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spiderbraidsSomething new (or rather, old) for 2023 :-)
Back in the good old days of the Winx Club LiveJournal community (2006, to be more precise), I made a series of posts about edits that 4Kids made to the series, in an informative attempt to show the fandom how 4Kids was altering the storyline (In the 2006 section of my journal's archives, you'll find posts for the 2nd half of season 2... by that point, I had been banned from the community, because of accusations of 4Kids bashing and other things :-\) It should be noted that back in those days, the episodes were not readily (or legally) available online like they are now (especially the unedited version, which I remember having to BitTorrent a copy of the 1st season), so I was working off of memory and whatnot for these posts...
Anyways, I have copies of these posts and I've decided to re-post them (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays), though this time with updates to reflect other alterations I've discovered since then :-) I've also decided to include the original community responses to the posts, in interests of preservation (all content edited for clarity and language)
Episode 1: An Unexpected Event / It Feels Like Magic
In the original LJ post, I spotlighted (hah ;-)) the biggest edit of the episode... (I originally labeled "Unedited" and "Edited" as "Here" and "There" respectively, but for consistency with the rest of the entries, I've altered it to the former)
It had a huge chunk at the beginning moved to the 2nd segment, just for the sake of opening with an action-packed battle.
Unedited: Morning. Mom wakes Bloom up. Bloom quickly gets dressed. Bloom realizes she doesn't have school so she lies back on her bed. Mom sees the fairy book on the floor, and notes how she likes reading it, and then suggests that Bloom work at her shop.
Downstairs. Dad reads the paper. Bloom doesn't want to work at Mom's shop. She'd rather go somewhere fun with her friends. Dad says she can go wherever she wants when she's older. Bloom says she's already 16. Dad says that in a few weeks, they're going to have a beach vacation like they do every year, but Bloom says her friends go on holidays by themselves. Dad has a surprise.
Outside. A standard bicycle waits for Bloom. Bloom takes it unenthusiastically. Mom tells Dad that Bloom was likely expecting a scooter, but Dad says they're dangerous, and expensive. Mom suggests saving up some money to buy one.
Bloom is disappointed at the bike. Actually, she's more disappointed with her cheap dad for giving her just a bike, as she runs into Mitzi. Mitzi blah blahs about Bloom's usual beach trip, and says she'll be sending her a postcard from where she's vacationing. And then Mitzi yells at some guys handling her brand new scooter. Bloom bikes off to...
The park. She settles down for an apple, and then Kiko runs back screaming, before leading her straight to the battle between Stella and Knut. Blah blah blah. Bloom yells at Knut. Knut sends his minions after her and she creates a force-field, and she's not sure how it happened either. After giving another minion the stick, Knut grabs her and she begins to glow with fire, and it knocks Knut out. Stella picks up her scepter. More battling, blah blah blah, minion rips her pants, Knut teleports off, Stella faints, blah blah blah.
Edited: Bloom bikes off to the park. She settles down for an apple, and then Kiko runs back screaming, before leading her straight to the battle between Stella and Knut. Blah blah blah. Bloom yells at Knut. Knut grabs her and she begins to glow with fire, and it knocks Knut out. His minions comes after her and she creates a force-field, and she's not sure how it happened either. Stella picks up her sceptre. More battling, blah blah blah, minion rips her pants, Knut teleports off, Stella faints, blah blah blah.
Morning. Mom sees the fairy book on the floor, and notes how she likes reading it. As soon as she mentions the girl downstairs and Bloom realizes that her Stella thing wasn't just another dream of hers, Bloom wakes up and quickly gets dressed.
Downstairs. Dad reads the paper. Blah blah blah, dad talks about how she used to play fairies when she was young. Bloom goes off to buy groceries as an alternate to cleaning the garage.
Biking around, Bloom doesn't notice anything magic at all today. Bloom runs into Mitzi. Mitzi blah blah blahs about how Bloom should throw away that bike, and yells at guys handling her brand new scooter. Bloom leaves.
Personally, it makes more sense "here" [in the unedited]. I mean, Stella, sleeping for like 20 hours? Right from daylight one day to evening the next? No sense at all.
