Sweary Poppins

[Glebe]

Star Wars still being a U seems odd considering it has this scene

Spoiler alert

[close]

Even though they upped Empire and Return to PG's for less grisly stuff.

Yeah the chopped off arm in the cantina was a bit scary as a kid but that was so grim it almost didn't register.

[idunnosomename]

I've never heard of anyone recounting actually being scared or disturbed by those charred skeletons or the Buttface guy getting his arm cut off. Surprised, yes, but not to the point they traumatise. Or even Darth Vader picking up and strangling the rebel soldier.
I guess there genuinely doesnt seem any credible threat to the protagonists. If Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk and Red Riding Hood can be for children so can Star Wars 1977.

When Luke gets beaten badly by Vader and his hand cut off its very different, narratively and visually. Although not considered so in 1981 which doesnt really help my argument about why SW 1977 was U then and now. Basically the BBFC was very strange and sometimes it was just a guy with a bee in his bonnet about something like nunchaku.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Watership Down was a U until 2022, that's probably the more iffy one.

[frajer]

Very much enjoying the discussion around ratings.

A 'recent' (2008, time is a bastard) film I thought was dubiously rated was The Dark Knight originally being given a 12A on its cinema release, because Nolan deliberately didn't show any blood for things that if you were to do them in real life would make a human being very leaky indeed (pencil, meet eyeball) to ensure he got the lowest possible rating.

Not sure why it stuck with me, or even bothered me, but it did strike me as a rum decision. I suppose it seems a bit daft that you can include moments of quite extreme violence, but by leaving out the squibs you can get it down to moderate violence and bring the kids along for a bit of eyeball-popping fun.

[Jerzy Bondov]

I always thought it was hilarious when that ugly guy got his hand chopped off by Ben Kenobi. But now of course I'm aware that ugly people have rights too :-(

[jamiefairlie]

I always thought it was hilarious when that ugly guy got his hand chopped off by Ben Kenobi. But now of course I'm aware that ugly people have rights too :-(

So he should cut that one off too?

[phantom_power]

Very much enjoying the discussion around ratings.

A 'recent' (2008, time is a bastard) film I thought was dubiously rated was The Dark Knight originally being given a 12A on its cinema release, because Nolan deliberately didn't show any blood for things that if you were to do them in real life would make a human being very leaky indeed (pencil, meet eyeball) to ensure he got the lowest possible rating.

Not sure why it stuck with me, or even bothered me, but it did strike me as a rum decision. I suppose it seems a bit daft that you can include moments of quite extreme violence, but by leaving out the squibs you can get it down to moderate violence and bring the kids along for a bit of eyeball-popping fun.

I think it is often said by horror directors, and maybe Tarantino, that violence is one part of film-making where you get punished for being too accurate. Realistic violence is less palatable to some than cartoon violence even though the latter is probably more harmful

[jamiefairlie]

I think it is often said by horror directors, and maybe Tarantino, that violence is one part of film-making where you get punished for being too accurate. Realistic violence is less palatable to some than cartoon violence even though the latter is probably more harmful

Leave Roadrunner alone! Leave it alone!

[idunnosomename]

I think it is often said by horror directors, and maybe Tarantino, that violence is one part of film-making where you get punished for being too accurate. Realistic violence is less palatable to some than cartoon violence even though the latter is probably more harmful

could argue movie violence isnt really very realistic though. It's all based on very red blood splattering all over the place when really blood gets quite brown and dirty very quickly.

Squibs for instance are completely unrealistic. The famous ED-209 scene for instance is just like Bottom with blood if you think about it. Really he'd just fall down almost immediately, and if the robot still kept shooting him on the floor it would just be like shooting a sack of meat about while a big pool of almost black blood formed around it. Which would just be weird tbh

[phantom_power]

While that is true, that is still more realistic than people dying bloodlessly and relatively quietly like they do in lots of hollywood films

[El Unicornio, mang]

could argue movie violence isnt really very realistic though.

Particularly the thing where people fly backwards when they're shot. This doesn't happen, even if it's a shotgun (I'm not talking from personal experience fyi, it's just simple science).

Or a big explosion/flying through the air after a grenade explodes, pure fantasy.

Anyway, Mary Poppins...

[idunnosomename]

certain sections of the outraged by everything brigade are taking it well

[jobotic]

Whoops! Someone's offended.

[frajer]

I was already hoping to never encounter Piers Morgan, but if being offended by Mary Poppins will guarantee this then I am deeply offended by Mary Poppins.

[Glebe]

It's Poppins Correctness gone mad! Sorry.

[Noodle Lizard]

could argue movie violence isnt really very realistic though. It's all based on very red blood splattering all over the place when really blood gets quite brown and dirty very quickly.

Squibs for instance are completely unrealistic. The famous ED-209 scene for instance is just like Bottom with blood if you think about it. Really he'd just fall down almost immediately, and if the robot still kept shooting him on the floor it would just be like shooting a sack of meat about while a big pool of almost black blood formed around it. Which would just be weird tbh

Which is funny, because changing the colour of blood to make it less red has long been used to get lower ratings or avoid cuts. Taxi Driver's brothel sequence, the orcs with black blood in Lord of the Rings, making half of the Crazy 88 fight in Kill Bill 1 black and white.

