Director Steven Spielberg revealed an editing “mistake” he believes he made in one of his films.
During an interview with Time Magazine on Tuesday, Spielberg spoke with Edward Felsenthal, the former editor-in-chief, and was asked if he would edit or do something different in his films.
Felsenthal mentioned Spielberg taking guns out of “E.T.,” which Spielberg admitted “was a mistake.”
“I never should have done that because ‘E.T.’ is a product of its era. No film should be revised based on the lenses we now are, either voluntarily or being forced to peer through,” he added.
However, Spielberg explained the reasoning behind his decision.
“‘E.T.’ was a film that I was sensitive to the fact that the federal agents were approaching a bunch of kids with their firearms exposed and I thought I would change the guns into walkie-talkies,” he said.
Spielberg explained the changes were made to align with his evolving views, but he wished he hadn’t done it.
“I should never have missed with the archive of my own work, and I don’t recommend anybody really do that,” he said.
He added, “All our movies are a kind of measuring – a signpost of where we were when we made them, what the world was like, and what the world was receiving when we got those stories out there. So I really regret having done that.”
Felsenthal asked the “Jurassic Park” director if he felt this way about every artistic medium. He mentioned author Roald Dahl’s book “Charlie & The Chocolate Factory,” which was rewritten to remove any offensive descriptions about the characters in the original text.
“Nobody should ever attempt to take the chocolate out of Willy Wonka! Ever! And they shouldn’t take the chocolate or the vanilla, or any other flavor out of anything that has been written,” he stated.
He added, “For me, it is sacrosanct. It’s our history, it’s our cultural heritage.”
Spielberg empathized he does “not believe in censorship in that way.”