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Ernest Rister · 01-17-2004, 01:13 AM

Alls I'm saying is that there are multiple opinions about when that sequence was censored. Maltin and others say the 50's. The DVD says 1969, and yet cannot explain why that version has the same exact running time as the 1947 version. So, let's just leave it at that. Lots of different stories floating around out there.

Second:

"Roy E. Disney has been interviewed before and he has expressed his disgust over the cuts."

If you're referring to the Roy E. Disney interview with the BBC, then he wasn't referring to Fantasia. He was referring to the alterations made to Saludos Amigos, Make Mine Music, and Melody Time, and said the cuts had been made without his knowledge, and that he would make sure the cuts were restored for their next editions. This might shock you, but Roy supervised the restoration of Fantasia for the 2000 DVD release. He was upset by the changes made to the 40's package films, but he signed off on and approved the changes made to Fantasia for the DVD. Why? We'll get to that.

"Besides, if Walt REALLY wanted it censored, he would have had those scenes re-animated like for The Three Little Pigs."

That's an assumption, of course. The question you should be asking yourself is this -- in today's world, would Walt Disney have wanted hurtful images to remain in Fantasia? Or would he have altered the film - just as he did with Three Little Pigs - to remove offensive imagery? I think he would. That's *my* assumption, and because Roy Disney supervised it, I have no problems with it.

"Was it also Walt's say to have the entire "Martins and the Coys" segment of Melody Time deleted?"

Nope.

"Was it also Walt's say to have shots of Pecos Bill and Goofy smoking deleted from Make Mine Music and Saludas Amigos?"

Nope.

"Those were all intact until their latest video versions."

And the big difference is this -- Walt Disney never thought he was making movies for children. He was making movies for family audiences, a'la Pixar today. The modern Disney company, though, thinks these WERE children's films, hence they were censored for modern children (gun violence, smoking) so that they could be shown to children in grade schools and in day care centers. The adults who also loved these films, meanwhile, were incensed. So I'm with Roy - and you - in believing those cuts should never have been made. If the films aren't suitable for school viewing because of progressive mandates regarding gun violence and tobacco use, then don't show them to children. Simple. Easiest form of censorship is the "off button".

The Fantasia experiment is completely different. Just as Walt altered "Three Little Pigs" because people were offended by it, I absolutely believe that if he were alive today, that footage would have either been re-animated (as you suggest) or treated in the way Roy Disney did with the Fantasia DVD. The erasure of the centaurettes and the frame cropping were changes not made to make the film more "child-friendly", but because the images were hurtful and shameful and were in extreme bad taste. Cutting images of hurtful ethnic stereotypes is not the same thing as cutting gun violence and tobacco so that your movie can be viewed by toddlers in grade schools and day care.

The other difference is that Buena Vista Home Video made the changes to "Amigos", "Make Mine Music" and "Melody Time", while Roy E. Disney personally supervised the restoration of Fantasia for DVD, and even provides a running commentary during that sequence along with James Levine and Disney's restoration guru Scott MacQueen. Walt Disney himself set the precedent for removing hurtful ethnic stereotypes from his films. Roy E. Disney is following in Walt's footsteps in a way -- and it should be noted that he actually put *all* of the shots back into the Pastorale sequence, so that the Stokowski soundtrack could be heard unabridged (although those "new" shots are extremely cropped and are very noticeable). The 1982 and the 1990 versions were missing some of those shots. The DVD restores *all* the shots, but then uses a variety of tricks to remove the hurtful ethnic steretypes seen within. The DVD is the only "complete" version of Fantasia ever released on home video, and I don't think the Walt Disney who altered "Three Little Pigs" to remove an ethnic stereotype of a Hassidic Jew would have had a problem with it. At all.

I share your passion and I agree that films should be made available in their original forms whenever possible. But in the case of the modern Walt Disney Company, which is a lightning rod for protests by special interest groups, it is not possible for that modern company to release an unaltered version of the Pastorale, and in fact, the harm it would cause (to audiences and to the company) outweighs any possible idealism about the sanctity of original intent, in my opinion. Fantasia is a film that has been released in so many different versions already - from the severely-cut version RKO released, to the 1947 version, to the wide-screen version, the over-the-top "stereophonic" version, to the 1982 version which stripped its original soundtrack completely in favor of a new soundtrack recorded by Irwin Kostal, to the 1990 version which tried to restore some of the Pastorale shots using frame-blow ups, to the new DVD. I can't think of any other movie that has been changed and altered so many times...and the crazy thing is, Walt always intended to shake Fantasia up, he himself called it a work in progress. No other movie has been altered so many times (parts of it even wound up in the IMAX format for F2K).

The idea of trying to experience Fantasia in it's original form is impossible, anyway -- the original multi-track Fantasound tracks were destroyed after they were all mixed down to a single mono track. No one will ever be able to experience Fantasia in its original form, with those multi-track Fantasound effects zooming all over the theater. The modern versions offer a game attempt at trying to replicate the Fantasound speaker pans and surround swooshes, but we'll never know what the original version sounded like.

Outside of a time machine, trying to experience the original version of Fantasia that premiered in New York - with its Fantasound mix and unaltered ethnic stereotypes - that is a lost cause. The DVD, which was sueprvised by Roy E. Disney, and contains a running screen-specific commentary by him (it goes out-of-print in a few days, by the by) is the closest modern audiences are ever going to get.

