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Topic: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
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Rob Young.
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1633
From: Cheshire, U.K.
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted July 06, 2012 08:36 PM
Luis, "Raiders"... not a single film closer to my heart!
Those super 8 prints (where DID they come from ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ) are so special.
Osi, now you've opened a can of snakes! The UK theatrical prints of "IJATTOD" were not only cut, but re-edited / sound-mixed at the request of the then head of the BBFC in order to acheive a PG rating here.
Raiders (1981) was rated A at time of release. The rating system was U / A / AA (15 and over) / X (18 and over).
By the time of "IJATTOD" release (1984), the UK had adopted U / PG / 15 /18 and TOD was declared a 15, unless alterations were made.
Now ratings were still important to a distributer (European release was CIC in the case of Paramount) because they could potentially still sever a major part of the film's intended audience (we were still just getting into home video rental / sell-through market), especially with a big summer Lucas-Berger production at that time.
So the then BBFC head (whose name I forget, but others will enlighten me) stepped in and declared TOD a 15 rated film, but could, with cuts (and direct negotiations with it's director) be released as PG.
Rumour has it, said "fella" rather liked hobnobbing with Hollywood types and throwing around his own "authority" (with a small "a"...my opinion)... although, of course this is all conjecture and myth of which validation I hold no responsibility.
Thus, when released theatrically in the UK, TOD had several cuts made.
This side of the pond, we really didn't have general access to the "UN-CUT" American version until the DVD releases about 10 years ago (I suppose, if you really wanted to, you could access NTSC VHS versions or NTSC Laserdisc versions).
And that is the "un-cut" version...the original PG-13 rated TOD you always saw in the good old USA.
What makes it worse is that when TOD had a video release here in the UK, more stupid BBFC ideas enforced further cuts to the UK theatrical version in order to ensure a PG rating on video cassette and subsequent DVD releases.
Anyway, I was going to go into the various cuts / alterations but it's late here and a long week at work...so if anyone is actually interested apart from Osi and myself I may consider ranting on about this subject some more...
Suffice to say, the US version of TOD is THE version (and a rather brilliant film I may add, even if deeply flawed and not quite what everyone, including the Berg expected to make at the time) and that us UK residents were made to suffer the various censoured "cut" versions because we are all stupid and can't bring up our kids not to punch each other in the chest just cos they saw it in a movie, least alone rip each other's hearts out.. and that as adults we really shouldn't whip children either cos that's wrong also... or crack a man's head against a cliff face... well, not if you can actual HEAR it... if you can do it silently it's ok, apparently... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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