I’m no feline expert, but I am almost certain that cats don’t wear wedding rings. And if they did, they wouldn’t wear them on their human-shaped hands.

And yet that is exactly what Old Deuteronomy (Judi Dench) does in Cats, the catastrophic movie musical currently terrorising audiences in movie cinemas around the US and the UK. (The global release of this enduring nightmare is still yet to come. You can read Stylist’s Under Her Eye review of the film here.) In certain scenes in the original cut of the film, which has been playing in cinemas since its release on 19 December, fans have spotted Dench, clad in her character’s cat fur pimp coat, with a wedding ring on her very human, very un-paw-like hands. 

That’s not the only gaffe that made it into the final film. In another scene, a man wearing a hoodie is spotted loitering in the background, partially obscured by a crowd of extras who have been correctly CGI-ed, using digital fur technology, to look like cats. 

Moviegoers have picked up on the gaffes and have been sharing images of them on social media. Mentions of some of the mistakes even made it into official reviews of the film, such as the one shared by Gizmodo. “I witnessed an entire man, knit cap and coat, just standing in a scene among a gathering of cats,” the review reads. “I saw a terrifying grey statue looming over a character, only for it to blink and realise it’s a woman who is a cat, but they coloured her and then forgot to add fur.” 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the gaffes are so noticeable that Universal, the film studio behind Cats, has decided to send an updated, revamped version of the film to cinemas. The move is “unprecedented”, according to the publication, and although Universal has not commented on what would be amended in the new version, it is thought to be “tweaks to certain effects”. Director Tom Hooper, The Hollywood Reporter added, “has been up front about the fact that he barely finished the CGI-heavy Cats in time for Monday’s world premiere in New York City.”

You know what this means, right? It means that you need to get to a movie theatre as fast as your human legs can carry you. You need to get to a cinema quickly so that you can see the original, unaltered Cats in all of its fever dream glory.

You need to buy that ticket so that you can see a Cats that features the crazed image of a man in a hoodie wandering around in a scene that features only other cats. You need to make sure that you are among the hallowed few who can say that they saw Judi Dench’s human hand, bearing its wedding ring, in the original, unaltered cut of the 2019 motion picture Cats. 

The corrected, re-edited version of Cats that is coming to cinemas as fast as the visual effects maestros at Universal can work, will be a sanitised Cats, one stripped of the idiosyncrasies and oddities that make it such a strange, cherished object of these dying days of the decade. 

Cats must be seen in all of its gaffe-ridden glory. It requires it, nay, it demands it! Don’t miss your chance to be a part of history.

Cats, mistakes and all, is in cinemas in the US and the UK now. 

Images: Universal