Many of the biggest movies in history have gone through extensive changes before they
hit the silver screen.
Usually, the reasons for these changes are easy enough to understand, but sometimes things
can take a turn for the truly bizarre.
Considered by many fans and critics to be a minor misstep in the long-running James
Bond series, Licence to Kill was the first Bond movie not to take its name directly from
one of Ian Fleming's stories.
Instead, its title is an obvious reference to James Bond's famous MI6 license to smoke
anyone he felt like.
The problem is that the crux of the movie's story is that Bond isn't an MI6 agent anymore,
something the film's original title alluded to.
"When you're up to your ankles, you're gonna beg to tell me everything.
When you're up to your knees, you'll kiss my ass to kill you."
Initially the movie was supposed to be called Licence Revoked as a not-too-subtle nod to
Bond's change of fortune.
The problem?
Early test audiences in America assumed that the title referred to James Bond losing his
driver's license, which paints an altogether more wholesome view of a movie in which Bond
basically drops a dude into a glorified meat grinder.
Eager to avoid audiences making this mistake, the studio arranged for a hasty title change,
which meant a bunch of marketing material that had already been created featuring the
original name ended up being thrown straight into the trash.
In early cuts of the 2012 remake of the '80s teen adventure Red Dawn, the film revolved
around the concept of mainland America being invaded by the Chinese.
Originally slated for a 2010 release, the movie was put on hold by MGM during a period
of financial turbulence at the studio, and when Chinese state media caught wind of the
film via a leaked script, the situation went from bad to worse.
China condemned the movie's themes, specifically its plans to depict the nation as an invading
war machine that had to be stopped by a plucky band of American kids.
"When I was overseas, we were the good guys, we enforced order.
Well, now?
We're the bad guys, and we create chaos."
To appease Chinese censors and potentially have the film screened for the increasingly
lucrative Chinese box office, MGM paid to have all the Chinese flags replaced with North
Korean ones using CGI.
Unfortunately, even after making the change, the movie was doomed to Chinese exile, upon
the revised version's submission, censors still refused to allow the movie to air in
China.
During The Last Jedi, in addition to showing off his swollen pecs and pasty Sithpack, Kylo
Ren debuts his personalized TIE silencer.
Outfitted with giant missiles, a giant laser cannon and sporting an impossibly cool paint
job, the ship cuts an imposing silhouette that reminds the audience, and Kylo Ren's
enemies, of the First Order's power.
It was also changed because of a children's toy.
In early concept art, Ren's TIE silencer sported missiles that were housed on the ship's underside,
ready to be be deployed and fired as needed.
However, according to director Rian Johnson, during production he received a prototype
toy version of the ship from Hasbro and noticed that the missiles had mistakenly been mounted
on its wings.
Surmising that it'd be easier to just change Ren's ship in the film using CGI rather than
redesign the toy itself, Johnson alerted the VFX team about the alteration, and it was
corrected with the audience none the wiser.
Eraser is a mid-'90s Arnold Schwarzenegger action film that received disappointing reviews.
Nevertheless, the film is chock-full of all the schlocky Schwarzenegger-y goodness you'd
expect from one of the star's films, including an action scene during which he endlessly
fires two hyper-powerful future-guns into a crowd of faceless bad guys and another that
finds him shooting a large CGI alligator in the face.
"You're luggage."
The plot revolves around a company called Cyrez that's trying to manufacture the aforementioned
future-guns to sell on the black market.
Originally, the company was called Cyrex because, well, how futuristic does that sound?
However, just before the film was set to be released, a Texan computer chip manufacturer
called Cyrix caught wind of it and threatened to sue Warner Bros. because they didn't want
to be associated with a fictional company that made cool future-guns.
Not wanting to fight the issue in court, Warner Bros. begrudgingly spent a reported $1 million
changing the name to Cyrez with dubbing and CGI.
Way to be spoil-sports, Cyrix.
In the Stephen King novel that Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is based on, most of the story's
action takes place in room 217.
However, in the film adaptation, this is changed to 237, which confused fans of the book, given
Kubrick's reputation for perfectionism.
As it turned out, while the change was made by Kubrick, he was only acting on the wishes
of the Timberline Lodge, the hotel where the movie was filmed.
The Timberline didn't have a room 237, but they really did have a room 217, and management
didn't want their guests to be scared of staying in that particular room after the movie was
released.
According to author James Howard, Kubrick agreed to change the number largely as a favor
to the Lodge, and amusingly, in direct contrast to their initial fears about the film and
its potential impact on the room's popularity, the Timberline would later report that despite
Kubrick changing it, room 217 is still the most commonly requested in the entire hotel.