At least two editions of this title exist. Both have the exact same catalog number, UPC, and ISBN, but if the manufacturers did their job, the later edition has stickers all over the sleeve, obscuring mentions of Stephen King, who wanted his name off the movie. The older version has mint marks corresponding to the Pioneer pressings and has chapters but no table of contents; it also bears Stephen King's name in the opening credits (shortly after the four executive producers, over a shot of Angelo and the next shot of Peter getting smacked, it says "Based on a Short Story by STEPHEN KING"). The newer version has mint marks corresponding to the DADC pressings, table of contents, and Stephen King's name removed (the shots just don't have the optical composite). King's name would return, in fact, in the special edition laserdisc, [ID3206LI].
The stickers on the redacted sleeve are meant to be very hard to remove, although the white ones leave the text partially legible. There are four, covering this text:
- BASED ON A STORY BY STEPHEN KING on the front cover, near the dark bottom of the poster art (black sticker that blends in well)
- Two paragraphs of the essay on the back, under a wide white sticker. It reads: It began with Stephen King's short story, "The Lawnmower Man." The film version was assigned to director/screenwriter Brett Leonard who merged King's original plotline (about a gardener who cuts down his employers as well as grass) with his own original screenplay, "Cybergod," a story that explored a concept called virtual reality.
"The original seven-page short story could not have been expanded into a feature film, so when Allied Vision came to us, we realized we had to change it. We took the Lawnmower Man character and created a cautionary tale about this new technology of virtual reality."
- BASED ON A STORY BY STEPHEN KING again on the back cover, above the credits (black sticker)
- based on a story by STEPHEN KING among the back cover credits, between screenplay and producer credits, even though that placement and wording differs from the onscreen credits (white sticker that is far too tall)
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