Why is this Michael Keaton thriller Censored on Amazon?
Why is this Michael Keaton thriller Censored on Amazon?
The Confusing Case of 'Pacific Heights'
A couple of months ago, I decided to watch a 90s thriller called Pacific Heights (1991, dir. Leon Schlesinger), which was available for free with my regular Prime Video Subscription. What I discovered was something rather weird: the R-rated movie opened with a sex scene where all the nudity was blurred out, to the point that it obscured the credit of producer Scott Rudin! As it went on, though no violence seemed censored, almost every swear word was silenced.
I could’ve never imagined something like this, given that Amazon is a subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service and has always previously shown R-rated films with all violence, profanity and sexually explicit content fully intact.
In this article then, I’m first going to discuss the film itself and its censored cut. Subsequently, I will offer my speculations about who censored it and why.
Pacific Heights
The Movie
Pacific Heights is a good, solid 90s thriller.
The basic premise is that a slick conman tricks a couple into letting him rent an apartment with the goal of basically stealing their entire house.
I wouldn’t say the film is a masterpiece or anything but it is very well shot and offers some nice social commentary on class differences and toxic masculinity. One thing I really appreciate is how, despite the plot having outlandish and heightened elements (especially when it comes to the machinations of its villain), Heights feels like a far more grounded thriller than others of its kind.
A good deal of the story is devoted to its protagonists Drake (Matthew Modine) and Patty (Melanie Griffith) dealing with the bureaucracy of landlord-tenant laws, and the level of detail the film goes into is rather impressive.
Heck, you might be tempted to wonder if this is based on a true story, and according to screenwriter Daniel Pyne, it actually was based on his and his wife’s own experience with a scam artist who exploited Californian rental laws.
Its biggest asset though is Michael Keaton, whose villain Carter Hayes can come off as alternately affable and menacing, a combination of traits Keaton would bring to the Vulture in Spider-Man Homecoming over 25 years later.
The movie approaches him from a distance and never gives you much of an idea of who he really is beyond a wealth-obsessed conman, with almost every scene he has with other characters suggesting some level of performance or artificiality. The resulting mystique makes him feel less like a real person and more of an unknowable, possibly supernatural force, akin to a masked villain in a slasher movie.
All this is good enought to make you forgive Matthew Modine’s blandness and those instances when the characters just dont’t act believably under the circumstances.*
* I was particularly frustrated by how Drake and Patty pass up multiple opportunities to actually question Hayes’ co-conspirators about him.
The Censored Cut
The censored version of the film is interesting, in that it doesn’t lack any footage from the theatrical release. Every scene, along with every instance of sex and violence, at least based on my comparison, seems intact. And aside from the blurred-out nudity in the opening scene, the only other changes are to the dialogue.
Really, it’s quite funny in a way, because all the swear words, with one notable excep-tion, are muted, meaning the dialogue track goes silent when they are uttered and the closed captioning lists the word as [expletive]. Notably, these are not instances of alternate dialogue, which is when cleaner, less harsh words substitute the profanity, which is, in my experience, typically the case with broadcast television cuts. Rather, this seems more in line with one would see on basic cable.
To illustrate this, I’ve made a list of the censored language changes below.
29:00: ‘Goddamn’ muted twice; ‘fucking’ once
32:19 - ‘Fucking’ muted when Drake says:“You changed the fucking locks!”
33: 50 - About 3 f-words and three instances of “Bullshit!” are muted. Ironically, in this scene, a cop reacts to Drake’s swearing: “I don’t appreciate foul language, sir.” I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw this.
40:41 - “Shit” muted twice
41:49 - Two more muted “shits”
43:26 - One more muted “shit”
46:22 - Here, there is an interesting exception to the rule. During an argument with his partner Greg, Carter yells: “I told you from the fucking get-go, there was gonna be certain risks involved, and you have to be flexible!” The f-word is actually unmuted but the closed captions still list it as ‘expletive,’ indicating that this was an oversight on behalf of whoever or whatever made this version of the movie. Greg then responds: “Yeah, well don’t bullshit me, Carter!” In this line, the profanity is indeed muted.
1:20:45 - Multiple muted expletives
Overall, there are around 15 instances of muted swearing by my count. As a whole, they result in an unintentionally funnier version of the picture, distorting its tone and feel. It’s simply hard to take things seriously when the swear words are silenced.
Mind you, I don’t think such a version shouldn’t necessarily exist. Its presence pro-vides insight into what somebody somewhere clearly thought would make the picture more acceptable to a wider audience and offers a different viewing experience. The changes, which are very clearly marked here, are entertaining in their own way.
The problem is that Amazon does not provide simultaneous access to the uncut edition and offers no label or disclaimer anywhere designating this as an alternate version. This is wrong, for it misrepresents the work and misleads the viewers.
Speculations on censorship
Who censored Pacific Heights?
I honestly have no idea. I’ve been going over this question a lot, and quite simply, there isn’t enough information available to draw any definitive conclusions.
