Reclassifying Films - Page 7 - Digital Spy Forums

Reclassifying Films

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roger_50

27-11-2015

Originally Posted by JCR:
“

Spoiler

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is a fantasy adventure directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford as archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones. The film is set during the Second World War and follows Indiana Jones' attempts to find the Biblical Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can get to the chest and harness its power. It was originally rated A for cinema release in 1981, which is broadly equivalent to the modern PG rating. It was subsequently rated PG for video release in 1987 and then PG for a cinema re-release in 2004. This digital IMAX cinema reissue is rated PG for moderate violence and mild language.

There are a number of scenes of moderate violence, including an extended fight at an airfield in which Jones battles against an opponent. This scene includes some heavy punches and kicks, resulting in some sight of blood on mouths. The scene ends with a brief blood splatter when it is implied that the villain has been killed by a plane propeller. However, no detail of injury is shown. The film also features some exchanges of gunfire, one of which results in blood trickling from a man's mouth after he is shot. The violence all occurs within a clear action adventure context where the emphasis is on excitement and thrills rather than dwelling on details of injury. Other scenes of violence feature comic elements, such as a villain being hit with a frying pan and Indiana Jones shooting an enemy dead with a gun after the man attempts to intimidate him with a lengthy and expert demonstration of his sword skills.

There are also some scenes of mild horror, including sight of a man who has been impaled on a boobytrap during the film's famous opening sequence. However, there is no clear sight of injury detail and the emphasis is firmly on the excitement of the scene and whether or not Jones will be able to escape in time. Elsewhere in the film there is sight of dried out corpses, without any gory detail, including sight of a snake slithering out of a corpse's mouth. Later in the film, when the Ark is finally opened, ghostly figures emerge from inside, along with beams of fire. Looking into the Ark causes the faces of several key villains to melt, although the sequence is highly fantastical in nature and the heroes are protected by keeping their eyes closed.

In one scene a woman is threatened when a hot poker is held close to her face. However, she is immediately rescued by Jones.

There is also some mild bad language, including uses of 'goddamn', 'son of a bitch', 'bastard', 'oh my God', 'holy shit' and the German term 'scheisse'.

In one scene, a monkey appears to die when it eats poisoned dates. However, there is no evidence that any harm was done to the animal.

PG stands for Parental Guidance. A PG film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.

”

What I don't understand about that BBFC PG description (they really had to write a lot there to try and justify the rating, compared to most other write-ups), is that they gave Crystal Skull a 12A and not a PG even though it had nothing worse than what was in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

If anything, I found it far less scary, bloody and violent than Raiders. Yet the more violent one gets a PG and the tamer one gets a 12A. I don't think the BBFC do themselves many favours sometimes.

square-root

27-11-2015

Originally Posted by JCR:
“bbfc could have put Raiders up in 2012 but didn't. 2012 decision on it, spoilered for space-”

The insight piece that you spoilered is quite laughable on the BBFC's part.

"Looking into the Ark causes the faces of several key villains to melt, although the sequence is highly fantastical in nature and the heroes are protected by keeping their eyes closed".

So, it's OK for the face of a Nazi to melt down to the skull in close up, but if Harrison Ford's face had melted, we would've have had to give it a 15 because he's a good guy, and children can't be allowed to see harm come to the good guys.

You have to laugh. BBFC: Idiotic in the 80s, openly imbecilic in the 21st century.

lady_xanax

28-11-2015

Originally Posted by square-root:
“The insight piece that you spoilered is quite laughable on the BBFC's part.

"Looking into the Ark causes the faces of several key villains to melt, although the sequence is highly fantastical in nature and the heroes are protected by keeping their eyes closed".

So, it's OK for the face of a Nazi to melt down to the skull in close up, but if Harrison Ford's face had melted, we would've have had to give it a 15 because he's a good guy, and children can't be allowed to see harm come to the good guys.”

There's no question of raising it to a 15- it would be a toss up between PG and 12. Children under the age of 12 would obviously be more upset by a hero's face melting than a villain's; that changes the nature and tone of the film into something darker. You can of course take the child to a 12A film but by rating it a PG, you're pretty much saying that it's a family film, which it clearly wouldn't be if you had the hero's face melt.

It's not the BBFC being idiots; it's common sense that children don't have as complex an understanding of morality as adults. Whether you agree with film classification at all is a different argument.

giratalkialga

29-11-2015

They do contradict themselves a lot with older films.

In the most recent Twitter Q & A that they did, they said that Watership Down still got a U because 'on the whole, the film was within the U guidelines' and that 'it was well-known', so it would be unreasonable to give it a PG.

