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China Movies Sony

Sony Rejected China's Demand To Scrub Statue of Liberty From 'Spiderman' (nypost.com) 147

An anonymous reader writes: Sony struck a major blow against censorship after defying a Chinese government demand to delete the Statue Of Liberty from "Spiderman: No Way Home" ahead of its release. The bombshell rejection was revealed by "multiple sources," per a recent article by Puck. According to the piece, Chinese regulators had asked if the Japanese entertainment giant could "delete the Statue of Liberty from the ending of the film." Sony unsurprisingly declined the demand given the prominence of Lady Liberty in the climax in which the three spidermen swing around the iconic symbol of freedom while battling supervillains, Puck reported. Undaunted, China then inquired if the monument could be "minimized," according to the report. Specifically, they'd wondered "if Sony could cut a few of the more patriotic shots of [Tom] Holland standing atop the crown, or dull the lighting so that Lady Liberty's visage wasn't so front-and-center," per Puck.
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Sony Rejected China's Demand To Scrub Statue of Liberty From 'Spiderman'

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  • FUCK CHINA (Score:2, Informative)

    by slazzy ( 864185 )
    I've said it before, and I'll say it again. FUCK CHINA
    • Re: FUCK CHINA (Score:4, Insightful)

      by klipclop ( 6724090 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:12AM (#62502990)
      Time for the west to start confiscating CCP and their oligarchs assets. They want to live and hold their stolen assets here than control and oppress people in China. Time for them to go.
      • I suggest you look downwards and notice who exactly has whom by the balls.

      • Huh? Did China invade Taiwan while I was sleeping? Or why?

        Boy, the world changes fast these days.

      • Time for the west to start confiscating CCP and their oligarchs assets.

        Yeah nah. That would be monumentally stupid. It's easy enough to strongarm Russia who owe the USA a fortune, and have nothing other than oil and gas which is replaceable with other third world countries, but it's quite another to fight with China who are so intertwined with the west's economy that they can happily go tit-for-tat with trade embargos to the point where the west backs down. Now do a google search on where the majority of US treasury securities are held and you'd realise that China has far more

    • China is a wonderful place with millions of great people.
      However they need to lose Emperor Xi.

    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      I've said it before, and I'll say it again. FUCK CHINA

      Wow. I knew Chinese people were easily offended at any challenge to their nationalist sentiments. But I did not know Americans were so thin-skinned.

      Chinese people are quite used to gung-ho flag-waving jingoism in their own media, so would not be terribly surprised to find it in US movies. And I'd like to think they find the efforts of their censors as amusing as I did. Can't you just have a laugh at the absurdity, instead of taking it as a personal insult?

      • If you pay attention to the news at all, indeed even slashdot in particular, China got similar flak for deleting the ending of fight club, replacing it with text saying that everybody was arrested before the buildings started going down. Deleting that ending has the same intent as deleting the statue of liberty. It's not about America or even nationalism, rather they don't like the symbolism of the statue of liberty itself.

        https://www.nytimes.com/2022/0... [nytimes.com]

        I think if China simply didn't like anything America

  • LOL WTF (Score:3, Funny)

    by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:08AM (#62502974)

    Did China just ask Sony to delete the entire 3rd act from Spiderman No Way Home?

    What next, do they want 20th Century Fox to remove the phonebooth from the movie Phonebooth? Or demand that there be no water shown in Deep Blue Sea?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Companies which have capitulated in the past have caught a lot of backlash over it;

        Examples please. I know plenty of films which have scenes cut, edited, or minor details changed. I know plenty of examples of up front pandering (see Transformers). But I know of precisely zero cases where an entire 3rd act was reshot post release for China.

    • I don't think they really care, It was a test of power. Instead they learned the power of fuck you. (Works for many other kinds of censorship.)

      • Re:LOL WTF (Score:5, Interesting)

        by hey! ( 33014 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @01:01PM (#62503382) Homepage Journal

        Have no doubt, China absolutely has the power to ban anything it wants, but it *doesn't* have the power to prevent Chinese people from seeing that banned stuff.

        There's quite an interesting situation going on with Korean dramas, which are as wildly popular in China as they are everywhere else. China has tacitly banned them for years, ostensibly because of South Korea deploying THAAD, but everyone still watches bootlegs. The producers even make money from the bootleg Chinese market with product placement. The ban has been so ineffective that China has been backing away from it over the past year.

        The ability to ban something does give the Chinese government *some* leverage; enough that it routinely can coerce foreigners to changing their movies. But that leverage has limits, and those limits don't encompass a global hit superhero movie.

        I don't think this attempt at arm-twisting was purely performative. THAAD notwithstanding, I think the party sincerely dislikes seeing hostile foreign societies and their symbols portrayed in a favorable light.

    • Re:LOL WTF (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:55AM (#62503180)

      What next, do they want 20th Century Fox to remove the phonebooth from the movie Phonebooth? Or demand that there be no water shown in Deep Blue Sea?