I’m disinclined to believe that it was Amazon. As the company is only a licensor and exhibitor of the film, and from what I know about how such deals work, it is doubtful that it would have the right to alter a feature film that it doesn’t own in such a manner. This is supported by a January 2021 response an Amazon staff member named Davar A. had given to user Isaacl, who was inquiring about why Prime Video was showing a censored version of the R-rated black comedy Lower Learning (2008), where profanity had been replaced with less-offensive wording:
“I'm sorry to hear about the issue. The censorship of the content completely depends on the Content owner. However, Prime Video content is judged according to the Content Policy Guidelines.”
The response suggests that the owner of Lower Learning (which I believe at the time to have been Lionsgate) may have sent a censored cut to Prime Video specifically to ensure the film met its guidelines for inclusion on the platform.1
However, I do not believe this to be the case, given that Prime Video has for years streamed much more sexually explicit and profanity-laden R-rated films and the platform’s Content Policy Guidelines, at least in their current form, state:
“We reserve the right to determine the appropriateness of all content submitted for publication on the service. Titles containing persistent or graphic sexually explicit or violent acts, gratuitous nudity, and/or erotic themes ("adult content") are not eligible for inclusion in the Amazon Prime Video catalog. Titles containing adult content may not be amended or edited from their original form to circumvent this restriction.”
This means that censoring a title that Amazon has deemed inappropriate for Prime Video would not help it land on the streamer. It follows then that Pacific Heights was censored prior to its arrival on Prime Video by the owner, but for some other reason than inclusion on the platform.2 What could this reason be?
One theory I have is that the owner(s) wanted to both boost the film’s viewership and avoid alienating potential advertisers.
The Rise of Ad-Supported Plans
Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services like HBO Max used to be similar to premium cable, in the sense that the customer pays a regular fee for accessing movies and TV shows uncut and uninterrupted by commercials.
That similarity has eroded over the past couple of years, however, as pretty much all of them, including Netflix, introduced cheaper ad-supported tiers.*
* As of now, Apple TV+ may very well be the only remaining exception.
This was virtually inevitable, as everyone in the streaming business realized it was immensely difficult, if not impossible, to generate profit purely from subscription revenue, especially considering the fact that ad-supported services were found in 2022 to have a faster adoption rate than subscription-based ones.
Having a cheaper tier that can bolster your potential audience is just good financial sense. So, it shouldn’t have been surprising when Amazon introduced a new ad-supported plan to Prime Video in January of this year.3
Commercials, of course, have long been one of the main causes of broadcast television censorship.4 Advertisers generally seek to appeal to the widest possible audience and may not want their commercials to be associated with offensive and/or sexually explicit material or content that somehow might controversialize the brand of the sponsor. So, when film and television companies get into business with advertisers, they need to provide content concessions to keep sponsors happy. This can include either altering existing content to fit the demands of the advertiser or producing content that is advertiser-friendly and staying away from making content that is not.
Back in 2022, there were already concerns raised about how the rise of ad-supported plans could lead to censorship in the streaming landscape. Particularly insightful, in my mind, is an article by Jeffrey Cole of the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future, which predicts that streaming censorship will arrive as a natural side-effect of the rise of ads, making streaming platforms far more similar to broadcast television in the process. A couple of passages in particular are worth citing:
“Broadcasters felt they had to edit anything even remotely explicit or controversial because advertisers would not place ads on those shows. Or they could be punished by outraged viewers…. As Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, and others take on advertising, what becomes of the freedom to explore the content broadcast television will not touch? Will the language, explicitness and themes begin to resemble broadcast?”
“Some advertisers will shy away from sponsoring programs or movies on HBO Max and Netflix. Will the teams that run the channels begin to have an overt or implicit bias towards the kind of content that will attract the most advertising? Will they, perhaps unconsciously, avoid some content that is likely to offend advertisers or not attract them at all?””
Another article by Indiewire reported an interesting detail about some advertisers being interested only in running ads on movies below the PG-13 rating:
“Vikrant Mathur, co-founder of Future Today, which curates and connects advertisers to AVOD channels, told the audience at the Behind the Scenes panel that some clients ask for their streaming ads to run only on movies rated G or PG — but all advertisers are demanding more data about the “context” of the programming.”
From all this, it can be inferred that the owners of Pacific Heights may have deemed it necessary to provide a censored cut so it could be shown with ads on Prime Video.
However, this is far from a perfect explanation.
First of all, users have reported seeing censored cuts of R-rated feature films on Amazon for some time prior to the ad-based plan’s addition to Prime Video. The case of Lower Learnings, after all, came up way back in January 2021, while a response about a similar situation with the movie Nurse (2013) arrived in November 2023.
Second, titles censored on Amazon can be streamed uncensored on other ad-supported platforms. This is certainly the case with both Lower Learnings and Pacific Heights, which are shown uncensored with ad breaks on Tubi. The latter also appears uncensored on PlutoTV, which is similarly a FAST platform.
An Accidental Error?
