Amazon Prime Studios is catching all sorts of hellfire and damnation from subscribers after censoring one of the most pivotal scenes in the Christmas Classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” with many individuals saying the edits made to the film making the plot nonsensical while also removing one of the most important pieces of character development. Look, censorship rarely, if ever, makes a piece of art better. The only time it really does so is when the part being taken out is some sickeningly immoral sex scene.
Check out more on this from Breitbart:
We all know the story from the 1946 Frank Capra classic. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), a beloved citizen of Bedford Falls, is struck by a financial disaster just ahead of Christmas when his dunder-headed uncle Billy loses the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan’s bank deposit, threatening to bankrupt the company. With his world falling apart around him, and as the evil rival, Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore) plots to destroy his business, George wishes he had never been born and contemplates throwing himself off a bridge in suicide. But then he meets an angel named Clarence Odbody (Henry Travers), who shows George what the world would have been like if there never was a George Bailey. The revelation helps Bailey to understand that his temporary financial troubles are not the end of the world and he is surrounded by enough love and admiration to help him overcome adversity.
In the “Potterswville scene” of the film, George tells Clarence the angel that he is worth more to his family and friends dead than he is alive. Clarence then tells George that he must earn his wings and proceeds to show George what the world would have been like if George Bailey never existed.
In the film, the scenes where Clarence shows what the world would have been like if George had never been born is what snapped him out of his funk and made him see the truth: His life mattered. His existence deeply impacted those he loves and when that fact finally sinks in, he runs back to his home town, heart bursting with love, gratitude, and the Christmas spirit.
The edits made by Amazon ruined all of that.
In the Amazon Prime “abridged” version of this classic film, the scene goes from Clarence telling George his has to earn his wings to George running through the streets of Bedford Falls in delirious happiness, resolved to renew his zest for life, all without showing viewers why he made that key turn around from crestfallen and suicidal to joy and happiness.
Fans watching the movie were confused and angered over the removal of these pivotal scenes, believing the choice was made to make the changes because of wokeness.
“Amazon Prime has since noted that it does have the full movie on its service, in both a colorized and black and white version. But the abridged version apparently exists as an option for viewers for two reasons. One because the suicide scene is ‘too dark’ and secondly there has been a copyright dispute over that segment of the movie because it is supposedly based on a short story that was never recognized by the film’s original producers,” Breitbart explained in its report.
Well, that’s just weird, right? A copyright dispute over just one small portion of a film that was based on a short story? Seriously? Intellectual property rights are a complete and total mess, so that doesn’t really surprise me.
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Media company RiffTrax has also streamed this same “abridged” version and has explained that, even though the film is now in the public domain, it has been beset with copyright issues after Capra apparently used the short story “The Greatest Gift” as the basis for the removed scene and never credited its writer for its use. There have also been copyright claims against the film for certain pieces of music that Capra used as background music, according to the UK newspaper, the Metro.
However, it’s important to point out that this isn’t truly the fault of Amazon Prime, though the film being censored is still something fans are ticked off about. Let’s hope that rights situation is eventually resolved.