China's decision to change the ending of Fight Club has sparked heated debate among fans of the cult movie, but not everyone is upset.
Among those to have lent their support to China's alteration is none other than Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the book on which the movie is based.
In a new interview, Palahniuk said the ending now seen in the version available for Chinese viewers is actually more similar to that of his own work.
'The irony is that the way the Chinese have changed it is they've aligned the ending almost exactly with the ending of the book, as opposed to Fincher's ending, which was the more spectacular visual ending,' he told TMZ. 'So in a way, the Chinese brought the movie back to the book a little bit.'
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Movie fans were outraged earlier this week when it was revealed that the explosive ending to the 1999 film, in which (spoilers) the main character played by Ed Norton kills off his alter-ego, Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), before watching the city skyline explode as part of Durden's plan to erase the world's debt by destroying the buildings containing credit card records, has been completely removed from the Chinese version.
Instead, the ending consists of a slate of text that reads, 'The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding. After the trial, Tyler was sent to lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012,' – a message that seems fairly out of line with the rest of the film's anarchic themes.
But Palahniuk has a different take on the situation than fans of the movie, with the author having had to deal with the fact that the movie's success led to attempts to revise his own book to bring it more in line with the film plot.
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'A lot of my overseas publishers have edited the novel so the novel ends the way the movie ends. So I've been dealing with this kind of revision for like 25 years,' he said.
In his comments, Palahniuk also pointed out that those accusing the Chinese government of censorship should look closer to home.
He said: 'What I find really interesting is that my books are heavily banned throughout the US. The Texas prison system refuses to carry my books in their libraries. A lot of public schools and most private schools refuse to carry my books. But it's only an issue once China changes the end of a movie? I've been putting up with book banning for a long time.'
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Topics: Film and TV, China