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Curious age ratings for films

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    Curious age ratings for films

    In the UK, Jaws was, rather infamously, given the old A-rating. This was a recommendation (but not a stipulation) that any viewer under eight-years-old should be accompanied by an adult. I think I first saw it as an eleven-year-old and it scared me witless.

    I'm driven to write this, because Spirited Away has an age rating of zero in German Netflix. As much as I like this film, the scenes of adults turning into pigs and particularly No-Face would probably have given me nightmares for weeks. The boy shall not be watching that anytime soon.

    #2
    Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
    In the UK, JawsI'm driven to write this, because Spirited Away has an age rating of zero in German Netflix. As much as I like this film, the scenes of adults turning into pigs and particularly No-Face would probably have given me nightmares for weeks. The boy shall not be watching that anytime soon.
    Wise move, I watched it with my son when he was 8 or 9 and he still hasn't got over it, nearly 15 years later.

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      #3
      Return of the Jedi was a U rating. The Rancor scene could be very scary for a small child.

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        #4
        The 1978 Watership Down is a U.

        How? It's a fucking bloodbath. Peckinpah with rabbits.

        There's also the seagull saying "piss off". I thought even the mildest swearing instantly bumped a film up to a PG.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post

          Wise move, I watched it with my son when he was 8 or 9 and he still hasn't got over it, nearly 15 years later.
          Yeah, mine's about to turn five. I can only imagine they thought, "oh, it's just a cartoon," and didn't bother classifying it.

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            #6
            There was never any hard and fast rule, it was always down to the fairly capricious people at the BBFC. James Ferman was the chief enemy IIRC. A single f-word was a 15, until they brought the 12 in because too many films which otherwise were fine were being caught. (Gremlins, Big Trouble in Little China, Crocodile Dundee).

            On the other hand, they clearly let things ride for the big guns, Spielberg especially. Both Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom should never have been PG by the standards of the time. Rambo II was a 15 but the similar Commando was 18.

            The thing with giving Jaws a PG was that they made a rod for their own back with the sequels.

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              #7
              Aguirre, Wrath of God is a PG. For some reason I just can't see myself sitting down with the kids to watch it on a rainy afternoon.

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                #8
                This documentary is full of them, for the MPAA anyway.

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                  #9
                  At one time film makers would include just one F word to get the desired rating (AA rather than A or 15 rather than PG)

                  I watched 50 Shades of Grey last night with Mrs Sid (don't ask). Not sure how that got an 18?

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                    #10
                    2001: A Space Odyssey is a U, despite being basically an existential horror film. The soundtrack alone is terrifying.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                      Return of the Jedi was a U rating. The Rancor scene could be very scary for a small child.
                      Never mind that

                      The saarlac pit

                      Yig!

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                        In the UK, Jaws was, rather infamously, given the old A-rating.
                        Since watching the film at the cinema early in 1976, I'd been labouring under the misapprehension that Jaws was an AA in the UK (ie, 'accompanied', if under fourteen): I'd seen it in the company of my older sister and a couple of friends her age.

                        Seems that you're right and the certificate has only been increased (to a 12A) within the last decade...

                        https://www.imdb.com/news/ni28300398

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by colchestersid View Post
                          At one time film makers would include just one F word to get the desired rating (AA rather than A or 15 rather than PG)

                          I watched 50 Shades of Grey last night with Mrs Sid (don't ask). Not sure how that got an 18?
                          One of the major changes is that when submitting, the producers ask for the rating they want. If it is too high, then the BBFC can recommend where to change. Otherwise, if they want an 18 for marketing purposes, they can have one.

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                            #14
                            At the other end of the scale, I lived for a while in Malaysia

                            Films are heavily censored (absolutely no nudity, sex, bad language, anything disrespectful to the police, profanity, drugs etc) and then given an 18 rating anyway. It's even worse on TV. I once watched "The Hangover" on TV and they had removed every reference to alcohol, drugs, sex, nudity and bad language. What was left was impossible to follow and lasted about 30 minutes. I'm exaggerating, but probably not much

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                              #15
                              When we went to Butlins in Minehead in 1988, I think, when I was seven, you could just wander in and out of the cinema. Being able to watch Jaws: The Revenge was supposed to be a treat, but I didn’t sleep for the rest of the week.

                              I love Michael Caine’s quote about his role in that film. “Apparently it’s an awful film. I don’t know, I haven’t seen it. But I have seen the house it bought, and that’s fantastic.”

