h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Since September the 11th I have been thinking how it will change our lives, and how television will be censored. One thing is certain, certain films, comedies and programs that we in the past enjoyed will probably never see again.

One film that comes to mind is The Towering Inferno starring Steve McQueen. We will probably never see this film again, due to its subject. Not because it is a bad film, just that TV executives will never allow it again. I am not been insensative, but am just speaking the truth.

Oddly, I'm watching The Poseidon Adventure at the moment, at work. There are some (but not many) advantages to working for a cable company...

Another is Flight into Holocaust. A movie about a light aircraft which, whilst flying through fog, crashes into a skyscraper and becomes lodged there. The pilot is killed and the plane is left there. No, that one will never see the light of day again.

Surely this won't be the case, a few years after its all blown over, we will return to normal, i'm not belittling what happened and the tragity of it all, but things do return to normal don't they, they did after vietnam, WW2 etc., or am i missing the point here?

With some yes. But the Towering Inferno I think would still gather complaint if they showed it again in the next 5 years

Isn't there an early '90's Tom Clancy movie where two airliners are hijacked and flown into the White House by suicide bombers? I can't imagine that will be on for a while.

I've been wondering if they will make a movie about Sept.11.

Beth

Do bears s**t in the woods?
Is the pope catholic?
Have the Americans ever stopped going on about Pearl Harbour?

Well Tom Clancy wrote a book called Executive orders, I think. In it the entire congress and the president is killed when a two planes crash into the white house. That leaves Jack Ryan (the same characte that Harrison Ford played in Patriot Games and Clear and Present danger, both Clancy books. But I don't know if it was made into a film.

Does the pope s**t in the Vatican?

It might be another 5 or 10 years before it passes, but people will watch these things again eventually. Meanwhile, I bet video rentals of these will skyrocket. I bet tapes of Towering Inferno and some terrorist movies (that Denzel Washington movie from a few years back?) are selling and renting like hotcakes right now.

Yeah, and I bet there are quite a few 'unoficial' tapes going around as well (pro terrorist films)

Don't be like that, we may get the moderators on us. Just calm down

The original 'Dumbo' has been sent to the sin bin.
I can't wait to see the new DVD release to see how they covered up all the racial and sexist slurs.
If you see an old 'Dumbo' on videotape at a boot sale - grab it! A collectors item, for sure, as well as one of the best 'blackface' song and dance numbers ever recorded in a cartoon.

As for skyscraper warfare, the opening sequences of "The Meaning of Liff", remain definitive.

peace
jwf

*creeps upstairs and removes Dumbo from son's video collection*

Think I'll just put this somewhere else!!!

*creeps upstairs and removes Dumbo from son's video collection*

Think I'll just put this somewhere else!!!

Executive Orders was never made into a movie. However, there were plans to make a movie based on another of his books, The Sum of All Fears, in which terrorists blow up the Super Bowl with a nuclear bomb. I think those plans are on hold.

Wampus

I don't think any films will be shelved permanently because of September 11th. Some will not be shown - I know that TV companies changed schedules for a week or two after the incident, so that billed films weren't shown if their content was regarded as 'iffy'. This includes films that weren't obviously terrorist related. 'Daylight' wasn't shown, and I thought that was about a natural disaster in New York.

What bugged me, though, was the other programmes that were taken off the air. We have an old series called 'Captain Scarlet' that is currently being re-run. One episode is about a terrorist attack on Big Ben in London. That episode was pulled and still hasn't been shown, as far as I know. It's an animated (i.e., puppet) series for kids, for crying out loud! Then there was a Voyager episode that was postponed because it involved the Borg taking hostages. I know the BBC want to avoid upsetting people, but there are limits!

Funny you should mention Captain Scarlet, i had those marionet shows but i caught it the week after WTC and they had a great eposode about the us response to a terrorist outrage, with Captain Scarlet and various experts advising caution, while the military ignore it a bomb everything, the head of the US airforce had a sign on his desk saying "Might is Right". Does anyone know whether this was a documentary?

Even now new and nearly new films are affected. Arnie's latest, 'Collateral Damage', was due to be released just days after September 11, but was quickly put on hold. It's all about terrorists blowing things up, I think.

And the makers of the new Spider Man movie, due for release early next year, have clearly had to do some rethinking. The teaser trailer they released a few months back showed bank robbers bring caught in their getaway helicopter by a giant web spun between the Twin Towers of the WTC. Recently a replacement trailer was released without this sequence.

'Have the Americans ever stopped going on about Pearl Harbour?'

Just one comment on this...

'Two world wars and one world cup doo dah doo dah'

Let he without sin cast the first stone and all that?

Yeah well, '5-1 the other week and 5 golds for Steve Redgrave' doesn't scan as well admittedly...