Movies that have Inexplicably Changed over the years

[MisterBluxom]

I saw The Verdict with Paul Newman in 1982 - the year it was made. I could swear that at the end of the movie, the jury asks the judge if there is any limit on how much they can award the plaintiff and after the judge tells them "no", they make an award of millions of dollars. The important point is that I'm certain the jury actually named the exact amount. But I saw this film again recently and the jury asked the judge if there was a limit and after the judge said "no", the film abruptly ended.

I wanted to be certain so I asked a friend who has a great many movies to help me and he had two separate copies of this same movie and they both ended in the same way (abruptly). Is it possible they actually changed the movie over the past 35 years? Or is the truth that I'm just getting senile with old age.

Another example is "Rosemary's Baby". I saw the original in approximately 1967. At the end of the film, they showed a "money shot" of the baby. Just some horribly disfigured creature with a very large and ugly claw. But then, I recently saw it again - a modern copy - and the movie was pretty much identical - except no showing of the baby at the end. What's going on? Are movies being changed for some reason? Or am I going senile?

Would anyone know the reason for this?  Would anyone have any other examples of movies that have been changed many years after they were first released?

[Schweedie]

Ooh, interesting! I have one of these, sort of - Girl with a Pearl Earring. It could just be my mind playing tricks on me, but I saw it in the cinema when it came out, and when I saw it again years later (well, it doesn't quite fit in the "many years later" category) I could've SWORN the ending was different. In my head there was a scene where Griet goes to the house and finds out that Vermeer wanted her to have the earrings, but his wife refuses to give them to her, and later on after that, the cook fulfils his wishes by delivering them to Griet. But that scene at the house wasn't there, so the cook just came by and gave them to her with no preamble. I still don't know if I just remember it wrong, but - seriously, I could've sworn I saw that scene the first time.

[MisterBluxom]

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that someone will have an explanation.

If not, at least I hope some other people will post about some other movies that seem to have changed.

I sure do hope there will be some kind of rationale explanation. I just don't want to find out that it's aliens from another world who are practicing their mind control techniques on us - you know ... being an inferior species and all.  *j/k*

[Irlandesa]

3 hours ago, MissBluxom said:

Or am I going senile?

You probably just have an active imagination.  I've experienced it before when I've been able to see scenes that probably didn't happen.  For instance, the jury moment, I think there have been other similar moments like that on TV and film.  Plus, the suggestion of what is about to happen is so strong that it's possible your brain just filled in the blank.

[HoboClayton]

You never see the baby in Rosemary's Baby.  There is a slight flash of his "father's" eyes, but that's all. The baby was never intended to be seen. 

[Epeolatrix]

There are movies that have changed over time because there have been different legit edits made available. There's the possibility of a theatrical release, director's cut, airline version, only-on-cable version, and foreign releases. With discs, you add the availability of deleted scenes that we might inadvertently remember as part of the movie.

Manhunter (1986) might be the 'worst' of these. It has at least four versions (Showtime edit, director's cut, and different edits each called the theatrical cut but from different disc releases). They differ mostly in the presence or absence of small scenes, things are in a different order, and there's also a different ending that has a much creepier tone than the theatrical cut.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Violet Impulse
Clarity

[paulvdb]

Most of the time active imagination and confusion with scenes from other (similar) movies cause these issues. I remember rewatching Grease and thinking something was deleted that I remembered from watching it many years earlier. But then I watched Grease 2 and saw whatever it was that I thought was missing from Grease.

Of course sometimes movies really are changed and we get things like Greedo shooting first in Star Wars.

[DisneyBoy]

There have been so many versions of Ridley Scott's Legend over the years that it's hard to know exactly what is in the movie and what isn't. It isn't even as simple as stating which soundtrack you heard when you watched the movie. The US cut features a score by Tangerine Dream but I recently learned that so did the UK cut, which ran longer than the US cut. It's only the director's cut that was released on DVD that featured the classical score and restored a lot of character beats and plot details to the story. The trouble is that now when you talk about the movie you have to be careful to specify which scenes you saw in which version.

It's still virtually the same film no matter which way you cut it, but it can be a very different viewing experience.

I personally get pissed off whenever Disney reanimates portions of their films. There were alligators in The Lion King that were redrawn to make them look more cute. Why? Were children really so traumatized by a quick two second shot of alligators singing?

Then there's the original Fantasia, where I can basically understand why they would censor things like black centaurs being subservient to the white centaurs...but at the same time zooming and panning away can't change the fact that we all know what was originally in the movie. I'm of the belief that leaving it in does more good than cutting it out. Even as a child when I saw it I think I remember asking myself why the adults decided to draw the black centaurs a certain way. I think that will remind kids to question what they are shown in media and to be sensitive of others. But I guess Disney wants to protect itself from lawsuits for emotional trauma or something...

Still, I just get really annoyed when they go back and edit their movies when they obviously don't have to. They're some of the most beloved works in cinema and certainly some of the most famous. And yet they think we won't notice when they make changes.

Does anybody else remember how Belle's hair changed when they released Beauty and the Beast to DVD a few years back? It went from being brown to suddenly auburn and I was really annoyed. I think it has reverted back since, but I'm not sure that it would have if so many people hadn't noticed and complained...

Edited April 4, 2017 by DisneyBoy

[methodwriter85]

In Dirty Dancing, Lisa says to Baby, "Come on. You don't care about me. You wouldn't care if I humped the entire army... as long as we were on the right side Ho Chi Minh trail. What you care about is that you're not Daddy's girl anymore. He listens when I talk now, and you hate that."

I could have SWORN the line was, "He hangs on my every word now, and you hate that."