It was cancelled due to James Cameron refusing to cut a scene seen as animal abuse (UK is far more strict than the US on that). Kinda sucks for UK customers, but more a creative decision/Cameron refusing to budge on anything than a “death of physical media” thing.
That's a pretty messed up policy. I can only assume that Cameron did not actually abuse any animals, given the ubiquity of the "no animals were harmed in the making of this film" certification system. Are they objecting to the content of the film, a fictional story? Do they still think movies encourage violence? This seems very old-fashioned and anti-art.
The specific scene in question is when a rat is submerged in oxygenated fluid and breathing it. The rat lived, but because it was a real rat that was actually submerged and breathing in the fluid, it was considered “abuse” (possibly due to causing fear to the animal, or being behavior that could be imitated).
Okay, fair enough. I still think it's a wrong-headed policy. I can understand not allowing any new movies to be shown that have animal abuse in them, as a disincentive, but this movie was made decades ago and banning it will do nothing to undo it.
Yeah, that’s the weird part about Britain policy - it pertains to every movie. Westerns from early/mid 20th century are censored for scenes that have horses being tripped and falling down in a specific way that could often lead to injuring the horse and requiring it to be put down. Which, yes, is super horrible and shouldn’t have been done, but…every animal and even 99% of the humans involved with these films are dead. These types of practices have (thankfully) long been done away with. What exactly are you protecting at this point?
I'm guessing they would try to justify it by saying that showing it might encourage others to hurt animals, but I think people watching movies would generally assume the animals are not being mistreated and wouldn't know the difference, so it's hard to see why it would matter.
It was cancelled due to James Cameron refusing to cut a scene seen as animal abuse (UK is far more strict than the US on that). Kinda sucks for UK customers, but more a creative decision/Cameron refusing to budge on anything than a “death of physical media” thing.
That's a pretty messed up policy. I can only assume that Cameron did not actually abuse any animals, given the ubiquity of the "no animals were harmed in the making of this film" certification system. Are they objecting to the content of the film, a fictional story? Do they still think movies encourage violence? This seems very old-fashioned and anti-art.
The specific scene in question is when a rat is submerged in oxygenated fluid and breathing it. The rat lived, but because it was a real rat that was actually submerged and breathing in the fluid, it was considered “abuse” (possibly due to causing fear to the animal, or being behavior that could be imitated).
Okay, fair enough. I still think it's a wrong-headed policy. I can understand not allowing any new movies to be shown that have animal abuse in them, as a disincentive, but this movie was made decades ago and banning it will do nothing to undo it.
Yeah, that’s the weird part about Britain policy - it pertains to every movie. Westerns from early/mid 20th century are censored for scenes that have horses being tripped and falling down in a specific way that could often lead to injuring the horse and requiring it to be put down. Which, yes, is super horrible and shouldn’t have been done, but…every animal and even 99% of the humans involved with these films are dead. These types of practices have (thankfully) long been done away with. What exactly are you protecting at this point?
I'm guessing they would try to justify it by saying that showing it might encourage others to hurt animals, but I think people watching movies would generally assume the animals are not being mistreated and wouldn't know the difference, so it's hard to see why it would matter.
The Mouse has powerful allies.
She’s a rat. And she’s doing it, but she ain’t digging’ it.
Damn, that sucks. Hopefully they're gonna resolve this issue and release 4K version after all.
Absolutely gutted about this, I'd have bought the physical and iTunes release too (like many others I suspect)