I wouldn’t say “regular folk.” I’d say prudish laypeople.
It’s not just a question of body count. Deaths by shooting are probably going to rate ‘worse’ than a lot of drowning deaths that for the most part you don’t see.
Keep telling yourself that. A “drug scene” should have a little more meat to it than a scene that most closely resembles my reaction to aspirin.
That is besides the fact that it was explained away as “all part of The Matrix” two seconds later.
And I’ll give you a PG-13 movie that should put this in perspective: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Countless people died and the violence was just as bad (if not worse) than that found in The Matrix.
On top of everything else, I’m sure the people who made the movie were quite happy with an R rating. It gave it sort of a hardcore vibe that would appeal to their target audience. See the above “wussified” comment as evidence.
True.
The extended version(44 minutes longer) will be rated “R”.
I have to think the film makers wanted a somewhat prudish cast of reviewers. Although most of the movies as of late that have been getting lots of revenue have been PG-13, an R for a movie just creates that I-wonder-why-it-has-an-R-let’s-go-see feeling. Also, I think when The Matrix was made, it was shown that R rated movies were slightly more popular.
I think calling the pills in The Matrix ‘drugs’ is stretching the notion except in the most literal sense. The red pill is explained as a trace program that once taken allows Morpheus and company to zero in on Neo’s location so they can rescue him. Remember, the human race…some 5 billion or so…are housed in those battery highrises the computer keeps us in. They needed some way to locate Neo’s actual location.
The blue pill may have been a drug as they suggest that taking it allows you to stay in the Matrix unaware that the Matrix exists. Presumably it’d somehow erase the memory of the taker but they never go there so we really don’t know.
Usually the term ‘drug use’ when applied to a movie is referring to narcotics/recreational drug use. If you want to get bent out of shape about the literal use of drugs in film then TV shows like ER should be banned for rampant drug use not to mention any scene where someone pops an aspirin or heart medication.
Right.
I agree with Marley’s assessment of the MPAA. Clerks, a film with no nudity and no violence, was originally rated NC-17 and it wasn’t granted an R until Kevin Smith appealed it. He also notes in the commentary for Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back that of all the gross things in the movie, above all the single thing the MPAA kept getting on his case about was all the dick jokes.
Payton, if a movie shows a chracter taking an aspirin, is that drug use? What if it shows a character getting drunk?
And I think sheer numbers are unimportant in determining how violent a film is. It has more to do with how the violence is portrayed. I think Saving Private Ryan is a far more violent film than RoboCop or The Killer, even though the body count is lower. I think the terryfying realism of the former makes it more violent.
I agree that The Matrix getting an R was partly the intent of the studio regardless of its content, but if I was a parent, I would have no problem letting a teenage offspring of mine watch the film alone.
And to continue Mahaloth’s example, both Armageddon and Pearl Harbor are PG-13 movies with R-rated director’s cuts, pretty much because of length (although why anyone would want to watch LONGER versions of two already way-too-long movies is beyond me).
Off to Cafe Society.
DrMatrix - GQ Moderator
Okay, now that were’s out of General Questions, let me say something. When the MPAA rates something R, they are not saying, “Every single parent in America will not want their 16-year-11-month child watching this film.” Nor are they saying the same thing about you in particular. It’s a general guideline. It’s more important that you as a parent decide what PG-13 and R mean to you. And if violence is worse than nudity for you, say, then that’s why they give reasons for the ratings. The ratings system is a little less simplistic than “R = bad, G = good”, so maybe you should look beyond that.
As for drug use in The Matrix, huh? The Ratings Board didn’t think so, and this is the first I’ve heard of it.
I’m just curious, how many of you who don’t like the results of the Ratings Board are parent with children aged 10-17?
They said the same thing about the first and it wasn’t re-rated.
Very good point. Also important to remember that the ratings assigned to films are by no means mandatory or legally enforcable. In theory, any film can go out without any rating at all. However, since most of the movie studios are now owned by conglomerates, they have voluntary corporate policies concerning ratings classifcation.
The same applies to movie theatres and home rental chains; they are under no legal obligation to enforce the age restrictions of ratings, and are pretty half-hearted about even trying.
Ratings exist for one purpose: to inform parents of a film’s content. Since they currently state more specific info about the film in addition to the rating (strong violence, brief nudity, drug use, etc.) they should probably just get rid of the letter codes and have parents rely on that specific info…by getting rid of such a simplistic and biased label system, it would also get rid of the hyprocrisy that the MPAA exhibits on a regular basis, where violence is more acceptable than sex and ultra-expensive films get more lenient treatment than lower-budget ones.
Probably, According to this part of the MPAA site:
I’ve always thought that the Australian ratings system made more sense than the American.
To expand on what auliya said, instead of PG-13 we have M15 which is really a guidline – anyone can get into it but parents are cautioned. MA 15 is the next level up and people under 15 aren’t allowed in without a guardian – this is where almost all American R rated movies go. Then we have our own R, which is what the American NC-17 was meant to be – extreme gore, violence or softcore porn. Fight Club was rated R here, but the Matrix was rated M. And just for an example, Braveheart was rated MA.
That’s cool, but why do you think it makes more sense? It sounds almost like a one-to-one correspondence.
Wasn’t The Matrix edited to remove the headbutts for the Australian market, or am I thinking of somewhere else?
The Matrix is an example of how stupidly capricious the system is, because there isn’t any reason why it `should’ have been singled out. Does it deal with politically charged topics? No, it just reviews freshman Platonism. Does it represent an artistic challenge? No, it’s basically a movie in the Japanimation/Action/SF mold. Was it made by a nobody with no real budget to pay people off? No, it was made by a zaibatsu with nigh-infinite funding for any kind of payola.
So, why was it saddled with an R rating when its main audience is under 17*? Because our rating system is broken. The MPAA’s ratings division is run by prudes completely out of touch with modern art who fancy making arbitrary edicts.
[sub]*I say that because I don’t think the corporation behind it asked for an R rating, making all this all the more strange.[/sub]
Well, The Matrix has a place in history now, at least in my mind: It has edged out Batman: Returns as the least-intelligently rated film of all time.*
[sub]*PG-13, even with Penguin spitting blood, child abuse themes, and Catwoman being a completely psychotic sex criminal. But it made sense: The corporation behind the movie wanted the lucrative under-17 crowd.[/sub]
The big difference I see is that we have a rating miday between the PG-13 and the R. It means that the ratings can diferentiate between tasteful sex and a rape scene or cartoon violence and disturbing violence. Which makes a lot more sense and is what most people that want a reform of the US ratings (like Ebert) are after.
And the headbut editing is for the British market – they’ve got a big thing about headbuts and nunchucks there.
I heard that was one of the key reasons it was R.