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Kathleen Clare Waller's avatar

This is fascinating. One of my favorite films. I swore to my mother when we watched it this year that this was "not the right version" and now I know why. Thanks for all your interesting research, Mikhail!

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Mikhail Skoptsov's avatar

You’re welcome, Kate! Happy to see this is helping people!

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David Perlmutter's avatar

These almost seem like the visual media equivalent of the many "remix" recordings of popular songs existing in the music business.

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Mikhail Skoptsov's avatar

Very much! I keep thinking of exploring the connection between instances like this and fan remixing of movies and tv shows.

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Amanda Kusek's avatar

Incredible deep dive! I enjoyed this so much and definitely the most interesting post I’ve read in a long time! I’ll be sending this to my husband to read!

I’ve never liked this movie and feel justified knowing it became popular because it was free. 😆 I knew it was a bomb when it came out but this adds to my satisfaction.

I was obsessed with Mystery Science Theater as a kid so of course appreciate learning more about what they did technically speaking.

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Mikhail Skoptsov's avatar

Thank you! For myself, I really like Wonderful Life but I get it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I think the Comedy Central recut is amazing in any case and think you’d love it.

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Amanda Kusek's avatar

Haha yes you know me well. I’m excited to check it out!

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RosTy's avatar

Wow, this was such an interesting read (and you broke it down really well). Cutting out one of the most important parts of the film...yikes. I always wondered how the public domain could act on it when Wikipedia's public domain list included this film with its music stipulations, but I had no idea that the adaptation aspect limited it so much.

I definitely plan to check out some of those remixes.

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Mikhail Skoptsov's avatar

Thank you! I'd say the Escape remix is the best one. I also suspect that one reason why three new versions came out since 2020 might have to do with Paramount losing the adaptation rights. Hence, folks might less afraid of being sued for infringement since they'd have to deal with the Greatest Gift Corporation rather than Paramount.

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John Aspler's avatar

Such a cool read, thanks for sharing!

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Mikhail Skoptsov's avatar

Thank you for restacking!

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