Movie Editing......Harmless?

The discussion of moving editing arose in class the other day. Initially, you think of movie editing as a harmless thing and part of the process. I would concur but several examples and analogies made me change my perceptions of movie editing.

The whole point of editing is to shorten the film, to comply with the studio's demands or to edit unnecessary parts of the film for aesthetic reasons. However, lets say after the movie has been released, a certain amount of years have passed. The director received harsh criticism for a particular scene in a movie. Consequently, the director decides to go back and re-edit that scene. So that when it is re-released that scene is made to appease those that were in disfavor. Basically, the editor is trying to be politically correct. Is there any problems with the director's actions?

The majority will say NO because the film is the director's work of art and they should have the ability to do as they please with it. However, I say YES, there is a problem with that director's decision. I guess one example of movie editing years after the movie had initially been released can be "E.T." As pointed out by a student in the class, in one particular scene cops were originally holding guns when confronting the kids. However, in the 20th anniversary edition, Spielberg edited the guns and substituted them with walkie-talkies. Perhaps he considered that since this was a movie for children it was best not to expose them to the image of guns. Is he now trying to imply that cops don't use guns? Obviously that is the furthest thing from the truth. (There is a parody on South Park commenting on Spielberg's decision. It is quite funny but it also highlights how far directors can go and how frustrating it can be for the audience. Click Here to see clip.)

The problem with re-editing movies on the basis of making certain scenes politically correct is that they are changing the movie's original statement. It's like a book, if a publisher decided to omit/change a certain a part of the book, which happened to be the climax of the story, that would change the entire context of the book. When a director re-edits a scene for a reasons beyond aesthetics they are re-contextualizing it. The movie is no longer the same movie because of this action. It's like the statement, say something only if you mean it. If they didn't want to include those images or scenes maybe they should have omitted them in the first place.