12A films and little children

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 12:08 am

I went to see Superman Returns on Saturday night (please see my thoughts on the thread if you want them) and the viewing was spoiled for me and the rest of the cinema go-ers by two very frightened 3-5 year old children. My point is this, is 12A a good idea for very young children and the rest of the audience? I don't think so and these are my reasons.

1) it has been classified as a 12 for certain reasons and these reasons should stay.
2) as a 3-5 year old a very realistic near plane crash is going to scare the shit out of you and give you seriously scary nightmares, it won't scare a 12 year old.
3) because of 2, the child gets scared and screams (generally loudly at important moments) and annoys the rest of the audience. There were so many deep breaths and sighs tonight that it was ridiculous.
4) if the child is scared they want to go to the toilet regularly - after the fifth time it got really annoying - this again annoys the audience especially when the 5 year old brother stands up on his chair when ''daddy'' has gone away and asks for ''daddy'' very loudly.
5) I have Unlimited cinema passes so although I pay I feel the cinema is effectively half-price because of the amount of times I go - however, a family of three would be paying over ?15 for tickets and then over ?5 for drinks and popcorn, etc. It ain't a cheap night out.
6) One from the youngsters point of view - how much is the very scared 3 year old going to thank their dad tomorrow? Not much because it was scared shitless throughout. How much is it going to remember? Not much - when it was in it had its hand over its eyes. How much did it cost dad the pleasure of being pissed off and taking his child to the toilet for 2 hours and comforting tonight when it is having nightmares? ?15!

I know this is an extreme example (and will hopefully not get worse than this - it can't in all honesty) but this is about the fourth time a 12A has been ruined for me at some stage by a very small child being scared. I understand that it is up to the parent to decide if their child is old enough to see it but I managed fine for 12 years of my life, just as the rest of us did. I honestly do think that there should be a limit of age for a 12A - possibly at 9/10 - the majority of kids will have seen it all on telly by then. After all, there is a definite limit on a 15 and an 18 and I hope that they don't change that one!
What do the rest of you think?

Post by **Mike** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:13 am

I think ratings are there for a good reason and they can be bent a little but 8 years is a unusual bending and probably pretty stupid. I think the parents suffered a bit of a lack in judgement there.

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:10 pm

It may come down to the parents wanting to see the film, but they just couldn't be arsed finding childcare/had problems doing so, and just said "to hell with it" anyway. Either that or they don't believe film ratings. Whichever way, they suck. I recommend sterilisation.

Maybe it's a reflection on inconsistent movie classification, however? I don't have the time to accurately test this one out, but it's also possible the last few certificate 12 ones the parents saw were fine for the kids, this one just happened to have a freaky classification. Although three and five are very young.

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 2:24 pm

all children under age of fifteen should be locked away in special labour camps until they can prove their worth to society - by that age we will be able to tell the decent from the proto-chavs and take appropriate action; i.e. minicing them to provide cheap food stuffs for the chavs too old to go through the camp process. in the space of a generation the gene pool will improve remarkably with its quality, the power crisis will be solved because there will be less people and hibbert will no longer have to put up with children at the cinema. a reasonable and intelligent reaction to the problem i think you will all agree.

mr_e · Post by **mr_e** » Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:40 pm

Fez for supreme ruler of Earth!

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:34 am

Oh my god, do you realise what you have just done. . . he is going to be insufferable now :D

Fez · Post by **Fez** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 3:03 pm

what do you mean now? :D

Post by **Mike** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:10 pm

Lizzie · Post by **Lizzie** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:58 pm

Most three year olds wouldn't be able to sit quietly through a film of say 2 hours regardless of the content- that's just the nature of being a small child with limitless enthusiasm and a low boredom threshold !!

I agree with Andy - it seems crazy to me to take a small child to the cinema at all !!

Post by **Mike** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 1:16 pm

People do wonder why you bother. . . .