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Short Stuff: In-Flight Entertainment · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's here sitting in for Dave. And
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this is short stuff about in flight movies, all the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: great stuff that you can watch when you fly with
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your favorite airline.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is something that if you've been flying
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: for a number of years, has changed quite a bit.
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  Speaker 2: I do remember the old days where I didn't fly
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a lot growing up at all, like I think if
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: one time before I went to college, and then not
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  Speaker 2: even a lot after that because I was always broke.
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  Speaker 2: But I did go on a couple of flights back
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  Speaker 2: in the day where they had the one movie being
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  Speaker 2: shown for the entire plane, and there were these big, huge,
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  Speaker 2: like Volkswagen Beetle size monitors that drop down from the
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  Speaker 2: ceiling like every ten rows right in the middle, and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: maybe thirty percent of the flight could get a good
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: angle on that screen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you were lucky, you were close to
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  Speaker 1: that one big screen verse that was like broadcast or
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: shown on like the wall. Oh yeah, yeah, in the
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  Speaker 1: middle rows.
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  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. That was how we used to watch movies. Everyone
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  Speaker 1: watched the same movie at the same time. You plugged
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in your headphones that were like hydraulics if I remember correct. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: air travel episode just through a tube. Yeah, and you
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: watched that same movie. And because there's all sorts of
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  Speaker 1: different people with all sorts of different tastes, the movie
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  Speaker 1: you saw was radically different from the movie that that
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  Speaker 1: you would find on like your at your video store.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, for sure, one movie whole plane. We will tell you.
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  Speaker 2: The very first in flight movie, believe it or not,
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  Speaker 2: was in nineteen twenty nine. It was a newsreel and
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: a couple of cartoons on a trans continental air transport flight. Right,
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  Speaker 2: but real deal movie service started in the early sixties.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: This comes from Variety and CNN and how stuff works.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: But nowadays it's a whole different deal because we have
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: broadband connections, we have servers on board. Everyone knows. Now
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  Speaker 2: you can stream like over one hundred movies. Probably even
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: a couple of decades ago, you probably just had ten
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: or fifteen movies you could watch because they were just
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: you know, stored on a hard drive, I guess. But
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  Speaker 2: now they have all kinds of movies. You can play
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: games against passengers, you can read ebooks, listen to podcasts
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: or music or whatever. Right there, either on the seatback
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: screen or on your laptop or tablet or whatever.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is quite a time to be alive for that.
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  Speaker 1: But the I guess the whole problem, the whole issue
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  Speaker 1: that faced airlines back in the day, which was how
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: can you show a movie to a bunch of different people,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: is still around in different forms.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I mean it cost them a ton
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  Speaker 2: of money. Apparently some airlines spend like twenty million dollars
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  Speaker 2: per year just on like licensing the content. Then you
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: got to outfit the planes. That can cost about five
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: million dollars per aircraft and it makes a lot heavier.
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  Speaker 2: So that was a guy, an econ professor in Norway
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: that basically calculated all the weight and everything and said,
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  Speaker 2: if the airlines got rid of this stuff, they can
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  Speaker 2: save about three million dollars per year per aircraft by
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  Speaker 2: not having this on board.
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  Speaker 1: Right, which I mean they're like, well, so what, we
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  Speaker 1: make so much more than that, Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: But they'd pass along the savings to us, I'm sure
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, apparently depending on where you are. I
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  Speaker 1: think in the United States you pay something like ninety
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  Speaker 1: grand for one movie for a couple of months, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and then other yeah, for a license, and then other
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: licenses are like by a per view, so every time
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: somebody watches a movie, you have to pay a certain amount,
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  Speaker 1: probably not ninety grand, but still, like there's all sorts
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of different ways that airlines have to kind of dig
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: in their pockets to make sure you have all the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: movies you want. So feel bad for the airlines.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if this is for everybody, but
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  Speaker 2: I even call them airplane movies. It's sort of like
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  Speaker 2: a hotel movie. It's a movie that, like I probably
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't pay for or go see in a theater, but
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  Speaker 2: I will totally get, like, had enough interest to watch it.
