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Region 4 DVD Censorship List

Censuring The Censors


Rod W coordinates and maintains these entries. He also maintains The Chopping List, a comprehensive guide to movies which have been censored in Australia.



Natural Born Killers (NTSC)

    When Oliver Stone originally presented Natural Born Killers to the MPAA, they demanded that several hundred shots depicting some incredibly cruel and nasty violence be removed, thus diminishing the point Stone was trying to make (i.e. that violence is not fun or cool). The version of the film contained on this disc is the MPAA-approved cut of the film, in which numerous killings, especially early on in the diner, don't make complete sense.

    The diner murder spree suffers approximately fifteen seconds of cuts, with numerous punches, kicks, and splatters of blood removed. As previously mentioned, these cuts also severely alter the flow of this sequence, which plays almost like a warped ballet in the director's cut.

    The beating of Mickey Knox outside the pharmacy is also cut by several seconds, with several shots of the police officers beating him with their clubs removed. Again, this destroys the intended flow of the sequence, which is intended to mimic the footage of the Rodney King beating.

    Finally, the prison riot sequence is heavily cut in this version. Numerous shots involving throat slashings, beatings, the shoving of a prison officer into a washing machine, a view through the bullet hole in Wayne Gale's hand, and finally the parading of McCluskey's severed head, are all removed. Again, these shots were carefully coordinated to resemble a kind of dance, and the rhythm of the film is severely disrupted by the absence of these shots.

    It should be noted that the Region 1 equivalent of this disc is similarly cut, and while there is also a director's cut available there, said director's cut is also available here, with the added feature of 16x9 Enhancement.