      They already got Paramount the Woke to bend over, grab their ankles, get sodomized with cash, and remove the Taiwan flag from Maverick's G3 flight jacket.

      And people out there still think China's not trying to reshape the world?

      Fuck Winnie the Pooh's government. and all their apologists, both there and worldwide. As if Mao wasn't bad enough for them. Xi is worse.

      • Ehehe -- and since there's no edit in /., here I am replying to my self: That flag removal, Paramount's acquiescence to China, is why I refuse to watch Top Gun II. No matter that it's likely shit cinema like the first one was, but my point is -- I refuse to support Hollyweirdos who bend over to accommodate China's censorious views. Fuck them. Long and hard. With a splintered phone pole.

        China's government needs to be the next pariah state.

      • and remove the Taiwan flag from Maverick's G3 flight jacket.

        Yep, completely the same thing as asking for a complete reshoot of the 3rd act in a completely different location. /sarcasm.

        If I came up and asked you to give me $1,000,000 would you say "that was just like that time you asked me for $1 for coffee"!

    • The Chinese edit of Fight Club had a very different ending.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]

      • Different scale mate. Cutting 10min of content to change the appearance of the ending is not the same as asking for the entire 3rd act of a movie to reshot at a different location.

        It's like asking if we can pick a different restaurant for dinner vs asking if you could sell your house so we can have dinner in a different kitchen.

    • For only a couple thousand more dollars, they can make special "China friendly" versons of the scenes that were removed. Switched to jarringly and featuring the best acting and effects that the 1960s Batman TV series if it's budget was only a tenth of what it was could offer.

  • Spoiler alert...

    I wonder what China wants done with the end of the 1968 classic.
  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:15AM (#62503002)

    Top Gun: Maverick better not bow down to china in any way. Or it's slap in the face to all of our service members

  • Silly (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:19AM (#62503026)

    Does the native Chinese audience actually have that mental connection to what the Statue of Liberty represents, even with the name, or would they just see it as that "big green statue" in New York? The historical context is totally missing I have to imagine.

    It's like that giant Guan Yu statue in Jingzhou [wikipedia.org]. To me it's really cool and I understand it has some cultural and historical significance to people in China but I simply cannot relate to that all.

    I feel like in a situation like this the attempt to remove it or if it was actually scrubbed causes more attention than just leaving it. It's just an interesting set-piece.

    • Re:Silly (Score:5, Informative)

      by alkurta ( 1417115 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:32AM (#62503076)
      During the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, Chinese students built a replica of the Statue of Liberty they called the "Goddess of Democracy". It was built right before the tanks rolled in. Due to heavy censorship from the CCP, I have no idea how many ordinary Chinese citizens remember or have even heard of the Goddess of Democracy, but the CCP leadership certainly does. This is most certainly the reason why they want the SoL removed.
      • Re:Silly (Score:4, Funny)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:41AM (#62503114)

        Very interesting, thank you.

        I know the answer is they have to be extremely overly paranoid because they are an authoritarian state but I am just impressed at how they seemingly both over-estimate and under-estimate their citizenry's sensitivity to such things.

        Like if "Spiderman: No Way Home" is the trigger for a new round of protests then you were screwed the entire time.

        • Back in 2010, high-level officials in the CCP agreed with you, and said that the censorship was getting ridiculous and should be rolled back.

          Now no one dares to say that because Xi is the man.

      • Re:Silly (Score:4, Informative)

        by aitikin ( 909209 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @12:07PM (#62503216)

        During the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, Chinese students built a replica of the Statue of Liberty they called the "Goddess of Democracy". It was built right before the tanks rolled in. Due to heavy censorship from the CCP, I have no idea how many ordinary Chinese citizens remember or have even heard of the Goddess of Democracy, but the CCP leadership certainly does. This is most certainly the reason why they want the SoL removed.

        Had not heard of it so looked it up, apparently the Goddess of Democracy [wikipedia.org] was intentionally not based off of the Statue of Liberty (although they do look similar).

        • They had statues of both.

          • by aitikin ( 909209 )

            They had statues of both.

            Source? I'm Googling and seeing only references to SoL at Tiananmen Square as a potential reference point for the Goddess of Democracy/Liberty/Democracy and Freedom or Spirit of Democracy.

      • Goddess of Democracy was different, IIRC, but they had statues of both.

      • Came here to say exactly that.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • The protesters in Tienanmen Square erected a replica of the Statue of Liberty. It was a centerpiece of the protest. The Chinese government has not forgotten this and tries extra-hard to censor any reference to the statue.

  • by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:19AM (#62503032)

    Defending an American symbol of liberty, while American companies are trying as hard as they can to lick China's A$$.