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  Speaker 2: I will do that on airplanes almost one hundred percent
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  Speaker 2: of the time. I won't watch either that or like
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  Speaker 2: an old favorite. But I watched f one Brad Pitt
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  Speaker 2: Formula one movie on this last flight recently, and it
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  Speaker 2: was okay. It was an airplane movie.
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  Speaker 1: Too much minimalist like office stuff for me.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean.
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  Speaker 1: It was lousy with that. I saw some I was
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  Speaker 1: watching it over somebody's shoulder.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there was a lot of that. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: the racing stuff was really really great. I'm sure obviously
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  Speaker 2: much better on a big screen. But it was one
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  Speaker 2: of those where like not most, but a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people don't understand Formula one racing. So the entire time,
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  Speaker 2: like the race commentary was so explanatory and now he
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  Speaker 2: has to go do this because that means this, because
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  Speaker 2: the rules say this, and it's just incessant and it
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  Speaker 2: helped you understand it, but it was really pretty pretty bad,
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  Speaker 2: like inception and that respect like inception.
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  Speaker 1: Let's take a little break and we'll come back and
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  Speaker 1: we'll talk about some of the stuff that airlines have
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  Speaker 1: to do to make sure that no one gets offended
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  Speaker 1: by their movies. All right, we'll be right back, all right.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So you were saying airplane movies are ones that you
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: would normally never pay to see. I get that. There's
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: also airline versions of movies, and they come in a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of different ways. Sometimes the airlines like commission companies
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to edit the movies that they're gonna show. Other times
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  Speaker 1: the studios themselves will make an airline cut where they
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  Speaker 1: edit out, you know, the the sexiest stuff or the
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  Speaker 1: most violent or gory stuff, or like jokes like you
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: probably couldn't show any of the Austin Powers movies because
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: of all the mean stuff about different cultures, they figure
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  Speaker 1: out how to edit that out in the best way
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  Speaker 1: possible so that it doesn't screw up the plot, which
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: is was not what they were doing before when they
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: showed the same movie to everybody at the same time.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: It was just really clumsy editing.
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  Speaker 2: Then, yeah, for sure, it's kind of funny some of
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  Speaker 2: the things I'll edit out. Apparently they'll add out other
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: airline logos which I didn't know, which is hysterical not
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  Speaker 2: so hysterical. You're never going to see a movie about
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: a terrorist or certainly like a hijacking or a plane
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  Speaker 2: crash or anything. You're not going to see that Denzel
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  Speaker 2: Washington movie, Like, You're not going to see anything like that,
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  Speaker 2: which makes a lot of sense, of course, sure, But
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  Speaker 2: depending on where you are in the world too, there's
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  Speaker 2: different cultures that are going to find different things offensive
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  Speaker 2: and you've got to be aware of that. So like
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  Speaker 2: in Europe they're way more okay with like a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of nudity, maybe a little bit more sexy stuff,
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  Speaker 2: but they're not as much as into the gore and violence.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: The Middle East, apparently any kind of bear skin or
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: sexy stuff you can't have. But they have a little
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: higher tolerance for violent scenes on their flights.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Right, airlines that carry a lot of Muslim passengers will
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: frequently have like any references to pig or pork or
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  Speaker 1: anything like that edited out. Yeah, Singapore apparently is sensitive
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  Speaker 1: to scenes or movies with LGBTQ plus content, which means
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  Speaker 1: they can't get enough of it, is what I'm reading.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think that's the case.
