It’s G-Whiz Technology

Here comes yet another amazing--and controversial--technology for which we do not yet have formal rules, let alone a pause button. It’s a new software program, coming to market by spring, that’s intended to change the way families can view movies at home.

According to Times staff writer Dave Wilson’s intriguing piece last week, Trilogy Studios of Salt Lake City has devised Movie Mask Player, which will enable many DVD-equipped computers, the new Xbox game console or the next generation of stand-alone DVDs to automatically download “masks” that edit a specific, say, R-rated movie to PG, PG-13 or even G level.

The product ($50 for the program and unlimited Movie Mask downloads) doesn’t alter the DVD disc itself but for each viewing excises violence, nudity and coarse language to match the chosen rating. This means, for example, that in “Braveheart” the program will skip the part where the bad guy takes a knife and . . . . . . . . . . . In some battle scenes home viewers might see a soldier raise his broadsword, but not the part where . . . . . . Or when they shoot a flaming arrow into oil and . . . . . . . . . . . Likewise the mask can skip over a movie’s explicit sex scenes and even superimpose a sheet on an exposed . . . . . . . . . .

Once again, new technology raises intriguing, unanticipated questions. The Movie Mask Player’s creators see their product as giving control to individual consumers, much as some VCRs can now delete TV ads. Others fear that the system represents intolerable censorship or mutilates copyrighted artistic works in multiple versions. Such professed fears, of course, ignore the existing fast- forward button and the varied versions of existing movies now shown on airplanes and TV. Not to mention movie makers’ own alteration of dialogue to suit foreign markets’ sensitivities. And let’s be honest: Few parents can honestly claim to have never abridged bedtime stories.

So far, the movie industry is silent on the Movie Mask Player, possibly torn between product integrity questions and the prospect of selling additional plastic discs at an appealing profit to people who may cringe more easily than the director. Once sold, who cares what’s watched or skipped on a DVD, as long as it’s not resold?

Alas, at the moment Movie Mask cannot excise overacting. Nor can it reverse-mask, that is, add graphic war and love scenes to a G-film like “The Sound of Music” or produce a darker “Cinderella,” perhaps addressing the prince’s interest in his subjects’ feet. However, if they ever make a mask for “Bambi,” then those of us who prematurely left the theater crying many years ago can finally find out what happens after Bambi’s mom gets . . . . . . . . . .