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Mac and Me Original Ending! (Japanese Cut)
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Aired
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October 5, 2018
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Running Time
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10:58
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Previous Review
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Tagline
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Japan got the original cut of Mac and Me featuring Eric getting shot by the police! I take a look at the differences between it and the regular cut.
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Link
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Phelous: Some of you might think that I've talked about Mac and Me enough, but you would be wrong!
Phelous: Mac and Me truly is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it? Fairly recently, I got not just one but two new versions of this movie!
Phelous (VO): The Blu-ray release by Shout! Factory, which gives us dance parties at McDonald's and Eric falling off a cliff in stunning HD!
Phelous: That's always just so lovely, isn't it? And if we want to turn things up a notch, we can switch over to the Japanese cut which has Eric getting blown away by the police!
Phelous (VO): Yes, that is really how that scene went originally. The Japanese release is from an earlier cut which still included this little bit of amazingness. Though you really have to wonder why they're gonna originally go so dark on E.T. the McDonald's edition at first! I wonder how much Coca-Cola it takes to fix a bullet wound. I just hope he wasn't shot by a Skittle, because you never come back from tasting the rainbow of death!
Phelous: Makes you wonder if at one point Ronald McDonald was gonna get his hands dirty!
Phelous (VO): That's McJustice!
Phelous (VO): So for the most part, the Japanese cut is the same old Mac and Me you know and love, just with Japanese subtitles. Though, I did notice how yellow a lot of this print looks in comparison to the Blu-ray, with the notable exception of the opening scene set on the Moon or Cordruspattus or wherever it was. This scene seems to have been given a purposeful bluer tone, which looks a bit better for the alien landscape I think.
Phelous: Just for a moment here, I'd like to comment on what a weird case my Japanese Mac and Me came in. The VHS tape is just in a plastic sleeve that slides in and out of this case for some reason, which looks like it should open at the side here, but it does not, just slides in and out of this. My best guess is this was for rental purposes, but makes it take up more space for no real good reason.
Phelous (VO): Also, the alien has a lot more crass in this cut, as he flips this woman off after he steals her Sprite! Oh, wait, never mind, that was just always there. It's really quick, but he's totally giving her the finger!
Phelous: I'm guessing this was either unintentional or a joke they thought they'd slip in to see if they could get away with or if anyone would notice.
Phelous (VO): In the regular cut of Mac and Me, you just assumed Eric got killed by the super explosive mall which just took one stray bullet to go up in flames, so that place was a deathtrap. However, I noticed the really crappy superimposed Eric over the explosion is missing on the Japanese version.
Phelous: So clearly they added that later to try and sell you on the explosion being the reason for his death.
Phelous (VO): Which, by the way, what's even better in high-def! But really, Eric should probably be in this shot still considering he was shown close to it. So I guess they're trying to make you think the explosion killed Eric fixed a minor continuity issue and added visual issues. Besides Eric's crappy silhouette over the explosion, you can see a kind of silhouette of himself kind of slumped over into the position he was already into the original gunshot! So when you think about this scene, Eric getting shot really makes a lot of sense.
Phelous: Though, you could probably say Eric getting shot makes a lot of sense regardless.
Debbie: But what if they really are dangerous?
Eric: They're not dangerous.
Phelous (VO): So the gunshot better explains Eric being slumped over in his chair that his weird ghost’s falling over, plus it explains why Eric dies in this scene yet looks so untouched by the explosion. Oh, and if Eric getting blown away wasn't enough for you, then we have shots of the doctor’s bloody hands as he checks on him! I'm just imagining Ronald McDonald in the test audience frowning as he throws his popcorn to the ground.
Phelous: Wait, shouldn't have been fries? Ronald, you sellout! Wait…
Phelous (VO): Speaking of sellout, though, you notice how in the explosive grocery store that the good guys, the drunk aliens, are framed in front of Coca-Cola and evil security guard is in front of Pepsi?
Phelous: Truly the battle of good versus evil.
