Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover

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Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday June 27, 2012 @05:30AM from the eastasia-has-always-been-the-enemy dept.

mahiskali writes "After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of 'Game of Thrones,' HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, 'We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.'"

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you what? by alphatel · 2012-06-27 05:32 · Score: 5, Informative

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush? An apology is one thing, but why the fuck does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

--
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
1. Re:you what? by Volante3192 · 2012-06-27 05:36 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Because we're all sensitive douchenozzles.
  How DARE someone offend my sacrosanct sensibilities! A pox on their houses! A boycott! A Congressional inquiry!!
  I shall not rest until my right to not be offended is acknowledged!
2. Re:you what? by DaHat · 2012-06-27 05:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That worthless douchebag hasn't been heard from since leaving office unlike most former presidents.
  That's largely been by design.
  Unlike some other former presidents who during from 1/01-01/09 spent a great deal of time relentlessly attacking the then President and attempting to undermine him... 43 seems to have opted to allow the current president to succeed or fail on his own.
  How horrible is it that a previous President be respectful to their successor... you know... the complete opposite of what this President has done to his predecessor.
  
  --
  Help Brendan pay off his student loans
3. Re:you what? by Lev13than · 2012-06-27 05:50 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush?
  
  Surprised that they chose to digitally edit his nose and chin. Since this is Game of Thrones I just assumed that they were going to add a pair of tits.
  
  --
  When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
4. Re:you what? by Sponge+Bath · 2012-06-27 05:50 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  For all his faults, I genuinely believe that George W Bush would laugh at this and not be offended. He is a goober, but a goober with a sense of humor.
5. Re:you what? by XxtraLarGe · 2012-06-27 05:52 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  If it had been a fake Obama head, there would have been a much bigger uproar. Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless, I don't think it deserved as much attention as it got. The directors probably could have gotten away with it if they didn't mention anything about it in the commentaries.
  
  --
  Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
6. Re:you what? by Comen · 2012-06-27 05:59 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I think if it had been very obvious that it was Bush or Obama's head, I would have thought it was in bad taste, but when you actually see the head, you would never have known that was a Bush head if they had not have said something.
7. Re:you what? by Volante3192 · 2012-06-27 06:09 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yeah, but he's too much a goober to know he should be deeply deeply offended by this, so the vocal minority has to be doubly offended on his behalf!
  (On a serious note, I do agree with your point. This seems like the sort of thing that'd just roll off his back. And note we haven't heard HIS side of the story on this, not that it would have ever mattered...)
8. Re:you what? by amiga3D · 2012-06-27 06:31 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I still remember him laughing when that reporter tossed his shoes at him and he ducked. I laughed my ass off at the look on his face. It didn't really even faze him at all. Later he intervened on the guys behalf to keep him from being punished. I really wanted to like President Bush but his policies just made it too hard and I gave up trying.
9. Re:you what? by firewrought · 2012-06-27 06:43 · Score: 5, Informative
  So your idea that Republicans are somehow to blame for this is not backed up by the FACTS. Sorry, bub! Numbers don't lie!
  If you have a problem with any of the numbers I brought up, speak up.
  Quoting numbers without context is a good way to hide assumptions and misrepresent a complex situation. And economies are inherently complex. I think to be a Republican apologist for the 2008-2012 U.S. financial crisis, you have to mitigate a handful of factors:
  
  A Republican congress repealed Glass-Stegal, paving the way for the bad banking practices evident in the subprime morgtage crisis.
  A Republican administration led the charge to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was very costly.
  A Republican administration instituted large tax cuts during a war.
  Of course, probably the easiest way to mitigate these is to point out the unclean hands here... Clinton approved Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Obama extended the Bush-era tax cuts, and the Democratic congress went along with the war effort.
  I think the Daily Show called it right once: Republicans are the party of bad ideas; Democrats are the party of no ideas.
  --
  -1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
10. Re:you what? by demachina · 2012-06-27 06:43 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  There are so many things wrong in your post I'm not sure I can cover them all in limited time.
  Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office. There was absolutely nothing anyone was going to do to stop it in a year, other than squander even larger amounts of borrowed money on stimulus than they did.
  "was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not"
  Speaking of FACTS you just went off the rails dude. Bush had Republican control of the House for six years, and Senate control for four years. Democrats are pathetic and hopeless in the opposition obstructuing anything. The Republicans are extremely good at it.
  Bush gutted every regulatory body in sight, especially the SEC, through executive orders and appointments which contributed more than anything to corporate running amuck. He rammed through huge tax cuts which started the downhill slide in to huge deficits, passed Medicare D which also added to the huge deficits, passed No Child Left Behind which did nothing but damage to the educational system, passed the Patriot act which eviscerated civil liberties, and ran two staggeringly expensive and largely pointless wars whose only lasting accomplishment will be a huge pile of debt and a bunch of traumatized vets.
  The only two things Obama managed to pass were Obamacare which was a huge giveaway to the insurance and drug companies & will hopefully overturned tomorrow. And then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form . Other than the hasn't dont much of anything since he can't get anything past the Republicans in the House. So called "financial reform" and regulation didn't fix anything by the time Wall Street was done lobbying it in to the ground.
  There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Frank and Dodd all deserve some. But you can't change the simple fact the economy spiralled out of control and blew up on Bush's watch, Paulson helped, and they deserve massive amounts of credit.
  
