Censorship

My country is a small one. We are 8 Millions and probably wouldn't have movies, TV shows ect dubbed into our language IF it wasn't German. Therefore when you go in a store you usually find the versions from Germany, which, especially for games, means heavily cut versions (that are STILL 18+ for some reason).

So there is this site, http://www.schnittberichte.com ("cut reports") that keeps track of all the cuttings and deleted scenes from movies, TV-shows and games. It's banned in Germany (now on an Austrian server, we don't care that much about cutting stuff here). It has very detailed lists that I find to be fun to read.

They played Kill Bill vol 1 last night. On TV. It crippled the movie to a still insanely brutal mess that was unbearable to watch if you've seen the movie in cinema. No report on the TV version yet (only one about the Japanese version vs. international theatrical release which seems to have less black and white and a little more gore).

I then continued browsing the games section. Which is scary. Just watch the German version (I always played the US version) of Half-Life.

But between all the ridiculous German game cuts I also found a few other gems.

Including the NES-classic Castelvania III which has been cut from the Japanese version to the US (which means international) one. There are like 5 pixels changed about such ridiculous things as clothes for a nude statues, clouds that are less dark, the devil having more yellow pixels to look less satanistic, a handshake instead of a kiss on the hand to make things less gay ect.

I also found out that there are some commodore/amiga/supersystem1985extreme games that were 18+ once and can now be found on a 3 years and up game compilation.

The whole site's German once again, sorry. It's still fun to watch the pictures and all the scenes that I remember watching as a little kid on TV (back then there was less cencorship) and are now left out completely. Sometimes even on the DVD. Also I don't know what exactly makes it less violent if people die with or without blood. They die.

Hilarious insanity. I always wonder what it's like to sit in a cencorship committee, watching splatter movies all day and then thoughtfully discussing the content and decidng whether headshots or shots in the belly are more brutal. And how to make Kill Bill a less violent movie.

hehe i can bareley read it but it's a nice link :biggrin:

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Hell, is an half-filled auditorium

A nation of pussies I tell you.
Good thing no-one gives a damn about such things here. Actually, if the
government even as much as implies something related to censorship
they'd have riots all over the place. Is that what people died for when
trying to destroy communism? Bleh.

Das Kreuz darf nicht mehr strahlen.

For some reason I find this little modification...a tad offensive.

I for one don't really care that much but others will.

I remember playing C&C Generals with a friend in Germany. I gave-up
after 5 minutes because I started having certain urges. Maybe because
the terrorists looked like a barrel on wheels?

The "shining cross" is one of my favourites, too. I mean it takes a theological, in-depth analysis of biblical symbolism to even find out why this should be offensive.

Also spot the difference between these two:



I was quite surprised to see cencorship of this scale in a US release. Other then that I think that the USA is in no way inferior when it comes to rigorous cencorship. It's more about sxual content in the US I think. For example Lost in Translation is R-rated in the US because of sexual content (which I didn't find btw.) while in Germany every 6 year old can watch it. 6-year olds would be pretty bored though, I guess.

_____________________________________________________

Some of my favourites from the site: A cut Tom and Jerry episode

Also if you ever wondered how a 16+ version of "Dawn of the Dead" (called "Zombie" in Germany, I never realised this!) looks in Germany take a look here. Imagine that every scene containing the displayed picture was cut. 13 minutes of action.

Ah yes the cloud thing.

I've read and understood the explanation, but not the logic.

Poor german people... :sad: I feel sorry for them. We don't dub much in
here. Usually just the childrens cartoons. Also what I've seen from the
IMDB some movies are rated way more harshly in contries like US and
Germany than in here. It's just foolish mark something as Mature
content because of sex when there even isn't sex in the movie. :sad:

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

I'd like to see more censorship. I'm sick of curse words and nudity and sex scenes in everything. I mean... does EVERY movie and episode of a show have to have a sex scene? Yeah, we can leave shining crosses and dark clouds and red Devils, but more of certain kinds of censorships would be FINE with me.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

I WANT MY SEX, DRUGS AND ROCK N' ROLL!
In my entertainment I mean. How does removing blood from games make
them any more suitable? It's same as cencoring news because someone
might actually learn something about what's happening...