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Fussbudget View Post
                                2001: A Space Odyssey is a U, despite being basically an existential horror film. The soundtrack alone is terrifying.
                                The chimps and the peccary(?) is a genuinely horrific scene.

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                                  #17
                                  A lot of "family" movies are terrifying, or disturbing. The baddie escaping in Kung Fu Panda. The heart-rending scenes in Up or Bridge to Terabithia. And agree on Watership Down.

                                  But no boobies, so our kids are safe.

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                                    #18
                                    So how come I didn’t get to see Jaws then? If it came out in 1976 I was 12, maybe 13 by the time it reached Maidenhead flea pit. I suppose my parents weren’t interested in going so that was that. I’d always assumed in retrospect it was AA.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Sits View Post
                                      So how come I didn’t get to see Jaws then? If it came out in 1976 I was 12, maybe 13 by the time it reached Maidenhead flea pit. I suppose my parents weren’t interested in going so that was that. I’d always assumed in retrospect it was AA.
                                      My mother took my sister and me to see Jaws when it first came out. We were ten and eight respectively. I think she did it not because she wanted us to see severed legs and people being bitten in half, but because she was dying to see it and had nobody else to go with. (My father refused to spend money on cinema tickets ("I pay my bloody television licence, that's plenty enough."))

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                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                        My mother took my sister and me to see Jaws when it first came out. We were ten and eight respectively. I think she did it not because she wanted us to see severed legs and people being bitten in half, but because she was dying to see it and had nobody else to go with. (My father refused to spend money on cinema tickets ("I pay my bloody television licence, that's plenty enough."))
                                        And what were yours and your sister’s reactions?

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by Sits View Post

                                          And what were yours and your sister’s reactions?
                                          Our cousin had seen it a couple of weeks beforehand and had already provided detailed descriptions of the gruesome bits (the things I mentioned upthread, plus the crab-covered arm and the various pools of blood in the sea), so we knew what was coming.

                                          Shortly afterwards, I saw One Million Years B.C. on the telly. The scene where the bloke is carried off by a pterodactyl scared me a hundred times more than anything Jaws could come up with (not least because the actor who played the victim had the same name as me, and my sister convinced me that evetybody with my name eventually gets kidnapped and eaten by a pterodactyl).

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by tee rex View Post
                                            And agree on Watership Down..
                                            The Plague Dogs by the same author (and director) isn't exactly a laugh riot either.

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                                              #23
                                              treibeis Top marks for devilment for your sister there

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                                                #24
                                                Age ratings are very subjective anyway. My son gets terrified by anything where anyone transforms into anything else, which turns out to be a really, really common theme in children's films. He found Brave terrifying where the mum transforms into a bear, for example. He also hates it if anyone lies in a film or has an argument. We just watched Cool Runnings (great film to watch around the Olympics) and he didn't like the comedy bar fight. He is, however, totally fine with other things you wouldn't expect him to be fine with, like Lord of the Rings.

                                                Our approach tends to be: if he's watching anything more traumatic than Peppa Pig or Cbeebies, then we watch it with him and when he gets scared, we pause the TV, talk through why he's scared, what he's worried will happen, explain what's most likely to happen next, or why the people are acting the way they are. As long as we do that, he can deal with most children's TV or films and as far as I'm aware, he doesn't have nightmares (he tells us about dreams sometimes, but no night terrors or anything like that).

                                                This approach does mean though that it takes us about three days to watch a film, managing about 45 minutes per evening. We haven't been to the cinema for years due to Covid, and would only be able to go and see something very vanilla there if we attempt it in future.
                                                Last edited by Balderdasha; 01-08-2021, 05:11.

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                                                  #25
                                                  My parents took a 7 year old me and my older brother to see Jaws on its release. It absolutely terrified me. I can remember pleading with my mum if it had nearly finished and could we go and her replying that it was nearly over. They were just heading out in the boat to catch it at the time so I estimate there was still another 3/4 of an hour of terror to ensue.

                                                  For a few weeks afterwards I was scared of getting in the bath and it put me off swimming in the sea on family holidays until I was well into adulthood. I've asked them a few times since wtf were they were thinking? I get the impression that they had heard a bit of fuss about the new film and it being an A certificate thought it may be ok to go along as a family. Jaws was pretty different in its day, ahead of its time and has aged well that even now, it still has the capacity to scare.

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