How Sony Will Turn Raunchy Flicks Into Family Friendly Ones

There are a lot of movies out there that are pretty fine for kids, except for the occasional curse word or sexual reference. With that in mind, Sony has a new plan to neutralize some of its most popular movies so that they are more kid friendly. And by neutralize, we mean that "clean" and "edited" versions of the content will be available along with the regular movie when you purchase Digital home releases of flicks, including on iTunes, FandangoNOW and VUDU.

Sony is calling the new project "clean version" and will be putting the clean versions of movies out on Digital. With the purchase of the movie via the aforementioned outlets, fans will get the regular version of the film and the clean version, similar to when purchasers get the theatrical version and the unrated version of some films--you know, except the opposite idea.

Here are the movies that are getting the treatment early on. Please note that this is a home viewing experience that will not be offered in first runs at theaters. Instead, it will only be offered for in-home releases. Also, you may find that some of these titles are a little more surprising than others.

It's sort of hard to contextualize exactly what a "clean version" will mean without evidence, other than noting that profanity, nudity, sexual references and more are likely to be cut, but Sony has already put together a short video giving fans a slew of examples of what will be cut and how the scenes will be changed for the small screen. And lest you worry there will also be profanity in this video, even the original scenes have been bleeped and set to shiny, happy music.

In one of these shots profanity is cut out. In another from The Amazing Spider-Man, a moment where Peter Parker is shot has been cut to be less scary and violent for kids who might be watching. You get the gist.

Generally, when we think of the finished product of a movie, we think about the film coming out exactly as the director intended, but in reality, there are a lot of people often tinkering with a project before its release, including studio heads. In fact, a ton of movies have been changed or censored--especially in other countries--prior to release, but even in the U.S. a movie might change its final product in order to appease the MPAA and get a gentler rating. Clearly, this will be taking that idea further, and will in fact include cutting out parts of scenes and entire jokes to be "clean versions" for families, and some celebrities, including Seth Rogen, have already spoken out against the idea of watering down creative works.

What do you think? Is Sony's idea a good one? Or do you think families should wait until their kids grow a little older to catch classic--and sometimes somewhat raunchy movies--in their pure forms?

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