Surely the original was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the unusually attractive quality of people being rescued in movies, given how many easter eggs and puns he put in. So they sand down all the edges that might offend anyone. I actually think most of the changes are improvements, despite the patronizing tone of the article (GP, not OP) about how more enlightened we are today than back when Scarry made the books, but this is how we get from Susan Kare fun icons to every icon startup/project having blank people with literally no facial features.