The BBFC ruined your childhood (riddled with spoilers)

[theantmeister]

Crusto mentioning Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom reminded me of a topic I've been meaning to raise - namely, the BBFC and their meddling.

As I grew up in another country, one with a slightly less "flighty" populace, I was able to see movies as they were intended. Free of censorship imposed by some bureaucrat listening to the insane whitterings of "concerned" animal lovers, rabid controversy seeking newspapers, or some prudish old bird.

So I am here to tell you that these people have deprived you (and are still depriving you) of experiencing certain films in their full, unedited, glory.

Before you read any further, this thread will contain massive spoilers.

Temple of Doom is a prime example of this idiotic censorship. In, what I consider, the most awesome scene in the movie the main bad guy, Mola Ramm, sacrifices a peasant to Shiva by putting him in a cage, pulling out his censored heart and then lowering the guy into a pit of lava. The peasant doesn't even hit the lava before he bursts into flames, at which point his still beating heart spontaneously combusts. censored brilliant. That is, unless you watched the film in merry olde England. Where somebody, with your best interests at heart, decided to butcher the scene. Even worse, the scene is still butchered in the DVD rerelease!

And that's not all! The Abyss, one of James Cameron's finest works, features a scene where they put a live rat in this oxygenated liquid. They need to send Ed Harris' character into the afore-mentioned abyss and at that depth your lungs would crush in from the pressure, unless they are filled with liquid. So the liquid lets you breath it, rather than oxygen and the pressure isn't a problem. In order to test it, the guy puts a rat into the liquid and it struggles a bit and then breaths normally. The rat doesn't get hurt. I presume the society for the prevention of cruelty to rats got upset at this and the scene was censored. Mind you, the scene where Ed Harris breaths it, that was left intact. Apparently it is fine to show humans in distress, but rats? That's crossing a line! And once again, the DVD release still had the censorship in it.

The most hilarious one, and the one I still cannot believe, is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For a start, they had to drop the Ninja part. Because, I dunno, apparently the UK had a huge ninja problem. But then the film came out and that needed to be censored. When my cousin, who lived in the UK, told me they had cut Michelangelo out of every fight scene, I just didn't believe him. Years later I saw the UK cut and, yup, no nunchaku to be seen. Pathetic.

So there you go - the BBFC ruined your childhood and they never even apologised. They haven't even bothered to fix their meddling.

censored the BBFC!

[psj3809]

None of this ruined my childhood ! Didnt ruin the films at all, i do remember the Ninja episode though, bit ridiculous it had to be changed to Hero Turtles not Ninja. To be fair that stupid ruling byt he BBFC must have worked as our next generation of teenagers are all perfect and none are violent

I must admit i wish i was warned before watching Apocalypse Now where they slaughter the cow, i remember watching it thinking 'nah they wont kill it, they wont its a film' and then 'oh no they did'

[djcarlos]

Without the BBFC we wouldn't have heard such gems as "yippee-ki-ay melonfarmer!"

[TwoHeadedBoy]

The newest DVD available of Temple Of Doom (the one that's usually £4 in Asda with a nice shiny box) is fully uncut...

And I remember seeing the heart getting ripped out the very first time I saw that film (on ITV, think it was), but then never again until that DVD! Also cut are the bits with Short-Round getting whipped and slapped about.

Meanwhile, found a VHS in a charity shop the other day which must've been put out before the BBFC came into existence. It's called Curtains and has a scary doll on the cover, so I'm assuming it's a horror. Be interesting to see what, if anything, is on there that may've otherwise been censored.

[themightymartin]

I love reading posts about censorship on this forum, as every time someone swears it is replaced by the word censored. Thus, when you read the word censored, you don't always know if the poster is actually saying the word censored, or if they're saying censored, censored or censored.

[djcarlos]

xzibit-wtf (741x487) (640x421) (300x197).jpg (26.82 KiB) Viewed 1988 times

[merman]

Headbutts used to cause real problems for the censors, apparently. One episode of Farscape got an 18 rating on video/DVD because of a headbutt...

[noobish hat]

The BBFC didn't ruin my childhood - ****ing polio did!

[ootini]

Thats funny, cos bar the Ninja/Hero Turtles thing I recall seeing both scenes in The Abyss and The Temple of Doom in the cinema and on VHS.

We had no official censor in Ireland at the time so both would have been the BBFC classified versions.

ITV/UTV used to butcher the ever living sh!t out of movies though. Badly dubbed swear words and cutting out scenes deemed politically incorrect. The Goonies was the worst for this. Over the years as the PC disease caught, more and more scenes were removed - re or dubbed. The last time I watched it on ITV there was loads of stuff missing - Robert Davi escaping from Jail, The Corpse in the Freezer, Most of the swearing, The bit where anne ramsey pulls a flick knife to one of the kinds tounge, The penis breaking off the statue. It was an absolute farce, they even removed Mouths subtitles when he's translating for Rosalita. Way to absolutely ruin one of the best kinds movies ever! Was glad to get it on DVD and finally see it again in the way I remembered it.

