10 Movies That Made No Sense If You Watched Them In Other Countries
There's literally no point watching Fifty Shades of Grey in Vietnam.
The primary reason why the vast majority of Hollywood blockbusters have simple plots driven by explosive action is so they can be easily translated into dozens of different languages to service markets all over the world.
While there are countless tentpole movies that are clearly sanitised during production to ensure they don't offend international markets - most often the commercial goliath that is China, let's be honest - sometimes more comprehensive edits are made that render a film practically incomprehensible.
From cutting crucial context about a character's life to placate homophobic markets, to removing single shots that destroy the context of entire sequences, and even ripping out the whole dramatic backbone of the movie, these films made no damn sense at all.
It's a testament to how fragile censorship bodies can be and how paradoxically greedy for money they also are that they'll release a film in such an absurdly compromised state to the extent that it's a hot, illogical mess for customers who paid their hard-earned cash for the pleasure.
If any country has to get the scissors out this egregiously to make a film releasable, maybe just... don't bother?
10. All The Gay & Drug References Were Cut For Russia - Rocketman
2019's Elton John biopic Rocketman was well received by critics and audiences alike for its upfront account of the Brit musician's life.
In particular, many lauded the film's matter-of-fact depiction of John's life as a gay man, compared to the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody released the year prior, which was criticised for downplaying Mercury's bisexuality for the sake of securing a larger global box office.
Sadly Rocketman's approach resulted in it being outright banned in "less tolerant" regions such as Samoa and Egypt, while the Russian distributor cut every single scene involving homosexuality or drug use.
While this only amounted to five minutes of screen time in total, these moments are absolutely vital in creating a valid, accurate portrait of who Elton John is.
To rub salt in the wound, the closing title card explaining that John eventually settled down with his husband David Furnish and had two children was replaced in favour of one focused on the Elton John AIDS Foundation, not-so-subtly re-framing the context of John's life.
As such, it goes beyond merely sanitising John's story for bigots, but an act of erasure that totally misrepresents its focal subject. Both John and Paramount heavily criticised the decision.