21 February 2011The dark side of the U
I just appeared on the radio. Which was nice.
Basically, Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode were chatting on the radio the other day about the most horrific things that have been allowed in a U-rated film. The obvious death-of-Bambi's-mother thing was raised, but then somebody emailed in and pointed out that something far, far more atrocious occurs in Star Wars: A New Hope. Although you don't see the individual deaths, the testing of the Death Star on the planet of Alderaan is essentially the genocide of 1.97 billion people. Crikey.
Which got me thinking about The Empire Strikes Back (as most things do) and I worked out quite how inappropriate the U rating is for that film as well. In summary (and this is what I put in an email that Mr Mayo kindly read out), the film contains:
- the disembowelling of (and encampment within) an animal that has died of hypothermia
- someone being shot and then trampled under gigantic mechanical foot
- one freudian dream-decapitation
- a couple of death-chokings
- the severing of one arm and one hand
- somebody being frozen alive
- a character essentially attempting to commit suicide (but is lucky enough to be saved by some space-guttering and a TV aerial)
and - one disturbingly incesty kiss.
I'm sure there are other things, but really, that is one twisted U-rated film, isn't it?
Reader Comments (6)
'...saved by some space-guttering and a TV aerial' :-)
'Well I guess you don't know everything about women yet' is bound to confuse a few younguns/lings. 'Mummy, can I kiss my sister?'
You've just ruined Star Wars for me. Thanks. Seriously though, there are some terrible films with inappropriate ratings:
- The Lion King: Father trampled to death by a stampede of animals. Son mourns and runs away. The kingdom gets taken over by an evil terrorist with some murdering cronies.
- Wall-E: The ENTIRE world is empty (as far as we know) and nothing is left but a lonely robot.
I can't think of any more right now, but there must be something.
That being said, I used to watch the Nightmare on Elm Street and Childs Play films when I was about 5.
@Luke Someone recently pointed out to me the entirely questionable behaviour of child-befriending, terrorist-dealing, animal-experimenting Doc Brown, ruining Back to the Future for me forever.
Hmmm, this has got me thinking (and scanning the DVD collection). You're bang on about Empire, etc., and here are a couple from my shelves:
— The Incredibles. Almost non-stop life threatening peril to a family essentially held in a superhero witness protection programme, featuring a number of grisly deaths attributed to cloaks and a scene where Mr Incredible uncovers the skeleton of Gazer Beam, who has presumably *starved to death* in a lonely cave with nothing to do but carve cryptic messages into the wall. Woah, that's dark.
— It's a Wonderful Life. It isn't. George Bailey gets pummelled by fate for his whole miserable existence and ends up in such a state he's ready to fling himself from a bridge, only to be haunted by nightmare visions of an alternate reality until poverty and life in a leaking house seems like a favourable option.
And of course you see Ewoks die in 'Jedi', particularly the moment where one realises his friend has been killed by the ATST lasers and starts howling over his body. Sheeeesh.
Jurassic Park was another one that seemed to slip through the net. The list of crimes include:
- Rex eating that accountant on the toilet in one gulp
- Raptors slicing and dicing Robert Peck (clever girl)
- Dickie Attenborough's hammy performance
I've always maintained that there was no way that the first big CGI-Speilberg blockbuster was going to get anything other than a PG rating given that without he'd not be able to get half as many bums on seats or shift half as many JP lunchboxes. Hollywood looks after it's own...
Jolly good. It's at 30:07 on the excellent podcast, for those who want to hear it.
I had an email of my own read out by the Wittertainers a few years ago. Remains the piece of my writing that my wife is most impressed by. Sorry, the piece by which my wife is most impressed.