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Nickelplate said:
I'd like to see more censorship. I'm sick of curse words and nudity and sex scenes in everything. I mean... does EVERY movie and episode of a show have to have a sex scene? Yeah, we can leave shining crosses and dark clouds and red Devils, but more of certain kinds of censorships would be FINE with me.

Conversely, I'd love the US to come more in line with Europe, in that violence isn't glorified, and sexuality isn't taboo.

Sex scenes are an easy way to show affection between characters. It's because the film doesn't have years to build up character relations for you.

Not every movie has sex or nudity, in any case. (The MPAA is actually quite strict on sexuality and nudity ... not so much on violence though.)
It's also more natural than shooting someone in the face or lobbing them into a wood chiper. (Stormare!)

Addicted to FModulation, I don't think that's going to happen. You have to be ashamed of your body, didn't you know that?

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

What's the explanation behind that cloud thing?

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

Crono said:
Sex scenes are an easy way to show affection between characters. It's because the film doesn't have years to build up character relations for you.

I keep forgetting that Americans are the stupidest people in the world. God Forbid they should have to REMEMBER character traits...

Crono said:
Addicted to FModulation, I don't think that's going to happen. You have to be ashamed of your body, didn't you know that?

Bullcrap. How about a little bit of modesty. It's a good thing to learn and nobody seems to be teaching it.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

the Cloud one is

In the Intro, when history is described briefly, the threatening black clouds were changed.

Translated for the lazy

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Why Do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties

So the blue part is actually sky and not clouds? :biggrin: Damn.

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''Everyone wades in s**t until they're competent enough to walk on it. Jesus style.''
Dystopia - Empires

I'm sick of curse words and nudity and sex scenes in everything.
I mean... does EVERY movie and episode of a show have to have a sex
scene?

Those are bulls**t commercial films you're talking about. They
shouldn't be censored. They shouldn't be produced in the first place.
In a normal world,
these medium-low budget inane movies wouldn't sell because they all follow the same basic recipe.
Some loose-cannon hero cop supahero who has to prove to himself/to his boss/society that he is da man, a bad guy (usually a
terrorist/commie/commie-terrorist), a sexy girl caught in the middle of
the action who invariably has sex with said hero (always before the
final showdown), some sappy story about the hero losing his
parents/children/family/pet goldfish, which is revealed to the girl
complete with flashbacks and scary music, the final gunfight in which
the hero is wounded. Of course the "bossfight" always takes place in an original location such as a warehouse/nuclear
plant/smelter/dam. Bleh, pretty soon they'll start adding crates too.

Crono said:
Sex scenes are an easy way to show affection between characters. It's because the film doesn't have years to build up character relations for you.

I keep forgetting that Americans are the stupidest people in the world. God Forbid they should have to REMEMBER character traits...

Crono said:
Addicted to FModulation, I don't think that's going to happen. You have to be ashamed of your body, didn't you know that?

Bullcrap. How about a little bit of modesty. It's a good thing to learn and nobody seems to be teaching it.

I never said modesty and being ashamed were the same thing. But you said "nudity" and everyone was retorting to that.

In any case, that comment was sarcasm. I didn't make it light blue because, if you didn't notice otherwise, it wasn't directed towards you.

To your first comment, what are you talking about? Character traits? Perhaps in a cookie cutter movie, but not on average. That is such a bizarre comment towards film making. Name a specific film and I'll elaborate, otherwise, let it go.

As for the censorship in Germany. While I understand why they censor this, it still doesn't make 100% in the sense department.
Anything that shows a swastika is censored. Period. They also change blood colors to green because killing aliens is more humane than killing anything else, supposedly.