01-17-2004, 01:13 AM	#13 of 64
Ernest Rister Join Date: Oct 2001 Local Time: 11:12 AM Local Date: 12-05-2008 Posts: 4,039	Alls I'm saying is that there are multiple opinions about when that sequence was censored. Maltin and others say the 50's. The DVD says 1969, and yet cannot explain why that version has the same exact running time as the 1947 version. So, let's just leave it at that. Lots of different stories floating around out there. Second: "Roy E. Disney has been interviewed before and he has expressed his disgust over the cuts." If you're referring to the Roy E. Disney interview with the BBC, then he wasn't referring to Fantasia. He was referring to the alterations made to Saludos Amigos, Make Mine Music, and Melody Time, and said the cuts had been made without his knowledge, and that he would make sure the cuts were restored for their next editions. This might shock you, but Roy supervised the restoration of Fantasia for the 2000 DVD release. He was upset by the changes made to the 40's package films, but he signed off on and approved the changes made to Fantasia for the DVD. Why? We'll get to that. "Besides, if Walt REALLY wanted it censored, he would have had those scenes re-animated like for The Three Little Pigs." That's an assumption, of course. The question you should be asking yourself is this -- in today's world, would Walt Disney have wanted hurtful images to remain in Fantasia? Or would he have altered the film - just as he did with Three Little Pigs - to remove offensive imagery? I think he would. That's my assumption, and because Roy Disney supervised it, I have no problems with it. "Was it also Walt's say to have the entire "Martins and the Coys" segment of Melody Time deleted?" Nope. "Was it also Walt's say to have shots of Pecos Bill and Goofy smoking deleted from Make Mine Music and Saludas Amigos?" Nope. "Those were all intact until their latest video versions." And the big difference is this -- Walt Disney never thought he was making movies for children. He was making movies for family audiences, a'la Pixar today. The modern Disney company, though, thinks these WERE children's films, hence they were censored for modern children (gun violence, smoking) so that they could be shown to children in grade schools and in day care centers. The adults who also loved these films, meanwhile, were incensed. So I'm with Roy - and you - in believing those cuts should never have been made. If the films aren't suitable for school viewing because of progressive mandates regarding gun violence and tobacco use, then don't show them to children. Simple. Easiest form of censorship is the "off button". The Fantasia experiment is completely different. Just as Walt altered "Three Little Pigs" because people were offended by it, I absolutely believe that if he were alive today, that footage would have either been re-animated (as you suggest) or treated in the way Roy Disney did with the Fantasia DVD. The erasure of the centaurettes and the frame cropping were changes not made to make the film more "child-friendly", but because the images were hurtful and shameful and were in extreme bad taste. Cutting images of hurtful ethnic stereotypes is not the same thing as cutting gun violence and tobacco so that your movie can be viewed by toddlers in grade schools and day care. The other difference is that Buena Vista Home Video made the changes to "Amigos", "Make Mine Music" and "Melody Time", while Roy E. Disney personally supervised the restoration of Fantasia for DVD, and even provides a running commentary during that sequence along with James Levine and Disney's restoration guru Scott MacQueen. Walt Disney himself set the precedent for removing hurtful ethnic stereotypes from his films. Roy E. Disney is following in Walt's footsteps in a way -- and it should be noted that he actually put all of the shots back into the Pastorale sequence, so that the Stokowski soundtrack could be heard unabridged (although those "new" shots are extremely cropped and are very noticeable). The 1982 and the 1990 versions were missing some of those shots. The DVD restores all the shots, but then uses a variety of tricks to remove the hurtful ethnic steretypes seen within. The DVD is the only "complete" version of Fantasia ever released on home video, and I don't think the Walt Disney who altered "Three Little Pigs" to remove an ethnic stereotype of a Hassidic Jew would have had a problem with it. At all. I share your passion and I agree that films should be made available in their original forms whenever possible. But in the case of the modern Walt Disney Company, which is a lightning rod for protests by special interest groups, it is not possible for that modern company to release an unaltered version of the Pastorale, and in fact, the harm it would cause (to audiences and to the company) outweighs any possible idealism about the sanctity of original intent, in my opinion. Fantasia is a film that has been released in so many different versions already - from the severely-cut version RKO released, to the 1947 version, to the wide-screen version, the over-the-top "stereophonic" version, to the 1982 version which stripped its original soundtrack completely in favor of a new soundtrack recorded by Irwin Kostal, to the 1990 version which tried to restore some of the Pastorale shots using frame-blow ups, to the new DVD. I can't think of any other movie that has been changed and altered so many times...and the crazy thing is, Walt always intended to shake Fantasia up, he himself called it a work in progress. No other movie has been altered so many times (parts of it even wound up in the IMAX format for F2K). The idea of trying to experience Fantasia in it's original form is impossible, anyway -- the original multi-track Fantasound tracks were destroyed after they were all mixed down to a single mono track. No one will ever be able to experience Fantasia in its original form, with those multi-track Fantasound effects zooming all over the theater. The modern versions offer a game attempt at trying to replicate the Fantasound speaker pans and surround swooshes, but we'll never know what the original version sounded like. Outside of a time machine, trying to experience the original version of Fantasia that premiered in New York - with its Fantasound mix and unaltered ethnic stereotypes - that is a lost cause. The DVD, which was sueprvised by Roy E. Disney, and contains a running screen-specific commentary by him (it goes out-of-print in a few days, by the by) is the closest modern audiences are ever going to get.