Spoiler

The second reason it's silly is that the only reason it's well-known as a U-rated film is because of how much U is an inappropriate rating for it.

Thirdly, the 'on the whole, the film's within the ... guidelines' isn't always applied consistently.
It's from a completely different genre, but the extended cut of Taken got an 18 for one torture scene alone (the insight said that it tipped the classification into '18') even though the rest was at the 15 level.

lady_xanax

29-11-2015

Watership Down should be a PG, no question of it. It's not like people are asking it to be made a 15, just to flag up the goriness. There's even a swear word!

giratalkialga

29-11-2015

Originally Posted by lady_xanax:
“Watership Down should be a PG, no question of it. It's not like people are asking it to be made a 15, just to flag up the goriness. There's even a swear word!”

TBH, I think that it should be a 12. The fact that it's animated is a mitigating factor that keeps it from being a 15 but to me, the amount of blood shown goes beyond PG.

giratalkialga

29-11-2015

I think that the 12 and 15 ratings should have different colours instead of both being light red as a 15 is a lot stronger than a 12 and they tend to have more in common with an 18 than a 12 in terms of content, so the colour should reflect that. To me, the 15 guidelines are fine but it would suit the color system more; the colours go from light (green - U) to dark (red - 18) depending on the intensity of the film and it would give parents a better warning. I'd keep 15 as light red and change 12 to blue.

pad_ehh

29-11-2015

They use blue for porn. The 12A is orange. They should do away with that and just make 12 orange. They should also give 15 and 18 separate colours.

U - Green
PG - Yellow
12 - Orange
15 - Purple
18 - Red

giratalkialga

30-11-2015

Originally Posted by Paddy C:
“U - Green
PG - Yellow
12 - Orange
15 - Purple
18 - Red”

Because I have way too much time on my hands, here's how 12 and 15 would look with your preferred colours. 12 looks alright in orange, but I think that 15 as light red and 18 as dark red works well as it is.

12: http://s22.postimg.org/c1wz8erhr/91_...1_L_SL1500.jpg
15: http://s1.postimg.org/l54t0sdzz/71pt...k_L_SL1112.jpg

square-root

30-11-2015

Originally Posted by Paddy C:
“They use blue for porn.”

And you know this how exactly?

JCR

01-12-2015

Originally Posted by square-root:
“The 12A is actually betraying adults who are fed up of watching sanitised action films which should be a 15 or an 18.

The 12A was the BBFC's creation. There was never any public demand for it. Had the BBFC given Batman a 15 for cinema release which it should probably have done (it's still a 15 on DVD now), the 12A would never have come in to existence and there wouldn't be a problem. Adults could watch uncut, unsanitised films, and kids could watch kids films. It all worked very well before 1989.”

Just on this, Batman is probably irrelevant re the 12 rating which would have happened anyway, there were months of discussions about whether Licence to Kill could be cut for a new rating before Batman, hell you could argue when Spielberg phoned Jack Valenti in 84 and told him the MPAA system needed a rating between PG & R as a matter of urgency, in that moment 12A in Britain was inevitable.

pad-e

02-12-2015

Originally Posted by square-root:
“And you know this how exactly? ”

Because on the BBFC homepage they show you all their certificates, including the R18 certificate, which is a rectangle and it is blue.

I think the 12A symbol which is an orange background with white text would look better for the 12 cert (just remove the A) rather than making the current red 12 symbol have orange text instead.

In fact, I think all of them would work better as solid colour backgrounds and white lettering to help re-enforce the colour code.

pad-e

02-12-2015

This is a quick and dirty mock giving an idea what I think the symbols would be better looking like:-

Click Here

stripedcat

11-12-2015

Originally Posted by JCR:
“Just on this, Batman is probably irrelevant re the 12 rating which would have happened anyway, there were months of discussions about whether Licence to Kill could be cut for a new rating before Batman, hell you could argue when Spielberg phoned Jack Valenti in 84 and told him the MPAA system needed a rating between PG & R as a matter of urgency, in that moment 12A in Britain was inevitable.”

Yeah, I see your point - that the 12 rating was probably coming. You could say, that with things like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and also Gremlins(much like what happened in the US) sort of put into question the ratings systems much earlier.

Interesting, Licence to Kill was very nearly an 18 - it really did cause the BBFC a few problems - it was cut on its first release(some of the scenes of the "fire violence" and the stuff with the sharks). It's uncut now. Broccoli wasn't happy with the rating - but I think a 15 is about right for that film - as it's very violent - still the most violent Bond film to date.

