I think exolymph did a good job of explaining why people care when she referred to "the punchy use of language that makes Dahl's work so wonderful and entertaining" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34850273). Some of these edits cross well over into Bowdlerism. They're also surprisingly extensive. That alone is interesting!

Dahl was a transgressive writer even for his own day - at least I've always had that impression. His deliciously macabre imagination combined with the sharpness of his wit is just what makes his books so good—like an Edward Gorey for kids, but not too much for kids. So some of these edits are artistically consequential, the same way that the Bowdlers' "Family Shakespeare" was.

Because the books came to be loved in their original form, and in that form were an expression of Dahl's creativity. Because the changes take place silently and impart a sense of moral value that wasn't originally present. Because in attempting to paper over things that we object to in our past, we lose the opportunity to talk about them and learn from them.

It's not just a knee-jerk reaction to 'wokeness' to be upset by this kind of thing. My opinion is that people _should_ be upset by the presumption of some faceless editor that they're too stupid and base to apply their own judgment to the original text.

Which of Shakespeare's plays do you think is too unfashionable to be relevant today, and in dire need of an 'update' to 'keep up with the times'?

The best stories are timeless. If you think a story is no longer relevant, it probably wasn't very good in the first place.

All that should be needed is preamble to explain to modern viewer historical content and maybe some antiquated terms or beliefs.

I understand why the IP holders want to keep the revenue flowing by adapting the works to meet current market demands/expectations (while offering lofty talk of the "timelessness" of Dahl's art). Setting aside the question of what this sort of editing does to his art (though for the record, I think that the transgressive meanness of Dahl is an integral part of his artistry, whether one likes it or not), the fact remains that most art is timeful, not timeless -- even works that "work" very well in their own time are usually consigned to obscurity once the world moves on. I tried to read "King Solomon's Mines" a couple months ago, and it was truly unreadable to me -- it relied upon cultural assumptions that are just utterly alien to me, and I couldn't enjoy it. And that's okay. I don't want to read a version that excises all the cringe-inducing language, because forgetting one story makes space for new ones (I can enjoy Indiana Jones movies if I want adventure, for instance, and they might not have been made if H. Rider Haggard's work had been picked up for an updating and franchising.) And endlessly bowdlerizing the "classics" means leaving little room for new ones to be written, read, appreciated, and canonized.

> so why do people care?

Because we are being lied to about what Dahl wrote, and implicitly, the zeitgeist and sensibilities of his time. This is faking the past to serve Year Zero.

And no, noting that there were some changes in small print, then listing them in some remote document no child will read, does not make it alright.

They are not modifying them to stay relevant, they are modifying them to avoid any possible controversy that would impact the revenue stream. Woke cancelation is a real threat and they would lose a very expensive asset, so they are effectively butchering the original works in a way the author would definitely not have approved of and with little regard to the quality of the resulting text.

It's a clear example of financially motivated self-censorship.

I agree, while we're at it, let's repaint the Michelangelo paintings in the Vatican, way too much nudity and those clothes are way out of fashion and let's rewrite 1984, it used to describe a scary future dystopia, but now it seems like just a regular day in society.

They can call the book by a different name, "The new adventures of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" or something of the sort or even add a prominent "updated for modern readers" subtitle so as to avoid any confusion.

The problem I have isn't with somebody being able to edit or remix an old work, I think it's fantastic to do such a thing. It's that after this comes out it's going to be virtually impossible to find the old edition available for purchase, and only the re-write will be available. It's that the new intellectual property owners are replacing a classic book with their own in effect and what gives them the right to do this? Apparently just being rich.

Does it still have Roald Dahl's name on it?

Exactly.