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Comment by dpiers | Hacker News Reader

Donnie Darko’s release in October 2001 was very quiet after they pulled all advertising because a plane crash plays a prominent role in the plot.

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The ending of the MGS2 video game (released in November of 2001) was butchered, since it involved a massive submarine crashing into New York City and Konami feared the game could be seen as a criticism of America. In the cutscenes that survived the butchering, you can see vestigial remnants of the original; most notably flagpoles without American flags on them. The ending of the game has the "villain" explain his desire to free America from the AI that personified of the military industrial complex. When he died, an American flag was meant to symbolically fall on his body.

Is that a regional change or a global change? Did the Japanese release retain the original ending?

Unfortunately it was a global change. MGS2 released in the US first, Japan a few weeks later. I'm not sure if that played a roll in any way.

Supposedly Propeller Arena on the Dreamcast was cancelled over the 9/11 attacks, though I suspect the game was already struggling or being killed for other reasons. There's a leak of the fairly-complete game and it's a hell of a lot of fun. My friends and I have burned a few evenings over the years on it. One of a handful of multiplayer games that we've loved and have no newer replacements for[1] so we have to bust out older consoles or emulation to play them.

[1] some others: Bushido Blade 2 (Playstation), Hunter Hunted (PC), Return Fire (Playstation), Blur (Playstation 3), kind of Perfect Dark (N64) which in many ways remains unmatched though of course there are many modern shooters; and then there are other games that do have modern sequels but we much prefer the older ones and they're rapidly getting harder to play because they're from early-ish 3D consoles and don't get re-releases so they won't compete with their own sequels (Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, for instance)

Another movie: Big Trouble, based on the novel of the same name by Dave Barry, with a big ensemble cast starring Tim Allen, Stanley Tucci, among others, was delayed getting to theaters, its marketing budget slashed, and its run in theaters shortened because of a prominent subplot about sneaking a bomb through airport security.

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