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Why Fear the End of the R-Rated Superhero Movie?
brumgrunt writes "Last year, Marvel said that R-rated comic book superhero movies weren't in its future plans. Now, in the light of Watchmen's box office performance, Warner Bros is going the same way, meaning high-profile comic book superhero films will be restricted to the PG-13 rating at most. But is this a bad thing, and should we fear the end of the R-rated superhero movie?"
The graphic, lovingly photographed violence in Watchmen is what kept people away. Heck, it almost kept me away.
I'd love to take my 7 year old son to a superhero movie. He saw the Fantastic Four movies, they were pretty light. But even Iron Man was too adult.
That being said, the Dark Knight really should have been rated R. It was like watching Spinal Tap being forced to pay only at 10.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
We should not fear that Warner Bros is ending the R-rated movies. We should fear the fact that one single company has such massive influence that we even bother talking about this.
...lately, at least to me, is that they are elements of the fantastic that dovetail nicely into the hollywood version of 'the real world' that we live in. They are grittier, people are less 'cookie cutter/superficial bad guys.' In most of the non R rated superhero movies I've seen you could always walk away with the feeling that the main villain could have, at any moment, had a change of heart because he's not really evil - he's just made bad choices (lol.)
In the darker movies, the most definitely R rated movies, you can see struggle, ugliness, depravity, insanity (not the laughable kind), all things that give the villain and the unfolding events a sense of gravitas and immorality that you can't (imho) really get from a movie that HAS TO fit in some production company's ratings 'box.'
Personally, if there's a superhero movie where I'm not really interested in the super hero itself (for some reason), and it is R rated - there's a very good chance I'll go to see it because the director has obviously not pandered to the 13 year old boy market (although he may be pandering to me by throwing in R rated stuff.) If there's a superhero movie that I am interested in and then I find out that it is PG-13, it's unlikely that I'll see it. Perhaps on video.
Seriously, imagine if the Dark Knight movies were made PG-13? What a loss that would have been.
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The box office on that one was great.
I hear another is in the works, and I doubt it will be PG-13.
Besides, why should we fear anything?
Independent producers can do it if there's a market for it. This is a genre that was now constrained by the cost of special effects. Now, anyone can (with talent, time and dedication thrown in by good measure) do it.
I think that this announcements are just to indicate saturation of market. In the late 70's Superman ignited a furor for superhero movies and TV shows, in the 80's the market was saturated and the "cool factor" was lost, until Tim Burton made superheroes cool (and dark) again.
The pendulum will shift eventually.
What we should be afraid of is the impending return of the boy bands!
Filmmakers can get away with lots of violence without being hit with an R rating. There are a lot of superhero stories that can be told below R, as long as they avoid sexuality.
I don't think that it should be a matter of fear at all. Some of the best comic based movies were PG-13, and, like the earlier post, I enjoy watching comic based movies with my kids. I'm more concerned that the movies are faithful to the series. I think that several movies have done a good job of modernizing the origin stories of the character while remaining true to the core. That said, I recognize that there are some comics out there that would probably be pointless to be made into a non R rated movie - it would remove the themes and plot elements that make them interesting.
Haven't had my morning coffee yet. Irony detector may not be functioning.
Batman Begins: PG-13
The Dark Knight: PG-13
Um, the Dark Knight was PG-13. That was part of the point of this article, had you read it ("look at the successful PG-13 comic movies!").
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/
Also part of the point was that damn, that was seriously rated PG-13 and not R?
-- What did Spock find in Kirk's toilet? The captain's log.
Watchmen sucked. It had the potential to be a great film, but it blew. The content rating had nothing to do with it; no one wants to go to a movie that sucks.
I support a continued effort to produce R rated super hero films. Just don't make CRAPPY R rated super hero films. It's a shame those studios don't understand that.
