UBC Censorship

[Heebio]

Saw a trailer last week for a movie called 'Smokin' Aces' - thought it looked pretty good so decided to watch it on UBC last night. Movie was stylish but seemed somewhat disjointed.

I like to check out the reviews after I've just watched a movie I'd like to know more about, so checked out Rotten Tomatoes to read the reviewers thoughts and opinions. The first thing that struck me was the official run time of the movie - 109 minutes. On UBC however the film started at 8pm and finished at 9.18pm - 78 minutes. I checked the finish time as I thought the movie seemed rather short for a recent mainstream release.

That's a whopping difference of 30 minutes, almost 30% of the original run time! Aside from films that have been banned altogether, can anyone think of another movie that has had that high a percentage cut from the original before being screened? I doubt it....

The reviews were pretty mixed and didn't really alter my view of the movie either way - one thing they were unanimous about was that there was an abundance of violence and excess nudity throughout.

Regardless of the violence or nudity involved how can UBC possibly be justified in cutting out so much of the original movie? On other movies they just use mosaic to blur nudity, guns, cigarettes etc so what was so different about this movie that they had to cut it shreds?

How much linking dialogue did the viewer miss through the cut scenes? No wonder I thought it was disjointed.

This isn't a post about the merits of this particular movie but the extent to which UBC will go to potentially ruin the viewers enjoyment.

I am now seriously thinking of cancelling my subscription and sticking to DVD's (I will certainly be getting a copy of Smokin' Aces to check out what the hell was so corrupting that it warranted censorship to this degree).

[sandman67]

Heebio

1) - I have a copy of the film so if y want to view it before buying then PM me and I can lend you my copy;

2) It is a good film but there are several plot threads that would, with dumb censoring, make no sense.....as you said disjointed. As most of the last half of the film is one long blood spattered bullet ballet then I can see why it made no sense.

I guess they cut the neo-nazi assassin having an accident with his chainsaw.....and the black lesbian assassin going batshit with a Barrett's Light 50......

3) Good on you for sodding off UBC - they are a pain in the arse to deal with anyway.

[JD]

That's a whopping difference of 30 minutes, almost 30% of the original run time! Aside from films that have been banned altogether, can anyone think of another movie that has had that high a percentage cut from the original before being screened? I doubt it....

Caligula (1979)

Original Cut - 210 minutes. When cut by censors for R-Rated was only 102 minutes.

I doubt UBC would even show the R-Rated version.

[lomuamart]

If it's the film where there are groups of people out to get one bloke who's off his head on charlie in some penthouse hotel suite (Vegas I think?), then I've caught it a couple of times on cable and I don't seem to remember thinking that anything had been cut - then again never saw the original. It's pretty gory.
Certainly sounds the same - big nazi type falling on his chainsaw and the black lesbian with a rather big gun who goes crazy after she thinks her lover's been killed.
What gets me also is that there's no standardisation of censorship. On cable, I can get five movie channels after about 7-8pm.
Three will show nudity, guns against heads, cigarettes and booze (although one wasn't up until a month or so ago and pixellated it all out - they seem to have given up now). The other two can be quite graphic, but edit out all bad swear words. I thought it was just the reception at first until I lipread.
What dosn't get shown on one channel, does on another and some of them seem to change their standards.
I'm confused. Maybe the censors are concentrating on something else?

[Heebio]

@ Sandman

Thanks for the offer mate. I'm in town tonight so may try and pick up a copy from the boys doing the bars, but if not I'll PM you tomorrow.

Yeah, some of the reviews did mention scenes that I didn't remember seeing, including the neo-nazi with the chainsaw!

@ JD

Could be wrong here but was Caligula not banned for several years before the new, more liberal, censorship committee was appointed in the UK in the late 80's?

From memory the new committee was pretty controversial at the time as it approved major cuts to several previously banned movies to enable them to have a general release. This also included films such as Ken Russell's classic 'The Devils' (one of my all time favourites).

Comparing a mainstream release like Smokin' Aces with an arthouse classic like Caligula is stretching things a bit, but thanks for the pointer.

[buksida]

Downloaded a version of the film from torrents and watched it a while ago so memory is hazy. Also watched it last night on UBC and only remember it being a lot more violent the first time so no doubt it was cropped.

UBC is grand for educational channels such as Nat Geo and Discovery but useless for movies, DVD or downloads win every time. Just watched "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie - I'm sure that will end up lasting about 20 minutes when UBC finally show it!

[Guess]

I seem to remember the banning of Caligula in total in the UK then followed by a re-issue of a much hacked version. The BBFC have dropped the name "Censor" and replaced it with "Classification. This is their site followed by their statement regarding the Video Recordings Act anb subsequent name change.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/about/index.php

In 1984 Parliament passed the Video Recordings Act. This act stated that, subject to certain exemptions, video recordings offered for sale or hire commercially in the UK must be classified by an authority designated by the Secretary of State. The President and Vice Presidents of the BBFC were so designated, and charged with applying the new test of 'suitability for viewing in the home'. At this point the Board's title was changed to British Board of Film Classification to reflect the fact that classification plays a far larger part in the Board's work than censorship.

I have often noticed UBC censorship when I see films that I have already seen on DVD or downloaded from the Internet. There seemed to be no consistency and I always wondered if it was in fact censorship alone and not just tailoring to fit between advertisements.

I haven't bothered with UBC at home. I never watched the films anyway. A brief look at the monthly magazine very rarely listed anything I wanted to see that I had not already seen months before.

Most key football matches and news are screened on Thai cable TV. The rest of UBC is rubbish. Hua Hin actually has one of the best cable networks I have seen. The same company supplies me in Bang Saphan but you only get a fraction of the channels and it costs more.

[Terry]

Watch any F-1 race.

Lewis Hamilton does a regular add for Johnny Walker - the theme of which is - DONT DRINK AND DRIVE.

I would have thought that this would be welcomed as a sensible advert.

Obviously not to the twat at UBC with the finger on the censor button.