Nowadays, UK films (mainly book adaptation) are getting cut for 12s here, there and everywhere. Hunger Games only needed minor (totalling about 7 seconds) cuts to get to a 12, so how on earth did the fist-through-chest get through as a 12? BBFC said that it was only 'fantasy violence', but the near future setting was only a year after the film's release and there was a lot of blood, too.
T3 would definitely be a 15 if released today.
Back cover of my DVD (Netherlands) says 16. I think it's always been 16 here, though some channels here would easily say 12 for a broadcast.
http://www.trespasser.nl/pta/pta.pdf -->> Planes, Trains and Automobiles script
I'm in the UK. In most other countries it's a 16 such as in Germany.
shareI tend to agree......it was rated R in the states, and R rated films are almost always rated 15 or 18 here in the U.K. In fact, numerous films rated PG-13 in the states for violence(Cloverfield, the original Fast & Furious)fail to get their UK 12A equivalent and are passed 15. The bbfc must've been having an uncharacteristically generous day ?. However, the strongest 12A film I've ever seen is Casino Royale- no question.
shareThe BBFC cut things based on how much influence a scene can have on an audience. Nobody can hardly put their fist through a person, can they...
When the Bruce Lee movies were first released people were picking up nunchukas and using them on others. The films were recalled and the nunchuk scenes were cut. That is just one example of how the BBFC's policy works.
Its not the amount of violence. Its whether those scenes can be realistically imitated.
Realism/possibility of impersonation is definitely a factor......but if that was the SOLE factor in film classification, how would you explain- say- Freddy vs Jason getting an 18 rating? What you say has an element of truth, certainly, in that T3 scraped a 12A because of the fantasy element, but its still a slightly surprising decision in my opinion. T2 was rated 15 after all- and had to be cut to avoid an 18 rating! And id say it was equally fantastical, and only slightly more violent.
shareLuckily T2 is an uncut 15 these days (and rightly so) but is more than slightly more violent than T3, if you take into account who's involved in the violence. I'm sure that if the arm/eye operation in T1 was being performed on a human then it would still be rated 18 today.
Anyway, back to the subject. IMO the chest punch is made worse by the fact that it was done to a human (and makes me even more surprised that it got through with a 12), but if you ignore the whole 'human or robot' situation, what's worse? A punch through the chest, or eyeball/face stabbing & slicing your arm and ripping the skin off?
However, the strongest 12A film I've ever seen is Casino Royale- no question.
Apparently, to get the PG-13 in the states the reverse happened- the opening bathroom fight was cut (as was the fight with the 2 African warlords in the hotel), but the torture scene was left intact! Iv seen the uncut 15 rated version, very little cut as you've said.....i just think the overall tone and content was very strong for a 12A. And i suspect it got a pass cos it was Bond ?
shareThe Intruders was only PG-13 in the USA, but it got 18 in the UK. How rare PG-13 rated movie get 18 in the UK?
shareThis got 14 rating where I'm from, the first two got 16 rating, I also believe it was later re-rated to 12.
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