The Ninja Turtles thing though.. May be Urban Myth, but was there not an incident somewhere in Ireland or the UK where a child was kicked to death by two other kids pretending to be Ninja Turtles?
I remember wondering why the screen froze just at the end of the opening credits, and being told that it was to cut Michaelangelo using his nunchaku. And that literally all scenes with him using them where removed for the "Hero" version.
I do recall a craze in school, around 1988/89 of kids brining martial arts weapons into school. Stuff that was legal to buy in Martial arts stores. Nunchaku, Throwing Stars etc. Not foul play mind, just for gloating.

There was another incident of censorship that really baffles me, was certain bands not being mentioned or having their name changed on the radio. I worked with a lad from Southampton years ago. Absolute nut for all kinds of music and was telling me about British radio during the Gulf War refering to Massive Attack as just "Massive' and Bomb the Bass as just "The Bass" etc. Seemed utterly barmy to me. Especially while the war itself was literally being televised on rolling news channels.

[crusto]

Re the temple of doom. I had access to a Chinese subtitled version way before it got its official release over here. So I was totally shocked when I witnessed the bbfc version for the first time. I just don't see the point in censoring anything tbh, may as well just not show it in the first place.

Enter the dragon received similar treatment and has only fairly recently been shown unedited on tv. The film was made in 1973 ffs!

There was a film I watched recently on tv (the name escapes me now) that was so badly watered down I simply turned it over. A joke if you ask me.

Hippee kiaay kipparrero

[TwoHeadedBoy]

Headbutts used to cause real problems for the censors, apparently. One episode of Farscape got an 18 rating on video/DVD because of a headbutt...

Aha! Cheers for that. Saw a Farscape video in a shop the other day and was wondering how a show that was on BBC2 at 7:30 on a Friday could be rated 18.

Jurassic Park's terrible when they show it on ITV, with the toilet scene almost completely missing.

And Jurassic Park III's even worse! Characters just disappear completely, they don't even bother showing the dinosaurs jumping out at them.

[JazzFunk]

^Yeh, headbutts are a major problem, DVD releases of The Matrix, Judge Dredd and Mystery Men(!) were all originally censored of Glasgow kisses! LOADS of DVDs released in the 'early waves' of R2 DVDs were *still* heavily cut....commiserations to anyone who owns that very common UK DVD of Schwarzenegger's Commando, such a truly horrific example of censorship/censor-fear.

10 other things that the BBFC didn't used to like/maybe still don't like, ARE:

Blood on/about womens' tits.
Erect penises.
Animal cruelty/scenes where horses fall ("horsefalls").
"Rape scenes that look happy".
Nunchuks/nunchakas/nukachus/nunchakus.
Butterfly knives.
Flick knives.
"Scenes that might give tuition to would-be breakers and enterers" (ie. detailed lock-picking/car-boosting sequences).
Intense, lingering shots of gore.
Prolonged sequences involving sadism/torture.

With films like Irreversible and 9 Songs being released fully uncut, and even high-grade 'nasties' like the original The Last House On The Left being released unscathed, it's pretty clear that the BBFC these days has kinda moved with the times...it's more a "British" thing they still exist, mind.

[Liamh1982]

The ban on showing nunchuks was repealed in 1997 - the first beneficiary of this was not a film though, it was the Saturn version of Last Bronx - apparently Sega put pressure on the BBFC to allow them.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

LOADS of DVDs released in the 'early waves' of R2 DVDs were *still* heavily cut....

I'm STILL trying to find a watchable version of CutThroat Island that hasn't been cut to buggery. Another one of those ones were characters seem to just disappear rather than showing what happens to them. Notable scenes missing are when someone has their neck broken by getting it caught in the ship's wheel, and when Geena Davis distracts some guards by flashing them, then beating them to death with the chains she's tied up with.

The UK DVD misses all this, as does the US DVD. I THINK the Canadian DVD might be uncut, but if not I'll have to go for the UK rental VHS. What a bind!

[Scapegoat]

With the video boom of the late 80's the BBFC decided a new set of rules were needed, initially there was no censorship at all but their reaction, partially under pressure from politicians was to go too far the other way.

Basically an intense scene in the cinema was considered more intense in the home where it could be rewound and watched repeatedly. This caused them to be more sensitive about home video ratings.

That said...

Temple of Doom: There are set levels of violence that are passable for a PG film, the distributors wanted a PG rather than a 15 certificate so they had to cut back. If the 12A certificate which came in with Batman in 1989 was available it would have got that uncut.

The Abyss: Animal cruelty of any kind is frowned upon, the producers lied to the American Humane Association (AHA) to get that scene filmed , and the BBFC is even stricter than the AHA on the subject. Animals shouldn't be made to suffer on film for dramatic effect, ever.

Ninja Turtles: On the whole ninja thing in the 80s the BBFC was just stupid, they're a lot better now.