Re: "THE FUGITIVE" S2, V1 MUSIC CHANGES
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Originally Posted by David Von Pein
So we have to pay Paramount more to have music substituted. 
Amazon's got S1, V2 on sale for just $18 now, btw. That is, indeed, a steal. But I feel like I just had $29 stolen from me (that's what I paid for S2, V1).
And it's good to see that the last 8 reviews (as of this writing) at Amazon for this Season-Two abomination are all from really pissed-off Fuge fans.
In addition, it seems amazing to me that
Paul Mavis (who called himself a "Fugitive fanatic" in that very review) wouldn't have noticed a single piece of music being changed in the S2 DVD set.
And: Not a single mention of the music edits in the review either. (What a shame that all of those great-looking images shown in those screen-captures are destroyed by the music that accompanies them.)  EDIT:
Paul Mavis has weighed in regarding the music changes, in this DVD Talk post
Paul said: "I'm disappointed, too, but I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm going to enjoy the show."
That's fine, Paul. But I don't see how it's even possible for a self-proclaimed "Fugitive fanatic" like yourself to "enjoy" these episodes after the sweeping changes that CBS/Paramount has made to them (and I haven't even heard the changes as yet...but whatever the "new" music is that has been inserted into these shows, it cannot possibly be as good as the original soundtrack). And even if I ended up liking the new music, I'd still be against replacing the original music score.
Should I try to "enjoy" a Beatles concert on DVD or CD, even if the music on the disc has been replaced with a Monkees soundtrack? Seems to me to be a good analogy.
I think maybe I'm in Serling's Twilight Zone right now. Somebody wake me up! |
I've never posted here before, but I've always enjoyed reading everybody's opinions here. But since part of this post was directed at me -- with a tone of anger -- I thought maybe I should reply.
As I said in the forum post that accompanies my review (you can view it by clicking the "Discuss" button on the review), I don't like this situation any more than anybody else. I'm not "for" cutting out original music cues. Just because I don't mention those cuts -- specifically because I didn't have any concrete information on them when I wrote the review -- doesn't mean I endorse them.
If your point then is to somehow upbraid me for calling myself a "Fugitive fanatic" and not detailing the music cuts, that sounds more to me like a potential pissing contest on a forum, of which I'm all too familiar with from other reviews I've written. I've never said I'm an "expert" on the show. I haven't seen the episodes since they aired back in the early 90s on A&E. And I don't have an encyclopedic memory of each and every one of them. Far from it. In many ways, I feel like I'm rediscovering this series all over again -- and I want to share that enthusiasm with new viewers, as well.
Is it "right" or "fair" that the studios cut out this music? From an aesthetic standpoint, absolutely not. But from a financial one? I don't know; I don't know the facts in this particular case. I like to bitch about studio stupidity myself (I hate the split-seasons, and I say so in my reviews), but I also know that many of these decisions are strictly money-related. I know it feels good to demand that these studios do what we say, but that's not reality. And it wasn't reality when
The Fugitive was first broadcast. Everybody who worked on that show did so to make money. Yours and my experience of the show may be outside that realization, but money certainly was -- and is -- the only factor driving television production. It's a nasty fact, but true. They didn't make
The Fugitive first for "art's sake." They made it to sell soap.
And now they're selling it again on DVD -- for money. It may offend our aesthetic grasp of the show, to view it in those terms, but that's reality. We may want to say, "How dare you do this to a show I love?" and we may feel like something that was important to us was "ruined," but we don't "own" that experience alone. That "experience" of course was bought and paid for by moneymen. And they have the right to do what they want with that product. Often times, the tone of these posts is one of the studios doing this on purpose. I don't think so. They're businesspeople. They want to make as much money as possible, with as little outlay as possible. If they thought shelling out a lot of money for music rights would give them X-amount of dollars, they'd do so. Perhaps they can't in this situation; perhaps the rights to the music is tied up by a relative or copyright holder who is holding up the studio for more dough -- money that wouldn't be made back with the relatively small sales of
The Fugitive as compared to the latest Hollywood blockbuster on DVD.
As I say in my review, the reverse of that is the power the consumer has: if you don't like it, don't buy it. I come down on the side of wanting as many people as possible to see this brilliant show -- even in a compromised format. Is it perfect the way it is? No. But enough is there that's valuable (and far better than anything on TV today), so people should see it. Especially people new to vintage TV, who may be resistent to watching "old black and white."
You mention The Beatles being supplanted with The Monkees on a CD. That's not an apt comparison at all here. There's more to
The Fugitive than just music; you're watching, obviously, pictures, too. You're listening to well-crafted dialogue and watching exciting, moving performances. All of that would be lost if we just said, "Don't watch it; the music is different." As a film reviewer for over 25 years, I grew up watching classic motion pictures on TV -- regular broadcast TV, before cable, before VCRs -- with commercials and cropped images "ruining" films. We didn't know any better, but it certainly didn't "spoil" those experiences. It was still meaningful to watch them, even in their compromised form. And it gave me my love of movies.
If I take your argument to its logical conclusion, I could say that
nobody should watch vintage TV shows in
any format today...other than on an analog signal sent over the airwaves, to be received on your black and white tube-filled TV. No DVDs. No videos. And put the constant commercial breaks back, too. Because that's how
The Fugitive was
originally shown and viewed by its audience. If you really believe that absolute fidelity to the aesthetic experience is mandatory, than DVDs -- even those with complete episodes with no cuts -- are still a compromise to the original experience, and therefore, unworthy of anyone's time.
Obviously, I'm exaggerating to make a point, but not by much. If Paramount pulled the music from
The Fugitive, it was for a reason -- financial, legal, who knows. I'm not sure they did it just to piss you off; otherwise, why go to all the trouble of restoring the picture? They could have saved even more money, and screwed you over there, too. So, perhaps, it was out of their control. Who knows. But one thing I've never seen in any of these forums bashing the studios, is anyone commenting on the composers or copyright holders who ask outrageous amounts for licensing fees, thereby assuring themselves of getting kicked off the DVDs? That does happen, and perhaps that happened here. Again, we don't know. But I think enough of what is on
The Fugitive Second Season Volume I DVDs is important enough for viewers to see -- compromised or not.
Paul Mavis
DVDTalk.com
Online Film Critics Society