    • I do not even think Japan was defending an American symbol of liberty as much as it was impractical to pare down the location from the final film. If the location was the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, (any other NYC landmark) and China demanded the same thing, the answer would have been the same. If the film was shot in London and China wanted the Tower of London removed, it would have been the same answer.
      • From a special effects standpoint, it may have been more practical to swap out a simpler box-like building than a bridge or the Statue of Liberty.
    • Defending an American symbol of liberty

      Don't flatter yourself. In reality Sony doesn't want to reshoot the most expensive 1/3rd of an entire film. This isn't like editing a flag out of a picture or similar bullshit.

      Sony has a long history of pandering to China, including aliens not blasting a hole into the great wall in the Pixels movie, censoring Hong Kong criticisms of China in the entire Playstation ecosystem, the insane over representation of WeChat in Sony movies in countries where WeChat is not actually a thing.

      Sony just like every other m

  • Let the Americans enjoy their patriotic propaganda films. China is free to make their own entertainment. Once we try to appease everyone by removing the offensive bits, any meaning or art is removed. And there isn't a lot of that to spare in a super hero film.

    • Chinese art... Do you mean Buddhist art?

      • No, the CCP basically purged their history under Mao. Anything you see like that, like their New Years celebration for example, is in Taiwan.
        • They've been bringing back their ancient history (which is a good thing imo). Interestingly, they've even started doing sacrifices again at the temple of heaven.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 )
      Has the Statue of Liberty really become a symbol of national egoism [wikiquote.org] like the U.S. flag, or is China just being too sensitive?
      • Yes. to both.

        From NPS website (emphasis mine):

        The Statue of Liberty has a long history as a symbol of the United States and she graces the design of government issued postage stamps medals, awards and coins, such as the commemorative silver dollar silver designed and engraved by Don Nelson Everhart II and issued by the United States Mint in 2008.

        For nations at odds with the United States, it is impossible for them to separate a symbol of the United States from it also representing jingoism.

  • by Asynchronously ( 7341348 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:34AM (#62503084)

    All this kowtowing to China is bullshit. These studios should tell China to either show the movie as is or pound sand. Unfortunately the $$$ talks so it will never happen.

    • These studios should tell China to either show the movie as is or pound sand.

      China is a bigger movie market than the USA. What you call kowtowing company executives call "giving the customers what they want".

      Slashdot, a site where we say movie companies should ignore their customers while complaining that Linux distributions ignore their customers.

  • by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@tedata[ ]t.eg ['.ne' in gap]> on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @11:34AM (#62503086) Journal

    For Sony to edit out the Statue of Liberty and replace it with a giant statue of Winnie the Pooh.

  • I'm rather surprised that the prominence of the statue managed to get past the writing phase. Sony Pictures has been floundering for ages. I was under the impression that it really needed those China-dollars. If they don't aquiesse, it'll never get a Chinese theatrical showing (And btw, it's not exactly a blow against censorship when the fact that censoring has taken place will just be censored...)
    • (And btw, it's not exactly a blow against censorship when the fact that censoring has taken place will just be censored...)

      Practically speaking, they won't be able to hide that the movie exists and can be seen everywhere other than China. Not for something this well-known and anticipated at any rate. That might work for something most Chinese citizens were previously unaware of, and which wasn't widely covered in global media.

      • Naturally. But the fact that Chinese piraters can still easily download it doesn't change the fact that this isn't a blow against censorship. China won't allow it in theatres, it gets far less visibility and zero revenue in China, end of story, Chinese censorship continues onward.
  • Egon has entered the chat.

  • by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @12:17PM (#62503234)

    I bet Disney would have edited it, or possibly never filmed the scene to begin with.
    Disney is far to eager to make the Chinese government happy.

    • +1
    • by Nugoo ( 1794744 ) on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @02:36PM (#62503644)
      The film in question is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was produced by Marvel Studios, which is owned by Disney. So, I don't think it's fair to say that Disney would never have filmed the scene to begin with.
      • by RyoShin ( 610051 )

        Sony Pictures owns the rights to Spider-man films. Have since at least the first Toby McGuire movie and, as far as I know, there is no expiration so long as they continue making them.

        More specifically, per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], No Way Home was:

        co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios

        distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing

        Marvel Studios (nee Disney) is very salty about this arrangement (which was pre-Marvel acquisition) and has been trying to strong-arm Sony Pictures to get the rights

  • They did the math and realized that their were enough idiots in this country to make up for what ever loses they got by not releasing in China.
  • Do it as shittley as possible. Big black bars that say CENSORED and sometimes overlap the actors, etc.

  • Not that I understand Marvel-world politics much, but I got the impression that in that world they were busy remodeling the statue to be Captain America and change the entire meaning of it, and it was implied that not everybody in the USA/Marvel-world was in favor of this.

    So basically China wants to censor something that is being censored in the movie?

  • Right after 9/11 the twin towers were being edited or airbrushed out of productions filmed shortly before the attacks, and this was being done to some older productions too.

      Yeah, China's motives are more sinister but the US is fully capable of pulling shit like this.

  • If they had been smart, they could have replaced Lady Liberty with a Statue of Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh, which has been a recurring meme lately.

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