Full Series Clone Wars Too Violent for Kids?

Wow, interesting thread.

Now, I agree with the others that TCW is perfectly fine for an 8+ audience in terms of violence and I generally don't find it too violent for kids. Now granted some episodes may be a little iffy for very young children, but that's where parental guidance comes in. Besides, the show's violence is on the same level of the SW movies, with ROTS being the only Star Wars film whose violence is more intense, and people generally find the films to be okay/fine for kids and none of the SW films are as violent as the Indy films. Of course it does vary from child to child too, and every kid reacts differently to what they see in entertainment.

Personally, I'm fine with mild-moderate levels of fantasy and action violence in kids shows aimed at an older elementary and-or middle school aged audience.

Besides when it comes to stuff like violence Cartoon Network has aired shows like Sym-Bionic Titan, which, featured alien monsters having their arms ripped off and hacked into pieces, the new Thundercats, which, featured the Lion-O's father being stabbed in the back, and they also aired edgy TV-Y7 animated shows like Justice League for example.

Not to mention that the Toonami airings of DBZ (the Funimation dub/version) and Naruto (especially Naruto) showed a decent amount of blood in their episodes, despite being edited from the Japanese versions, not counting Toonami's airings of DBZ uncut, of course. And Naruto was barely edited in terms of violence on Toonami.

Then of course there's shows like Batman The Brave and the Bold, which, despite its lighter and softer tone, is pretty lax on showing death and death related themes.

Really? I thought the PG rating in the UK indicated that a film is okay for kids ages 8 and over, while still being suited for a general audience overall. From the BBFC site:

Parental Guidance
General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children

Unaccompanied children of any age may watch. A ?PG? film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older. However, parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger or more sensitive children.

I'm not trying to start anything with you Chewgumma, I'm just a bit confused, that's all.

Okay first I'll admit that I'm getting a little tired of people comparing America's standards on children's television and even American television standards in general to Japan's. Second, Japan's tolerance on what is appropriate to show in kid's TV, particularly when it comes to violence, is generally higher compared to most other countries, and not just America's.

 

When I was a kid I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies, so Raiders of the Lost Ark scared the CRAP out of me (particularly the aforementioned face-melting). I'd certainly let my kids watch most TCW, though there are a few episodes I'd have to think extra hard about before allowing that to happen. The real question is when my hypothetical children will be allowed to watch South Park.

 

I only recently came back to South Park as an animation buff. I'm sorry to say I started watching South Park when I was in 8th grade (I remember I did it just to be 'cool' like the other kids who were allowed to watch it). And a few years later I started watching Family Guy when nobody else knew what it was.

 

i don't watch TCW when it airs of TV so i have to ask- what is it's rating? Y or Y7? IMO only a handfull of episodes deserve Y7

 

TV-PG-V

 

Kids these days need to stop being so impressionable. If I were you I'd decide what shows my kids watch based on whether I deem them to be of sufficient overall quality after watching them extensively myself. If a show's a piece of crap, no. If it's good, hell yeah. Using violence filters means your kids miss out on a lot of quality programming.

 

@ImNotAStarWarsFanboy Well, I think sometimes violence is not very good for a kid even if the show is awesome. Still, it depend what the parents want their kids to watch. But, I think a carreful approach can be necessary in some cases and having a idea of what the show is all about is a plus. Theres some factors worth taking in consideration. For exemple, a show can be ok to be watch by a kid of a certain age and not really by another kid of the same age.

 

If I were you I'd reroute all the power from your violence filter to your sarcasm detector bro

 

Dude, I thought you were being serious.

I guess you'd be showing any young dependents of yours Starship Troopers in all its gory glory.

*****

@Anyone concerned that TCW might be too violent for kids:

There are a few potential trouble spots.

The most frequent deaths are the clones, naturally. Fortunately for people scared by the faces of dying men, most of them are helmeted. In R2 Come Home, however, we see a number of dead unhelmeted troopers and officers on the bridge of the crashed star destroyer. The sight of the face of one of Jango Fett's deceased clones prods Mace Windu's memory about Boba Fett. In Brain Invaders, we see Clone Captain Trap get graphically impaled while not wearing a helmet and trying to infect a Jedi with a brain worm. The camera then pans across the dead Trap's face. His half-lidded eyes are rolled into the back of his head.

