The world’s cinephiles are going mad with the drastic changes to cult classic Fight Club. However, the original author doesn’t seem to mind.
Early this week, it was revealed that China has completely cut the ending to David Fincher’s adaptation of Fight Club from 1999.
Spoilers ahoy!
In the original ending, Edward Norton’s character realises that Brad Pitt is actually a version of himself, plotting against him.
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Norton manages to defeat Pitt, but he is too slow to save civilization from the bombs he had planted. Norton and Helena Bonham Carter hold hands as buildings explode around them. Fin.
However, the newest Chinese version is ever so slightly different.
Norton manages to defeat Pitt, but before the explosions the film ends. And instead, the audience is met with a title card that reads:
“The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to a lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012.”
Huh?
Cuts and alterations to films are common in many countries, to fit the views or beliefs of certain nations.
According to sources that spoke to Variety, it’s more likely that this was the cut of the film that was sold to Chinese distributors as to avoid any further censorship issues.
“It’s clear that the company who bought the distribution rights for the China market sold this version to Tencent Video.”
“This example is kind of genius. They have added something that was not in the original film, and they’ve done so with the lettering in the original font so that it fits in believably. It has to have been done in post-production.”
Interestingly, the original writer of the novel, Chuck Palahniuk wasn’t worried about the changes.
Speaking with TMZ, he said “The irony is that the way the Chinese have changed it is they’ve aligned with the ending almost exactly with the ending of the book, as opposed to Fincher’s ending, which was the more spectacular visual ending. So in a way, the Chinese brought the movie back to the book a bit.”
“My books are heavily banned throughout the US,” continues Palahniuk. “The Texas prison system refuses to carry my book in their libraries. A lot of public schools and most private schools refuse to carry my books. But it’s only an issue once China changes the end of a movie? I’ve been putting up with book banning for a long time.”
