Enough time has passed that I can watch My Big Fat Greek Wedding again, and actually enjoy it—which is what I was doing this weekend until TBS cut short the scene where Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) are sitting on the floor of the travel agency. It’s a romantic comedy, which means you don’t tamper with the part where the guy asks the girl out on their first date. (The scene ended with Ian’s mispronunciation of Toula’s last name. Awkward—as opposed to awkward yet endearing, like the original cut.) Am I wrong? What other edits-for-time have annoyed you lately?
Jan 8
2008
02:51 PM ET
When bad editing happens to good movies on TV
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I was watching White Christmas over the holiday season and they would cut the musical numbers. Its a MUSICAL! The entire song “Snow” disappeared (one of my favorites) and the cut the “Mandy” half from the minstrel number. It was blasphemous, and RUNINED one of my favorite holiday movie experiences!
I can’t think of something too specific, but there are many times I’ll be watching a syndicated show, and waiting for the punchlines and… they cut the scene short! It’s a comedy, the whole scene’s purpose was to build up to that punchline.
Oh, and I wish they would re-edit movies from the 80s know that we let so much more be said on the air.
E! and Oxygen both have been running butchered versions of High Fidelity with John Cusack. They cut out entire scenes (or major chunks of them) which are important to the halluncinatory daydreaming of the character.
The only example that comes to mind is Mallrats. This potty-mouthed movie was my first experience of Kevin Smith’s world and I love it to death. About 5-6 years ago, ABC (remember, owned by Disney) had the great idea to show Mallrats at 8 P.M. on a Saturday night. So many of the lines were dubbed over and so many parts were super-edited that I couldn’t watch more than a few minutes of it.
EM – Totally agree with High Fidelity, I tried to watch it on tv the other day with someone who had not seen the movie and they kept cutting essential parts, and it really did impact the quality of the movie. So much so I had to turn it off and tell her we had to wait to see the full version. Also, if anyone has seen the edited version of the Sopranos on A&E, it seriously affects the show. In one episode they cut out a murder scene completely, and later in the episode they reference the murder, but without the scene it would make no sense to someone who did not know the guy was killed. Terrible editing.
I just get frustrated when they try to show something like Goodfellas on TNT and have to cut a curse word every three seconds. It is annoying as hell!
Ferris Buehler’s Day Off: “If Cameron stuck a lump of coal in his “fist” in two weeks it’d be a diamond”… thanks for killing a great line in the movie!
A channel here recently showed “The Phantom of the Opera” and cut out everything from just BEFORE the final chorus of the song “Prima Donna” all the way to the New Year’s Eve ball. So, that’s the end of Minnie Driver’s big comic song, the whole opera where the Phantom gets her back, and all of All I Ask of You + the Phantom going ballistic at them. What. The. Frak.
Worst I’ve seen to date was in Meet Joe Black on the Sci-Fi channel. They faded out and went to commercial as Brad Pitt was being hit by a car. That was my favorite part.
Every time that “National Lampoons Christmas Vacation” is shown on regular television(channel 11 here in New York City), the electrocuted cat scene is always edited out.
For years I was watching an old tv tape of Dirty Dancing and in consequence I did not not for years there was a wig scene. Sure it’s not a that great of a scene but…
They were showing Kill Bill on Spike TV over New Years and the editing didn’t make sense. It’s OK to show the bride take out someone’s eyeball or give a joker smile, but not decapitation or the two-by-four to Gogo.
I watched Love Actually a while back on TV and if you’d never seen it before, it would have made absolutely no sense.
I watched Bridget Jone’s Diary over the holidays and it was terrible, the way they cut mid-line, there’s an editor with too much love for the cutting !
Mallrats. On cable TV, it’s a completely different movie than the original.