Hey all, I wasn't really sure where to put this. I originally considered submitting it as a news item but those seemed to all have links to external news sources, and this is pure speculation. So, on to the theory! I am addicted to Lord of the Rings, having seen FOTR and TTT a combined 40 times or so (mostly the extended editions). My friends are similarly obsessed. Naturally, we saw Return of the King in theaters several times. I live about 40 minutes or so from a major Hoyts theater, so we went there for the first viewing. Okay, fine, you say, so what? Well, since a 40 minute drive (1.5 hour round trip) is kind of long for every weekend, for the next few times we went to the local theater. THE TWO MOVIES WERE NOT THE SAME! The Hoyts version included a scene where Eowyn is telling Merry to get his sword sharpened. Her brother Eomer remarks that "You shouldn't encourage him." The versions agree up to this point. However, the Hoyts version has Eowyn comment to her brother: "You should not doubt him." This is part of the script, and is included in the DVD which came out last week. Both versions then continue with Eomer's "I do not doubt his heart, only the reach of his arm." Eowyn's single line "You should not doubt him" was missing from the local copy of the movie!!! I saw it no less than three times locally and twice in Hoyts, and can state unequivocally that this line was present in Hoyts but absent locally. Furthermore, three of my friends confirmed the discrepancy. I noticed the abnormality the first time through locally, and resolved to watch carefully the second time. Not only was the line missing, the video appeared spliced, and the audio jumped as if skipping. In my opinion, the line was deleted without coverup. Now, the interesting question is why? I believe the movie industry may have adopted this tactic (if only limitedly) to more accurately pinpoint the source theaters of pirated copies. If a copy does appear, the industry can check it against a database and determine which theater it was shot in. This is all just my opinions, but I assure you my approach has been completely scientific. You don't have to believe it, but I am anxious to hear what you have to say about it. Thanks! -alxdotnet
This also happened in (forgive my naivite with LOTR, im not that big a fan -- wasnt planning to see any of them to be honest), ROTK when the three of them were heading off to that cave (the one with the green ghosts, where, if you were watching the moving all high on drugs or something, you would start laughing and couldnt stop ), in countries as i am told by my roomate who is a fanatic, there is a noticeable "skip" in the movie where some theaters dont have this skip. In a different but related area, i personally thing the gaming industry is purposefully making games ridiculously large (i.e., UT2004 with 6cds) to attempt to limit widespread piracy (simply because not everyone has the time nor patience nor bandwidth to initiate that kinda xfer).