Phelous (VO): Yes, there's nothing more pure in this world than Coke, and nothing more angelic than McDonald's, especially ones that are apparently in the middle of the woods.
Phelous: He's not giving up his drugs, he'll just be able to handle them better with sodas, 'cause Coke is life!
Phelous (VO): They also ADR'ed Michael's line after the doctor says Eric has gone to him saying "He's gone?", even though if you pay attention, he's still clearly saying "He's dead?".
Phelous (VO): In fact, if you listen closely, you can still hear the "dead" kind of under the "gone", so they didn't even completely remove it, he's just saying "gone" over himself saying "dead".
Phelous (VO): But the "He's dead?" line is left alone on the Japanese cut.
Phelous (VO): (as Vegeta) He's gone, to the next dimension!
Phelous (VO): There is even more dubbing over Michael's lines after their mom arrives to find dead sweet Eric, which went from "He's dead, mom, he's dead" to "They can't help him, they can't".
Phelous (VO): (as Michael) He's dancing in the parking lot of the McDonald's up in the sky now.
Phelous: And whatever the cut, those aliens sure do look like demons coming out of the fire!
Phelous (VO): Seriously, I really wonder about saying this shot up when you want the audience to think that these stupid doofy drunk aliens are good guys. Also, I'm glad these aliens are explosion-proof, yet they don't get Coca-Cola for a day to almost die!
Phelous: Well, yeah, it's kind of hard for them to do much more damage when he's already dead!
Phelous (VO): In the regular version, the aliens just waved their arms around Eric and use their McDonald's powers to life him from his very clean explosion, but in the Japanese cut, the alien dad actually rips the bullet out of Eric and tosses it!
Phelous: Yeah, I definitely trust drunk weiner fingers to perform surgery!
Phelous (VO): Especially when these aliens are too stupid to grasp a store or firearms, yet now they're smart enough to remove a bullet?! So after the none at all dangerous simpleton aliens that can make things explode by a mere touch are native American citizens...
Phelous: Fair enough!
Phelous (VO): ...there's a minor difference with what track is playing during the credits. Instead of it being Jara Lane’s "You're Not a Stranger Anymore" like it is on the regular cut, it plays "Take Me, I'll Follow You" by Bobby Caldwell.
Phelous (VO): This is a song that plays in both versions during the montage after Mac somehow manages to crash himself up into a tree! Maybe "You're Not a Stranger Anymore" just wasn't ready when the earlier cut that was used on the Japanese version was put together, or they just really loved "Take Me, I'll Follow You", I don’t know. But instead of sequel baiting with "We'll Be Back!" at the end, it says "We Will Find You. And We Will Kill You!".
Phelous: I don't think that happened! Everything else though is perfect!
Phelous (VO): Anyway, that's a super gritty version of the McDonald's alien movie. It's bizarre that this stuff was originally going to be part of Mac and Me cut in the rest of the world at first. Like "Yay, light-hearted silly alien movie with McDonald's dance-off, and then wheelchair kid getting killed in bloody shootout with aliens and the police!" It doesn't make any sense thematically to the film. Like, why have Eric get accidentally shot by a police officer, who really doesn't seem that bothered by it, considering he says nothing to Eric's family in the Japanese cut about it? The whole thing just kinda comes out of nowhere. But I guess they thought "Hey, we already threw this kid off a cliff, might as well shoot him through the back, too!". Which, by the way, Andrew Divoff, who got to play Policeman #2 in this movie, I believe was the one who shot Eric, so that's gonna be a career highlight. Also, Jennifer Aniston and Nikki Cox were at the McDonald's dance-off I guess, so who wasn't in Mac and Me? Well, I don't think this guy was, we might preferred it over Halloween 6, and I'm pretty sure that he is not Jade Calegory.
Phelous: (does the whistling communication which he used his McDonald's powers to give him the gun) Ugh, too far, Japanese Mac and Me, too far.
(outro)
Phelous (VO): (as Wabuu) Mac and Me is so stupid. Hehehehe.