PINEAPPLE EXPRESS Softened For UK Audiences?
Hello! I’m just back from an advanced screening of Tropic Thunder and have an hour before I’m heading back out to watch Pineapple Express (what a day huh?!?) and I caught this tidbit floating around the internet. I will be utterly gutted if this turns out to be true! I suppose I’ll find out in the next couple of hours eh?
From the IMDB:
Comedian Seth Rogen was forced to cut a hardcore drug scene from his new movie Pineapple Express – because the footage was deemed too explicit for British viewers.
Rogen claims one scene, in which he is seen smoking a super-strong type of marijuana, had to be removed from the U.K. version after the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) members censored the footage – even though the scene was left in for the American release.
But Rogen admits he relented to the ruling because he wanted to secure a lower certificate for the U.K. audience, allowing those 15 and over to see the film – as opposed to the R rating, meaning it can only be seen by over-17s, that it received in the U.S.
He says, “We had to remove stuff from the movie to get the rating that we needed. We’re actually more responsible in the U.K. than we are in the States.
“There’s a scene in the movie when we sell (drugs) to high school kids – that’s still in there I assume. But in the American version of the scene we also smoke weed with them and hang out.
“It’s a really explicit scene of us getting high with these 11-year-olds. I think for the U.K. they’ve kind of softened it a bit.”
He adds: “We had no moral obligation with this movie. I mean, it’s an R-rated movie, you have to be 17 in order to see it so we figure at that age you’re an adult. I’ve been seeing R-rated movies since I was 12 years old and I’m Ok! Not really.”
So clearly us Brits are going to have to wait for one of those “Extended Editions” of the DVD (we’re not allowed to have DVD releases entitled “Unrated” because… well… according to the BBFC “no film will be in the public forum within the UK unrated or unclassified”) to see Pineapple Express in full? What the fuck?
On a different note, the article underneath this one over at the IMDB reads ‘Police Have Potential Suspect For Murder Of Kutcher’s Ex’ – I can summarise it here for you now to save you reading it: Demi Moore is SO fucked!
3 Responses to “PINEAPPLE EXPRESS Softened For UK Audiences?”
You’re really not missing much. It’s just him and Franco standing around smoking with some kids. It’s the scene in the trailer when Franco is breakdancing.
I’d still like to see it as it is intended, not “censored”. Anyway, I’m off now to go take a look for myself…
:p
Meh. Honestly, by the sound of it the jetisoning of this scene isn’t going to detract from the movie anyway so I’m not bothered by them cutting it out. Hell, it’s not like it’s the only movie to ever get a cut and a lot of the time it’s much more severe.
Interestingly though, the BBFC website lists the running time of the movie as 111 minutes. And the IMDB lists the running time as 111 minutes. So unless they cut the scene out after the 4th of August (when the BBFC last updated the entry) I’d expect the scene to actually make it into the movie.
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