Rite of Spring edit: very disturbing!

Yesterday, I received my BluRay of Fantasia (after seeing it in the 70s, VHS from the 90s, DVD in 2000something) and I just watched a few segments, and wanted to check on the trivia section here because I too thought the fish scene was missing the part where it crawled on land.

and now I found this thread... I have no proof for my assumption that there is something missing, but there seem to be some who agree, on the other hand, the numerous changes on Fantasia over the years have been discussed and if this never popped up, maybe it was not there?

I could be wrong, but maybe we supporters of the "missing-fish-link" scene just extended our memory with the continuation of the walk on land, because we all have heard over the years in some way or other and more than once, that one day a creature left the water and crawled on land, and we simply incorporated this? The reason I'm saying this, 30 min after I just watched it: when the fish swims towards the surface with these already walking-like fin moves, for the first time ever today I had the impression it is NOT moving up a beach, but a long stone or piece of wood, and I thought "how is it going to crawl on land now?" and then it looks out of the water - and cut - land, other creatures - I was like - "no, there's something different".

I will check my VHS and DVDs for this scene. Maybe the BluRay is clearer on the details, and it never was the land? Maybe there is a missing 10 sec scene somewhere, like the spider pit scene in King Kong.

Or maybe I'm just going crazy, because I spend so much time on research for this little unimportant detail while there are wars and protest marches in the real world, financial crisis, the dog wants to be walked, and I still have not cleaned the house --- but it irks me!!!!

My word ebright you are truly despicable. Go get a life!!! They are sold at K-Mart between the tact and the common sense, just below the gum.

Just read through this entire thread and everyone seems to be a bit arrogant, to me, in calling each other arrogant when absolutely no one has apparently presented evidence.

If this cut scene was viewed in childhood and there is no evidence to say that it was there, then people can't go around shouting saying 'you are so wrong! it was there!' when they won't provide evidence to prove it. However, the same can be said for the other side if the cut scene was there and it really was removed.

I'm balancing on the fact that there may be some confusion of what came out of the water and what didn't. It really is easy to think that you remember something from a film but you can be completely wrong because what you thought you remembered was just similar to what it really was.

It is really only a small part of a scene that I doubt offended anyone in what it was about, why would it be cut if it was inoffensive like Sunflower the Centaur Girl? However, it can still stand that Disney just cut out seconds-long details and felt like no one would mind as it was such a tiny detail.

It's hard to really say, unless anyone provides evidence about whether it happened or not. I just think there's a lot of 'pot calling the kettle black' here in saying that just one person is being arrogant when everyone is throwing opinions around just like they are without evidence and thinking that they are 100% correct.

Believe me, nothing is trivial. - Eric Draven, The Crow.

My only issue with this whole debate is that the track itself (The Rite of Spring) did NOT CHANGE LENGTH. In all the versions I have heard (1990 VHS, 1957 LP release, 1990 Restoration CD), the track has remained the same, with no cuts or edits. If there really was a scene cut there, it would has messed up the timing with the track (changed animation length, unchanged soundtrack).

The only I way I could think of this being possible was if Disney sped up/slowed down the animation frames around the cut to fill in those extra seconds that were lost.

I've loved Fantasia since first seeing it in the theater in the late 1940s, and have two video versions: the two-tape VHS set and the 60th Anniversary DVD (which would put it around 2000). Just looked at my VHS version, and the 4-legged fish still crawls out of the water onto the beach, but that scene was abbreviated before he's seen up **on** the dry sand in the 60th anniversary version (although the implication is still there).

More disturbing is that the black centaur ("Sunflower"), present in the VHS version, seems to have completely disappeared in the 60th Anniversary DVD - in one place via a fairly tight zoom (very grainy) to another centaur, probably to preserve the sound track. I understand that some of the original scenes can be offensive, but taking her **completely** out of the film seems a bit extreme....

Look kid, just be grateful that we still see a few seconds of the fish crawling out of the water, so there's still evidence of evolution. Considering the Rite Of Spring is the longest segment in Fantasia, Disney just wanted to shorten it a bit and let it flow with the music. And also, the segment is about the history of the Earth and in reality, it took millions of years to develop. Did you expect Disney to extend the film, so that we would spend the entire day or over, and I mean literally over 24 hours, watching the film?
Besides, Disney edits its films, so to shorten the films a bit. It's called condensed time. Nothing wrong with that.

Still no evidence after all these years.