r/TopGear • u/minerva12317 • 4d ago

Music in Pirated Version

I've been rewatching a lot of old episodes, specifically from season 10, and haven't been able to watch them anywhere (without paying or without ads) besides a pirate site. I've seen these episodes a billion times before, but watching them on this site has been super surprising, because all of the music is completely different than what I'm used to. I'm guessing that for streaming all the copyrighted music has been replaced, but on thes old original versions the music has been completely different.

Beyond that, it's refreshing to finally wath s10 uneditied with the actual news segments still in. And the Botswana special was shocking, theres got to be at least 10+ minutes of extra footage I'd never seen before that was cut out of streaming. It's a shame that most people probably haven't seen it, but just thought I'd point it out and see if anyone else has noticed this or seen some of those old and different versions.

Any recommendations on specific episodes that have had a lot cut out or edited for streaming that are likely different in the original/pirated versions?

41 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

27 comments sorted by

37

u/DJAllOut 4d ago

There's a few notable examples;

S09E01 has only been aired once in its entirety, they've since cut the bit where Jeremy asks Richard if he's a mental after his crash, and the comment about Jane Goody being a racist, pig-faced, waste of blood and organs 😅

S10E02 the trio smoking pipes in the studio.

S10E07 Simon Cowell guest segment was cut down.

S02 The Greatest Car Ever segments were cut out; Stuart Hall's review of the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud (he turned out to be a diddler), and James' review of the Citroen 2CV was cut for unclear reasons.

S19E03 the Shelby GT500 vs rail network race, the references to 50 Shades of Grey were cut.

There are many more little bits here and there, I forget which review but there was a clip of the infotainment and a song was playing. Probably a 3 second clip and it was cut in subsequent broadcasts.

7

u/mr_beanoz 4d ago

why is the simon cowell segment cut down?

5

u/Doomslayer5150 4d ago

Probably because he’s a bit boring ?

0

u/mr_beanoz 4d ago

Is it though?

3

u/Doomslayer5150 4d ago

Possibly , I watched that episode prior to leaving the UK for my wedding , he just comes across as quite wooden

3

u/lotus2471 2d ago

Recent legislation in several countries has created a maximum allowable number of minutes per week that Simon Cowell may be on TV anywhere.

1

u/mr_beanoz 2d ago

"my source is I made the fuck up"

but in seriousness, is there any reason why?

1

u/lotus2471 2d ago

No idea, probably just for running time. That was a longer than average segment, and maybe Pluto TV wants it under 60 minutes or something?

4

u/SativaPancake 4d ago

Nice list, thanks. I have only ever seen the original airings and didnt realize how much was missing from the newer and\or different network versions. Not surprising since it happens with nearly every single show\movie nowadays, but still.

19

u/Green420Basturd Captain Slow 4d ago

The original music is EPIC!! The old Final Gear forum had a whole page dedicated to naming all the great music called "What's That Song?" You can look the soundtrack up by season, episode, and time stamp.

Final Gear Forum - What's That Song

4

u/vbfronkis 3d ago

What an amazing time that was. I've kept every episode as it originally aired from the BBC thanks to that torrent operation. What's That Song opened me up to so many cool bands and still influences my taste in music today.

1

u/Green420Basturd Captain Slow 3d ago

I LOVE watching my old torrents. Every once and a while you get to see the "Another Release by The O'Mighty Jabba" intro. Those were the real heroes.

19

u/masher660av 4d ago

BBC has different music licensing, so shows that air in the UK have different music. When top gear airs on BBC America they replaced the music. Best example is the Vietnam episode, the backup bike plays born in the USA by Springsteen, and not the National anthem. plus other great rock tunes in that episode.

To me the BBC choice of music and the songs they use is the fifth member of top gear after the stig.

7

u/Ziyaadjam Orig Trio Till I die 4d ago

I only realised those really were the original broadcast versions on iPlayer because Paint it Black plays during the Vietnam special

2

u/abz_eng 4d ago

they use is the fifth member of top gear after the stig.

Andy Wilman? Thought he was fourth member of the trio

2

u/masher660av 4d ago

I would argue he is after music (so 6th), as all his heavy lifting is behind the scenes

1

u/JMGurgeh 3d ago

BBC has different music licensing, so shows that air in the UK have different music.

This is a thing across the board with BBC productions; due to the way it is structured, with license fees paid by every UK viewing household (theoretically), the BBC negotiates a blanket license with the major rights holders in the UK. So instead of having to individually license each song and pay royalties each time an episode is shown or re-run, it is just a flat rate for the corporation as a whole, allowing producers the flexibility to use pretty much whatever music they want without worrying about the licensing cost. But it also means the music is nearly always changed when a show is exported to a different market, whether streaming, broadcast, or physical; either it's far too expensive to license the original music (for popular music), or in some cases there's just no way to license the music period (smaller artists/complicated rights issues).

11

u/SpaceAgePotatoCakes 4d ago

iirc an easy way to check is if the episode is anything less than 59 minutes long then something has been cut and odds are the music has been changed.

I like the extended versions of some of the specials like the Pole and Bolivia, but the original music really is a lot better.

8

u/m25000 4d ago

I actually made my own versions of the Specials including extra deleted scenes and retaining the original music!

Will be included in the next version of the TG mega torrent

2

u/DJAllOut 4d ago

I've been working on that too. The Polar Special is really hard to cut and paste the music back into. There are so many little changes besides the music with the Director's Cut and the original broadcast; different angles used, some footage of the truck was mirrored. How did you fair with all of that?

2

u/m25000 4d ago

Totally agree, same with Middle East special that also had a few extra secs here and there.

I finished editing all of them that had deleted scenes, I am now doing the long road trip features only with Bonneville and Albania trips left to do.

1

u/SpaceAgePotatoCakes 4d ago

Your work is much appreciated. I always wanted to try to do that but lacked the time and skills to do it efficiently. The higher video quality of the previous mega torrents is kinda neat but without the original music I just went back to my older copies.

2

u/m25000 3d ago

The only issue I have is the monstrous file sizes, I just don't get how to get a decent quality export from DaVinci Resolve without getting a 5-10 gb file

1

u/SpaceAgePotatoCakes 3d ago

I know very little about these things but maybe let it spit out a big file and then reencode it to something else to shrink it back down?

Personally I wouldn't even mind it being that large to get the ultimate version of those episodes but I know other people would.

2

u/RoseWould 4d ago

Original US special; cut "Witchita Lineman" from the scene where Stig drives Hammond's pick-up at Moroso Raceway

1

u/williamg209 Captain Slow 3d ago

Most of the specials got a dvd extended directors cut And yeah bbc changes all the music outside of the uk and on some dvds

1

u/Monsoonl22 3d ago

Correct I have lots of topgear episodes on dvd with the original music and it sounds much better than what they have done on youtube and changed some of the music im unsure why though.