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  Speaker 1: And language you would think like, well, they got to
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  Speaker 1: edit that out, but that's not the case anymore. It
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem to have been the case ever since they
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: started showing on demand individually selected movies because you listen
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to them through headphones generally, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Through headphones. And also they have the little sort of
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  Speaker 2: caveat now where they tell you beforehand, this contains scenes
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  Speaker 2: of you know, violence or whatever brief nudity and you
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  Speaker 2: have to tell whether or not you want to proceed
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  Speaker 2: right beforehand. And you know this. I think because I
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: was I'm still a bit of a prude. I was
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  Speaker 2: raised Baptist, so I'm always very sensitive to other people's
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  Speaker 2: experience around me, Like I would never be the guy
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  Speaker 2: that's just watching some awful like thing on their screen
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  Speaker 2: with people all around them, just totally clueless that like
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  Speaker 2: kids are around or other people that might be offended.
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  Speaker 2: So I've always been sensitive to that. But there are
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  Speaker 2: there's an actual trade group, the Airline Passenger Experience Association.
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  Speaker 2: Because there are no laws about this, they they will
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  Speaker 2: offer guidance, I guess to movie distributors and to airlines
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  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. There's been some sort of I
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: don't know about famous, but like at least gone viral
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  Speaker 2: online for like how could they edit that out? I
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  Speaker 2: know when the film Carol came out in twenty fifteen,
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  Speaker 2: which is about a lesbian couple in the nineteen fifties,
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  Speaker 2: Delta got a lot of guff because they edited out
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  Speaker 2: scenes of like women kissing, and so Delta was like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: that's not us, Like that's the movie they gave us.
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  Speaker 1: But apparently there's a guy who runs a company that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: how stuff works. Talked to Amir sum Nani. He's vice
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  Speaker 1: president of content services for Global Eagle, which is like
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  Speaker 1: the big company that edits films for airlines. Yeah, he
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  Speaker 1: had said he wasn't saying this to contradict Delta, but
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  Speaker 1: he said, like airlines actually have a lot of say
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  Speaker 1: in what gets edited out, so it seems like Delta
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  Speaker 1: is like, no, we can't show lesbian stuff, whereas American
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  Speaker 1: airlines in United are like they're all like they're like Singapore,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: They're like, bring it on, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was in two thousand and seven that was
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: a co sponsored bill called the Family Friendly Flies Act,
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  Speaker 2: where they wanted to have child safe viewing areas on
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  Speaker 2: the planes where anything over g couldn't be played. But
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  Speaker 2: I think it never passed. And I'm sure it didn't
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  Speaker 2: pass because that's a near impossibility or just a terrible
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  Speaker 2: idea to be like we'll put all the kids in
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  Speaker 2: the back of the plane together right without their parents.
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  Speaker 1: I was looking at this and it was congress people,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: congressmen from North Carolina, and it does, especially today, sound
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  Speaker 1: just preposterous. But to in their defense, this was two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and this was a time when planes
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  Speaker 1: still mostly showed the same movie to the entire airplane
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  Speaker 1: at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: Well, that makes sense a little more sense.
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  Speaker 1: Right, it did. It did to me too, And I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: was reading like a just basically an article on it
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  Speaker 1: from the time, and they were like, well, one of
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  Speaker 1: the problems is like you don't want to just show
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: only G rated movies because everybody on the airplane is
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: going to hate kids even more than they already do.
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  Speaker 1: That was a quote from it. So they landed on
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  Speaker 1: if this did happen, to just show PG thirteen as
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  Speaker 1: a compromise.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well that makes sense.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: If you're wondering how much gets edited out, someone actually
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: did check running times of movies shown on Virgin Air
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: and Air Canada.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: They had funding that's.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Right, which will be flying soon when we do our
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Canadian tour. We got some Air Canada flights book, can't wait.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: You got that straight.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: And they found that two thirds of the movies shown
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: on these two airlines were the same length as the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: theater presentation. Fourteen percent were shorter, not fourteen percent shorter,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: but fourteen percent of the movies overall. So that, like
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: that just sort of tells you how many movies are
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: being edited down for content. Twenty one percent were longer,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: which is sort of interesting.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would guess Virgin is not huge on editing
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: down movies. But you never know, you never know, so yeah,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Chuck said, you never know. I guess, Chuck, doesn't that
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: mean that short Stuff is Out.
• 12:04
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• 12:10
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• 12:14
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