There's also the infamous killing of ARC Commander Colt in the episode named after his unit type. He visibly chokes and looks panicked as he's pulled hurtling towards Ventress' lightsabre and then dies on-screen, with his body discarded like trash. It could also be considered sexualised violence due to the villainess kissing Colt's corpse. Since she's portrayed as evil, most kids should get the message that necrophilia is not okay.

In general, the clones usually die while screaming. That could either scare a kid or hammer home that death is not trivial. One thing you can't accuse TCW of is trivialising violence.

Another potentially troubling death scene is that of the Jedi youngling Khalifa in Padawan Lost. Most killing blasts to torsos in TCW leave behind smoking, glowing holes on both sides of the torso. In this case, Khalifa also dies slowly and painfully, evidently losing the ability to breathe. It's done dramatically, like all graphic deaths in TCW, but if you're uncomfortable with dramatic representations of children dying...

 

I've watched TCW with kids of various ages. I do alot of babysitting within my family and I use TCW because its so much better than having to listen to anything on Nick. All of them have different reactions to the series.

My 8 year old cousin won't watch any episodes that puts kids in danger and is scared of the clones. But he loves the Jedi and lightsaber duels. He acts them out but doesn't get overly excited. My 6 year old cousin isn't scared of anything in the show and likes to watch it. She knows violence is bad. I think she even has a crush on Anakin. My 13 year old brother loves the show and is often surprised by the violence and death in it. And lasty I'm guilty of letting my 3 year old niece watch it with them. I should probably put a stop to that since she has a tendency at laughing when people get hurt.

 

I really don't think 3-year old should watch this show....

 

Okay first I'll admit that I'm getting a little tired of people comparing America's standards on children's television and even American television standards in general to Japan's. Second, Japan's tolerance on what is appropriate to show in kid's TV, particularly when it comes to violence, is generally higher compared to most other countries, and not just America's. [/quote]

America used to have good action cartoons like the original Batman and Xmen cartoon shows. Today the action shows are much more tuned down. Also, Japanese cartoons are played on several American television networks that American kids can see so comparing it to American cartoons makes sense in this argument because it is the second most watch foreign production in the United States.

Also I like how over the years everyone just assumes this was suppose to be a kids show. Yes kids were considered as one of the targets and thats why droid humor was added but this tv show was originally made for HBO or FX. Only moving it to Cartoon Network has made it labeled a kids show (maybe that has to do with some of the writing too).

 

Do you have any sources? I can't imagine watching TCW on FX along side Archer on. I was googling around for sources when I stumbled onto this. Its a whole article about the torture scene in 'Brain Invaders' and it kinda has me wanting to break out my Cody headpalm.

 

@Seerow

That was certainly a massive flop on TCW's part. You could look at the torture/coercion situation in Counter Attack as an alternative to this. Even Piell makes it clear that not a single clone or Jedi will yield to the threat of death.

*****

I've just thought up a more overt antidote to Brain Invaders' dubious message:

An organic Separatist commander captures a large number of clone and non-clone POWs. He/she strides into the prison and orders the battle droid guards to subject the POWs to extreme pain. The apparent motive is to extract intelligence. However, the friendly neighbourhood tactical droid advises the commander that these techniques are ineffective; clones will die silently or feed the Separatists any old misinformation, while most of the non-clones will say anything - with no veracity - to avoid the pain. This is something they know from experience.

The commander does not care and explains to the tactical droid that the Separatist Congress knows nothing about this and gave him/her license to torture in order to discover the location of a Jedi espionage agent located on Raxus. However, the commander is simply indulging in a pathological hatred of clones/Jedi/Republic/humans/etc. The POWs all die under torture and no credible lead is discovered, but the commander is more than satisfied with the outcome.

Senator Blue Mandalorian finds out that the commander did this and fights for truth and justice, but in order to do this, he's forced to ally with the Republic he rebelled against...

Action ensues.

 

Pretty funny that came from a website called 'True Slants'. I think that author needs to watch more episodes before overacting like that. And comparing TCW to 24, dude...

I personally think 'Brain Invaders' as a whole was a flop and that's pretty serious coming from me. I wasn't big on the torture scene and was somehow amazed Anakin got away with it. How do Obi-wan and Luminara not come to the conclusion Anakin got nasty with Poggle. After they probably spent god knows how long trying to get stuff from Poggle then Anakin gets the answer to the brain slugs in 5 minutes. They should have called him out on screen. So TCW provided the message torture will accomplish something and you can get away with it and disobeying the rules all in one shot, so long as its important. As much as I sometimes get tired of Ahsoka, I also was disappointed she didn't have to solve anything for herself in this one. Rex and Anakin played Alpha and Zordon then told her what to do.

