The edited version of Back To The Future Part II that recently appeared on Netflix has now been destroyed entirely, it’s been revealed.
Last week, it came to light that the version of the film Back To The Future Part II that had been playing on Netflix UK had been slightly curtailed. That instead of it being the full theatrical cut, a moment where Michael J Fox’s Marty McFly finds the magazine Oh La La had been clumsily edited down a little.
You can find our story on that here.
Now, an official explanation has been offered for just what happened. It turns out that the blame for this one doesn’t rest with Netflix – that fixed the issue of the wrong version when it became alerted to it – but with Universal Pictures instead.
Back To The Future Part II co-writer and producer Bob Gale explained to The Hollywood Reporter that “the blame is on Universal who somehow furnished Netflix an edited version of the movie”.
Gale added that “I learned about it some ten days ago from an eagle-eyed fan, and had the studio rectify the error. The version now running is the uncensored, unedited, original version. Apparently, this was a foreign version which neither director Robert Zemeckis nor I even knew existed, for some country that had a problem with the Oh La La magazine cover”.
“I asked that the studio destroy this version. FYI, Netflix does not edit films — they only run the versions that are supplied to them. So they’re blameless. You can direct your ire at Universal, but I think they will be a lot more careful in the future – and with ‘the future’”.
And that, then, should be the end of that.
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