Anakin Skywalker’s “Are you an angel?” speech is no longer suitable for universal audiences. Nor is Jar Jar Binks sticking his tongue in an electrical current. According to The Independent, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) now recommends parental guidance for Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace, slapping a “PG” rating on the film and upgrading its previous rating of “U” for universal. Although George Lucas’ first Star Wars prequel is filled with traumatic story decisions, such as Qui-Gon cheating at chance cube, the new rating is for space dogfights, which depict a nine-year-old killing hundreds aboard the Vuutrun Palaa droid control ship, and the “non-graphic” violence of Darth Maul getting bisected and dropped down a shaft.
This classification was revealed last year in the BBFC’s 2024 annual report and applied to last year’s re-release. It’s also not the only reclassified property. The BBFC finally got around to updating 1937’s A Star Is Born to “PG” for implied suicide, as well as television’s Frasier, which jumped from “PG” to “12,” for language (namely “son of a bitch”), drug references, and, presumably, Niles being a creep. Is there an episode in the new Frasier where Dr. Crane becomes addicted to Whippets and starts cursing like Martin Crane on his first tour of Korea? The world may never know.
Last year saw the largest reclassifying of films in the BBFC’s 112-year history. But it wasn’t all upgrades. The Crow and Fight Club were reclassified to lower ratings, decreasing from “18” to “15.” However, if you’re scratching your head about why Frasier went up and Fight Club went down, a statement from BBFC president Natasha Kalinsky will probably clear it up. TL;DR: They’re apparently offloading their judgements to AI.
In 2024, Kaplinsky said, the BBFC “classified more cinema features than ever before” and made “significant progress” toward adding BBFC age rating to stream services “through new deals with Prime Video and Netflix.” She saved the best for last. “Perhaps most exciting of all, we have continued our pioneering work with AI, ensuring that the BBFC remains at the forefront of film and digital content regulation. It has been a genuine privilege to lead the organisation at such an exciting and transformative time.”
Don’t want film ratings to be made by a frequently incorrect algorithm that makes people dumber when it isn’t making them go insane? Sadly, you can’t stop the change any more than you can stop the suns from setting.
