Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which features (among other things), guys having alien parasites crawl inside their heads, someone screaming as they are vaporized by a phaser, bodies of murdered scientists hanging from the ceiling of a laboratory, an Enterprise crewmember screaming after an explosion engulfs him in flames, and general battle-related explosions, people getting tossed a bout, heavy objects landing on and crushing folks, etc., got a rating of PG.
I understand it would have gotten PG-13 if the rating had existed yet. To this day, it’s one of the more brutal Star Trek films.
Oh yeah? The Dark Knight, PG-13. Now, I’ll grant that there was not a lot of blood, but an audience full of kids got to see a cell phone stitched inside a chest, just as it triggered a bomb, bombs in peoples’ mouths, lots of people just getting shot, the infamous disappearing pencil scene, and various people killed and tormented in extremely vicious ways. One “motherfucker” and it would have been R.
And then we have Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, rated R because of one (one!) very funny scene that repeatedly uses the word “fucking.” I would have given this one a PG-13.
This Film Has Not Been Rated is an interesting documentary about the process.
If I recall, The Dark Knight was basically bloodless. And that’s why it (along with Revenge of the Sith) were able to get away with PG-13. No blood = no R.
Big, which was released after PG-13 was invented, had a PG rating despite a KID saying FUCK in it! Not to mention some awkward sex scenes which could have pedophilic overtones if you keep in mind that it’s a movie about a 13 year old caught in a 30 year old’s body.
When I saw that movie in the UK, it had a “12” certificate, which is somewhere between PG and PG-13.
Curiously, according to IMDB Ma vie en rose had a less restrictive rating in French-speaking areas (“U” in France, “13+” in Quebec) than in English-speaking areas (“18A”–the equivalent of a US “R”–in the rest of Canada). Now that I think about it, I remember my ex-wife, who was fluent in French, complaining that the subtitles didn’t translate the dialogue accurately. Is it possible that the English subtitles hurt the film’s rating, as well?
A movie that’s rating surprised me a little was The Truman Show. It was rated PG. It had language, “shit” a few times, “god damn”, other mild language. It had a brief reference to sex. It has a death, (that the audience learns was staged after the fact). Drinking. Violence, (in the form of weather manipulation). On top of that it’s kind of a dark film for a kid. I’m not saying it should’ve be PG-13, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been PG-13.
Imagine Me & You. Rated R, and I never figured out a legitimate reason for it. I suspect it’s because the main love story is between two women, who never do anything more than kiss onscreen. I can’t recall any adult language, definitely no nudity, absolutely no violence.
Not just sex, but what is implied to be essentially sex for money, ie: Mrs Truman was paid by the studio to act like she was in love with Truman, with everything else branching from there.
Really, the movie is so wonderfully messed up on a number of ethical levels, it’s one of the few times where Jim Carrey’s hysterics don’t seem at all out of place when you consider he’s watching his world literally unravel around him.
Yeah, I didn’t think of it that way. She was paid to be with him, sex included.
Oh it’s a great movie. Carrey was perfect because he acts like a guy that the whole world revolves around. Even if he didn’t know, he had to have, on some level, felt like his actions were more scrutinized, or under the microscope. Perhaps felt like he had to be entertaining his whole life, and was conditioned in such a way.
Not that Carrey can’t do subtle. Eternal Sunshine was excellent.
The 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, is rated PG despite having no sex, no nudity, no drug use, and no real violence. The rating is for “brief mild language”, which in this case means a single instance of the word “damn” from one of the vagabonds who wants to rob Harriet Smith.
I’ve heard that the filmmakers were worried they’d get stuck with a G, which signifies a kiddie flick, and so actually dubbed IN the “damn”. If true, this may be one of the only times in Hollywood where a swear word was added in post-production to change the rating.
The R-rating for This is Spinal Tap must be almost entirely due to the frequent swearing. For a rock and roll movie there’s actually very little in the way of sex or drugs in the finished film (some of the unused footage included on the DVD is more explicit on these points), and no violence aside from Ian breaking a TV with his cricket bat.
The PG-13 rating was either not yet introduced or very new at the time Spinal Tap was released, but had it been made a few years later I suspect the filmmakers would have been under pressure to tone down the language a bit so it could get that rating and be marketed more towards teens. Or maybe they’d have included some more drug references or had a topless groupie scene to fully justify the R.
I saw this movie on TV once in an edited version that removed the many F-bomb from this scene. They weren’t bleeped out, it was redubbed so Steve Martin’s dialogue didn’t have any swearing at all. Not only did this kill the humor, it meant that the woman’s reaction didn’t make much sense.
As the argument over The Thing well demonstrates, ‘incorrect’ is not an apt adjective for ratings. It’s all a matter of opinion. One man’s ‘correct’ is another man’s ‘incorrect’.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show should have been PG-13, but was released 8 years before such a rating existed. Aside from being awfully gay-friendly for 1975, the only nudity was a peek at Columbia’s nipple through a rip in her pajama top, and some naked statues.
