I think it makes sense

The hoopla has died down, and the companies are legal now, but are they really doing us a service. Or maybe the question is just how valuable the service is. I know that one's first reaction to this page might be violent, and/ or mean. But I guess I'm used to that. I'm not trying to offend anyone, in fact I'm not writing to anyone in particular. Well maybe one person, we were talking about this, and they said they wanted to read this blog. So here it is. Are edited movies better?

I know the obvious answer is yes. Less sex, less violence, less drug use, less language, less filth; Obviously better. 1 point for the edited movies. (heck that may even be 5 points). But I see a few more questions that need to be answered. Number one: who edited the movie? This might seem like a fairly simple question but I think it is not. Despite the legal aspects of such an endeavor, and yes I understand that there are currently legal methods or at least legally strong methods to do this, there are still many things to think about. I think the best solution is for the originators to edit the movie themselves. Actually I think it would be great if they would edit all movies (before they release them, but if not then as a second option). I'm not sure if airplane movies fit this category or not, but even they could use a bit more editing. If they are not in this category they are in the next which is officially sanctioned edits of a movie. This is still better in some ways, but we start to have new issues to deal with.

Oddly enough I do a little video editing my self, but not like this. Still, I know what this video editing stuff is really like. It's not easy, in fact it usually takes longer to edit the video than it does to shoot it. The next level of editing overlaps this one in a lot of ways. It is people like me who edit videos for other people. I try to stick to homegrown footage. At this level the first question is quality. Would you even want to watch the movie after the edits? Of course not all editor are created equal. But I hear that some are pretty good. To whose standard will the video be edited? It can't be hollywood's, or they would have just done it right the first time. I suppose if you have enough money you could get them custom made for your standards, But that raises another question. If you have a moral issue or even a comfort issue with something, should you really be paying someone else to do it? The last thing on earth I wanted, when I started my business, was for people to pay me to suffer for them. And that's exactly what this kind of a job would do. first you have to find the bad part, then you have to find it's start, then you have to find it's end... If you're really good at this stuff you probably only have to live through it about six times, you know, for each one that it's in there. And if you weren't so good, the ratio could be something like 20 or 30 to 1. Or you could just be sloppy, but then who would want to watch that.

As the law stands there are ways to make this legal. But the studio is not involved. Thus the studio see lot's of revenue, supporting themes, and ideas that the population opposes. In other words, for every edited movie the studio should and does still get the full movies value. Thus their logical conclusion would likely be, "Hey, make more movies like that!" Somehow though, that's not what I wan't, ok granted, I don't go to movies very often, even the good ones, but I would certainly like more of them to be more pleasant when I do. So what if you do like edited movies? Sometimes the story is good, and sometimes the production value, is somewhat valuable. But how do you talk about them? If you reccommend a movie, would someone else know which parts you skip? or would they know that you reccommend the edited version? Or that you saw it on tv? or would you even know?

One of my friends was telling me about this movie he'd seen, He remembered watching it growing up. It was very good. So one night he and his wife were sitting at home and it came on. Naturally, they sat down to watch it. It was good, and he couldn't remember anything bad about it. What he didn't remember was that the first time he saw it, it was on a local tv station. What he may or may not have remembered was that this time he was not on a local tv station. It didn't take long to realize that this movie wasn't the pleasant experience he had remembered. It was offensive. Fortunately, he had the sense to turn it off, but not without first being injured, both in pride and in spirit. He could have easily reccommended this movie that he thought was offensive. Nowadays, even tv standards aren't that high. I think they have an infinite limit on the amount of times they can use the lord's name, and they don't mind throwing in 'soft cuss words' at the drop of a hat, but where did this idea of soft cussing come from? Aren't all cusses offensive? aren't they all inappropriate? So what if the movie is edited, does that make it better? Does it contain themes that we don't support? Is the movie still about someone lying, cheating, stealing, killing, or other such things? Do they make movies that aren't? Do we know that people are living together, even though they are not married? do we know even more?

Because we don't acutally see something, does that mean we support it? I think we need to take a stand. Personally, if I ever have kids, I want them to be entertained by things that will re-inforce their values, not things that are disrespectful, not things that show ideas that I don't support as part of everyday life. I don't believe life is really about beer, and sex, and deciet. But it's hard to find media that agrees. Do I live in a bubble, or want them to? No. It's not like I don't know these things exist. I've lived in Europe, so I probably know better than most. But I do believe that these things don't need to exist, and I do believe that a person can have a perfectly fulfilled life without them. And I konw that hollywood likes to push the edge, they don't conform to our standards, they give us theirs (and they charge us for the right). There are just some movies that people shouldn't ever see, especially people with standards. I don't know which movies that means, but I don't want my kids to see something "Ok" at my house, and then blindly fall into the same not ok thing somewhere else. Ideally we should know what we are getting into before we get there, but if not, let's have the strength to stop the cycle, as quickly as possible. So here's my vote, lets have more good wholesome entertainment, and support it more.