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Episode 2: Data-7 and Julian
Comparing the original Teletoon version with Fox's re-cut, I can happily report that the changes made to episode 2 of CYBERSIX were relatively minor. Unhappily, some of them were also essential to effecting the whole mood of the show.
Sure, there was a bit of the expected trimming of footage — mostly just the front and tail end of shots that linked scenes. But you really have to give Fox credit for doing such a wonderful job... of fulfilling my predictions about how badly they would undermine the creepy mood of the flashback scenes this time around. Here are all the gruesome details...
Originally posted by GALVATRON:
One of these flashbacks has almost ten seconds of riveting silence - I'll be surprised if they leave this alone.
Well I am not surprised, because they didn't.
The sound in Data-7's second flashback overlooking the fruit market was supposed to be muted out after he falls from the cliff. Shots with the green E.K.G. readings originally began with an extended flatline response that suddenly skips to life -- these were invariably trimmed by Fox.
In scenes where Data-7 is making the connection between his childhood memories and the adult Cybersix, the image strobes between the face he sees in front of him and the face from the photograph. Here, Fox has removed a throbbing heartbeat-like sound that accelerates in time with the oscillating picture.
Fox has softened other flashbacks with the addition of some generic harp strumming in the background, and in place of the original deep guttural rumblings, they have stupidly pasted in a kind of glittery She-Ra sound effect.
Generally, they have washed out anything even mildly frightening:
The break in the soundtrack that Samus mentioned occurs where Adrian spots Julian from the theatre balcony at Jose's headquarters. We pull in close on Adrian, then dissolve to black in a flashback... The blackness becomes a tangle of silhouetted trees in the foreground, which frames two children (Cybersix and No. 29) who are running across a grassy plain. Tracking them through the blackness of foreground trees, the camera swish-pans left until ( this is where the Fox version of the flashback begins ) they reach the clearing near the cliff's edge.
...Since this edit was a matter of mere seconds, I can only assume that they felt those jagged black foreground shadows looked too foreboding against the contrasting idyllic greenery of the background scene - which, really, was the entire point of the way that shot was staged. The original soundtrack here was the chiming musicbox ( NO overlaid harp strumming), then only the lonesome sound of the wind as they peer over the cliff's edge, finally fading into the shot of the wind-blown curtains back at Cybersix's apartment later that night.
These examples are the kind of subtle stylistic touches that influence the overall feel of the original program. In keeping with Zen philosophy, Japanese animation directors are keenly aware that movement - in pictures or in sound - always seems more impressive after a momentary stillness. By contrast, you can see that Fox likes to layer the soundtrack and compress visuals into an overflowing soup of noise.
To give you an indication of Fox's edit-repackaging on this episode, here is an analysis of part of the closing fight scene with Data-7. The italicized sections are things that were removed:
Data-7 shoulder-tackles Cybersix; she screams as she is flung backward by the impact.
CUT TO medium close on Cybersix as she slams violently into the wall.
CUT TO Julian: "Leave her alone! Stop it!"
Fight continues with C6 & D7 darting from wall to wall.
The chandelier falls, narrowly missing Jose.
Jose leaps up onto table with glee: "Yeess!! KILL her, cat!"
Julian pleads:"No! It's not fair!"
CUT TO low-angle shot of Jose as seen from Julian's POV; revealing his vicious streak, Jose grins:"I know. But it's fun!"
As the fight continues, Jose, rooting from the sidelines, says: "Destroy her!" (-- Sound familiar? This was used as the replacement dialogue to "KILL her", above.)
Really, I don't mean to sound unjustly harsh with this episode, since it was a vast improvement compared to the rampant slashing that took probably 4 dispersed minutes out of episode 1. To be honest, with its uneasy sound effects and eerie silences, the original version of episode 2 (and a few others yet to come) might have been a little too intense for Fox's younger Digimon crowd. The ending of the original is also more emotionally stirring because the transition from initial creepiness to the dewy-eyed sibling reunion is just that much more pronounced.
Here on Teletoon, CYBERSIX has aired in timeslots ranging from 2pm to midnight: the uncut version is moody enough that it works equally well as late-night programming fare without at all feeling out of place.
I guess everyone and all of their friends and screennames should appeal to the producers of the show at The Official Cybersix Website to release an uncut version on video and/or DVD asap, because I am now pretty much resigned to the fact that Fox will do everything in their power to make the program as non-threatening as possible for their eight-year-old target audience. ( All of my favorite episodes will suffer as a result.  )
What really gets me is why Fox insists on having so many commercial breaks in all their shows... when more than half of the supposed "advertising" is just in-house promos for their other programs. 
[* For those who don't speak film lingo, a PAN is a sideways camera move that surveys a scene (providing a panoramic overview of the area). SWISH-pan is when you whip the camera rapidly, intentionally blurring the picture.]
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