They've changed bits!
I watched The Full Monty on Film Four, or Channel 4 or something tonight and I noticed that some changes and additions have been made to the dialogue, which I've not seen before:
- In the scene where Gerald breaks down in the Job Centre after Gaz and Dave ruin his job interview, he mentions that his wife is 'loose on the high street with a f ucking mastercard'. In the original version of the film, he said 'Barclaycard'.
- In the scene where they are watching the Flashdance video, Dave says: 'I didn't go on the nick in Asda for some chuffing women's how-to video'. In the original version, he called it a 'DIY video' which works much better, may I say.
- In the scene where the lads are putting up posters around town and are confronted by the two women, Gaz says, 'This lot go all the way, don't they lads?' A little bit of dialogue has been added at this point, with one of the lads saying (in disbelief) 'Stark naked?!' Y'know, just so that we better understand what Gaz is talking about.
- When Gaz confronts Dave in the supermarket, after Lomper's mum has died, he calls out something like, 'Dave, you fat pri ck!' However, his mouth is clearly forming the word 'twa t'.
(Now, before any of you call me sad for noticing all these differences, let me point out that it is one of my favourite films so I am entitled to know the script very well, also I once wrote a piece of coursework on the film which required me to analyse it in depth. But anyway...)
These changes annoyed me. What was the point of them? I imagine 'Barclaycard' was changed to 'mastercard' because Barclaycards are no longer in existence, but at the time this film was made, in the mid-nineties, they *were* in existence, so to change it kind of detracts from the realism. 'DIY' changes to 'How-to'? 'DIY' surely isn't an obsolete phrase in Britain yet? As for the exclamation of 'Stark naked?!', this annoyed me most of all, because the scene in question is a very significant one, and the addition just dumbs it down. So Gaz doesn't specifically say, 'We're going to get completely naked.' Boo f ucking hoo! Does it *really* need to be spelled out? As for the 'pri ck' bit, perhaps twa t is a coarser and more offensive word than pri ck, but the film *is* a 15 certificate, so you maybe ought not to be watching it if you find swearing offensive. (I might jokingly add that it's perhaps a little sexist to dub a swearword referring to the female genitals over with one referring to the male genitals.)
Anyway, I dunno where I'm going with this, except to say that the changes were stupid and unnecessary. The film was perfect as it was. The change from pri ck to twa t annoyed me the least because it's just a swearword. The other changes were more grating because they just felt like dumbing down. Why should films be altered/modified so that certain people can better understand them? If the changes had not been made, perhaps certain people would have been mystified by words like 'Barclaycard' and 'DIY'. Ever heard of looking things up on the internet, or even a dictionary? So certain people might have taken a while to work out what Gaz meant by 'this lot go all the way'. What do you think your brain is for???? Can we please stop film makers/editors/whoever made these changes to stop trying to relieve movie-watchers of the *horror* of being confronted with something unfamiliar or ambiguous.
Phew! Sorry for my rambling and repetitive rant, I'm off to bed.