• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Merged The MANDELA Effect.

I used to think it was the Mandoline effect, because I don't remember cutting of the tips of my fingers.
 
This is one I've mentioned in different contexts before and I get this this is going to sound insane to anyone, I dunno 35 or younger give or take, but watching a movie over and over used to be hard.

VCRs used to be super-expensive (For like a year we didn't own a VCR and actually RENTED the VCR whenever we wanted to watch movies at home), movies used to be a lot more scattershot as to what got released on home media, when movies got shown on TV they were nearly always edited and often used alternative takes/deleted scenes.

I wonder how much of movie related "Mandela Effects" are from people seeing a movie once and then "rewatching it" not by watching the movie but by reading a novelization or one of those "Watch and Read" books/tapes that used to be popular with children and the memories getting confused?

Definitely true of me. My most accessible Star Wars and Star Trek stuff was books. At a certain age I'd read the books, or seen the picture storybooks from Schoolastic Book Fairs way more often than I'd seen the movies. Then the next time I saw the movie I'd wonder where certain scenes were. Like Biggs and Luke talking on Tatooine.
 
Last edited:
This is one I've mentioned in different contexts before and I get this this is going to sound insane to anyone, I dunno 35 or younger give or take, but watching a movie over and over used to be hard.

VCRs used to be super-expensive (For like a year we didn't own a VCR and actually RENTED the VCR whenever we wanted to watch movies at home), movies used to be a lot more scattershot as to what got released on home media, when movies got shown on TV they were nearly always edited and often used alternative takes/deleted scenes.

I wonder how much of movie related "Mandela Effects" are from people seeing a movie once and then "rewatching it" not by watching the movie but by reading a novelization or one of those "Watch and Read" books/tapes that used to be popular with children and the memories getting confused?

I've seen evidence that movie 'Mandela Effect' is commonly because different versions of movies are created for different audiences.

For example, I've seen at least two different versions of 'Animal House' one which has many of the jokes and all of the boobs removed.

IMDB lists many of the differences:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/alternateversions/

Star wars is another example, I believe that Arthwollipot knows someone who saw an original screening of Star Wars in the USA, where Jabba the Hutt was a human.

(Sorry Arth if I'm attributing this to you in error.)

I have not been able to find out if Australia only saw the version that was titled 'Episode IV' ...
 
I've seen evidence that movie 'Mandela Effect' is commonly because different versions of movies are created for different audiences.

For example, I've seen at least two different versions of 'Animal House' one which has many of the jokes and all of the boobs removed.

IMDB lists many of the differences:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/alternateversions/

Star wars is another example, I believe that Arthwollipot knows someone who saw an original screening of Star Wars in the USA, where Jabba the Hutt was a human.
(Sorry Arth if I'm attributing this to you in error.)

I have not been able to find out if Australia only saw the version that was titled 'Episode IV' ...

Hm? Jabba didn't appear at all in the original Star Wars. He was only talked about by Han. Many years later, they CGIed Jabba into A New Hope. .
 
Hm? Jabba didn't appear at all in the original Star Wars. He was only talked about by Han. Many years later, they CGIed Jabba into A New Hope. .

They actually did film a scene with a human actor. The CGI was applied to that scene to insert Jabba's eventual look.

Personally I think they were right to remove it, even if it was for the wrong reasons. Jabba loomed as a frightening threat being mentioned in two movies before appearing in the third. Better storytelling.
 
I think the most glaring Mandela Effect related to Star Wars is the sub-title "Episode IV: A New Hope". For years people have been arguing about it having been there all the time. From personal experience, I know it wasn't. I saw the movie in June of 1977. (The first of many times.)
 
I don't think we need to rely on memory for that one. Isn't it a documented fact?
 
For me it was Vacation, I saw the TV version years before I saw the unedited version. Definitely weren't incest jokes in the first one I saw.
 
I've seen evidence that movie 'Mandela Effect' is commonly because different versions of movies are created for different audiences.

For example, I've seen at least two different versions of 'Animal House' one which has many of the jokes and all of the boobs removed.

I think this has a lot to do with it.

I believe everyone generally understands that content is cut from movies before they're aired, so a lot of risque stuff is removed. But I suspect that not as many are aware that some movies, particularly in the 1980's, had entire alternate shots to replace the cut content. As in, producers anticipated television edits and created extra content to facilitate that. I don't think feature films really do that anymore, but I could be wrong.

Another thing that has probably affected peoples' memories is that original 4:3 television broadcasters had to pan and crop widescreen theatrical films to fit, and exactly which part of the image to frame at any given time was largely left up to the stations or networks airing it, so that two different airings of a movie might each show a different part of the same scene. My favorite example of this comes from a scene in Ghostbusters, shown beginning at 1:05 in this clip:



When Murray and Akroyd begin their exchange, both characters fill each end of the frame and it is impossible to show them both on a 4:3 TV screen. Most airings of the movie that I saw panned back and forth between the actors to catch Murray's lines and Akroyd's reactions, but I saw one airing once where the frame stayed on Murray the whole time and Akroyd's reactions weren't shown at all.
 
I saw the movie in June of 1977.


Nowadays, most U.S. movies premiere almost simultaneously all over the world. Back then, it took seven months for Star Wars to premiere in Denmark.
I saw it on Dec 26: "Dansk biografpremiere 26.12.1977"
 
Also I think in general ironically studios were less afraid to very slightly tinker with movies during theatrical runs back in the pre-internet, pre-home media days.

I can't like prove this empirically but I have a gut feeling that, yeah studios probably did try something akin to a "test screening but in real time" by very slightly altering movies, probably on very minor levels most of the time, more back in the old days.
 
Huh! totally implausible. In fact, we all keep jumping timelines and ending up in parallel universes where the only things that are different are inconsequential details... Obviously, we swap places with our identical clones so there's not two of us cluttering up one universe, and then they experience the same insignificant differences back in our old universe.

See? it all works out...

Wait, didn't this used to be the International Sceptics Forums?

Oh so that's why there's so many Cro-Mags around.
 
Also I think in general ironically studios were less afraid to very slightly tinker with movies during theatrical runs back in the pre-internet, pre-home media days.

I can't like prove this empirically but I have a gut feeling that, yeah studios probably did try something akin to a "test screening but in real time" by very slightly altering movies, probably on very minor levels most of the time, more back in the old days.

I'd be pretty surprised if this were true, just imagine what a pain in the ass it would be to recall physical film and replace it. They did and probably still do release slightly different cuts in various countries though.
 
They actually did film a scene with a human actor. The CGI was applied to that scene to insert Jabba's eventual look.

Personally I think they were right to remove it, even if it was for the wrong reasons. Jabba loomed as a frightening threat being mentioned in two movies before appearing in the third. Better storytelling.

yeah he was just some fat guy in a vest
 
Star wars is another example, I believe that Arthwollipot knows someone who saw an original screening of Star Wars in the USA, where Jabba the Hutt was a human.

(Sorry Arth if I'm attributing this to you in error.)
You're not. I do indeed know someone who once insisted that when he saw Star Wars on first release at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles in 1977, the scene with Jabba as a human was part of it.
 
You're not. I do indeed know someone who once insisted that when he saw Star Wars on first release at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles in 1977, the scene with Jabba as a human was part of it.

Are you sure he saw it on first release rather than a test screening?

Eta or both? Could have conflated the two.
 

Back
Top Bottom