When movies are being made to attract the largest viewing audience possible (and thus generate the largest revenue possible), we should not be the least bit surprised that movie companies are shying away from constricting their possible market. An R-rated movie cuts out a rather sizable chunk of the typical theater-going audience. It's a bold move to restrict your audience so much but one that does not make good "business sense." Not surprising that the studios are moving away from that.
The only movie I saw in the last 12 months was Watchmen. Sure, Spider-man 6 might make a bigger profit, but if you concentrate only on getting the biggest possible slice of the Spider-man 6 demographic, you'll never get any money from people like me, and the industry as a whole will be poorer.
The music business already fell into this trap, churning out countless spice-girl clones in the hope of hitting the jackpot and ignoring the fact that even if they can find a girl-group that outsells the spice girls, there are a lot of potential customers who just don't like that genre.
If the big studios stop making $100m blockbuster R-rated movies, then a smart film company should start leveraging CGI to make $5-$10m ones to tap into that market.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I think the wwriter is failing to take something into account.
I'd heard of Batman all my life - never heard of watchmen until this movie. I suspect I'm not the only one.
For an accurate comparison, they should do an r-rated Batman.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Here's the difference between the Dark Knight and the Watchmen:
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
On the other hand, a lot of directors gunning for an R rating use cheap paths to showing us villains are bad. The best directors make a Joker, the worst make a Jigsaw. I just watched Punisher: War Zone Sunday evening for the first and likely last time. A good director can make a villain believable in his targeted rating. In the X-Men franchise, despite the bad acting in most cases you come to both understand and fear Magneto. He is a man who has suffered at the hands of men and will go to any length to stop it from happening again. Just because he isn't a psychopath or less refined doesn't make him a lesser villain.
The penultimate villain of movies: Hannibal Lecter could have been conveyed in a PG-13 movie. R gave the director alot more to work with but the chilling aspect of Dr. Lecter is his normalcy up to the point where he does or says something taboo to our culture.
A good, adult superhero movie can be made that would get a "G" rating - it would just take a little more talent to do so than relying on lazy blood, sex and violence.
Err, the Dark Knight *was* PG-13 (IMDB).
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
Normally the R Rating doesn't help the story anything, and usually causes a loss to the movie firm as they cant advertise to a wider audience.
Most of the stuff that the makes it from PG 13 to R are mostly visuals, and some language. There are many editing elements they can do to show the guy dies a slow painful death, or the hero is doing it with the lady. Which don't effect the story however keeps things clean.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Superhero movies are always the same, lot's of hype and loads of sfx but then a flat storyline full of cardboard characters. Violence, set pieces, action sequences and beautiful people; all secondary to a story that actually goes somewhere and maintains interest. Be it for kids or adults; it's got to have a good story and an engaging script or it's just a set of expensive moving pictures. Holywood wants to make movies that people will watch, try writing an intelligent movie instead of movies for the unfortunates with a room temperature IQ.
For this, we should be extremely thankful :)
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I think it was ironic. They're trying to point out that you can deliver a dark and visceral experience without gratuitous blood, boobs and excessive use of the word "fuck." My detector went off when they said they wouldn't go see a PG-13 movie in theaters due to it being rated PG-13.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Not to mention Watchmen had a dangling blue shiny penis through half the movie it seemed.
The studios have it all wrong. The reason Watchmen tanked was because it sucked. Badly.
First, you take a half-rate superhero and make a movie out of him. Starting off, it's already disadvantaged: there's a reason s/he's a half-rate comic book hero. He has a crummy story, costume, plot, writers, or what have you which the vast majority of people do not like. They're already striking out before they've even got the storyboard - which is, frankly, astonishing, because it's a comic book, after all.
Second, they don't fix most of the flaws in the comic, but amplify them, in the creation of the movie. That's like strike three, except the third ball hits you in the face and kills you.
(Thankfully, today's PG-13 is, in many ways, as gratuitous and maturely themed as yesteryear's R.)
