Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2014 January 8

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January 8

Differences in cinematic releases?

I notice we don't have an article on Cinematic releases. Originally I was under the impression that the later video releases were just longer, with stuff cut out of the cinematic version to get a fresh batch of paying customers into the theater faster. In general, how common was it for a movie to contain scenes in the movie theater version that were removed or altered for release on premium cable channels like Showtime, or in other video formats?

For example:

• The movie Krull just blew me away as a child with a long slow introduction that seemed like it was five minutes long of a comet, which turns out to be a crystal fortress, slowly approaching a planet as Holst's Mars, the Bringer of War, which I'd never known about before that moment, played gloriously in the background. But now... it's not in the movie! Some reviews of the movie actually make the comparison with a song much later in it [1] which was noticeable to me, but it's absolutely not the same thing.

• In The Matrix, during the rescue of Morpheus, there was a scene in which they blew up an elevator and sent it plummeting to the ground floor. Amusingly, just as it arrived, there was the mundane sound of the bell announcing its arrival just before the doors exploded. But now? There's no bell.

There are lots of cases like this, and I'm never entirely sure if there are multiple versions of the movie, if memory is more creative than I think, or even whether there are influences of multiple temporal dimensions on the mysterious workings of human consciousness. Wnt (talk) 20:10, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

It's hard to say why this is done since many decisions of this sort are made by the studio and not really explained to the viewing public when they're done. And the reasons are many and wide ranging. The movie Blade Runner is an excellent example of just how many different versions can be made of the same film. We even have Versions of Blade Runner which goes over the seven different versions of the film. And this is not just done for movies. Some television episodes have been altered when they are played as re-runs. Sometimes the opening theme will be dropped or shortened to allow for more commercials. And then there may be a licensing issue which I believe is the reason why an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati was altered. I think it's the episode "Turkeys Away" where in the original airing the song "Dogs" by Pink Floyd was playing in a scene in the DJ booth (You can find it on YouTube). The re-runs of the episode on TV today will not have that song playing in the background even though the dialog of the characters refers to what is playing, "Are those dogs that I hear?". Dismas|^(talk) 21:08, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

On a purely technical point, we do have a very short article Film release, to which Theatrical release redirects. Perhaps another redirect should be created. Tevildo (talk) 22:15, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

There were some changes to the DVD release of The Matrix as a box set: it was re-graded to match the color tone of the sequels, and, for some reason, changes the title in the digital rain sequence from "The Matrix" to just "Matrix"), however the arrival "ding" bell is still heard before the elevator doors explode. --Canley (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

NCIS vs. Animal House

In the NCIS episode "Worst Nightmare", the story begins with a literature teacher explaining Milton's Paradise Lost to his class, referencing the main character by writing SATAN on the whiteboard in large letters under the book's title. This seems almost identical to a scene in the movie Animal House where Professor Jennings (Donald Sutherland) writes the exact same thing on a chalkboard in his class. Could this be an homage or an in-joke by the episode's writer?    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 23:30, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it could be. RNealK (talk) 06:21, 11 January 2014 (UTC)