- Harry Callahan's character name becomes Harry ''Callaghan'' in the Italian version and titles because the local distributor thought it sounded better.
- Swedish theatrical version was even further cut:
- At the Ricca killing, both shots of the unknown motorcycle cop shooting the driver and the bodyguard in the head were cut
- The topless girl in the pool were not seen being shot
- Only one shot fired at the pimp
- The naked woman at the Guzman killing is never seen being shot, she's just seen falling from the balcony.
- Harry beating Astrachan to death were also shortened
- The UK cinema version was cut by the BBFC with edits made to throat punches and shots of the twitching bodies of Ricca and the pimp, and the killing of the prostitute in the taxi was also heavily shortened. The cuts were fully waived in 1986.
- The new 5.1 surround sound has new sounds, such as the taxi where the prostitute is murdered, when the pimp gets in the car and shoves her over, in the original mono soundtrack, she screams when she's been pushed into the left back seat. In the 5.1 surround sound, she doesn't scream at all. Also when the taxi driver screeches the car to a halt, the original soundtrack has a different sound of screeching tires. In the new sound, it sounds very different. Also Harry's 44 Magnum's legendary firing sound changes a few times through the film. The opening credits where he aims the gun at the screen, it's a different sounding gun.
- A Network Television cut that aired in the 80s and 90s made the following cuts: -The gunshot to the camera at the end of the opening titles is cut off. -Many of the gunshots to victims such as Ricca, the Pimp, people in the swimming pool etc are cut down significantly, removing several gunshots. Lingering shots on their dead bodies are also removed. -Much of the language, including racial slurs are all removed entirely. -The scene of the pimp killing the prostitute is shortened for language, violence, and sexual content. Some TV edits just cut it entirely and go straight to the pimp's traffic stop after the robbery scene. -Love scenes with Sunny and Harry are also shortened. -The Guzman scene is severely cut down. All shots inside his room with the naked man and woman doing drugs are cut entirely. The scene is re-edited so Guzman walks out to the balcony, the cop shoots the guard outside his room, the stakeout squad jump into action, then the movie immediately cuts to Charlie McCoy's death scene in the basement. -McCoy's shot to the head is cut -Some deaths in the Pilancio shoot out are censored and a lot of impact shots of bullets are cut. -Many cuts are made to the movie to fit it into a 2 hr time slot with commercials as well.
- Magnum Force's original English Mono track is quite elusive. It is only on early out-of-print laserdisc and VHS releases. Many of these releases are either cut down or sped up to under 2 hours as well. Some later VHS and Laserdisc releases had "reprocessed" stereo, which were voices and sound effects panned either left or right under a stereo score. As of 2019, every US DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital release of Magnum Force uses the remastered 5.1 surround sound track with new sound effects and other minor (and some major) changes. Some of the other audio tracks of the movie in different languages (Italian, Spanish, French, etc) have the mono mix, but none of the English tracks do.
- The opening Saul Bass variant of the Warner Bros logo is plastered with the 1984 variant in the post-1988 VHS prints.
- The opening Saul Bass variant of the Warner Bros logo is plastered with the 1984 variant in the post-1988 VHS prints, and 1992 logo in the 1997 DVD.
- The Swedish rental VHS has some cuts for violent content. Most notably the killing of the pimp; only two shots are fired instead of six.
- The original closing credits were altered by way of chyron on VHS prints issued since 1992 to change the Warner Bros. in-credit logo w/Warner Communications byline at the time to the Warner Bros. shield logo w/Time Warner Entertainment byline. The original closing credits are left intact on the DVD print.
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