Movie ratings question

So, the South Park movie shot for a G-rating, and despite the film's title, some NC-17 footage was reluctantly deleted by Parker and Stone.

The Beavis & Butt-head movie was kept relatively tame, as if the producers were striving to avoid an R rating. Also, it's possible that they might have wanted to make sure the film could be shown on network TV eventually.

However, I can remember two early 1980's "family" films which seem to have had dirty words forced in for no other purpose other than to avoid a G rating.

Annie: Late into the film, Carol Burnett's character says "God dammit." It seemed so gratuitous that I suspected that her only purpose in saying that was to assure the film avoids a G rating.

Popeye: Also late in the film, Popeye is heard saying "Shit!" while jumping off of a ship. Since the scene is a long shot, the word shit could have very easilly been dubbed in as an afterthought.

I know I might be getting a bit off-topic (sorry), but can anyone confirm my suspicions that these two films were "toned up" to get PG ratings?

On Tue, 06 Jul 1999 02:34:58 GMT, "Eric Perlin" wrote:

I know of two other movies rumored to have been bumped up to get a stronger rating...

Star Wars - A New Hope (the first one, from 1977) - supposedly it was going to pull a G rating and Lucas opted to throw in the scene with the scorched skeletons of Luke's aunt and uncle.

The Transformers Movie - one of the characters utters "oh shit". This was also to bump the movie up from G to PG.

----- Lone Wolf Well, isn't that cute. BUT IT'S WRONG!!!

"I'm gonna go play some D & D... in memorium." "That's touching, man." - Froehike and Langely, The X-Files

E.T. was also, IIRC, "beefed up". There's a gratuitous cursing scene between the kids early on, and that's it - other than that, a straight G movie.

In article , [email] says...

I also thought that the bloody arm in the cantina scene was included to get the PG rating.

On 6 Jul 1999 04:13:23 GMT, [email] (Daniel Gilison) wrote:

Ah! That could also be very true... if not moreso.

----- Lone Wolf Well, isn't that cute. BUT IT'S WRONG!!!

"I'm gonna go play some D & D... in memorium." "That's touching, man." - Froehike and Langely, The X-Files

hey i was going to say that and another is when Ultra Magnus says Damn it open

Patrik2958 remove the no junk to reply

(snip)

I remember watching that movie as a kid in the theatre! Watching, horrified, as every transformer was dying left and right. Now that I look back on it, I have the movie on tape, they took a pretty bold step. Hell nowdays it would probably get a PG-13 rating because of the cussing and excessive violence!

Lets see

torture Capitol punishment cussing violence death horrible music Human like machine parts being blown into little bitty peices (Ultra Magnus death...or deconstruction on the planet of junk)

Sounds PG-13 to me. It's a classic movie, in my eyes atleast. It's just a shame they brought back Optimus, that kindof cheapen what the movie meant. And they should've just left Ultra Magnus dead, he didn't need to be reconstructed in that movie!

Utopi Awe

On Tue, 6 Jul 1999 11:49:48 -0400, "Utopi Awe" wrote:

Nah.. I remember maybe twice that there were curses, and I don't think anuy actual humans died... I doubt the rating committee would care as much about robots getting iced.

Hey, man... Weird Al was on that soundtrack. Backdefuckup.

All the new characters from that movie sucked... they kill one of my most favorite guys, Starscream, redisgn some of my other favorites, Skywarp and Thundercracker, make Megatron into this geeky-looking ray gun... and I hated how in the beginning of the movie, they basically just say, "by the way... the following Autobots died in the war..."

----- Lone Wolf Well, isn't that cute. BUT IT'S WRONG!!!

"I'm gonna go play some D & D... in memorium." "That's touching, man." - Froehike and Langely, The X-Files

You never know in this day and age. :) And the robots didn't just die, they were killed in some pretty cruel ways.

Magnus

I'm just happy Jazz lived! And when I was little, I loved Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime. But generally, some of the new characters sucked. But, the whole point of the movie was to usher in a new line of toys, sadly. However, I respect them for having the guts to kill off everyone. They were in a war, and it's expected some people are going to die. It seems kindof dumb if everyone lived throughout the war in my opinion.

Utopi Awe

Eric Perlin wrote:

Um, I think you mean that they shot for an R-rating, right?

-Toni

OOPS! Yes, that _was_ what I meant. I must have posted that message at about 2:30 in the morning!

[email] wrote:

I sure as hell don't mean to sound like I'm clamoring for more G-rated films, but I do remember that the first "Star Trek" movie was rated G, although it was definitely not a kiddie film. Of course, the first Star Trek film was a big box office hit, and nobody dismissed it as a kiddie movie just because of its MPAA rating.

I think it's pointless for filmmakers to set out to avoid a G rating, because of a presumption that a PG would help a film make more money.

Also, I'm all in favor of mainstream theaters showing more NC-17 movies. If NC-17 films were guaranteed the same amount of distribution as R movies, producers would not have to censor their own films just for wider release.

I guess I'm against any alteration of films just for the sake of receiving a desired MPAA rating; regardless of whether this involves the toning down of would-be NC-17 films, or the "toning up" of would-be G movies.

In article , Eric Perlin wrote:

It was. So was "2001".

• Juan F. Lara