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?
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.
I was watching steel magnolias on TBS a couple nights ago and they went to a commercial in the middle of Sally Fields breakdown by Shelbys grave!!! I was mid cry when an add for viagra came on. It was awful!!
It cracks me up when I’ve seen the TV edited version of a movie so many times, that if I end up seeing the unedited version, there are all these scenes I forgot about! Breakfast Club is a great example – the scene where they get high – its always cut, and I actually rented it not too long ago and was like – OMG – this is like the first time I’m seeing this all over again!
The hatchet job that comes immediately to mind is the TV edit of “The Fifth Element.” The way the original is edited is one of the primary joys of watching the movie, so when they mess with that, it takes away from the fun. Most egregious editing: taking out the parts of Chris Tucker’s flight attendant seduction as the cruise ship is taking off for Floston Paradise. Terrible.
TBS cut out the final scene of the final episode of Sex and the City. WTF.
I hate TBS. It never has the volleyball scene in Top Gun.
Not so much the edit for time as it is the edit for content, but whenever “Do the Right Thing” comes on USA, they always dub the m*****f*****s out to put in mickificki. It’s reDONKulous. Who the heck thought of this crap?
Another edit that for time is “Friday on Comedy Central or TV1. The movie is short so they add scenes that don’t make any sense.
Stop the MADNESS!!!
Discovery Channel aired “Grizzly Man” last year. There was a commercial break every 3 minutes. Seriously. It was the strangest format I’d ever suffered through.
I remember when I was (much) younger that the only song I really liked in Grease was “Greased Lightning”. But, I always seemed to miss it when the movie came on. NBC was airing it one night, I sat down to watch it from start to finish, and, you guessed it, they cut the song completely.
Remember the final scene of the “Sound of Music” as the Von Trapps cross the Alps to the triumphant reprise of “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”? Well, for years I believed the scene just before it was the family’s failure to accept first prize at the music festival.
It wasn’t until recently that I found out there’s a sequence at the convent in which the Von Trapps barely escape their Nazi pursuers!
Sex and the City is soo butchered up on TBS it’s ridiculous.
Blazing Saddles on AMC. I understand that it’s difficult to show that movie on any non-pay cable channel, but if it means cutting out every raunchy or non-PC joke, there’s no point to showing the movie at all.
Sex and the City on the CW is way worse than TBS. Their edits are often just downright confusing. The first time my fiance watched the show on dvd he was astounded at how different (i.e., better!) it was!
Sex and the City. TBS butchers it to no end. I totally understand why they have to do it, but then why put it on anyways? I have the pink fuzzy dvd collection so I can watch it any time, but I had it on the other day when I was getting ready for bed and instead of Samantha saying f*** buddy, she just says buddy. Totally loses the meaning.
Edits for inappropriate content (albeit sometimes laughable) is understandable, but why would USA cut the Hugh Grant Pointer Sisters dancing sequence out of Love Actually? It’s especially confusing because there a hack cut into that song as we see his character exit his home. Distracting and dissappointing.
I simply don’t watch movies on TV anymore unless they were made for TV to begin with.