  --
  @de_machina
11. Re:you what? by kqs · 2012-06-27 06:52 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush.
  Absolutely true, as long as you ignore the deficit going from effectively zero at the end of Clinton to very rapid growth during Bush, and guaranteed to get worse as his phased tax cuts continued. And as long as you pretend that the mortgage problems magically started in 2007 and were not a simmering but ignored issue for a decade. And if you ignore that real income for the lower 2/3rds of people was flat or decreased during that time, And if you ignore lots of other warning signs that "things are breaking and will be easy to fix now, but really hard later." Now it's later.
  Pretending that things were good for Bush's first six years is a wonderful way of blaming the other guys, but does require lots of selective editing. Not that the other guys did all that well, but lots of indicators went into the red during 2001-2006.
12. Re:you what? by sanosuke001 · 2012-06-27 06:56 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  And yet, his comment said nothing about liking Obama; why bring it up?
  
  --
  -SaNo
13. Re:you what? by BMOC · 2012-06-27 06:58 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This was discovered because the directors mentioned it in the commentary?
  my mind is boggling somewhat at the silliness of mentioning this AT ALL.
  
  --
  I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
14. Re:you what? by tmosley · 2012-06-27 07:01 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The deficit going to zero was a result of increasing income tax gains from the internet bubble, something cause by the Fed. Clinton had nothing to do with it. He did manage to refrain from going into max spending mode like most municipalities did during the same time period, to his credit.
15. Re:you what? by kqs · 2012-06-27 07:30 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  That was a big part of it, sure, as well as the infighting between the republican congress and democratic president. And a large part of the current deficits are due to income tax losses from massive unemployment, but I figure that if people are going to blame Obama for the deficit now, then we have to thank Clinton for the deficit in 2000. Or we can realize that the deficits under both presidents were greatly affected by external factors.
  The deficit under GWBush, on the other hand, should have decreased in 2003-2006 as the economy heated up with the real estate bubble. Since it increased, he gets to own some of that.
  To get back on topic: it looks like the Game of Thrones set designers tried to make the head not obviously Bush's. Since nobody noticed until the commentary track came out, I've gotta go with "people are whiners". If people took half the time they spent being offended by little stuff and spent it cleaning up the litter in their neighborhood (yes, even if you weren't the one to litter; see "whiner") then the world would be a bit better tomorrow than it was yesterday. And that's a goal I think we all want.
16. Re:you what? by Volante3192 · 2012-06-27 08:13 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  I would be shocked if anyone that was so easily offended was watching the show.
  Prepare to be shocked:
  Orgs. like the Parents Television Council literally watch these shows to BE offended just so they can complain.
  Anyone rational goes, "Hmm, I don't think I'll like the content of this show." *changes channel*
  PTC goes, "I KNOW I'm going to be offended by this show, let's take detailed notes and send them to the FCC because that's what Jesus would do!"
17. Re:you what? by nospam007 · 2012-06-27 08:29 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  "Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless.."
  Care to give us a few examples of tasteful heads on a stick?
18. Re:you what? by mophab · 2012-06-27 12:56 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Not even close. The guy that threw the shoes at Bush got 3 years. Bush never lifted a finger for him.
  http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-12/world/iraq.shoe.thrower_1_zaidi-al-maliki-and-bush-shoes?_s=PM:WORLD
19. Re:you what? by NorQue · 2012-06-27 18:52 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  I've just seen the season one finale last week, I knew about that head and had been actively looking for it, but other than seeing a couple of heads on spears in that particular scene I couldn't make out which one was the Bush head. This was blown way out of proportion, I agree with the GP, if the directors hadn't said anything on the cemmentary nobody would've known.
Collectors edition by wjousts · 2012-06-27 05:37 · Score: 5, Funny

Does this mean the copies already bought off-the-shelf have just become instant collectors editions? Expect to see "Game of Thrones - George Bush's Head Edition" on Ebay for about x5 the list price.
Eunuchs by jimmerz28 · 2012-06-27 05:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

This is either some kind of "clever" ploy to make already existing box sets scarce or a way to push people to pirate the unedited versions.
Or HBO really just has no balls and can't stand up for themselves. Probably that.
1. Re:Eunuchs by amiga3D · 2012-06-27 06:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I agree. When I watch something like Game of Thrones it's to escape from the real world for a while. The last thing I want is to see shit from today's political goat rope brought into my entertainment. Leave that shit on FOX, CNN and NBC etc. where it belongs.
Re:TO BAD SO SAD by SJHillman · 2012-06-27 05:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

I see nothing saying the former president is even aware of it, much less has a beef about it.
Couldn't see it. by IorDMUX · 2012-06-27 05:43 · Score: 4, Informative

Okay, I watched the clips. I saw the before and after pictures.

And I didn't see the faintest hint of resemblance. Am I the only one?

--
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
1. Re:Couldn't see it. by XxtraLarGe · 2012-06-27 05:50 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I noticed the similarity, but only after I saw a still frame. If nothing had been said in the commentaries, I never would have noticed.
  
  --
  Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Re:TO BAD SO SAD by Anonymous Coward · 2012-06-27 05:52 · Score: 5, Funny

I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...
Fan Edit? by CopaceticOpus · 2012-06-27 06:02 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm hoping this leads to a fan edit in which every dead character on screen is replaced by Bush! I say this not because of hatred for Bush, but because HBO and various commentators have taken this amusing situation way too seriously.
Re:TO BAD SO SAD by CanHasDIY · 2012-06-27 06:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...
If so, he's far more intelligent than I previously gave him credit for...

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Four words by freeze128 · 2012-06-27 06:27 · Score: 4, Funny

Abraham... Lincoln... Vampire... Slayer!
Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!! by ColdWetDog · 2012-06-27 06:40 · Score: 4, Funny

I don't. Of course, I also don't waste my life obsessing over poorly-written, over-sexualized drivel.
I didn't think we were talking about Slashdot - just a TV program.

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Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!