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Apparently Americans don't want full frontal nudity in their superhero movies.
Constraining a director to a PG-13 rating means restricting their freedom beyond even those restrictions already imposed by the budget, time, etc. You can hedge it or slice it anyway you like, but it's still a straitjacket. Less freedom means less variety. Less variety forever limits the possibilities of the entire genre. This will have the practical effect of reestablishing the Hays Code for anyone wanting to do any sort of comic book adaption (and I say "comic book" here and not "graphic novel" quite intentially, because PG-13 means "comic book").
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The only thing that people fear is women's naked bodies and maybe some excess swearing. Those movies end up with an R rating. Of course V for Vendetta did get an R so there are still some levels of violence that will garner an R. Things like Dark Knight would have ended up with an R rating in the past. No longer. The boundaries of these things are constantly being pushed. A while back I had the ducts in my house cleaned and we found some old stashed gentlemens magazines. The average Redbook or Vanity Fair magazines have more nudity in them than these old porn magazines did. 10 years from now V for vendetta might also fall into the PG-13 category.
Yes, it won't be huge profit, but come on, for such violent and anti-mainstream experiment they got nice cash back. It is 165m (costed 120m), and it is only third week.
I love movie, I only would like to be it more itself not just a copy of living very good comic book. However, it would require to move sideways from original material.
Anyway, I think team who made it have proven their point. Kudos to them, all actors especially.
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Howabout Hollywood writes something original and new instead of rehashing old material over and over again? Put any rating on it you want.
I'm a 2000 man.
Why are people wringing their hands over this? Those R rated super hero movies were placed out there in the free market and consumers made a voluntary choice to not spend money on them. The response by the studios is to move into a demographic (families with young children) where they can sell more tickets. What's wrong with that?
If you disagree with the studios, then start your own studio and then create an R rated super hero movie. That should be easy since you are so convinced that studios are run by idiots.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
So much for a Preacher Movie ever being made.
I had not seen it until this last Tuesday. Before that, I had talked to eight different people and only one person recommended it. Everyone else said it was pretty bad. Around here (central part of the US), it was Dr. Manhattan's package that those seven people were turned off by (my sister said it was like watching porn) and not the violence, which this being the US, I shouldn't be too surprised by. Having read the comic, I knew what to expect and thought the movie wasn't bad. It was way too long, though, and I enjoyed the ending of the comic more so than how they ended the movie. All that said, never underestimate how much word of mouth can kill a movie.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
Whoosh!
I'd love to live in a world where movies were made how best the story could be told and the ratings were figured out later... but it comes down to simple economics.
The R-rated version of a movie might be the better one, but reducing it to PG-13 is not going to cost as many people as it gains.
IOW. People who want Watchmen as PG and won't go to R > people who want it R and won't go to PG.
It's the same problem in the video game world. It's not that niche' games won't sell... it's that non-niche' games sell better.
http://www.mpaa.org/FlmRat_Ratings.asp
So I guess we could say goodbye to "adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements" in superhero movies.. personally, I will miss the theater being quiet throughout the movie.
Honestly the frequency of R-ratings have gone up for all movies. I remember when there were countless great movies from the 1980s that were all rated PG. Now most comedies seem to be rated PG-13 and R. I don't personally have anything against R-rated movies being that I use "fuck" as a comma and have nothing against watching on-screen violence, but I'm wondering if the movie industry is hoping to move back to where it was 20 years ago. Hell, we say that they need to change how they do business, perhaps this is a step in that direction--something which they hope they will get back to a time when they feel that they were a little more successful?
Obviously they thought that their core demographic required that they have a movie rated R to attract viewers. Instead of flashy CGI they're moving to over-the-top language and T&A to cover the fact that the dialogue kinda fucking sucks. IMHO Iron Man, while rated PG-13, wouldn't have gained anything by becoming rated R.
Batman Begins (2005) - Rated PG-13 for intense action violence, disturbing images and some thematic elements.
