Cuts

Which is interesting considering how scissor happy Channel 4 are with The Simpsons. They even cut out stuff Sky left in when they were at their worst in the 90s.

The most ridiculous thing was when a T4 coming up trailer for one episode consisted of a scene that was then cut out of the episode itself.

To be honest its probably not worth questioning why Channel 4 do what they do with the The Simpsons any more, presumably it's so they can shove it in any time slot they like (over Christmas this year it's been on as early as 8am) as opposed to leaving it in the 6pm slot. Never seems to air any later though, on Channel 4 anyway. 4Seven has had it well into peaktime on occasion but the main network? If it has I've never seen it.

But anyway... cuts. Edits purely for commercial gain. Challenge programming when under Virgin Media ownership, primarily cutting title sequences in half and most if not all of the contestant introductions. Paul Daniels Wipeout exclusively affected, all episodes butchered to fit the thing into a 30 min slot, portions of other shows had been started but didn't affect all of the episodes. Edits that are still being used today.

This blog tracks the latest Channel 4 Simpsons edits: https://cwickham.blogspot.com/2019/12/27-on-4-2.html

Eggheads would have an entire round chopped out of the middle to make room for an ad break and still fit a 30 minute slot.

Speaking of cuts, I'm sure the heart-ripping scene gets shorter and shorter each time Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is shown. The hand going into the chest was never shown in the UK, and in fact I think it was always cut from home video until a few years ago, but when it was shown yesterday there was no close-up shot of the heart in Mola Ram's hand, and only one shot of it on fire. There were also cuts to the victim on fire in the pit.

( Temple of Doom was the reason the PG-13 rating was created in the US, and if I remember rightly, Temple of Doom was the first 12A in the UK)

Being pedantic the 12A certification came out in 2002, with Bourne Identity apparently being the first film to get the 12A rating. The previous 12 rating came in 1989 and the first film was apparently Batman.

It looks like in the UK the Temple of Doom had cuts when first released as unedited it would have exceeded its PG rating. It would appear an unedited version was shown as part of the BFI's uncut season, ref https://bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/archive%E2%80%A6-temple-doom.

James Bond films often get cuts if shown before the watershed. One example being in Licensed to Kill with the somewhat graphic pressure chamber killing, which from memory with cuts you only hear the sound effect. Also unsurprisingly in other Bond films some of the bedroom scenes get cut in pre-watershed screenings (e.g. Die Another Day). Presumably in these instances the edited/censored versions are provided by the film studios, rather than the TV companies having to make the cuts.

For some reason I thought Spider-Man was the first 12A film

You're right, it was Batman . And I think I meant Last Crusade , and that it was one factor in creating the 12. Last Crusade is on today and usually has cuts to, at least, the ageing-to-death scene near the end.



Licence to Kill was a fair bit more violent than any of the previous outings, including scenes of whipping (out of shot) which were always cut on video, along with the decompression scene and some shots of one of the baddies getting diced in a mincer. There was also a shot of the bad guy on fire that always got cut, which led to Bond seeming to jump from one location to another at the end.

If I remember rightly - though I admit my track record on remembering rightly is not looking good so far - the uncut version was eventually released on video as an 18, but has since been reduced to a 15.

Living Daylights usually has a bit of nudity cut, and one shot of a guy getting squished in an automatic door (although you don't really see anything gory anyway). There's also a fight in a kitchen where a shot of someone getting burned on a hob is usually covered with a slowed-down shot of a parrot from earlier in the scene.

Going the opposite way, I remember watching Logan's Run on BBC2 one Sunday afternoon with all the nude scenes, which are completely non-sexual, intact. I think they've been cut in more recent showings, though.

One of my favourite examples of a cut was a showing of Die Hard 2 (another film that was released first as a 15 and later as an uncut 18 ) on ITV a few days after a rail disaster. Someone was savvy enough to cut the line "We're just like British Rail, love; we may be late but we get you there." It made me wonder if there's some kind of data kept on potentially problematic references in films, or if everything was given extra scrutiny around that time because of the disaster.

And then there's The Simpsons which is probably worthy of a whole thread by itself.

My favourite fact about Licence to Kill is that it was originally to be titled Licence Revoked, until it was discovered that that was a phrase Americans use when someone is disqualified from driving, which would have made for an extremely tame sounding Bond film.

Spider-Man had a 12 rating but was later reclassified as a 12A.

From memory, Spider-Man had a 12 rating, however due to the amount of parents wishing to take their children to see it at the cinema and pressure from the cinema chains to be able to allow it, some local councils overruled it and allowed under 12s to be admitted (I believe councils have the authority to certify films themselves). I think the 12A certificate followed a week or 2 later.

Wasn't the 1989 Batman movie the first in the UK to be given a "12" rating?