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PG-13 Rating Turns 20

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the microwaved-green-monsters dept.

Ant writes "CNN has a story about the 20 year anniversary of PG-13 and how it was created/born from two of Steven Spielberg's movies. (Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom and Gremlins)" Oh, Mola Ram and your heart-removing antics, little did you know the profound impact you would have.

11 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Enforcement... by Izago909 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I realize the importance of having a rating that differentiates between a kid's movie and one for young adults, but as a non-parent I look on it with contempt. Ever since the R rating begun to be widely enforced, studios have toned down violent films so they can still have a chance at making money from the younger market. For example: I might actually have gone to see the recent Alien vs. Predator film had it been rated R, but since it was PG-13, I decided to wait until I can rent it. Enforcement of the ratings system, and the studios' response to it, has dealt the death blow for true horror/action films, because studios must now focus on making higher quality products for a more discerning audience if they want to make profit and carry the R rating. Instead they choose to neuter their movies and add some more special effects and popular cliché to entice the kids.

    I'm not suggesting that just because a movie is rated PG-13 that it is, by default, a bad movie. What I am suggesting is that continuations of previously successful films, and modern horror/action flicks will never be what we all remember them to be. We will never see truly cheesy and senselessly bloody movies like Evil Dead ever again.

    Also, if anyone hasn't heard of a decent NC-17 movie since Showgirls, this one looks promising. I saw the trailer for it the other day.

    1. Re:Enforcement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      How did you type this and still get a first post?

    2. Re:Enforcement... by Izago909 · · Score: 5, Funny
      How did you type this and still get a first post?
      I' a subscriber baby, I was read it, the link to CNN, and had a response typed in word 10 minutes before it was live.

      God I need a life.
    3. Re:Enforcement... by huchida · · Score: 5, Insightful


      Nah, your real problem is with the movie studios. Basically, they stopped making plots in, what, '86 or so? With the rare exception of a "Memento" here or a "Requiem For A Dream" there, you can limit your watching to only movies made prior to the late '80s without missing a single thing.

      People keep saying this, but I don't buy it. We have a collective ability to remember the classics and forget all the crappy movies made throughout the years and think things used to be better. They weren't. They've made shitty hack movies since day one. Sequels aren't even anything new, look how many third-rate sci-fi and detective series have been produced throughout the years. I'll give you that the major studios put out some great stuff in the '70's, but that was a fluke-- before then, it was much the same as it is now.

      The truth is, people want the crap. A good movie can do pretty well and find an audience-- look at, say, Donnie Darko-- but the majority want their Alien Vs. Predator. They want to forget their troubles and watch special effects, not be asked to think. And you can give AvP a scathing review, and their friends will tell them it sucked, and they'll still go to see it. If the audience truly hungered for better movies, there would be more of them.

      There are good movies being made, by the way. Thanks in part to both DVD potential and the explosion of low-cost digital editing, idependent filmmaking is stronger now than ever. And it's actually possible to make something great on a shoestring budget with no studio backing or big names and get it seen. That was much, much harder to do as recently as fifteen or twenty years ago.

  2. So for 7 years... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    PG13 has been able to watch itself.

  3. Misleading headline by Will2k_is_here · · Score: 5, Funny

    For a second there, I thought PG-13 was about to become PG-20!

  4. Hooray by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 5, Funny

    CNN has a story about the 20 year anniversary of PG-13

    In a related story... nobody cares.

  5. It really means nothing by greypilgrim · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What I don't get, is that the rating systems are inconsistent. Here in Quebec, most movies that are rated R elsewhere are rated PG-13. Take Hannibal for instance, I believe in the U.S. it was rated R, in Quebec it was PG-13 or maybe even PG-14, and in Brittish Columbia I think it was rated PG. How can anyone make sense of anything when the rating system is inconsistent? If you ask me, it's just a waste of time, completely meaningless.

    1. Re:It really means nothing by tntguy · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's the exchange rate.

  6. Movie ratings and trademarks by PapayaSF · · Score: 5, Interesting

    An interesting bit of movie rating history: when the MPAA brought out the original system (G/M/R/X), they trademarked the first three but not "X." Pornographers were thus free to use it, and it came to be associated with "pornography" instead of "adult content," requiring the creation of the "NC-17" rating years later.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-rated

    --
    Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
  7. OT: Subscriber First Post by Iffy+Bonzoolie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an interesting side-effect of subscriptions - it enables intelligent first posts. Trolls aren't really gonna subscribe because they are all broke 13-year-olds (or broke 23-year-olds). So you have a bunch of people selected from what is likely to be the most intelligent posters getting a head start. An interesting strategy would be to just delay stories for people with low/no karma. It could possibly make this effect more pronounced. Of course you would market it as a reward for having high karma.

    -If

    Bad Karma? No Probalo!

    --
    Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!