The Dark Knight (2008) - Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and some menace.
Remember that scene where they bring Joker's "corpse" to Gambol, only Joker jumps up from the table alive and psychotic...?
What exactly does he do to Gambol?
How about those two guys that were standing right next to his "corpse"?
Did you ever actually see what happens there?
A good director can do wonders with PG-13.
Always remember that we never really see the actual stabbing in Psycho.
Why the R-Rating then? Phantom boobs, men dressed in women clothing and even toilets being flushed.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The only movie I saw in the last 12 months was Watchmen. Sure, Spider-man 6 might make a bigger profit, but if you concentrate only on getting the biggest possible slice of the Spider-man 6 demographic, you'll never get any money from people like me, and the industry as a whole will be poorer.
But luckily, "people like you" are such a tiny demographic.
They are grittier, people are less 'cookie cutter/superficial bad guys.' In most of the non R rated superhero movies I've seen you could always walk away with the feeling that the main villain could have, at any moment, had a change of heart because he's not really evil - he's just made bad choices (lol.)
That's a large part of the reason why I'd rather my 5-year-old son watch, say, Commando than a modern equivalent that's rated PG-13 (say, Ironman). The "good guy" isn't as clear cut, and aside from that, there's really little difference in the film itself aside from the level of swearing.
Sure, there's a quality difference (particularly in my example), and sometimes a difference in the level of gore, but if you want to confuse a child, let him watch a PG-13 action film.
(Oh, and the 2 most recent Batman films were - thankfully, inaccurately, IMO - rated PG-13. Their ambiguity was somewhat less than in other PG13 films, though they were pretty dark and gritty.)
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I will agree that Watchmen had too much gore and sexuality but it did have a plot. I could even argue that Watchmen was a better overall movie (even with its faults) then Dark Knight. Opinions will differ and I think both are well done movies.
One point to consider is Watchmen is an R movie but Dark Knight might have been a bit too violent and gory for a pg-13 movie. Could Dark Knight have been improved if they hadn't worried about that pg-13 rating? Something to consider.
The market is all about ratings. First off you have to think of who you are trying to market to, people that enjoy hero films. Now virtually anyone can enjoy Spider Man for example, because most people can relate to him with his ordinary life, and enjoy the loftiness that his superpowers give him over society. If we then contrast that with a classic superhero like the Punisher, you will obviously have a more restricted audience as not everyone can relate to or enjoy a wronged individual hell-bent on revenge.
What it all boils down to is they are finally realizing that the more people that can see the movie, or more importantly will consider seeing it, the more money they'll make. It's basic logic that the company is finally beginning to apply at what cost? The change of a few swears and slightly less gore?
Is Watchmen really a failure? I mean, for an R-rated comic book movie, it's doing pretty well in my opinion. But that's not really the subject of the article.
The problem with Watchmen is not the R rating, at least in my opinion. The problem is the changes made to the ending that really changed the tone of it, and thus changed the meaning of the ending.
Let's look at it this way. Watchmen is a source material about which people are passionate. It was a seminal piece of comic book art, a graphic novel before there were graphic novels, and as the first of a genre it has a rather devout following. I know, I read it on first release... and re-read it... and re-read it... and yes, I loved it. However, in the intervening years (decades? OMG... I'm old!) I have not touched the source material and as such somewhat grew away from it. I re-read it last year as an adult and although I still found it to be an incredible piece of art, I found that it didn't resonate with me the same way it did when I was 13 and 14 (when it was first released). I still loved it, but in the way you do an ex girlfriend with whom you had a "soft breakup" because you grew apart instead of a difficult one.
I went to see the movie, and was blown away. 90% of the movie was damned close to the comic book... closer than I would've expected from Hollywood... and it would've been impossible to get that close without an R rating. The original comic book should have had an R rating as well! The ending though, had a different meaning for me than the comic. I won't spoil it here, but it IS different. However, for me it did not fundamentally change the tone of the entire movie... and in fact I think the comic book ending would've been less accessible to a more general audience and probably would've looked somewhat ridiculous on screen.
