sick of revisionist cinema? watch South Park 2-nite (1 Viewer)

[Rachael B]

2-night's episode is "Free Hat". Let me just give you the discription that's writtn on my Tivo's guide:

"The boys form a club in order to stop Hollywood directors from wrecking their own films."

A friend saw it earlier in the week and said it was hilarious. She said it was as if you wrote it, because I'm always ranting about the evils of revisionist cinema.

This episode is scheduled for 3/2/2003, 11 p.m. Eastern Time on the Comedy Channel. Lucas and Spielberg should be there....

 

[Patrick McCart]

Revisionist Cinema's evils vary from person to person and film to film.

South Park did some of their own revisionism... They removed the Spookyvision alert from the Mechasteisand episode for later showings.

It's funny how this show tries to inspire philosophy.

 

[Tom Ryan]

This episode parodies the revisionism of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg by portraying them as villains who are out to change Raiders Of The Lost Ark (by changing all the characters to Ewoks, basically). There are some excellent parodies in this episode, most prominently a parody of Raiders, but the episode also spoofs some other movies including Saving Private Ryan and E.T. It's a hilarious episode with a great message too.

 

[Brendan Brown]

I never understood why Spielberg was portrayed as the greater villain in that episode compared to Lucas, I mean, at least he put the original version of E.T. on DVD.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I mean, at least he put the original version of E.T. on DVD.

Only months after it was announced that the original version wouldn't be included and a huge outcry from fans forced Speilberg and Universal to change their plans. The episode was obviously produced before the decision to include the original version was announced.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Paul.Mc]

I think they pilloried Spielberg for the reasons he indulged in revisionism. Whatever you feel about what Lucas did to his work ( ), Spielberg rose to self-censorship with the walkie-talkies and re-dubbing. I'm sure we know how Messrs. Parker and Stone feel about self-censorship .

 

[Patrick McCart]

I think they pilloried Spielberg for the reasons he indulged in revisionism. Whatever you feel about what Lucas did to his work ( ), Spielberg rose to self-censorship with the walkie-talkies and re-dubbing. I'm sure we know how Messrs. Parker and Stone feel about self-censorship .

They both stand for the same thing. The creators of South Park stand up for what they want in their show. Lucas and Speilberg stand up for how they want their films to be shown.

 

[Richard Kim]

The creators of South Park stand up for what they want in their show. Lucas and Speilberg stand up for how they want their films to be shown.

I agree. I may be in the minority here, but I believe that Parker and Stone are somewhat hypocritical in criticizing Lucas and Speilberg for making creative judgements without regard to popular opinion, when they have been doing the same.
I seem to remember the "April Fools" episode, which pissed off plenty of SP fans at the time.

 

[MarcVH]

Er, wait. So, when Spielberg removed stuff from ET that he thought might offend people, he was "making a creative judgement with regard to popular opinion?" What, then, would be an example of bowing to popular opinion?

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Only months after it was announced that the original version wouldn't be included and a huge outcry from fans forced Speilberg and Universal to change their plans. The episode was obviously produced before the decision to include the original version was announced.

The decision to include the original version on the regular two disc set wasn't announced. Nobody knew about it until someone got their hands on the finished DVD a few weeks before release date. Until then, everybody thought the original version would be included only on the deluxe 3 disc set.

Parker and Stone still had a point to make about changing the movies, and I don't equate that with removing the superfluous "spookyvision" graphics from an episode, or pulling an April Fool's joke on the entire audience by showing an episode of Terrence and Philip instead of resolving the "Cartman's Mom is a Dirty Slut" cliffhanger.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Shouldn't this be in TV or at the very least movies? I don't see how it has anything to do with DVDs, tapes, or laserdiscs.

 

[Joe McKeown]

Only months after it was announced that the original version wouldn't be included and a huge outcry from fans forced Speilberg and Universal to change their plans.

At least Speilberg listened to the fans. You gotta give him points for that. Lucass has basically said he doesn't care what the fans want.


...I came back to fix the typo, then decided I liked it better that way...

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I agree. I may be in the minority here, but I believe that Parker and Stone are somewhat hypocritical in criticizing Lucas and Speilberg for making creative judgements without regard to popular opinion, when they have been doing the same.

That's hardly hypocrisy. They freely admit to their show sucking.

 

[Tom Ryan]

I agree. I may be in the minority here, but I believe that Parker and Stone are somewhat hypocritical in criticizing Lucas and Speilberg for making creative judgements without regard to popular opinion, when they have been doing the same.
I seem to remember the "April Fools" episode, which pissed off plenty of SP fans at the time.

Actually, if you listen to the South Park season 1 commentaries (if you can find them, that is), you'll learn that Matt & Trey actually thought the April Fool's thing would go over really well with the fans...they were in total shock when people hated them for doing it. Basically they've realized that they just can't tell what's going to be popular with the fans...some stuff they thought would be a big hit flopped, and other stuff they thought nobody would like was totally eaten up by the fans.

 

[Benson R]

Also they promptly responded to the criticism by doing an episode that resolved the who is Cartman's father cliff hanger as soon as possible. So they took popular opinion very seriously.

 

[Beau]

There have been some other minor changes in later viewing of episodes(I never saw any showings of the spooky-vision episode without the spooky vision, was that a recent thing?). But in the Trapper Keeper episode, at the end, when Bill Cosby is dissappearing, if you watch it now, it will say "It's working, I don't exist." But on the first showing, he said "Ouch, this hurts!", that change is really the only change that bugged me becuase it was so funny, but most of the other changes I've seen(which I can't recall at the moment), we're VERY small, and hardly noticable, and it doesn't really happen a lot.

 

[Rachael B]

I got a kick out of the show. It's a good'un. Adam, when I posted this I thought about where it should go but since it parodies around the home video market, sorta', this seemed like a good place. Besides, I just felt like reminding folks to watch it.

I could of written this episode. I predicted the ending correctly before it even started. I did vaugely know about the RAIDERS plot thang though, no details. Maybe Lucas and Spielberg will be back in later episodes? I hope so. I'm picturing Lucas and Spielberg at hades with Satan and Saddam on a double date.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Too bad they haven't done an episode on how the Comedy Central logo intrudes on the picture, sometimes covering people on the show!

 

[Sam Hatch]

I don't think the Spooky-Vision graphics have been removed, as they weren't on the Mechastreisand episode to begin with. But they were on the Spookyfish episode with Stan's creepy pet fish. I saw it a few months back on Comedy Central and the Babs stingers were still there.

 

[Beau]

I don't think the Spooky-Vision graphics have been removed, as they weren't on the Mechastreisand episode to begin with. But they were on the Spookyfish episode with Stan's creepy pet fish. I saw it a few months back on Comedy Central and the Babs stingers were still there.

I didn't think they were removed, I think it says something like that on Internet Movie Data Base, but I never have seen the episode without it.