Totally off topic but I'm just sayin'.

 

Oh God, not the whole "kid's action programming back in the day were so much more hardcore and today's kid's action programming are watered down" claim again.

I see absolutely no difference between old action programs directed towards kids and modern ones, aside from the concept that back in nineties broadcast television {Not referring to cable here obviously} censors were less afraid of showing things like guns and dark themes. However, Bruce Timm admitted that the Joker couldn't kill anyone in BTAS. Why? Because it was a kid's show. And yet in contrast, in Brave and the Bold, the Joker kills Batman over and over again in the Emperor Joker episode, which is A] Also a kid's show and B] Made to be lighthearted. And while Batman came back to life and one or two of his deaths were cartoonish in the Emperor Joker episode, other characters, both minor and major, have actually died/been killed off for good in The Brave and the Bold show. Yes BTAS is darker in tone but still.

And what about Spiderman: The Animated Series? That aired in the nineties sometime after BTAS and yet it was heavily censored. And then there are the censorship standards that eighties kid's television had to go through. And the moral PSAs that cartoons like The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog had to do after the end of each episode. Thank God, those don't exist anymore. The thought of Anakin and-or Ahsoka delivering a moral message/Aesop directly to the audience at the end of every TCW episode makes me . Granted the standards on children's TV, particularly on action oriented programming, became stricter/toned down on broadcast television over the years but cable is a completely different story.

And tell me did BTAS or X-Men: TAS ever show anyone being impaled by something even if done strictly in a fantasy context? Or did both shows ever show someone's neck being snapped/broken on screen? I mean, that's one of the reasons why TCW is rated PG instead of Y7. Not that TCW is as violent as something like One Piece though. And that leads me to this:

Second, if I had my way nearly all Shonen related anime would be aimed directly at American kids. I wouldn't aim these shows at six year olds mind you, but I'll never understand why the manga versions of Shonen, which are more violent than the anime versions are still aimed at thirteen year olds in America. And yet the anime adaptations, whose violence is toned down even in Japan, gets slapped on Adult Swim, unless its some toyetic anime or DBZ. I'll make exceptions for anime like Death Note though, because while its intended for twelve year olds in Japan, it would be too risky to aim at American kids without catching the wrath of our moral guardians.

But then again, that brings me to my point about Japan's standards vs America's. While bloody violence is the main reason why a show intended for the youth demographic in Japan is aimed at older audiences in other countries {Then again I have a feeling that all one has to do to make a fight scene in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien on the same level as a fight scene in Naruto is to make sure that Ben, Gwen, and Kevin are all bleeding/are all covered in a few pints of blood after a fight} it isn't the only reason. Yes Japanese kids are less sheltered than American kids when it comes to TV programming and I'll state that it is unfair, but there's nothing one can really do about it.

And as for TCW being a kid's show, well if I had my way, nearly all the prime time stuff on CN whether it be TCW, Thundercats, Regular Show, and Adventure Time would be marketed towards all ages/family audiences rather than strictly kid's

 

I tend to agree that shows from back in the day (I consider myself a 90s kid) were not more violent than shows on cable TV today. I think people tend to believe they were because they look back on those shows with bias nostalgia (I'm guilty) and because many shows had episodes which were banned and remain banned to this day. Hell there were three episodes of Darkwing Duck banned from TV by Disney. You generally don't hear about banned episodes these days. I think Gargoyles is the most violent show I remember from back in the day. Its the only one I can remember which featured death, some torture, and there are some scenes that I'm still surprise made it onto TV. But the show was edited and even had an episode banned that dealt with the dangers of playing with guns and even had a great message. Still no one ever got impaled or had a neck snapped on any of those shows. I think TCW and even the Genndy series are more violent than most of the stuff that was on cable in the 90. TCW isn't the only show in that block with a PG rating either. Both Generator Rex, Young Justice, and Thundercats carry it.

On the subject of anime it interesting to see that Cartoon Network is actually pulling away from it and concentrated more and more on original action programming and franchise reboots/spin offs. Nick and Disney are heading the same direction in 2012. TCW season 5 is going to have alot more competition.