OK, call me an heretic. I enjoyed both of them but for different reasons. But the R rating is not the reason for the lackluster box office!
Here's my theory; the box office taking are low because of two things; (1) The Watchmen is a comic book that appealed to a niche, and (2) that niche is typically the very technically savvy.
OK, let's expand on that a little:
(1) Watchmen didn't appeal to a wider audience because it had a lot less exposure. Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man... all highly identifiable characters with a long history in print. All of them are part of the common consciousness that we have in the Western world, and all are characters we can visualize easily. Rorschach, Nite Owl, Doc Manhattan... who? These were all characters created for Watchmen because Alan Moore wasn't given the go-ahead to use the characters he wanted to... those with an history.
The upshot of this is that we have characters that only a small subsection of our society identifies with because they never really got into the social consciousness the way the more "iconic" characters did. This means that Hollywood produces a Watchmen movie, and the characters are new to the average viewer... and the average viewer doesn't want new; they want more of the same.
There's also this idea in the public consciousness that superhero's are always good, always doing the right thing. Watchmen's moral ambiguity on the part of ALL of the characters means that the average viewer won't identify their icons within the context of the movie, and thus won't connect with them. They're looking for simple... black and white. Watchmen is full of shades of grey.
(2) Because the subset of society is mostly tech-savvy, it means that they are going to read reviews of the movie before they go see it, usually written on websites by people with similar tastes... the blind leading the blind in a sense. This leads to one or two slightly negative reviews driving away the very core audience that was most likely to see it.
I refer in part to Massawyrm's review of Watchmen on Aint It Cool News (for which I can't find a direct link right now, sorry!) in which he slammed the movie
Just like the graphic novel, the point is not the plot. As the creators have said, the plot is just an excuse for a number of character studies.
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
I'm looking forward to NC-17 rated superhero movies instead.
"Bigger, Bluer, and Uncut!"
If you were not able to discern the plot of Watchmen, then I would suggest less time at the movies, and more time reading. Got to get those two braincells a-workin'!
As for your comment on gore being present, I can half-heartedly agree that the violence was quite realistic and uncomfortable to watch (as a squeamish individual). I would then say that if you had read the graphic novel, you'd see that the novel was quite graphic and suited more so for an adult audience. They followed the source very closely, something that's very rarely done in movies today.
Kirby Dick?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Movie makers have come to the conclusion that a movie is either a blockbuster or bust, so they can not ignore the largest audience. Go to your local theater and look around. Every theater I remember (mostly in suburbia) have been largely filled with Junior High and High School kids. When do you personally think you peaked in your in-theater movie watching? I was high school and I would expect most of you did too.
To me it almost seems to be in-grained in culture. Movies are the popular choice for your time in the younger years, drinking the popular choice in College. The people engulf themselves into work after that and finally into their kids. Maybe not quite exactly for everybody, but a lot follow the formula.
In five years when some director makes an R-rated superhero movie and everyone falls all over themselves praising its artistic genius.
It's not like there aren't generally other things on the screen at the same time. Why do you notice?
Why? Simple: While an R rating usually means more gory violence and blood splashed across the screen, what it can also mean is that the director could choose to actually deal with DEATH. The director can show serious consequences of choosing particular actions instead of the (Marvel inspired) revolving door program where no-one dies (really).
Do we get to see death in PG and PG-13 movies? Sure. We just don't get to really see the horror that death contains usually. We get a cut-scene where someone pulls a trigger or uses a power and we cut to the hero crying or expounding upon the impact said death had on him and how the evil must be avenged. Make a decent film? Usually. A little reality creeping into a movie? Ummm, no. Death is rarely - if ever - a pretty, clean event where no blood is spilled and a body looks perfect. Even in a superhero movie.