I'd say film violence has become progressively more realistic, though, and you'll sometimes see things in a mainstream release now that would've been shocking in a Video Nasty. The BBFC specifically have an issue with "lingering" on violence rather than necessarily how realistic it is.

I'm surprised Irreversible got away uncut in the UK, but their justification for allowing scenes like the fire extinguisher face smashing is that, because it is so realistic, it couldn't be seen as glorifying or glamourising the action, whereas it might have been a different scenario had it been more cartoonishly violent - maybe with loud comedy cuckoo clock sound effects on every thump.

[famethrowa]

sometimes it was just a guy with a bee in his bonnet about something like nunchaku.

There was such PANIC TERROR about "nunchucks" (as we said back then), I remember a specific school assembly to tell us of these instruments of destruction. Obviously someone in authority has a fetish for these things, when we all know that if anyone tries to use them, they hit themselves in the nuts pretty much straight away.

Funny that a Poppins thread has come down to discussing the most horrifying violence we've seen on the screen.

[jamiefairlie]

There was such PANIC TERROR about "nunchucks" (as we said back then), I remember a specific school assembly to tell us of these instruments of destruction. Obviously someone in authority has a fetish for these things, when we all know that if anyone tries to use them, they hit themselves in the nuts pretty much straight away.

M

[idunnosomename]

There was such PANIC TERROR about "nunchucks" (as we said back then), I remember a specific school assembly to tell us of these instruments of destruction. Obviously someone in authority has a fetish for these things, when we all know that if anyone tries to use them, they hit themselves in the nuts pretty much straight away.

Funny that a Poppins thread has come down to discussing the most horrifying violence we've seen on the screen.

yeah it's entirely down to James Ferman, who otherwise in his tenure at the BBFC drew ire from conservatives from how liberal he was towards "video nasties".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ferman

https://tedium.co/2019/08/20/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-nunchucks-censorship/

maybe he did have a go with them after seeing Bruce Lee and whacked himself in the balls and was like right! I've had quite enough of these things!! and awkwardly waddled off to ban them in everything he could.

[phantom_power]

certain sections of the outraged by everything brigade are taking it well

Yes my enjoyment of Mary Poppins will be forever tainted by it being a PG now rather than a U. As if Morgan regularly watches the film anyway, the fucking snowflake

And I am sure he isn't offended by the word, but then he wouldn't be because it isn't about him. Let's see him seethe next time someone says "gammon"

[madhair60]

he says it for attention and money

[phantom_power]

he says it for attention and money

I think that is somewhat true but I also think he is a salty, thin-skinned prick

[madhair60]

mm, that's probably true.

[Gulftastic]

Particularly the thing where people fly backwards when they're shot. This doesn't happen, even if it's a shotgun (I'm not talking from personal experience fyi, it's just simple science).

Ruined a big plot in The Sopranos for me. I hate it when Tony B gets blasted and is thrown backwards several feet.

[Butchers Blind]

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles cartoon in the UK back in the day because the word ninja was too much for young kids.

[phantom_power]

Reservoir Dogs being BANNED on video despite being as violent as an episode of Casualty

[idunnosomename]

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles cartoon in the UK back in the day because the word ninja was too much for young kids.

ive always wondered who exactly prompted who to do that.

The 1987 cartoon aired on the BBC from January 1990 as Hero, but then later that year the movie came out under Ninja (with the usual nunchuka edits that even adult films would get), and the BBC were happy to air the movie as Ninja three years later. So the BBC weren't that bothered, which makes me think it was preemptive by the production company as part of their localisation process in the same why they'd choose a non-English title or new dub.

The BBC seem to have only got the licence to show the first 3 seasons under the Hero title which they repeated through as late as 2004(!) (I remember as a student staying up all night and seeing the kimono one without Shredder and Krang in it).

You know the worst thing though. Sometimes the BBC would put the episode description as "Amphibian adventures." which makes me absoutely furious for reasons I shouldnt have to explain.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Apparently they did try to change the film title to Hero for UK release but the idea was vetoed. Also, the cartoon aired on CBBC so had to pretty much be Uc material only. They actually took the nunchakus out of the American show as well for later seasons and replaced them with a grappling hook since it was less hassle than making two versions for US and parts of Europe.

[BJBMK2]

yeah it's entirely down to James Ferman, who otherwise in his tenure at the BBFC drew ire from conservatives from how liberal he was towards "video nasties".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ferman

https://tedium.co/2019/08/20/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-nunchucks-censorship/

maybe he did have a go with them after seeing Bruce Lee and whacked himself in the balls and was like right! I've had quite enough of these things!! and awkwardly waddled off to ban them in everything he could.

Ferman was a weird one. On the one hand, not as eager with the scissors as previous iterations when it came to screen violence. On the other, his weird obsession with this ONE relatively minor part of modern cinema (was the word "nunchuka" even used in the media, before he started banging on about it?). He also had it in for The Exorcist, denying it a video release for absolute ages, on the grounds of it scaring little girls. And obviously, the bit where Merrin gets the nunchucks out and goes to TOWN on Pazuzu.

[Brundle-Fly]

he says it for attention and money

Yes, he couldn't give a single fuck about it, but likes to stir. And people going off on one about the gammons going off on one is also part of this trickery.