By Drew Dietsch
| Published
Hey everyone, Drew Dietsch here for Giant Freakin Robot and it’s time to talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: censorship!
The enemy of the artist and tool of the fascist, censorship is always rampant in the film world. What do you think ratings boards do?
I’ve given my thoughts about the Motion Picture Association before, but now, let’s widen the net and take a look at some extreme cases across the globe where the censors won the battle.
It’s time to look at sci-fi movies that were actually banned.
Back to the Future
Possibly the most well-known time travel movie ever made, Back to the Future certainly has its challenging aspects like a taboo comedic romance and outdated social acceptable norms and behavior, but none of those were the reason why China decided to ban the film in its entirety.
Back in 2011, China declared the very concept of time travel banned from movies and television shows.
Why?
According to the Chinese government censorship bureau known as the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or SARFT, time travel as a concept “disrespects history,” and “producers and writers are treating serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore.”
Time travel fiction allows writers to examine history as it relates to modern day, and some time travel stories even change history.
Gee, I wonder why authoritarian regimes would have a problem with people reexamining history and challenging it.
Akira
Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 adaptation of his iconic manga changed sci-fi, anime, and film history forever.
It ushered in anime as a major force for an adult demographic in America.
However, back in 2021, Russia decided to ban the film and many other anime movies and shows.
The despotic reason why?
It’s that old pearl-clutching chestnut from a figure every censor emulates, Helen Lovejoy. [“Won’t someone please think of the children?” Simpsons clip]
Yes, the almighty state declared that Akira could “harm the health and mental development of children.”
I’m sure it has nothing to do with depicting a corrupt and maligned military state taking advantage of children and turning them into mindless weapons for war. Nope! Nothing to see here!
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins made a huge splash with her 2008 novel and subsequent film adaptation about a dystopian future where children are used in gladiatorial entertainment for the masses, and eventually are crucial in overthrowing the fascist state.
The Vietnam National Film Review Board, or VNFRB, was not thrilled about this and delayed the original film’s premiere before banning it indefinitely.
A spokesperson for VNFRB called the titular games “too violent and ruthless.”
Funny enough, the book had been a big hit with Vietnamese youth.
In Thailand, protestors were even arrested for doing the three-fingered salute as a sign of rebellion against the country’s dictator.
That event actually led to the sequel, Mockingjay – Part 1, getting pulled from certain theaters by the distributor
Sure seems like all these dictators don’t like fiction that tells you how and why you should take them down.
Battle Royale
Before The Hunger Games got banned in Vietnam, heck, before The Hunger Games was even written, the idea of a sci-fi story about kids made to kill each other for a fascist government’s amusement was already creating controversy in Japan.
Battle Royale, originally a novel by Koushun Takami and also adapted into a manga, was as successful as it was controversial back in the year 2000.
The film was shortly banned in Germany back in 2013 but that ban did get lifted.
Instead, it’s time to call out the U.S. of A. That’s right, we’re enemies of art just like the rest of the world!
Since the US doesn’t have a government censorship board, this is an example of how a movie can get, let’s call it soft-banned in America.
Battle Royale’s distributor, Toei, wanted a wide release in the States.
The company was reportedly told by American lawyers representing a potential U.S. distributor that they would be put in jail if they tried to distribute the movie theatrically in North America.
One U.S distributor went as far as saying, “In the U.S., it will never get past the MPA ratings board (remember them?) [Quick flash of the Fuck the MPA card], and the major theater chains will never play it unrated.”
Though it would sneak its way into film festival screenings, Battle Royale would remain effectively banned from theaters in the United States for eleven years before being properly exhibited in 2011.
It just goes to show, if you think, “Oh, that can’t ever happen here in the Land of Freedom!”, it already has.
Island of Lost Souls
You think banning movies is a recent problem?
Guess again!
They’ve been banning movies since movies were movies, and Island of Lost Souls is a prime example.
This 1932 adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau was one of the most controversial films of its day due its depictions of malformed creatures, sexuality, and themes of race mixing and evolution.
This one tops the charts with outright bans at the time in Great Britain, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and Tasmania.
Whew! The censors really didn’t like this one! That makes me even more excited to watch it again.
The Matrix Reloaded
The Matrix was a box office sensation around the globe in 1999.
When the time came for its bigger budget blockbuster sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, in 2003, one government censorship panel was more than ready to hit it with a ban.
Egypt’s film board completely banned the sequel under the pretense that its exploration of religious and spiritual ideas could cause “crises.”
The fact that the movie focuses on a place called Zion gave ammunition to Egyptian critics who believed the movie pushed Jewish and Zionist beliefs.
So remember, the censors are okay with religion in movies as long as it’s “the right ones.” Funny how that changes depending on the censor.
Mad Max
Before there were any Fury Roads or Thunderdomes, Mad Max tore through moviegoers in 1979 with a hypercharged look at the descent of civilization into chaos.
That violent energy was not okay with the censors in New Zealand and Sweden, specifically this scene where a character gets torched in their car. [Goose being burnt up scene].
Thankfully, this is an instance where the ban was officially lifted. It only took New Zealand four years to figure out their mistake and lifted the ban in 1983. Sweden, however, didn’t cut the movie any slack until 2005.
Do these censors have nothing better to do with their time? Sure seems not,
A Clockwork Orange
There’s no other movie that could possibly end this list.
Based on the controversial novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange was adapted by Stanley Kubrick in 1971.
It didn’t take long before the film was being blamed for supposed copycat killings and gang violence, things that never existed in human nature before the movie.
Due to this social outlook on the film as well as multiple death threats he received, Kubrick himself had the film pulled from British theater circulation in 1973.
Warner Bros. honored Kubrick’s wish to keep the film out of theaters in Britain until his passing. A year after Kubrick’s death, Warner Bros. reapplied the film for British film certification and was accepted.
This is the rare case where the creator was the censor, but he didn’t need much help. The film had received official bans from censorship boards in Argentina, Brazil, Ireland, Singapore, and South Africa.
Sorry Stanley, we love your movies and can understand being afraid of death threats, but time has proven no censor will ever be able to stop the droogs or what the government wants to do to them.
Looks like my time is coming to a close but do you want to hear about even more banned sci-fi movies? Let us know in the comments, like the video, and subscribe to the channel and maybe we’ll make another one of these videos for you.
Until then, check out all the great videos we’ve got for you here at Giant Freakin Robot. At least, until YouTube decides to ban them.
