“Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith” (2005) had its FTA premiere on 10 on Sunday the 4th of May in 2008 at 9pm, after Big Brother. They classified it uncut as “M”. 10 had just picked up the 20C Fox output from Seven the previous year (who originally licenced it, but now Disney own’s it). Last aired them around 2011 before going dormant for a few years.
Seven aired it a few times between 2015 and 2017 (conveniently through their then Disney output getting rights back), but all cut to “PG”. Editing (in fact butchering it) particularly the climax where it turns rather dark and violent later in the film, between Anakin (Hayden Christensen) and Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) where he cries “you were the chosen one”.
Even though I dislike this weird split thing, I agree the film indeed warrants an “M” particularly for the aforementioned scene (young kids shouldn’t see that). But also agree Nine shouldn’t butcher crucial scenes, hence airing bulk of it as “M” later.
Edit
Attack of the Clones is on Nine this Saturday at 7pm (also a network premiere, FTA premiere was on 10 in 2005 in a cherry pick) but they haven’t split it, giving it “PG”. I always thought this was “M” (DVD I have says M), but turns out that must be due to the bonus features, as the CB archive has the theatrical release, VHS and re-release DVD and blu-ray a handful of years ago all as “PG” uncut.
Maybe Nine’s contentious movie ‘splitting’ wasn’t such a bad idea? Seven copping a lashing (climax was late near 10pm, but still had to edit to PG, affecting the key ‘Voldemort’ graveyard scene in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire):
Edit
To be fair, Nine’s (if 7pm start) still have this same issue for the first 1.5hrs, as has occurred every night since the dawn of TV censorship. You could even argue Nine’s blatant and abrupt ‘pause’ (with made-up credits, “TBC”, etc etc) is just as ridiculous; some have commented online from the times they’ve done it too.
BUT… The above comments, from what I’m comprehending, are more about the way Seven edited this movie (rather than having to edit per se)? Not as meticulous, subtle and careful as they usually are?
Some strange editing here by Seven
(I often wonder whether the network’s classifiers edit themselves? Or more likely send their report with exact timestamps through to the day-to-day broadcast editors/schedulers to do).
Uncut ACB classification: “MA15+: strong violence and sex scene”
Seven’s edited classification: “M: frequent coarse language, some violence, a sex scene, drug use, adult themes”.
(this aired last week). source: Australia movie and tv censorship channel, YouTube
A little late to the party, but I was actually watching the airing of Goblet of Fire on Seven on that night.
They entirely cut out two quite significant scenes from the movie which totally ruined the continuity of it.
Cedric is standing there completely alive and then the scene randomly cut to him laying on the floor dead with absolutely no explanation, within the space of 2 seconds he was seen standing normally, then suddenly dead.
Then, within a few minutes, Wormtail is walking around and suddenly just has no hand, again without any explanation.
Both Wormtail’s hand being removed and Cedric being killed are referred to extensively by the characters over the next 5 minutes and it just made absolutely no sense to watch it unfold.
The whole scene was like the most important part of the movie and it was all cut up and made no sense.
Why are some cooking instruction shows on SBS Food rated PG? For example, Martha Stewart’s Cooking School and Donna Hay: Fast, Fresh, Simple. Do they involve dangerous skills?
I would suggest that SBS just selects a blanket rating of PG for any content they haven’t produced themselves, to cover themselves in case there’s any swears, etc
Ridiculous is being too kind. What Nine are doing is engaging in a deliberate campaign of flouting the classification rules they helped to write. It doesn’t get any more egregious than artificially splitting a movie into two parts and treating both parts separately (eg; removing a scene in ‘Part 1’ that wouldn’t have been removed either in ‘Part 2’ or if they had properly aired the movie).
New consumer advice seen in the MA15+ classification warning at the very start of “28 Weeks Later” on 7mate on Saturday night: high impact horror violence.
Whoops, as that’s a term exclusive to the ACB’s “R18+” classification and may give the wrong impression to viewers.
NB/ I think Seven were trying to find a term that described the horror violence as being at the ‘upper level’ of MA. What’a wrong with something like “strong horror violence”?
Btw, horror violence (when there was prescribed consumer advice listed in the ACMA’s Code of Practice) never used to exist. Networks would use “violence” and “horror” individually, which does still occur.
I notice in recent weeks, SBS Food has included a viewer advice before the PG classification at the start of a number of shows. The advice says something like “viewers are advised that this program includes treatment of animals which may cause concern”.
For example, last night’s episode of Remarkable Places to Eat included scenes of people catching for seafood with a wide net at Venetian Lagoon. It’s normal practice and won’t cause concern to me. Should the show be classified PG because of that? Absolutely not.
I think SBS is becoming too politically correct.
While such scenes are fine by you and I, I think it’s legitimate that others may find it distressing and they can look away if they want given the warning.
Also a classification PG literally means “parental guidance” which is merely a suggestion that parents may like to exercise discretion or guidance surrounding a show’s content.
Slightly off topic, but the mention of content warnings made me think about it, does anyone know why UK broadcasters will always warn about flash photography in news reports/programming, but that seems to never happen here?