Now, every streaming platform presumably has its own individual content policies and so likely do the advertisers that work with it. But all this suggests that the desire to not alienate sponsors is not, in fact, the cause, and raises the possibility that the Prime Video version is the odd one out. If so, then why?
Could it simply be a mistake, meaning that a censored cut meant for basic or cable TV was accidentally uploaded to the streaming platform?
Perhaps.
There have been documented instances of this happpening in the past, such as with Birds of Prey (2020, dir. Cathy Yan). And a Reddit thread from 2018 about an alternate cut of Sleepers (1996, dir. Barry Levinson) suggests that Amazon doesn’t really perform quality checks of the edits sent to them by production or distribution companies, making it easy for incorrect cuts to slip through the cracks.
Unfortunately, I can’t check out every single platform the film appears on to see if Prime Video is the sole service to have the censored cut, nor can I corroborate if the uncut version of Pacific Heights is available to stream on Amazon’s ad-free plan.*
*To be more precise, I’m not willing to sign up for more services and/or spend money just to check what versions of this film are available in other formats. So if anybody reading this has ad-free Prime Video, a subscription to the FAST Shout! TV platform, or has rented or purchased the film from the Prime Video store, please check to see if Pacific Heights is censored there and let me know in the comments.
UPDATE: Since the initial posting, my colleague Jeremy Beck, who has ad-free Prime Video, has checked the film and discovered that it is also the censored cut, strengthening the likelihood that the censored cut is indeed exclusive to Amazon.
If the censored cut is on Prime Video in error, then it should be taken down and replaced with the uncut edition. And if it’s there intentionally, then somebody should officially explain why and add proper labeling or disclaimer information.
Because audiences should be informed of what version of they are about to see when they watch a film on a new delivery technology or platform.
I, Robot (2004, dir. Alex Proyas) 
Viewers Should Be Informed
Heck, this is why organizations like the Artists Rights Foundation lobbied congress in the 90s to pass ‘‘the film disclosure act.” The bill was not enacted into law ultimately but it did lead the MPAA to adopt a voluntary labeling system about 31 years ago, making it the responsibility of distributors to label alternate versions.5
This made it virtually standard practice for revised broadcast and home video releases of feature films in the US to have a black screen with a text that states:
“This film has been modified from its original version.”
Now, I don’t know if this applies to the streaming era, but if it doesn’t, then it should.
Whether it’s the streaming service that demands alteration or the ‘content owner’ who chooses to send a sanitized cut for whatever reason, somebody needs to take responsi-bility for ensuring that the work is not falsely advertised and misrepresented.
And there needs to be more transparency and accountability, in my opinion, within the entertainment industry when it comes to this topic, as more and more censored versions of movies pop up on streaming platforms without official explanation.
Full Moon Films on Tubi
But what about you? Do you think the censored cut of Pacific Heights was placed on Prime Video accidentally or deliberately? Is the rise of ads increasing censorship on streaming platforms? Do you have any stories of seeing a censored cut on a streamer? If so, please share them in the comments.
I have made a cursory comparison between the currently available Amazon and Tubi versions of Lower Learning and can confirm that the language is indeed considerably toned down in the Prime Video version. This is especially evident about 64 minutes into the running time, as pointed out by Isaacl.
Despite my best efforts, I’ve been unable to pinpoint who exactly the ‘owner’ is in this case. My initial impression is that it was Disney for the film had been initially distributed by 20th Century Fox when it came out in theaters. However, multiple streaming services seem to list Shout! Factory as the film’s current distribution studio, while its production company Morgan Creek, which is still active, apparently has deals with Revolution Studios and Sony.
What was surprising is that it went about it by making it the default for pre-existing users, necessitating them to watch movies and TV shows with ad breaks. In effect, we were downgraded to an ad-based plan without being given a choice in the matter. Prior to this, if you had a standard Amazon subscription, you could stream anything available on Prime Video without commercial interruptions for free. Now, however, you are prompted to “upgrade” your Video subscription to an ad-free tier by paying an additional $3 per month
Based on my research, the primary enforcer by far was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
For more information, check this article by the LA Times.
I actually came across a similar situation although not exactly. There's a movie called Obsessed to Death which I watched because an actor I'm a fan of is in it. What's weird is that it's a Lifetime movie or possibly a Tubi movie, it's unclear. On Tubi it says it's a Tubi Original but for whatever reason the movie isn't available on the platform.
I was able to see it on a smart TV on cable television with a local streaming service included. What's weird is that about halfway through there's a threesome scene between the main character and two other people and on the smart TV version they "aired", the scene is probably a 5 minute scene. No explicit nudity, but still fairly long. However, in looking for it online afterwards, I noticed that the scene has been cut down to like 3 minutes or less.
Although I'd like to propose an alternate explanation to why this might be happening. I saw an article recently suggesting that young people today want less sex in movies. For whatever reason, that seems to be a thing they want. So perhaps because young people are most often willing to watch movies and shows online, the logic is to cater to what more young people seem to want in streaming versions?