The swastika thing, though, really bugs me. People associate swastika with Nazis (even though is should really be associated with peace)... and that with Hitler and not Germany as a whole. I hate political censorship like this. In china a film maker (can't remember his name, and this is very recent, like this week) has been banned from making films in China for at least 3 or 5 years (can't remember which) because he showed footage of the Tienanmen Square incident in a film he just released. That is bulls**t. Countries should own up to what they've done in the past. No one is judging the country on things that happened decades ago any longer. If that were the case: no one would go to Germany, the US would be favored by many countries, and everyone would fear Russia ... none of which happens today.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Crono said:
Countries should own up to what they've done in the past. No one is judging the country on things that happened decades ago any longer. If that were the case: no one would go to Germany, the US would be favored by many countries, and everyone would fear Russia ... none of which happens today.

Well said.

If countries were to own up to what they've done in the past, the same people not going to Germany wouldn't go to the US, Canada, or pretty much any country involved in WWII. North America has a convenient way of blaming things that were happening the world over on one country and clearing themselves of blame. Both Canada and the US were extremely anti-jewish for a long time. Many parts of the world were. Yet as soon as Hitler took it a bit too far we all shifted blame.

If countries owned up to what they did, every history book would have to be rewritten.

Whatev.

The censorship in Germany is such that they cannot even sing their old national anthem "Deutschland Uber Alles" (Germany over all) or even produce songs, poems,books, etc that contain any kind of nationalism where a german hero gains glory, honor, wins against other countries.

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I tried sniffing coke, but the ice cubes kept getting stuck in my nose.
http://www.dimebowl.com

French Toast said:
If countries were to own up to what they've done in the past, the same people not going to Germany wouldn't go to the US, Canada, or pretty much any country involved in WWII.

how the f**k do you figure that one out?

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i eat paint

Nickelplate, I think you consider that a violation of the "freedom of speech". On the one hand that's true. On the other hand what happened during the Nazi regime was a turning point for Germany. More then even for the other countries involved.

I think when people realized how terrible (and it can't get much worse than what happened during WW2 and Hitler) this was they decided that noone should ever forget these events, using them as the ultimate argument against war and nationalist hatred. We (Austria was part of Germany) said that nothing like this should ever happen again.

To make this possible you have to make sure noone ever forgets or belittle what happened. This is one of the ground principles of our countries. If you let anyone doubt the Holocaust or Hitler's inhumanity there is a danger of a political movement that doesn't accept this ultimate argument. That goes back to where Hitler begun. Therefore anything that gloryfies the NS time is forbidden. And that's a good thing. Of course you can show Hitler or swastikas ect in a documentary or critical way. But glorification (which includes extenuation to a point) is forbidden to keep the Nazi regime as an ultimate warning for the future.

I'll call for greater censorship of the media. Ample and widespread use
of sex and violence as tools for sales are one of the key factors
affecting the decline in moral standards within Britain, at least.

anti-censorship

I think it's silly that some things have randomly been deemed "inappropriate" for no reason and these things are thus "bad". Like swearing.. um, so there are a few words in the language that are called "bad'.. why exactly? It's a language full of words, why these ones? Who decided that these ones in particular should be considered socially unacceptable? What about sex, without it none of us would exist - yet it's not shown and talk of it is censored/limited on TV, kids are hardly taught about it... why sex and not some other mundane thing?

Seems so stupid that we choose a select few words in a language, deem them "bad" and have people avoid them, and don't teach kids about the single method we have to reproduce. Er... why? Think about it. Logically. What if these subjects weren't so taboo and unacceptable?

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-- midkay

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Nickelplate</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>I'd like to see more censorship. I'm sick of curse words and nudity and sex scenes in everything.</DIV></DIV>
This disgusts every inch of me.

There

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with-

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The

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nude.

To abhor the same nature of which your God claims authorship is absurdity if not blasphemy. Very scripture constantly esteems sex and the beauty of the human form. Regardless of your theory or myth of creation, distaste for sex is a patent abberation from the natural.

fishy said:

French Toast said:
If countries were to own up to what they've done in the past, the same people not going to Germany wouldn't go to the US, Canada, or pretty much any country involved in WWII.

how the f**k do you figure that one out?

Yeah.

I meant in acknowledgement. Continuing to deny any sort of media about negative events that happened in your country is garbage. That is what I was talking about.

The US used to try to do this by disallowing things that showed the government in a negative light. That is no longer the case, however.

