Just this morning Life! put up an article about A Game of Thrones and Spartacus in Singapore… and it got me to thinking, what are the chances of these shows surviving the censor’s scissors?
According to the cable companies, because of the age limits on A Game of Thrones (NC16) and Spartacus (R18), both series managed to get through the censors with minimum edits. Even so, I’m not too hopeful. It’s great that the age limits will cut down on edits, but there’s quite a bit of boobage and gore in A Game of Thrones, and Spartacus is positively rife with both of them.
In the Life! article, it was revealed that an average of 3% of A Game of Thrones was edited out, while Spartacus had 5% hit the cutting room floor. While these numbers don’t seem so bad, that means that 2-3 minutes out of every hour is going to be edited out. And 2-3 minutes is a big deal if it’s a key scene.
Some gore or sex could probably be safely edited out of the shows (I’m assuming the gladiator fights in Spartacus), but I fear that certain scenes will be rendered useless due to censorship. Lots of Spartacus and Game of Thrones eps have violence and gore that and in some way or another is integral to the plot, and while off the top of my head I think most of the boobs from Game of Thrones can be edited out, there’s that one key scene in a whorehouse that I think really speaks volumes about quite a major character and his worldview. Plus apparently an entire gay subplot got edited out of Spartacus at the hands of the Cable censors.
So here’s the question to you Singaporean viewers out there: how do you think Spartacus fares against the censor’s shears, and do you think A Game of Thrones will suffer the same fate when it comes to Singaporean Cable shores?
Simple, go online and watch free with 0 censorship. Sick of watching a show thats getting censor and censor and censor. whats the point really?
And not forgetting for a average 40mins show theres already 20 mins on adverts, i do not bother watching TV anymore.