Casper Van Dien?

And not to mention, the fact that they kept that impaling shot on Disc 2 of the Gladiator DVD. :)
 
Yeah that's right. Which reminds me. Ridley Scott's not allowed to have a shot of a gladiator getting impaled in the movie, but in that same movie he's allowed to show 2 Germans getting impaled by a Roman ballista bolt in the beginning battle. Or any other innumerable shots of human brutality in a film entitled 'Gladiator'. One would think that the title would keep squemish types away :rolleyes:
 
Be glad you don't have that violence-censorship like we have in Germany. It's really annoying and very often made very badly.
 
The idea that film makers complain about such censorship is rediculous -- an exceedingly violent scene isn't cut from a movie because it *can't* be shown, it's cut from a movie because it would garner a higher rating, and thus make less money.
 
Originally posted by Mekt-Hakkikt
Be glad you don't have that violence-censorship like we have in Germany. It's really annoying and very often made very badly.

Not only movies. I saw once an X-Files episode on german TV after I watched the original somewhere. Many scenes were missing.
But people don't get violent because they watch violent films/movies/TV series.
 
No, they get violent, because their Wing Commander doesn't work :D

Question: What about Wing Commander in German? Are there also some scenes missing?
 
Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
The idea that film makers complain about such censorship is rediculous -- an exceedingly violent scene isn't cut from a movie because it *can't* be shown, it's cut from a movie because it would garner a higher rating, and thus make less money.

This is probably going to sound a bit silly, but how do you sensibly rate violence? I mean how can you say that a shot where a gladiator is impaled is more violent than a shot of hundreds of soldiers killing each other? Why should the explicitness of the shot, or the amount of blood shown matter? Violence is violence no matter how it is inflicted.
 
Originally posted by Arrow
No, they get violent, because their Wing Commander doesn't work :D

Question: What about Wing Commander in German? Are there also some scenes missing?

I think not, though I only own very few German versions of WC. Problem is mainly that the translation sucks most of the time :(
 
Originally posted by Penguin

Which brings me to another point. People are constantly talking about how great the Colosseum is, how impressive its design is, how its been around for a long time and so forth. But nobody seems to care that tens of thousands of gladiators (human beings) and wild animals were slaughtered there for the pleasure of the Roman mob. I mean doesn't anyone care? Does awesome architecture whitewash the building's original purpose?

We learnt in architecture last year that the Colosseum stands as an example of the pinnacle of technology during the time of the romans, the very fact that such large structures could be built without the aid of computers, others include the Parthenon, which remained a mystery until recently as to how it was built.
The Millenium Dome in London is technologically an great building, but the rubbish that was put in it tarnished it and people only remember the rubbish that was in it, not the excellence of the building,
As Allan Read (senior lecture) said, "its not the building thats crap, its what people put or do in it that makes it crap.
 
Originally posted by Bandit LOAF
The idea that film makers complain about such censorship is rediculous -- an exceedingly violent scene isn't cut from a movie because it *can't* be shown, it's cut from a movie because it would garner a higher rating, and thus make less money.

Keep in mind, even Army of Darkness garnished an NC-17 rating during it's original preview. The people who do ratings are generally very stupid. Npt to mention, Midnight Cowboy, a movie rated X in the mid-70s went on to win Best Picture.
 
Originally posted by Oggy


As Allan Read (senior lecture) said, "its not the building thats crap, its what people put or do in it that makes it crap.

I'm willing to agree with that statement but in the Colosseum's case the building itself cannot be distinguished from what happened there. For the simple reason that the Colosseum was built for the sole purpose of gladiatorial slaughter.
 
Oh, I completely agree that the people *rating* the films are probably idiots -- but if a director chooses to cut a scene from a movie in order to get a PG-13 instead of an R, or an R instead of an NC-17, then he has no right to complain about his 'art' being censored <G> He had the choice between money and art, and he choose money.

Re: Censorship in Germany -- one scene of Wing Commander IV was altered for German release... the portion of the game where Seether cuts Paulson's throat is 'tamer' in the German edition. (Those with the DVD version can compare, as they folks at Daylight were kind enough to put both on the disc...).
 
Agreed. Especially now that we're in the age of DVD, where a director can add whatever the hell he wants to make it like the original cut.
 
LOAF, a lot of the time it's not the director who has the final say in the matter. The studios are too happy to mess with the movie, usually for purely financial reasons. Look at what happened with Brazil for instance:(

edit: Although that wasn't for censorship reasons, just they didn't like it.
 
WHOA THERE

Let's get some shit straight here. Brazil was edited for several reasons, the main one being the original ending, which was considered a "downer". It had nothing to do with money; Brazil was on a very tight budget, sure, but scenes were not cut due to cost limitations.

I suggest viewing the 3 DVD boxed set release of Brazil, which has an entire DVD devoted to Terry Gilliam's fight with Universal.
 
In such a case, where the studio forces such cuts, shouldn't the director use his right to have his name removed from the film?
 
Well, there is the name "Alan Smithee", which is the name used when a director doesn't want his name plastered all over the film.
Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan used it for writing credits in a very bad film in the 80s.

http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Smithee,+Alan
 
LeHah, when I said financial reasons, I meant the studio wanted to make more money from the film by making it less depressing/confusing, not that the film would cost more to produce. Didn't make that quite clear, sorry. It was withheld for, what was it, a year or so, because of the artistic differences between Gilliam and the studio.

If you haven't already, check out The Hamster Factor documentary that comes with some versions of Twelve Monkeys, for a great insight into Gilliam and his filmaking.

The UK release of Brazil was the 142 minute version.

I like the way David Lynch Smithee'd the US TV version of Dune, which actually increased the length of the movie.
 
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