 

They should be as violent as the movies; even more so considering, this was the height of the war. At least this way you won't look back at your childhood with shame and regret like I did with G.I.Joe and other cartoons of the 1980's.

 

No one way! The level of violence is either the same or slightly under compared with the films themselves.

 

Adult Swim broadcasted TCW as part of Saturday night a while back. Ran long enough to get to 'The Deserter' as I remember seeing the end of it and being like 'WTF is this?' back then. Now its my second favorite episode... go figure. I'm not sure what the ratings were since I tend to only follow the comedy stuff on AS.

FX has a 22 or 43 minute runtimes. I wager the episodes would of had to of been shortened to 22 minutes for FX to air TCW as well. I can't see an SW property airing with Rescue Me. Its pretty easy for me to see why FX didn't take it given the kind of programming they show. Even ramped up I don't see how TCW ever would have made it if it weren't aimed at the 8-16 age group and families. Cartoon Network is a great place for it, obviously so since the show is quite successful.I honestly don't see how a Star Wars TV show of any kind would be taken seriously as more than a kid or family show by the regular Joes that watch TV. You can't rely entirely on an existing fanbase, even one as massive as Star Wars to make a show successful.

 

You know, I do agree that some individual kids shows in the past were more violent and edgier than kids shows today. If someone told me that Gargoyles was edgier than Ben 10: Ultimate Alien I would definitely agree with that. However, when people act like all nineties action kids shows were more violent and edgier than kids shows today and act as though kids TV censorship didn't exist until later is where I put my foot down.

Anyways, I'll admit that although TCW does contain elements that prevent it from being rated TV-Y7: FV, which I'd mentioned already in my previous post, it alongside CN's other PG shows, is basically an edgier use of the TV-Y7 rating. Although TCW is more intense than something like Ben 10: Ultimate Alien its violence is still fantasy oriented for the most part and admittedly one cannot compare TCW's PG rating to The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and so on. Of course The Simpsons is meant for adults first and foremost, while TCW is for kids, but both are kind of treated as family shows. Still The Simpsons can get away with more, because its marketed to a much older demographic. What annoys me though, is when people, (not on here mind you) ask why TCW or some other CN show is rated PG, even after they see something like someone being force-choked to death on the show. Plus I can accept TCW's PG rating because once again its violence is similar to the violence in the Star Wars films, and besides its easier to gear a show towards all ages/the general public if its rated PG instead of Y7 anyways.

However, there is no denying that if the MPAA were rating TV shows instead of their respective broadcasters, that stuff like Ultimate Alien, TCW, Thundercats, Young Justice, Gargoyles, X-Men: TAS, and so on would all be rated PG. That's because none of them, not even TCW, are intense enough to be PG-13, and it would be too risky to rate some or all of them G, because in John Q Public's eyes since oh let's say the eighties G = Disney Films. But, of course they are movie rating organization, and as much criticism as they get, (Personally, I think the MPAA needs to fix a few things in their system, but that is a different topic for a different day) they still have more leeway when it comes to rating stuff. People who give ratings to TV programs have to be more cautious because television is A) Less respected than films whether one likes it or not and B) Reaches a wider audience. This is probably why they had to edit out the use of 'hell' in Rookies during its second broadcast, but Han was still allowed to utter hell in ESB, and when ESB is played on TV it is usually played on channels that don't target kids such as Spike. Though I wonder if the use of 'hell' would have been edited out in reruns if the Rookies episode was originally rated TV-PG: VL.

If CN rated something like Ultimate Alien TV-PG then people would probably complain that it isn't TV-PG material and that is technically true. Yet if they rated TCW TV-Y7, even though its also regarded by John Q Public as being for roughly the same audience as Ultimate Alien, and is only a few pegs above Y7, then they risk getting complaints from parents. It's not fair, but its pretty much the truth. Would it be cool/interesting if CN did rate TCW as Y7 and it was allowed to show the same content it has shown so far? Sure. But, for now, its not going to happen.

All in all though as far as I'm concerned TCW is not too violent for kids in general.

Edit: Typos.

 

I believe they may have changed the guidelines. The BBFC have gone through a couple of overhauls over the years thanks to certain controversies. I owned quite a few VHS tapes with a PG rating, and emblazoned on the back was the explanation of the guideline meaning "Not suitable for children under 5."