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Anyway, the new movie "Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones" opens in the UK next week, and interestingly enough a peek at the bbfc website (who are responsible for movie ratings) shows that firstly this is the longest star wars movie to date: clocking in at a bum numbing 142 minutes and 5 seconds...- roughly the same length as "Gladiator" , and secondly this is the only Star Wars Film to date which has been censored by the UK film board.
Why? Well, whereas previous Star Wars movies have been released with a U certificate, This is a PG (Given the overall darker tone of the movie, that might be a good sign though). And thats in the cut by the censors version - It originally would have been a 12 certificate, which was made available to the distributor, 20th century fox, who instead chose to go with the edited version.
The offending sequence involves a fight scene where a headbutt - strictly a no-no for UK censors in the past, and now only recently allowed to be displayed - has been removed. It wont be the first movie in the Uk to be censored for headbutts; both the Mel Gibson movie "The Patriot" and "Goldeneye" were edited for this reason.
Oh well, thanks to draconian and archaic UK censorship laws, it looks like the UK will be the only place in the world where "Star Wars" - a childrens movie for gods sake! - will be censored. Let us not forget though, this is the same board of censors who once effectively banned a McCaluey Culkin childrens movie in the wake of the Jamie Bulger case, whereas everywhere else in the world, even a 7 year old could see it.
The movie opens next Thursday, with the level of fanaticism reaching the point that some cinemas are even holding midnight screenings to allow fans to see it early.And Yes, I'll be there representing DiS for the midnight screenings...and with a review posted as soon as i get out.But As some famous actor in some Sci-Fi B-movie once said , "Ive got a bad feeling about this"....