JCR

11-12-2015

True to form Ferman flip flopped on Licence to Kill for months, but at one point in July 89 (before Batman) he apparently did prepare a cuts list and offered the producers the 12 rating with the cuts. They said no, I'd imagine because he wanted more cut than they were willing.

stripedcat

14-12-2015

Originally Posted by JCR:
“True to form Ferman flip flopped on Licence to Kill for months, but at one point in July 89 (before Batman) he apparently did prepare a cuts list and offered the producers the 12 rating with the cuts. They said no, I'd imagine because he wanted more cut than they were willing.”

Wow. That's interesting. I didn't know about that. Licence to Kill could have been a 12. Yeah, I can imagine that it would have had to have been trimmed quite a bit - it's not just that - the whole tone of the film is quite bleak and dark - with little in the way of humour.

CLL Dodge

14-12-2015

Melonfarmers page on Licence to Kill:

http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/bbfc_c...ce_to_kill.htm

Can't access this at work but it should provide more background.

stripedcat

14-12-2015

Originally Posted by CLL Dodge:
“Melonfarmers page on Licence to Kill:

http://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/bbfc_c...ce_to_kill.htm

Can't access this at work but it should provide more background.”

Thank you for this. It's quite interesting. I always remember the Wogan special when it was mentioned that it had a 15 - and Broccoli wasn't pleased with that. Plus, it was mentioned on ITV's "The Little Video Show" - as the first time that a Bond had got an age restricted certificate. Plus, I have read John Glen's autobiography "For Your Eyes Only" - and he talks about some of the problems the film had with the BBFC.

giratalkialga

22-12-2015

The 5th Wave has just been given a 15 for strong violence, injury detail . It's very rare to see a teen book adaptation that's willing to accept the higher rating rather than get chopped up for a 12A.
It will be very tame for a 15 though, seeing as it got a PG-13 in the States and a 12A in Ireland (although the IFCO state that it's at the higher end of 12A). With this in mind, I imagine that it was a borderline decision for the BBFC.

JCR

12-04-2016

Reanimator II has gone from being a cut 18 (mpaa R version) to uncut 15 (mpaa unrated version)

The 1950 Humphrey Bogart film, In A Lonely Place, appears to have been upgraded from PG to 12.

JCR

18-05-2016

Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version of Henry V, or The Chronicle History of King Henry the Fift with His Battell Fought at Agincourt in France to give it a better title, was raised from PG to 12A for cinema.

Ferman was always soft on Shakespeare, Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 version of Hamlet was given a U for cinema despite the presence of the "Do you think I meant cuntry matters?" line.

JEFF62

19-05-2016

I was watching Quadrophenia last week on blu ray which was classified 18. Then I noticed it was on Sky Movies and rated 15. Quite surprised by that. I think it still deserves an 18 certificate.

CLL Dodge

19-05-2016

Originally Posted by JEFF62:
“I was watching Quadrophenia last week on blu ray which was classified 18. Then I noticed it was on Sky Movies and rated 15. Quite surprised by that. I think it still deserves an 18 certificate.”

According to the BBFC site:

1979: X (cinema)
1986: 18 (video)
1996: 15 (cinema)
1998: 18 (video)
2006: 18 (video)
2015: 15 (video)

Not sure why the Blu ray would be an 18. Was it released before 2015?

JCR

19-05-2016

Originally Posted by CLL Dodge:
“According to the BBFC site:

1979: X (cinema)
1986: 18 (video)
1996: 15 (cinema)
1998: 18 (video)
2006: 18 (video)
2015: 15 (video)

Not sure why the Blu ray would be an 18. Was it released before 2015?”

There's a thing at the bbfc where companies can save money by using already issued ratings. This podcast goes into it- http://www.bbfc.co.uk/bbfc-podcast-e...e-bad-the-ugly

As well as the Good, Bad & Ugly, Eraserhead was issued as an 18 rated bluray after years available as a 15 rated dvd, presumably for the same reason.

CLL Dodge

19-05-2016

Originally Posted by CLL Dodge:
“According to the BBFC site:

1979: X (cinema)
1986: 18 (video)
1996: 15 (cinema)
1998: 18 (video)
2006: 18 (video)
2015: 15 (cinema)

Not sure why the Blu ray would be an 18. Was it released before 2015?”

Corrected the above. The 2015 rating was for a cinema re-issue. Quadrophenia has always been 18 rated for video. Sky must have rated it 15 themselves based on the current cinema rating.

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