed a look for the mysterious Hellfire Club member "The Black Queen" which it turns out the Queen of Sin outfit was great inspiration for. So from an episode US tv stations banned from airing to being the look of a character in a Marvel comic book arc (one quite well known today) turns out for all the protecting the American public from the immorality of it didn't do much other than inspire an artist to make an actually slightly more revealing version of the outfit for a comic book character for the American public to see lol.


So over to everyone else.
 

Gordon_4

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Aren’t most of these simply broadcast regulations at work? Like most of them that stick out are instances when an R rated film is cut down to broadcast standard because in ye olde days there was no reliable mechanism to restrict it to viewers over 18 on free to air.
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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Aren’t most of these simply broadcast regulations at work? Like most of them that stick out are instances when an R rated film is cut down to broadcast standard because in ye olde days there was no reliable mechanism to restrict it to viewers over 18 on free to air.
In the UK we jus have the Watershed, after 9pm it's anything goes almost lol
 

thebobmaster

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Probably my favorite story is the film version of Fight Club. You see, when Tyler and Marla have sex, the line in the script was "I want to have your abortion." Censors did not like that line, and after much back and forth between the executives and David Fincher, he got them to agree that he would change the line...but only once, and what he changed it to, they had to agree to.

So, how did it end up in the final movie? "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school!"
 

Gordon_4

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Probably my favorite story is the film version of Fight Club. You see, when Tyler and Marla have sex, the line in the script was "I want to have your abortion." Censors did not like that line, and after much back and forth between the executives and David Fincher, he got them to agree that he would change the line...but only once, and what he changed it to, they had to agree to.

So, how did it end up in the final movie? "I haven't been fucked like that since grade school!"
Yeah, and apparently Helen Bonham Carter wasn’t aware that in America, grade school meant the same as primary school (ages 6-12). She was allegedly none too pleased once it was explained to her.
 

Bedinsis

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Wasn't there some news a couple months ago about how in China Fight Club ended with a message of the government eventually dealing with the situation, before the Internet dragged them across the coals?

Edit: Yes, there was.
 
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Casual Shinji

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Fucking Adventures in Babysitting is utterly neutered on Disney+. I understand maybe trying to smooth over some of the gay bashing and one of the kids joking about wanting to be raped, but pretty much every single swear has been completely edited out of this bloody movie now. I'm assuming this has everything to do with Disney having its own made-for-TV remake of Adventures in Babysitting, which I'm sure is kid friendly all to hell, and they don't want to upset parents who after having watched that version with their kids than decide to check out the original. Who Framed Roger Rabbit however is completely unedited on Disney+ eventhough it has characters like Dumbo and Mickey Mouse while also showing people getting visibly shot and one cartoon character shoving his hand in the cleavage of another. Just weirdly inconsistent.

Oh and they also edited out the gay kiss in Lightyear, like a bunch of cowards.

It also bugs the shit out of me how Disney now edits their animated movies based on the country/region your watching it in. Zootopia becomes Zootropolis, Moana becomes Vaiana, even changing the original english dialoge to accommodate it. I hate it. When I'm watching the original dialoge dub, give me the original dialoge dub.
 

09philj

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Fucking Adventures in Babysitting is utterly neutered on Disney+. I understand maybe trying to smooth over some of the gay bashing and one of the kids joking about wanting to be raped, but pretty much every single swear has been completely edited out of this bloody movie now. I'm assuming this has everything to do with Disney having its own made-for-TV remake of Adventures in Babysitting, which I'm sure is kid friendly all to hell, and they don't want to upset parents who after having watched that version with their kids than decide to check out the original. Who Framed Roger Rabbit however is completely unedited on Disney+ eventhough it has characters like Dumbo and Mickey Mouse while also showing people getting visibly shot and one cartoon character shoving his hand in the cleavage of another. Just weirdly inconsistent.

