'Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season' reissued on July 10

[Josh Z]

Isn't it an english show?

No, the show is an American production financed by HBO and produced by American showrunners. It is, however, largely shot in Ireland for the landscape scenery. The producers cast a lot of British actors (or had American actors like Peter Dinklage speak in British accents) because that's the accepted convention for "fantasy" stories.

[cardpetree]

Kenyan-American politicians wouldn't be crying over something this silly.

Would they put the prophet muhammad's head on a stick? I wonder if anyone's jimmies would be rustled by that? I wouldn't give 2 shiiits

No, the show is an American production financed by HBO and produced by American showrunners.

Cool

[Jaskoen]

This is a censorship issue. You can go on and on about whether it was in bad taste or a political statement, but in the end you have a select minority of people calling for the alteration of a work of art because it offends them. This particular case is made all the more ridiculous since NOBODY had any clue about it until it was revealed on the blu-ray commentary, and even then it took months for the proper people to realize that they were supposed to be outraged. These are the same people that called for radio stations to boycott the Dixie Chicks. Trying to push a false equivalency with "what if it was Obama" nonsense is irrelevant. Censorship is censorship. Although, no one on the left clamored for radio stations to stop playing Ted Nugent. Just saying.

[Attebery]

This is too funny. And if I read right, they didn't even show the front of the face. Eh...whatever. I still have my blu set. Maybe it will be a collector's item in the future now.

So don't mess them up Russ and Maria.

This is one of the MANY things that makes me love physical media. Weird bits of trivia, hidden details, and film flubs are preserved. With digital everything, studios can pull Lucas-maneuvers, tweak whatever they want whenever they want, switch out the streaming/download/broadcast files, and all the little details disappear forever.

[OneManShow]

....all the little details disappear forever.

Not really. The downside to digital is that this is one of the most pirated shows on TV, so you have all of those pirate copies out there with the GWB head.

[Attebery]

Yeah, but talk about a pain in the ass. You want to scavenge the internet for hours making sure you're watching the unaltered version of [fill in the blank]? I'd just assume have it on my shelf waiting for me.

That's not even getting into unedited Star Wars stuff.

[Josh Z]

Would they put the prophet muhammad's head on a stick?

Where do you think Kenya is? Less than 2.5% of the population of Kenya are Muslims. 83% are Christians.

[Croweyes1121]

@Jaskoen - It's only a censorship issue if HBO was forced to pull the sets and edit this out of the episode in question. From what I've read, the network did this on their own once it was brought to their attention. Is it impossible that they actually just didn't want it in the show? And if not, should they be denied the right to pull it if they find it inappropriate? Because of that's the argument, I'd call that reverse censorship. Once something's out, it must never be retracted?

For the record, I agree that if this was approved and the network knew about it and is now bowing to political pressure to get rid of it, they shouldn't. People should just get over it who don't approve of it and watch something else if they can't.

If, on the other hand, they replaced the shot simply because they found the material objectionable in the first place (as they assert in their statement), then who are we to say they can't make that decision? Maybe it's their sensibilities they're catering to, not some offended minority out there. And they should be able to do that without being called out for censorship.

[Jaskoen]

"From what I've read, the network did this on their own once it was brought to their attention."

Did the director agree? Writers? Creators? Prop artists? This was a decision made by men in suits in a room with a long table. They have the power to do what they want whether the show creators like it or not. I don't know what the show creators thought, or if they even care, but you'd better believe they were indeed forced to accept whatever changes the brass at HBO wanted. Corporate censorship is still censorship. HBO pays their bills, and I'm sure they make concessions to the network all the time, but this particular cow had left the barn, and trying to corral it back in is just PC run amok.

[project-blu]

This is one of the MANY things that makes me love physical media. Weird bits of trivia, hidden details, and film flubs are preserved. With digital everything, studios can pull Lucas-maneuvers, tweak whatever they want whenever they want, switch out the streaming/download/broadcast files, and all the little details disappear forever.

sadly, though, it can also drive you mad. imagine wanting the REAL version of The Devil's Advocate, complete with ex nihilo, but you didn't jump into dvd in time. a 10 dollar version is found 99.5% of everywhere, and is edited, while the one you want is out of grasp at 50-100 bucks for years upon years.

that fact alone has me concerned with the upcoming blu-ray, which is all but guaranteed to not have the legit statue in the film.

