Re: Avatar Alternate Audio

On Sun, 21 Nov 2010, pcg wrote:
> Been working my way through the new "Avatar" Extended Blu-Ray 
> Collector's Edition (which is stunning, btw). I'll post some thoughts on 
> the new extended version (16 minutes longer than the theatrical), but 
> wanted to mention one thing that jumped out at me: the "Family Audio 
> Track" with "all objectionable language removed." Weren't studios and/or 
> filmmakers furious about this sort of thing not too long ago? And has 
> there ever been a DVD that offered a feature like this?

I don't think the studios could have been *that* furious about 
no-profanity tracks in the past, given that many scenes in many films have 
been filmed twice -- once with profanity, once without -- in order to 
produce "clean" versions for broadcast or for playback on Greyhound buses 
etc.  (I vaguely recall seeing Three Men and a Little Lady on a bus, some 
time after seeing it in a theatre, and noting that the line "You little 
shit!" had been changed to "You little monster!", and I believe we could 
even see the actor mouthing both syllables.  But friends of mine who work 
in the local film industry tell me they have seen filmmakers shoot a scene 
and then shoot it again, saying, "Okay, now for the TV version...")

The problem was never one of movies being cleaned up, per se, but one of 
studio *control* over the clean-up.  The various stores and websites that 
offered to "clean up" your DVDs were basically offering to make *copies* 
of certain films that they had tampered with -- and it was this *copying* 
of the films that violated the studios' copyright on those films.

I don't believe I have ever seen a "family audio track" on a DVD before, 
though.  Interesting.  Does the "family" version still have the sex scene?

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