Oh and they also edited out the gay kiss in Lightyear, like a bunch of cowards.

It also bugs the shit out of me how Disney now edits their animated movies based on the country/region your watching it in. Zootopia becomes Zootropolis, Moana becomes Vaiana, even changing the original english dialoge to accommodate it. I hate it. When I'm watching the original dialoge dub, give me the original dialoge dub.
Zootopia was renamed in some regions because other people held the trademark on the name.
 
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Hawki

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Two words - Sonic X (or is that one word? Is X a word, or a letter?)

I could fill a thread with every single instance of the 4kids toning down the original anime, from the benign (replacing gunfire sounds with laser sounds) to the silly (replacing a bottle of wine with salami), to points where moments now make no sense (Sonic and Chris holding up blank signs that were originally kanji, because I guess writing in English is too hard) but there's one scene that I'll mention, and that's Molly's death.

TL, DR, here's the versions:

-Japan: Molly's just found out that the entirety of the Resistance has thrown in their lot with the metarex, betraying their group, their species, and that they tried to assasinate her knowing that she'd never give up the fight. So, faced with the knowledge of what's happened, and what's about to happen, that everything she's fought for is lost, and that there's no scenario where she or humanity comes out on top, she goes on a suicide run against the metarex fleet, determined to fight to the end, and despite Shadow's efforts, is blown out of the sky. At the end of the series, we see Shadow standing over a grave marker he's made for Molly on Mobius.

Me: "Wow, that's pretty neat and tragic."

-4Kids: Everything above remains the same up to the point of Molly going on the suicide run. Except she doesn't. Because it's edited so that instead of going out in a blaze of glory, she flees the planet, stating that she'll keep fighting, and that she and Shadow will meet again one day through half-arsed dialogue. Dialogue is further altered, and her gravestone is removed from the end of the series.

Me: "Fuck you."

There's a certain irony in that Molly died in the original version, while dies via character assassination in the dubbed version.

And yes, season 3 has similar idiotic moments like this, such as the 4Kids dub altering Zelkova's death so that the context is changed, or Shadow's reasons for trying to kill Cosmo (in the dubbed dialogue, he's arguably even more psychopathic as a result, so nice job, idiots), or various other little niggles, but Molly's death is just the worst example of this. And way back in the day, it pissed off a lot of people too.
 

Drathnoxis

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I think Cardcaptors is a pretty famous example. The show was chopped up and stitched back together and basically doesn't have an ending because of it. I haven't actually seen the original, I really should one day.

Wasn't there some news a couple months ago about how in China Fight Club ended with a message of the government eventually dealing with the situation, before the Internet dragged them across the coal?
That's hilarious! I feel like many movies could be improved in the same manner.
 
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Kyrian007

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Just in general I don't have a problem with censored versions, provided you can still pick up what was actually said in context. And for me context also includes prior knowledge of the original version. So I'm usually not bothered. What DOES bother me, changing music because a licensing deal ran out. X-Files was really the first one that brought it to my attention. Somehow they lost the license to the song Beyond the Sea... it was the freaking title of that episode. It gets replaced by some French language version to get around copyright. Even when Boggs (Brad Dourif) mumbles it, they had to change it to the French one. Scrubs, holy crap did they change a lot for streaming. And those songs were chosen for pretty specific purposes, targeted for the scene. Ted gets one over on Kelso and triumphantly raises a fist... and you don't hear Simple Minds "Don't you forget about me"... THE ENTIRE reference is completely missed. Even when it isn't part of the joke, losing Counting Crows in the roof toilet scene... just sad. In another episode they dropped a Colin Hay song... Colin Hay MADE A GUEST APPEARANCE on Scrubs. HOW do you lose that license?

Yeah, it happens a lot in video games. And that usually bums me out. The changes in GTA:SA alone are just heartbreaking. To me losing music to a licensing issue is 100 times worse than censorship for content purposes. You can't pick up on what music "should have" meant in context.
 