[agentalbert]

So how is the scene going to be edited? What are they going to do, put a big blur-mark over it? Just remove it? Seems unnecessary.

I'm sure the selection of Bush's head was completely intentional as someone thought it would be funny. And it sorta is. We'd have a different group of howlers if it was an Obama head. Still, so what? I hate shows edited for "sensitivity". Leave it as is.

[Croweyes1121]

Did the director agree? Writers? Creators? Prop artists? This was a decision made by men in suits in a room with a long table.

A more pertinent question would be whether HBO agreed to the prop being used in the first place. As you pointed out, HBO pays the bills. They're the ones who put up the money so that the director, writer, creators, and prop artists all had something to direct, write, create and make props *for*. I think people tend to have a hard time remembering that films, television, music, graphic art...as "artistic" as those things may indeed be, they're still, on a strictly business level, simply a product made by someone for someone else. In this case, Game Of Thrones is a show made *for* HBO. As such, they have every right in the world to get what they paid for and alter it as they see fit, either before or after the fact.

My parents used to own a decorative window company. When they made a window for a client, it was, I would argue, a work of art. But guess what? If the client didn't like that window - in whole or in part - then it was *their right* to change it to their liking. And, I might add, it was my parents' responsibility to deliver what was ordered. Employing the rationale of some here, my parents should have been within their rights to add something to a window that they thought was cool, slip it in without informing the client, and then cry foul if the product was changed *by* that client to conform to what they actually wanted when they ordered it.

And one more example. As you said, show runners make concessions to networks *all the time*. It's just part of the business. I'm close personal friends with Louis Febre. He's a television score composer. Back when Smallville was still airing, we'd have regular email correspondence. There were many times that Louis would write and tell me that he'd submitted his score for a particular scene and the network - for reasons unknown except to "men in suits" - either changed his music to something they felt worked better in that scene or threw out his composition altogether in favor of a licensed piece of music they wanted to use instead. Is that censorship if Louis wasn't consulted? Or was it simply The CW's right to produce the show *they* wanted to produce?

You seem to argue that if this show's creators contract with someone like HBO, produce a show which contains something that HBO finds out about and disapproves of, then that's just too bad for HBO because it falls under the blanket of art, and doing anything about it is disrespectful of the artists that made the show. While that may be a decent stance on an emotional level, it's simply not the way the world - or business agreements - work. In fact, it's precisely the opposite. By including something in an episode that HBO neither approved or even knew about, it is the show runners who breached *their* agreement with the network, not the other way around. They were paid to create a product. They chose to include something that wasn't authorized by the people putting up the money. And now HBO's the bad guy for excising the portion that they never wanted there to begin with? How is it censorship for HBO to get rid of this - or any material - if it's not what they want representing their company?

Again, I'd like to reiterate that I have no problem with a network showing *anything* they wish. But the people hired *by* that network have a responsibility *to* that same network to produce what their employer (in this case, HBO) wants produced. In this particular case, the show's creators did not live up to theirs. This is why you see so many directors making independent films today. It's also why you don't see the director, writers, creators, or prop artists you mentioned getting upset about this decision and calling HBO out for "censorship". They're a part of this business, and they understand something that many appear not to: that they have nothing to be upset about.

[cardpetree]

Where do you think Kenya is? Less than 2.5% of the population of Kenya are Muslims. 83% are Christians.

I wasn't stating that example in correlation with Kenyan Americans. I was just saying in general would they put the prophet muhammad's head on a stick? I doubt they would, the people who work on the film would probably say that was over the top but it's perfectly fine and hilarious to put a former President of the United State's head on a stick. I was also stating that example to ask if you think there would be any outrage over the show putting the prophet muhammad's head on a stick?

[Jaskoen]

That was a long reply, and I concede your point.

But I still think this is a gross overreaction on HBO's part. Unless President Bush himself had a problem with this, I think it's ridiculous for HBO to acquiesce to the demands of a bunch of wingnut crybabies. My opinion.

[Josh Z]

So how is the scene going to be edited? What are they going to do, put a big blur-mark over it? Just remove it? Seems unnecessary.

I would assume that a little digital touch-up would make the face unrecognizable. It's already pointed away from the camera. It won't take much effort to remove the resemblance.

The bigger concern, I'm sure, is that the commentary will be edited to remove the part where they bring this to the viewer's attention. That's really what started this controversy in the first place.