Ken Taylor helps write new ending to Ben Affleck's Argo
Critics say film underplayed Canada's role in getting American hostages out of Iran in 1979

There's a new ending to the movie Argo, which tells the story of how Canada helped Americans escape from Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.

After the film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, friends and supporters of former ambassador Ken Taylor expressed dismay that Argo had minimized the Canadian role.

In response, director Ben Affleck picked up the phone to speak to Taylor and asked how to make things right.

As a result there’s a new postscript to the film, drafted by Taylor himself.

Ken Taylor is shown in 1979 when he was Canadian ambassador to Iran and helped six Americans escape after they were held hostage. (Peter Bregg/Canadian Press)
It reads: "The involvement of the CIA complemented efforts of the Canadian Embassy to free the six held in Tehran. To this day the story stands as an enduring model of international co-operation between governments."

At the world premiere for Argo in Toronto, Affleck said at red carpet interviews that his film was about “our gratitude about how the Canadians helped us escape, get our people out of Tehran.”

But when audiences got their first glimpse, what they saw was American CIA agent Tony Mendez as the hero. The film ended with a postscript that implied Canadians took credit for the rescue before the CIA's role was revealed.

Maclean’s film reviewer Brian D. Johnson was among the viewers who saw that as a “massive insult.”

“When Hollywood stumbles in with this well-intentioned piece of entertainment based on a true story and they trample on a legend like Ken Taylor and they launch it at the Toronto International Film Festival, and they're completely blindsided by the response,” he said. “What do they think? That nobody's going to notice?”

Taylor himself wasn't invited to the premiere, but soon heard from friends how his role was minimized.

Then he heard by telephone from Affleck, who said he’d heard there were “some issues” with the movie.

Taylor was flown to Hollywood where he finally saw Argo, with actor Victor Garber playing the role of the Canadian ambassador.

“ always like to see yourself as a mini superman. In this case, I think Canada’s role was underplayed. It was more passive than assertive,” Taylor said.

With reshoots out of the question, Affleck agreed to change the postscript. The new version, drafted by Taylor, stresses the CIA "complemented" Canadian efforts.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/09/19/argo-changes.html

I was also really worried this film would portray Iranians Canadians in a negative light. But we fixed it, eh?

shennong posted:

toronto owns if you are a dour anglo and you like walking around downtown quickly frowning a lot

ya actually exactly this except replace walking with 'riding'

shennong posted:

EmanuelaOrlandi posted:

ya actually exactly this except replace walking with 'riding'

they're putting in separated bike lanes on a couple streets right now altho i dunno how i feel about them yet

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54721215-78/bike-lanes-lane-lake.html.csp

shennong posted:

stegosaurus posted:

shennong posted:

EmanuelaOrlandi posted:

ya actually exactly this except replace walking with 'riding'

they're putting in separated bike lanes on a couple streets right now altho i dunno how i feel about them yet

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54721215-78/bike-lanes-lane-lake.html.csp

the ones they're putting in here are elevated, next to the sidewalk, with a curb



i think im still gonna end up in the street to turn left and pass slowpokes tho, and its pretty much guaranteed that they'll be full of drunk/dopey pedestrians so im not sure how much i'll be using them

thats even worse. the ones here basically shield you from traffic until you reach an intersection where the left turn lane becomes the bike lane and the bike lane switches over to the middle of the lane. I ride in the bike lane if there's nobody there but typically there is and they're in the middle of the lane going 9mph so I just go in the street

Myfanwy posted:

How do you Canadians feel now that your oil sands are completely destroying the country, the same way that north sea oil destroyed the UK

i dont think it took a little bit of itty bitty oil to destroy the uk. im pretty sure the uk was fucked before man could even create fire

and to your question... it feels good man

Myfanwy posted:

hey posted:

Myfanwy posted:

How do you Canadians feel now that your oil sands are completely destroying the country, the same way that north sea oil destroyed the UK

i dont think it took a little bit of itty bitty oil to destroy the uk. im pretty sure the uk was fucked before man could even create fire

and to your question... it feels good man

To be clear I didn't mean the end of empire, I meant the oil money fueling the conservative machine that forcibly deindustrialized, then dismantled the social safety net.
The tar oil in canada is doing the same thing; the only way to stop it is to nationalize that dirty oil

we're selling it to the chinese lmao

getfiscal posted:

the social safety net was largely dismantled in the mid-1990s. or at least welfare incomes were like $1,000 a month back then (in today's dollars) and they are $600 a month now, plus there was a lot more social housing and stuff like that. (canada's a bit different than the US in that we don't have a widespread food stamp or housing voucher program, just mostly small cash payments). that wasn't because of oil (which was sort of isolated because it was part of the opposition coalition) but more because of that first real wave of deficit-fighting like clinton's first term. like in ontario unemployment was so bad at one point that one million people were on welfare out of a population of like 10 million and people flipped out at them. it was brutal what they did.

Oh i guess I'm totally wrong. It was Free trade Nafta neoliberalism and not the black gold, also called texas tea. I'm sorry everyone

Myfanwy posted:

Oh i guess I'm totally wrong. It was Free trade Nafta neoliberalism and not the black gold, also called texas tea. I'm sorry everyone

you're actually completely right but more in how it is restructuring the economy back around resource extraction, and it isn't just oil. in saskatchewan there is now a huge potash industry, across canada there has been a mining boom, newfoundland has offshore gas drilling wealth now, there is a huge push to move into canada's north (especially in quebec). there's also stuff like water rights / extraction, forestry, electricity exports, etc.

people often refer to this in canada as being part of the biblical curse: "you shall never cease being slaves, both hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God."