Ok, this is weird


I've just managed to find a Steelbook Blu-Ray for Europe as I was always wanting to see the TV cut I had first seen back in the '80's. I had recorded it on VHS and used to watch it a lot, I mean a lot. Recite it word for word, still.
I've just watched the TV cut and it's not the same as the one I know. The one I saw had "some" swearing in it, like when Otto says "Bullsh*t, you're a white suburban punk..." though they still say "melon farmer" and "flip you" , but in the Steelbook version I've just watched there is no swearing at all.

The one I knew had "John Wayne was a fag" etc, but Oly says "a lot of guys like to watch their buddies play" instead of "fu**"
It was sort of half and half the clean version and the cinema version. It had Archie going down on Debbie, which isn't in the Steelbook TV cut. It had Debbie sticking her gum on Agent Rogers' hand and saying "Look, a metal hand" but it didn't have the bit about the circular rocket rail bomb track.

This is weird. If Steelbook and the Criterion one only have the cinema cut with all swearing and the TV cut with no swearing and melon farmers etc, what the hell did I have on VHS?
The one I remember didn't seem to have overdubs of clean swearing but only actually acted lines, unlike the TV cut which has some very obvious overdubs.

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As long as they kept the 'plate of shrimp' monologue .... everything is cool.

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I just got an email from Alex Cox. How melonfarming cool is that? I asked him, earlier today, whether there were any other known cuts of Repo Man, other than the sweary main cut and the totally non sweary TV cut.
The one I've been watching for years since about 1985 turns out to be some mash up of the two, which must have been done by some editor at the BBC prior to its first broadcast in the UK. Nothing to do with Cox.

That's still weird though. I understand that TV companies force edits into films, to remove swearing, or butcher films to make them fit in a particular time slot but it seems unusual for someone to decide they like certain bits of each of two cuts, then make their own version to broadcast it.

Still, I feel like I've been spoken to by cult movie royalty.

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That's cool.

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