Look at Star Wars. Episode IV, we had two dead bodies (Uncle Ben and Aunt Beru); we had all the dead Jawas; we had a mutilated arm; we had Han shooting Greedo (first!) In the Empire Strikes Back we had a hand getting chopped off and a few other incidents. In Return, we had some ships getting blown up and some minor violence but no real blood or such. In Ep I, II, and III we had what? A lot of droids getting killed so the Jedi had an opponent they could cut into pieces. The only gruesome moments were Darth Maul getting cut in half, the fight between Mace and the Emperor, and Anakin getting his ass kicked by Obi Wan. I'm sure I missed a few things, but overall they were tame. Sure, for the audience they wanted to market to they were balanced correctly. For a little more realism (Jedi were JUST killing droids the whole time? Please.) there could have been multiple bodies strewn around with limbs missing and such. I'm sure the Jedi didn't go down easy or quickly when Order 66 was issued which means a lot of dead clones.
Punisher's problem was that they replaced the guy who had just played Punisher for the reboot. I mean, wtf?? If they had left the same actor in there and DID NOT RETELL WHY PUNISHER BECOMES PUNISHER - AGAIN - then they would have had a much better reception. Just make a Punisher movie where he has a bad guy, lots of guns, and a reason to kill the motherfucker and let him go to work.
So, back to the main reason I started this rant: I realize we go to the movies to escape reality for an hour or two but there is a place for R rated superhero movies; they just actually have to be worth watching in the first place. Watchmen is one of those movies. It also requires the audience to actually think and not just float through the movie going haha at the right moments. Movies do not need to be dumbed down, the viewing public should be intelligenced up instead. I can see why movie studios will focus on PG and PG-13, because that is where the most profit usually is. But if they can get a decent script for an R superhero(ish) movie, it will make good money. Also, stop using $30,000,000 per movie actors - find someone else who can fill the role(s) and cut down on your overhead.
Flame retardant suit on, fire away :)
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Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
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Also part of the point was that damn, that was seriously rated PG-13 and not R?
No doubt. I had to check on IMDB - even though I'd seen the film 3 times - to verify that it was, indeed, PG-13. Because I didn't believe it. The most recent one was dark, dark, dark, and not only because it had an at-the-time dead Ledger playing the craziest portrayal of the Joker yet.
Granted, a lot of movies fall on the 'wrong' side of the rating line, often. But as a general rule, studios want to avoid "R" movies anyway. Parents are trusting, and will let their kids view PG-13 films unattended, but not R. I expect this to change as PG-13 films get more nudity and swearing.
Ironically, films have kind of mellowed out all along. Used to be, PG films would occasionally have nudity and inter-gender violence (1974, Reynolds, The Longest Yard). It seems uncommon to see 'major' films like that made today at all, never mind with anything less than an "R" rating.
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Watchmen did terrible not because super hero movies can't be rated R but because it was based on this crappy graphic novel where none of the super hero's are actually super hero's but losers in costumes who run around like Tickle Me Emo (see Youtube) and complain about the state of the world and the only actual super hero climaxes in a scene with a girl arguing about whether humanity is worth saving.
Not quite the same as watching Jack Nicholson as the joker
Your name is apt. You are an idiot.
You get roughly eleven seconds of Dr Manhattan manhood in the entire thing. The problem you have is that you instantly go "It's a dick! FIXATE FIXATE FIXATE..." Exactly the same as my girlfriend did.
The same thing appears in the comic book. That's why it's there. It shows his lack of regard for human ideals; The human body is not to be ashamed of, or revulsed, surprised, or shocked by. I have one. You have one. Your dad has one. Get over it.
The plot was lost because the story takes a HELL of a lot longer than 2.75 hours to read. It's the way comics work. You get time to stop, consider the implications, imagine the scene, then move on. You didn't get that in the movie. It was still a reasonable good movie, though, and true to the comic.