Gordon_4

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Just in general I don't have a problem with censored versions, provided you can still pick up what was actually said in context. And for me context also includes prior knowledge of the original version. So I'm usually not bothered. What DOES bother me, changing music because a licensing deal ran out. X-Files was really the first one that brought it to my attention. Somehow they lost the license to the song Beyond the Sea... it was the freaking title of that episode. It gets replaced by some French language version to get around copyright. Even when Boggs (Brad Dourif) mumbles it, they had to change it to the French one. Scrubs, holy crap did they change a lot for streaming. And those songs were chosen for pretty specific purposes, targeted for the scene. Ted gets one over on Kelso and triumphantly raises a fist... and you don't hear Simple Minds "Don't you forget about me"... THE ENTIRE reference is completely missed. Even when it isn't part of the joke, losing Counting Crows in the roof toilet scene... just sad. In another episode they dropped a Colin Hay song... Colin Hay MADE A GUEST APPEARANCE on Scrubs. HOW do you lose that license?

Yeah, it happens a lot in video games. And that usually bums me out. The changes in GTA:SA alone are just heartbreaking. To me losing music to a licensing issue is 100 times worse than censorship for content purposes. You can't pick up on what music "should have" meant in context.
That happened to Daria too. Because it was made by MTV, they had access to all sorts of music for broadcast. Then the DVDs came out and oh shiiiiiiiiiiit.
 

09philj

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Somehow they lost the license to the song Beyond the Sea... it was the freaking title of that episode. It gets replaced by some French language version to get around copyright
Beyond the Sea is actually an English language cover of Charles Trenet's song La Mer.

La Mer is a jazz standard and there are a large number of versions in different languages. Obviously, each version is slightly different and strikes a somewhat different tone so it is a bit of a hack to just replace the Darin version with someone else's.

A live version of the original French song performed by Julio Iglesias features in the ending montage of the 2010 film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
 
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Kyrian007

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Beyond the Sea is actually an English language cover of Charles Trenet's song La Mer.

La Mer is a jazz standard and there are a large number of versions in different languages. Obviously, each version is slightly different and strikes a somewhat different tone so it is a bit of a hack to just replace the Darin version with someone else's.

A live version of the original French song performed by Julio Iglesias features in the ending montage of the 2010 film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Right, but it still loses the moment in the X-Files because La Mer would very much less likely have been the song that was playing when Scully's dad proposed to her mom. That was a plot point in the episode, lost because of the licensing issue.

That happened to Daria too. Because it was made by MTV, they had access to all sorts of music for broadcast. Then the DVDs came out and oh shiiiiiiiiiiit.
Well, it also happened a lot to stuff like Dawson's Creek and other 90210-ey teen stuff I didn't ever like. But I won't be complaining much about that, "sucks for fans of that stuff" is about as much as I can muster. Daria... I remember watching and liking it, but I never really followed it, dont' remember the music. The only MTV show I really was into was Celebrity Deathmatch.
 
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BrawlMan

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Anything from 4Kids. Shaman King actually suffered the least amount of censorship. Some made sense, while others were just for timing or being overly sensitive. Funny enough, they still let in the dark moments and actually kept most of the blood spill.

Digimon 02 had the most censorship of any of the Digimon series. I know it was just after 2001, but it was getting ridiculous even for the time.
 
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Piscian

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TMNT 2 they never actually use weapons

In the UK they were called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, because British people have a fear of ninjas. Idk the full history of their fears or the cause. I assume its like how white Americans have an instinctual of black people.
 

Bedinsis

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I remember watching a version of Die Hard in China where they literally replaced instances of motherf***** with no noise whatsoever, even if the actors were still enunciating the word in question even though no sound left their lips.

It became particularly funny towards the end of the movie when the bad guy confronted the hero and said: "What was it you said earlier? 'Yippie-kay-ey, *mouths the phrase* ?".
 
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