I agree with his point about the films being a snapshot of history, but the examples of ET and Roald Dahl highlight for me the issue. Dahl’s language isn’t very friendly, and the guns in ET are scary and arguably inappropriate, but the film and books are fantastic stories with real-world lessons in an accessible format for kids. Do we just “remake” them? How does that work for books?
> Do we just “remake” them? How does that work for books?
We leave them alone.
And we read for the kids watch movies with them and don't let them access the full library unsupervised.
We never know what triggers kids. I had nightmares about the toy pirate handgun that the other boy at my age had, that and vw mini buses.
I never had nightmares about some rather nasty things I read (described below trigger warning), but I did have nightmares about a toy gun..!
My point is: we have to face reality at some point. And we have to let children think about it and play with it, even if some of them gets scared of guns or even like me, toy guns.
The rest qualify for a trigger warning, stop here if you don't want to read graphic descriptions of what I read as a kid.
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We had free access to the complete local village library (which was located at the school) almost from we started at school and as a nerdy kid I had read a lot about WW2 way before I became a teenager, much of it old books with first hand accounts of what people saw and experienced, mutilated bodies, literal revenge decimations of locals when Germans couldn't find who had sabotaged them, torture and more.
I think they're fine and appropriate. As long as they keep the originals available I don't mind the alternative moralist edits. Just don't force them on me. I'm not interested in such edits.
Are you a creator? A writer, or an artist, or a director? ... Are you a very good one?
Because to the best of my knowledge, no world-class author or director has ever said "Feel free to change my words, images, and choices after I die, however you see fit to make the most money or appease the current narrative".
... And if a creator ever did say that, it would be the exception that proves the rule.
What? How about living ones? Like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. At least Spielberg says he regrets his decision but when it comes to George Lucas and the original Star Wars, there's plenty of people who were very angry at him when you could only get a DVD of the original trilogy that was filled with modern CGI effects and prequel actors that weren't there in the original release. At one point the only way to watch those original edits at home was to get an old VHS set at the flea market.
Whether I'm a creator myself or not has nothing to do with this, and whether the edits are made by the authors themselves or by other people without consent of the now dead author is not really my point here. Both annoy me but of course the latter is even more annoying. I just want an easy access to the unedited works thank you very much.
You said "I don't mind the alternative moralist edits".
I do mind, and my point is that basically every creative would also mind having their work subjected to "alternative moralist edits", especially without their consent and/or after their death.
That's not the same thing as George Lucas adding random CG crap; false equivalence.
If I understand what you're saying, it's that as long as the original is available it's fine, if annoying, for publishers to re-edit and profit from bastardized, censored, altered versions of creators work.
That's why I ask if you're a creator - because no creator, ever, anywhere, at any time, has expressed a preference - or even a tolerance - for having their work fucked with like this.
Well, to me those moralist edits are like those reader's digest books with shortened edits of novels. I really don't mind their existence, as long as they're labeled as special edits for a niche market rather than an attempt to replace the original.
That's not what Spielberg is talking about at all. These rewritings and revision are quite different; in scope, in manner, in presentation and in purpose.
What happened to Dahl, or the 1984 audiobook, etc, are nothing like a Reader's Digest regurgitation.
Dr Seuss books were recently recalled and remade to be less racist and to remove insensitive imagery. Bernstein Bears books all got replaced by Berenstein Bears books, so it's clearly not impossible to do.
> Many people incorrectly remember the name of the series as the "Berenstein Bears". This confusion has generated multiple explanations of the memories, including an unannounced name change, time travel, or parallel universes, and has been described as an instance of the Mandela effect.[87][88][89][90] According to Mike Berenstain, confusion over the name has existed since his father's childhood, when a teacher told him there was no such name as "Berenstain" and the correct spelling was "Bernstein."[91] A few examples of the "Berenstein" spelling have been found in references to and knockoffs of official merchandise[92] and publications,[93] and cartoons for the series used an ambiguous pronunciation which may contribute to the false memory.[94]
