Why are the films shown on individual AVOD monitors edited, especially in BF? Is it because Continental simply buys a single license to show the edited version in the main cabin and on AVOD? I'm not a big fan of edited movies so on the last trip had to resort to watching the only unedited movie, The Last Mimzy. It didn't turn out to be too bad of a movie but I'd really like more choices if possible.

I guess they have to make all movies G'ish, since they don't know who'll watch them.

There is also the issue of the lack of privacy. Even if you could ensure that such material is blocked at a child's seat, what about the person next to a kid? Do you bar them from watching it as well? How do you deal with any potential conflict? I remember a flight where some guy was watching Monster on his computer. Good for him, but I could clearly see it (again not a problem), but it isn't appropriate viewing for a child, and I didn't see him take any measures to ensure a kid couldn't see it. Editing the content helps prevent any such issue.

I find this to be an issue with all US airlines, as well as airlines from more "conservative" countries - EK comes to mind. It's one of the things that usually puts me off watching movies on an aircraft, as I'd never know what parts of the movie I didn't see!

I've flown on many airlines with uncensored movies, such as BA, VS, AF - they all offer the option to block specific movies on a PTV by asking an FA, and as for the "what if a child accidentally looks at the screen next to them?" question - this is the parent's job to prevent, not the airline's.

It's sad that we live in a world where we try far too hard to protect children from being exposed to anything that could be even a slight deviation from a steralized world. A kid is going to see and hear more on a 1-hour stroll through Manhattan holding their parent's hand than in many R-rated movies

Short of a blind-fold (which CO does not provide in Coach, BTW), how do you propose doing this? Look, I'm not even a parent, don't really like kids, and think that most are babied too much, but I just don't think that an airplane is the appropriate place for material that doesn't pass the kid-looking-over-your-shoulder test.

During the debate, let's also remember that all movies on the personal screens (at least in BusinessFirst) used to be un-edited before the move to the AVOD system.

CLG

The most logical suggestion I can make is offering something more compelling for that child to watch on their own PTV

Interesting, I just assumed all movies on a plane was already edited but was glad, I mean surprised to see nudity in movies on some flights I took to HNL.

There's an article in today's New York Times about parents groups that are trying to make airlines stop showing non-kid-friendly films. It has a couple of quotes from Continental.

I wrote an email to the parents' group. I said "if you're worried about what your kids see, fly Southwest, Northwest, AirTran, Delta Connection, or other similar airlines. They don't have inflight entertainment."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/01/us...us&oref=slogin

One edit that made me very angry was in The Hours on United Airlines. The Hours features three scenes (from each of the three time periods) where two women kiss, none in a sexually explicit way. All three were edited out. This was blatant homophobia because similar kisses between a man and woman would not have been removed.