Edit: Just to note, I'm strictly talking about film and entertainment mediums, not news. Since that is most definitely censored heavily here. And is also a joke.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Yeah, I don't understand the stigma of sex and talking about it, and yet hyper-violence is 'okay'. No wonder we still have problems with the spread of STIs and not to mention a lot of peoples' unsatisfying sex lives, it's practically a crime to pass tips on down the line. It often ends up coming through uneducated channels and the mis-information prevails because nobody wants to talk about it and thus it never is corrected/verified.

I think gratuitious violence and sex for the sheer sake of it is lame, but excluding it based on the fact that it is violence or sex is also retarded.

They played Kill Bill vol 1 last night. On TV. It crippled the movie to a still insanely brutal mess that was unbearable to watch if you've seen the movie in cinema.

Don't feel bad, they crippled it on American cable too. Among other crappy edits, the "pussy wagon" became the "party wagon", and the end fight scene became about five minutes long.

I find it interesting to think about the reasons, the true, deeper reasons for all the cencorship. (and I too mean this more in entertainment rather than political cencorship which is a topic of its own)

Usually it's just two extremes fighting each other. Extremly prudish, "on principle" cencorship based on hundreds of years old, unquestioned traditions and "freedom of speech" anti-cencorship movements on the other side. Usually these are even divided by topics. You can ask for less cencorship about one topic and demand more on the other (sex vs violence for example).

What noone really asks is why cencorship exists. Then you could bring real arguments. For example a neutral study about what came first: violence in movies or violence in reality? And are people less horny if they don't watch porn? :rolleyes:

PS: rs6, that sounds aweful. I think the German cut was even better than that. Party Wagon? Did Quetin shoot the scene with a different lettering?

French Toast said:
If countries were to own up to what they've done in the past, the same people not going to Germany wouldn't go to the US, Canada, or pretty much any country involved in WWII.

how the f**k do you figure that one out?

The US and Canada both denied many ships full of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany because at that time in the world, they weren't a liked people. Swear all you want about it, but until the rest of the world learned of the concentration camps (and other things of that nature), Nazism was popular worldwide.

PS: rs6, that sounds aweful. I think the German cut was even better than that. Party Wagon? Did Quetin shoot the scene with a different lettering?

No, it was just a really s**tty tv edit.

Im afraid to post my feelings becuase i live in the United States

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Why Do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties

Commercial tv sensors stuff here, usually removing the really violent bits and excessive swearing. But the point to note is they don't do it because they think its wrong or the content shouldn't be shown. They do it so they can show MA15+ and R movies during prime time, cutting bits out to get an M15+ rating.

So the result is all the jokes in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels no longer make sense and all the final killing moves in action movies disappear (decapitations or any other kind of brutal head wound get removed). I believe they even edited out the graphic scenes in Saving Private Ryan, noteably the intestine spilling in the initial beach landing scenes.

I think ratings systems and all the rest are extremely important and a good thing, however I don't believe in censoring content, particularly just to get it to a lower rating. They should either show it in its entirety or not at all. While movies/games/etc are commercial products, they are also forms and works of art and should be treated us such.

Thats why I love SBS, quality content from around the world shown in its un-edited, un-censored entirety. Its the only channel in Australia that would program a show like Oz into its regular broadcasting.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting French Toast</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>

<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quote:</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting French Toast</DIV>
<DIV class=quotetext>If countries were to own up to what they've done in the past, the same people not going to Germany wouldn't go to the US, Canada, or pretty much any country involved in WWII. </DIV></DIV>

how the f**k do you figure that one out?</DIV></DIV>

The US and Canada both denied many ships full of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany because at that time in the world, they weren't a liked people. Swear all you want about it, but until the rest of the world learned of the concentration camps (and other things of that nature), Nazism was popular worldwide.

</DIV></DIV>

WWII, believe it or not, wasn't about the Jews.
And no-one knew the extent of the camps until the war was almost over, by which time anyone that would stand against the Nazis was already doing so.

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i eat paint

A fantastic comic that explains everything:
www.tmcm.com/comics/webcomics/110_story

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Better to be in denial than to be human.

Bill Gates understands binary: his company is number one, and his customers are all zeros.