One of my all time favorite 80s movies, “Back to the Future”, was being aired the other night on the ABC Family channel. Having seen the movie approximately 20-30 times beginning to end, I could practically quote every line.
That said, I noticed a very obvious edit job done in the scene near the end of the movie where Marty writes a warning letter to the Doc about events 30 years down the road.
TV versions (of “Back to the Future”) that aired shortly after the World Trade Center Attack in September 2001 featured certain alterations to the Libyan terrorists subplot. When Marty reads aloud his warning letter for Doc, he says "You will be shot," instead of "You will be shot by terrorists," and the "by terrorists" area of the letter is digitally erased.
Hey, why stop there? Why not make the terrorists into natives of Alabama or Kentucky. Better yet, dub the voices with Southern accents. Since the Southern states overwhelmingly voted for President Bush (who actually has the audacity to combat terrorism), they’re the real bad guys right?
Here’s a sample of the newly dubbed scene where Doc is shot:
Doc: Oh, my God, they found me, I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it Marty.
Marty: Who? Who?
Doc: Who do you think? The (dub word here) Rednecks!!
Terrorist (as he’s firing the machine gun at Doc from a van with a digitally added confederate flag decal): Praise the Lord, the South has risen again!!!
Howard Dean would give his shriek of approval.
Brad: PLEASE tell me you are kidding about this. Did they *really* change Libyan terrorists into neo-confederates, or were you making a parody? Why bother to show a movie if you have to remake it like this? So, did the DeLorean run on bourbon instead of plutonium? Hey, why not follow the "Da Vinci Code" premise and make them agents of Opus Dei? If you need villains, you can't go wrong with fanatical Christians, right? In any case, we have the unadulterated BTTF trilogy on DVD. Let's get our families together and watch it on a "conservative movie night."
ReplyDeleteYes, I was kidding about the Libyans being made into neo-confederates.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of that post was to perpetuate the reputation of Hollywood. The entertainment industry is so knee jerk that they'll avoid like the bubonic plague anything that says "terrorist". However, they have no problem parodying folks who live in the red states.