Excerpt
Phantom editors
Frodo and Jar Jar are now fair game for hackers. An excerpt from "The Anarchist in the Library."
By Siva Vaidhyanathan
April 8, 2004 | If Hollywood studios could deliver their dream products in their dream formats, they would send every first-run film via electronic pipes to thousands of theatres around the world. Digital projectors would emit high-quality images on screens. And the studios could control which versions got to which theatres. Theatres in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, Singapore, or Utah might receive versions that lacked nudity. Theatres in New York, Amsterdam, and San Francisco might receive versions with extra nudity. If audiences registered disappointment with a particular ending, studios could quickly adjust and beam out a revised version with a new ending. Studios could even send multiple versions to the same theatre -- a PG-rated version for all shows before 8 p.m., and an R-rated version for all shows after 8 p.m. The storage capacity of DVDs would allow multiple versions on the same disc, so that families could watch "Titanic" without the naked scenes if the kids were in the room and with those scenes when the kids fall asleep. And once each home is connected with a pay-per-view jukebox, there would be no need for the DVD. Families could just order up their preferred digital stream. Ideally, of course, Hollywood would save on the cost of casting and re-shooting scenes by replacing as many human beings (or "blood actors," as they are known) with computer-generated cartoons.
There are some formidable obstacles to this dramatically efficient vision. First and foremost, there is the up-front cost. No one wants to pay the billions of dollars it would cost to retrofit theatres with digital projectors. Until there are enough digital projectors, there is no incentive to distribute digital prints. Human beings are the most formidable of these obstacles. Actors, directors, and editors have some power in Hollywood. And they do not want their labor replaced or their status as artists compromised any more than it is already. Studios already issue different cuts of films for different foreign markets and airline viewing. But they do so after negotiations with directors and editors, and after the films have either failed or succeeded in domestic release.
As Hollywood creeps toward this digital vision, George Lucas leads the pack. His last two films, "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" and "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones," were filled with digitally generated extras where blood actors might have served in the 1970s. Several major characters, including the inexplicable Jabba the Hutt and the blatantly racist and annoying Jar Jar Binks were (fortunately) digital creations. The same technology that allowed Lucas remarkable control over his characters gave his fans the opportunity to undermine his control of them. Early in 2001 rumors began flying around Internet sites and chat rooms that someone had taken "Episode I: The Phantom Menace" and created something called Episode I: The Phantom Edit. The Phantom Editor, who remains incognito, had shortened the film by about 20 minutes, removing most of the scenes that focused on Jar Jar Binks. Without dialogue, Jar Jar Binks was a much less offensive character. In addition, the Phantom Editor removed some of the stilted dialogue and awkward verbal gestures that Lucas had installed to appeal to children. Soon after the rumors of the edit started spreading, copies began appearing in VHS form at Star Wars and science fiction conventions. And digital copies flew across both from peer to peer and via peer-to-peer networks like Gnutella. The 700 megabyte DivX file took many hours to download even with the fastest connection available. But the demand for the file was not about getting "The Phantom Menace" for free. It was about seeing a better version and celebrating the anarchistic revolution that had allowed a lone film critic to take control of the content and connect with thousands of others who shared his appreciation of the Star Wars saga. Lucas was reportedly curious about the cut. But his company, Lucasfilm, warned fans that sharing these copies and files constituted copyright infringements of the original film.
Other directors were not so curious or amused by the technological powers and habits available to those who are not part of the Hollywood system. In late 2002 the Directors Guild joined the major studios in a lawsuit against a Denver-based company called CleanFlicks, which edits potentially offensive material from Hollywood videos. These "family friendly" edits satisfy a market of religious and conservative families that Hollywood has not been willing or able to serve very well. Two issues lie at the heart of this conflict. First, there is a principle within American copyright law that copyright holders -- in this case, the studios -- control the right to create "derivative works" of their holdings. Second, there is the directors' appeal to their "moral rights," the right of a creator to control the reputation and integrity of her works. Moral rights are not central to American copyright law, largely because American law appreciates the process of revision and play with older materials (and the power of corporations to have the ultimate authority over content), but they are strong in French and continental artistic law.