(NB: Another thing not noted at the time: Because of the scene swaps, Bloom's pants leg goes from ripped to unripped back to ripped again... then back to unripped, but only because that last one happens in the original as well)
Responses:
raven_mirta: I'd say here, as in where you're from. :) I dunno, I just don't like the feeling that I'm missing something.
tanz_fanatika (community owner): Due to commercials and other such time restraints, we're always going to be missing something here in the US when it comes to foreign shows. That's just the way our television system works. 4Kids isn't cutting because they want to, but because they have to.
(NB: This was one of TF's recurring issues with these comparisons... To a 2020's reader, the idea that 4Kids, or American TV as a whole, "has to" edit things out of foreign scripted shows would seem downright barbaric, especially given that Nick didn't cut scenes out of their Season 3)
In what alternate universe does Bloom have friends in Gardenia? We never see them and you'd think she would have visited friends during one of her many trips home.
My opinion: I can understand why 4Kids moved the scene with the action to the front. American attention spans are SHORT. Especially those of children. Get their attention with some flash and then move on, especially if you're dealing with a brand new show that has to hook its viewers before they change the channel. The unedited version has more proper pacing and method of story-telling, but it's more suited for a written format than visual. If the audience was adult, I'd say that version was better, but because the audience is kids, I understand the change. Which would I rather watch? I dunno. I like both. The friends thing is bugging me though. Bloom doesn't have friends in Gardenia!
alisonchainsv1 (moderator): I like both versions, I don't understand why one HAS to be better than the other. :| Why can't people just enjoy both without complaints?
chrismactaggart (another moderator): Depending on the type of fireman he is, he's probably right in saying that a scooter's expensive. Anyway - I like the 4Kids version better.
Other changes of note in the episode:
- Snipping out a shot of Knut and the hunting troll walking out of the power station before transitioning back to Bloom and Stella entering the bedroom
- Snipping out a brief sequence with a mysteriously walking saucepan (Bloom lifts it up and nothing's there, because Kiko has wedged himself into the saucepan :-))
- Snipping out Mitzi being bothered by the ruckus from the fight outside
- In the original, Stella only mentions Alfea after going through the card portal, but in 4Kids, she mentions Cloud Tower and Red Fountain as well (replete with footage of those schools) even adding that she's invited some of the Red Fountain boys over to Bloom's house to help Bloom decide; she originally only mentions them during the fight with the troll
Back in the good old days of the Winx Club LiveJournal community (2006, to be more precise), I made a series of posts about edits that 4Kids made to the series, in an informative attempt to show the fandom how 4Kids was altering the storyline (In the 2006 section of my journal's archives, you'll find posts for the 2nd half of season 2... by that point, I had been banned from the community, because of accusations of 4Kids bashing and other things :-\) It should be noted that back in those days, the episodes were not readily (or legally) available online like they are now (especially the unedited version, which I remember having to BitTorrent a copy of the 1st season), so I was working off of memory and whatnot for these posts...
Anyways, I have copies of these posts and I've decided to re-post them (on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays), though this time with updates to reflect other alterations I've discovered since then :-) I've also decided to include the original community responses to the posts, in interests of preservation (all content edited for clarity and language)
Episode 1: An Unexpected Event / It Feels Like Magic
In the original LJ post, I spotlighted (hah ;-)) the biggest edit of the episode... (I originally labeled "Unedited" and "Edited" as "Here" and "There" respectively, but for consistency with the rest of the entries, I've altered it to the former)
It had a huge chunk at the beginning moved to the 2nd segment, just for the sake of opening with an action-packed battle.
Unedited: Morning. Mom wakes Bloom up. Bloom quickly gets dressed. Bloom realizes she doesn't have school so she lies back on her bed. Mom sees the fairy book on the floor, and notes how she likes reading it, and then suggests that Bloom work at her shop.
Downstairs. Dad reads the paper. Bloom doesn't want to work at Mom's shop. She'd rather go somewhere fun with her friends. Dad says she can go wherever she wants when she's older. Bloom says she's already 16. Dad says that in a few weeks, they're going to have a beach vacation like they do every year, but Bloom says her friends go on holidays by themselves. Dad has a surprise.
Outside. A standard bicycle waits for Bloom. Bloom takes it unenthusiastically. Mom tells Dad that Bloom was likely expecting a scooter, but Dad says they're dangerous, and expensive. Mom suggests saving up some money to buy one.
