When I originally saw this movie many years ago I distinctly remember the acting and scenes were diferent. Scott's performance was more subtle and less emotive. His angst and despair were more internalized rather than frantic.
I'm not sure if this version was edited down or if there were alternate scenes.
One example is when he watches the film clip of his daughter. He is not nearly as enraged, but rather shields his shock and grief.
I think your brain is playing tricks on you.
I remember the same thing about that scene when I watched that movie many years ago; Scott was just internalizing everything.
Weird...
The both of you may be interjecting Jake's [Scott's] reaction from the later scene when he watches the snuff film [has to act subdued as he's pretending to be into that stuff] into the earlier scene of first discovering his daughter in the XXX film.
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I agree. I know for sure the scene where Scott finds the detective with the girl was different originally. The girl had a shirt but no pants on and the dialog was different. I don't think he was kicked out of his place either.
TV versions do tend to differ from what was screened theatrically. A lot of the time, alternate scenes are filmed so that the filmmakers don't have to go through the hassle of doing reshoots months later and trying to match everything up.
shareI think I have to agree with you. One of your other posters may have it right, and the mind does play tricks on you overtime, but I seem to recall a scene in the beginning, where Kristin brreaks down crying, b/c she was still a virgin at that point. Then the director knew thats how she lost her virginity. But, it's been too many years to be certain.
shareI don't know about all that but I have been searching for an uncut version of this for a long time. I remember watching it on the Movie Channel back in the early 1980s. But the two videos I've found of it had a lot of the nudity cut out, which I don't understand because there was nothing excessive or extraordinary about it.
"Truth is its own evidence." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sorry to disagree with several posters here, but I saw the film theatrically in 1979, then had it on VHS, then had it on laserdisc, and now have it on DVD. All of those versions looked identical to me. I don't believe that there was an alternate version. The mind can play tricks, especially over several decades.
shareI had a co-worker that once worked for the Spectradyne(SP?) company that provided the pay-to-view movies in hotels and motels on one-inch videotapes, and he often talked about differences in those tapes compared to other versions he viewed in theaters.
I also wonder if the comment specifically means The Movie Channel, or a cable movie channel in general, because HBO was well known for broadcasting movies without the specified "mask".
What is "the mask"? Well, if you watch some of TMZ or The Discovery Channel, you will occasionally see the view of the camera operator, which shows several rectangles on the screen. Those indicate where the film can be masked down to the center view's rectangle, or other larger views that include more of the original image. In the HBO broadcast of the Goldie Hawn and Bert Reynold's movie BEST FRIENDS, more than half of Goldie Hawn's topless scenes from the HBO version are NOT topless scenes in the VHS, laserdisc, and DVD version of the movie, which are the same, ("take a shower with me"), and are not showing the lowest part of the frame masked from the HBO version (which I videotaped from the cable TV broadcast). That change directly affects the emotional tone of the entire movie, and the mask *should have been left off* IMHO.
Another case of *revisions* to a movie, in spite of the cover sticker "Uncensored!" description, is the Disney movie FANTASIA. Yes, Disney lied about changing a specific sequence for "political correctness" in the segment with the centaurs in The Rites of Spring. Since the animation was exquisitly intertwined with the musical score, simply cutting frames out would not be a workable solution, so they essentially cut the edited portions into four quadrants, and expanded the upper right quadrant to fill the frame, leaving the music intact; (a version of pan-and-scan). How can I make such a claim? Easily when you have a version of the movie with large grain on the affected frames, and they stand out compared to the grain both before and after the edited frames! That coarse grain was cleaned up in the DVD versions and the VHS versions. But, they did have versions of the pre-cleanup that made it to the public... possibly they were originally rental versions. What I cannot demonstrate is the original Sunday night Disney TV show (Yes, 'way back then!), that I remember seeing as a child; (home VCR's didn't exist then.) However, an eBay seller offerred a VHS copy of a promotional preview that did have the unmodified sequence, but it sold for BIG bucks! (Hint, the changed section was on Sunday TV before Dr. King Jr. had his dream...) So, there IS the question of whether essentially deleting/masking most of some frames actually constitutes "censoring" the film... you decide.
Most people do not know that FANTASIA was the first stereo theater movie, and it was presented in the early 1930's! It was not well received at the time, and didn't become popular until quite a bit later. (There were suggestions that the artists were on drugs... and there was the great depression too)
Actually,
It depends on when and where they saw the film.
I used to live in Austin, Texas, USA. Both Austin and Dallas Texas were used for test screenings of movies to put the "final touches" on the "final version" of films before they were released to general circulation a week or two later.
One of my wife's acquaintances usually managed to get free tickets for her two teenaged sons, and herself (a teacher), to view the sneak-preview screenings, and in several they attended, Spielberg himself entered the theater (quietly) just after the movie(s) started, and took notes during the screening. They seldom went to see the movie in general release, because they already saw the movie, but they did have disagreements with their friends after the friends saw the general release... Yes, there WERE changes made...
I have personally seen four different versions of one particular movie, plus a couple of TV edits (for runtime and content) of the movie. One long "scene" that was edited out for general release was as much as three minutes of dialog while the main actor and his best friend went through a drive-through "beer barn", buying more beer; (Texas law at that time allowed the driver to be drinking while driving, as long as they were not above the legal blood alcohol limit, but that was offensive on the national level to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD)!)
And, I also apparently saw one of the earliest and most complete versions of the movie THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, which has been recently re-released before the remake version came out. It was the only movie I almost walked out of, but I didn't since there was a posted "No refunds!!" sign. The DVD released "original" version has a commentary about how the DVD version was pieced together from surviving prints of the film, and apparently none of them were completely the same as others they were able to find, AND there was mention of a lot of cutting-room-floor footage that could not be found for "deleted scenes". The DVD is missing several of the more "gross" scenes I remember having seen... I suppose they had too many requests for refunds, and walkouts from the first cut, plus local proprietor "unofficial" cuts of the various prints. And a friend of a friend was a projectionist at a small movie theater, and admitted to removing frames from "broken film" that he had to splice together for the next show - which happenned to be specific *interesting* frames (use your imagination as to what would be stolen from a print).
I also remember a scene (apparently an "insert") in TAXI DRIVER in the porn movie DiNero watched, and that specific scene was removed... it was a floroscope view of a heterosexual act, and it is NOT in any version of the movie I have seen since; it would be pretty hard to mistake such a specific and unusual scene, even with the passage of time.
Bottom line ---
It is too easy to say someone simply doesn't remember a movie after time has passed, but there are obviously other reasons *you* didn't see the same "version" *they* saw... nevermind USA vs. international versions...
Personally, I notice that the exact same movie seem very different if I see them years apart, at different stages of my life. Mainly because I'm different, my life experience is different at the two points.
For instance, when I saw the original, first Star Wars movie as a pre-teen in 1977, it was a magical technological experience.
I saw the movie again about 5 years ago. I couldn't stand that whiny little bitch Luke Skywalker. I wanted to backhand slap him almost every time he opened his mouth. The science fiction portions didn't seem central to the main story. The whole reason I loved the movie was the geeky science and technology parts.
I guarantee you the movie itself hadn't changed a bit over the past 35+ years. But I certainly had.
No two persons ever watch the same movie.share
Yeah.
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