Bloom is disappointed at the bike. Actually, she's more disappointed with her cheap dad for giving her just a bike, as she runs into Mitzi. Mitzi blah blahs about Bloom's usual beach trip, and says she'll be sending her a postcard from where she's vacationing. And then Mitzi yells at some guys handling her brand new scooter. Bloom bikes off to...
The park. She settles down for an apple, and then Kiko runs back screaming, before leading her straight to the battle between Stella and Knut. Blah blah blah. Bloom yells at Knut. Knut sends his minions after her and she creates a force-field, and she's not sure how it happened either. After giving another minion the stick, Knut grabs her and she begins to glow with fire, and it knocks Knut out. Stella picks up her scepter. More battling, blah blah blah, minion rips her pants, Knut teleports off, Stella faints, blah blah blah.
Edited: Bloom bikes off to the park. She settles down for an apple, and then Kiko runs back screaming, before leading her straight to the battle between Stella and Knut. Blah blah blah. Bloom yells at Knut. Knut grabs her and she begins to glow with fire, and it knocks Knut out. His minions comes after her and she creates a force-field, and she's not sure how it happened either. Stella picks up her sceptre. More battling, blah blah blah, minion rips her pants, Knut teleports off, Stella faints, blah blah blah.
Morning. Mom sees the fairy book on the floor, and notes how she likes reading it. As soon as she mentions the girl downstairs and Bloom realizes that her Stella thing wasn't just another dream of hers, Bloom wakes up and quickly gets dressed.
Downstairs. Dad reads the paper. Blah blah blah, dad talks about how she used to play fairies when she was young. Bloom goes off to buy groceries as an alternate to cleaning the garage.
Biking around, Bloom doesn't notice anything magic at all today. Bloom runs into Mitzi. Mitzi blah blah blahs about how Bloom should throw away that bike, and yells at guys handling her brand new scooter. Bloom leaves.
Personally, it makes more sense "here" [in the unedited]. I mean, Stella, sleeping for like 20 hours? Right from daylight one day to evening the next? No sense at all.
(NB: Another thing not noted at the time: Because of the scene swaps, Bloom's pants leg goes from ripped to unripped back to ripped again... then back to unripped, but only because that last one happens in the original as well)
Responses:
raven_mirta: I'd say here, as in where you're from. :) I dunno, I just don't like the feeling that I'm missing something.
tanz_fanatika (community owner): Due to commercials and other such time restraints, we're always going to be missing something here in the US when it comes to foreign shows. That's just the way our television system works. 4Kids isn't cutting because they want to, but because they have to.
(NB: This was one of TF's recurring issues with these comparisons... To a 2020's reader, the idea that 4Kids, or American TV as a whole, "has to" edit things out of foreign scripted shows would seem downright barbaric, especially given that Nick didn't cut scenes out of their Season 3)
In what alternate universe does Bloom have friends in Gardenia? We never see them and you'd think she would have visited friends during one of her many trips home.
My opinion: I can understand why 4Kids moved the scene with the action to the front. American attention spans are SHORT. Especially those of children. Get their attention with some flash and then move on, especially if you're dealing with a brand new show that has to hook its viewers before they change the channel. The unedited version has more proper pacing and method of story-telling, but it's more suited for a written format than visual. If the audience was adult, I'd say that version was better, but because the audience is kids, I understand the change. Which would I rather watch? I dunno. I like both. The friends thing is bugging me though. Bloom doesn't have friends in Gardenia!
alisonchainsv1 (moderator): I like both versions, I don't understand why one HAS to be better than the other. :| Why can't people just enjoy both without complaints?
chrismactaggart (another moderator): Depending on the type of fireman he is, he's probably right in saying that a scooter's expensive. Anyway - I like the 4Kids version better.
Other changes of note in the episode:
- Snipping out a shot of Knut and the hunting troll walking out of the power station before transitioning back to Bloom and Stella entering the bedroom
- Snipping out a brief sequence with a mysteriously walking saucepan (Bloom lifts it up and nothing's there, because Kiko has wedged himself into the saucepan :-))
- Snipping out Mitzi being bothered by the ruckus from the fight outside
- In the original, Stella only mentions Alfea after going through the card portal, but in 4Kids, she mentions Cloud Tower and Red Fountain as well (replete with footage of those schools) even adding that she's invited some of the Red Fountain boys over to Bloom's house to help Bloom decide; she originally only mentions them during the fight with the troll