If the only thing you brought back from that movie was "OMG LULZ I SOR A PEENAR!!1122" then you need to grow up a little.
Yeah yeah, off-topic. It needed to be said.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
... you've been playing too much Grand Theft Auto, and he hasn't.
I also like sci-fi, and unfortunately these superhero moves seem to be the nearest we get to scifi a lot of the time these days.
So keep em bloody and full of sex, then us adults that don't care for the saw franchise or chick-flicks have something to wath that isn't constantly thinking of the children.
Screw the children.
(not literally, please).
Sex is one thing, nudity is another my dad had no problem with me watching total recall (there is a non-sexual seen with 3 nipples in it :O) when i was >10. If your that insecure that you think looking at a blue shiny penis for 30minutes will turn you gay then you might as well come out the closet now.
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
That's all well and good but that doesn't make it a good movie. "It's not a bug if it's documented!"
Because once that has been produced then I think things have really hit rock bottom!
My apologies. I thought that both the Batman movies (which didn't suck) were rated R...
Well, if you can make The Dark Knight w/o an R rating, I'll be seeing PG-13 superhero movies in the future too.
Weird, if you think about The Dark Knight, you'd think there's no way that movie would be anything less than 'R'. Crazy. LOL.
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...is not the age rating, its the dichotomy of trying to produce a movie with "arthouse" audience appeal with special effects that dictate a popcorn blockbuster budget.
I'm sure Watchmen could have been made PG-13 by cutting a few minutes. Giving Dr Manhatten a thong might lose a minor point about his diminishing humanity, but its hardly going to ruin the movie; and it should be possible to establish that Rorschach was Not a Nice Person without employing an angle grinder.
However... would that have stopped 13-year olds (who might not "get" the politics, psychology or the artistic application of comic-book visual styles to cinematography) from being absolutely bored to tears after an hour and a half? Doubt it.
Ironically, when I watched it, the cinema was plugging their latest wheeze: by popular demand, over-18s-only screenings of PG/12A movies. So, obviously no market for 18-and-over-films.
Of course, this is in the UK where Watchmen was certificate 18, and most cinemas do at least try not to let in anybody holding a teddy bear; There's also a 15 cert which gets used for things like Serenity, V for Vendetta and the DVDs of the new BSG. "Watchman" could almost certainly have been trimmed down to a 15.
Sounds like the US could do with something between PG-13 and R (spurious precision, of course, but this is a political game, not a practical one).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
The PG-13 rating was started in 1984. Prior to that anything that got that rating would have been rated simply PG
... Fear of a Blue Penis.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
No, Hannibal Lecter could not have been conveyed in a PG-13 film. Because, by definition, horror has to be scary, and scary means children don't get to see it. Even if it's "just" psychologically terrifying doesn't mean it gets a PG-13. There's a big step from "psycho-thriller" to "psycho-horror" and "psycho-horror" lands a movie firmly in R territory.
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Naw, I was just being an idiot. I am surprised though that The Dark Knight was not 'R'.
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I realize the project is in permanent development Hell, but I sure hope Spider Jerusalem isn't counted amongst the superheros. I'd love to see a well made Transmetropolitan movie, but censoring it to a PG-13 rating would kill it beyond bother.
The problem you have is that you instantly go "It's a dick! FIXATE FIXATE FIXATE..." Exactly the same as my girlfriend did.
Well, you know that when you don't get enough of something you often get cravings... ;)
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
You nailed it.
I rarely buy DVD's anymore. I also rarely go to the movies anymore. and it's been forever cince I saw a film and when I left the theater I said, "I cant wait for that to get out on DVD."
Watchmen took my money Twice, and they will get my cash for their DVD and Bluray releases. It's already set in stone as far as I am concerned.
Watchmen is being panned based on ticket sales. Typically for a couple to go see a movie it's $25.00-$55.00 and then another $35.00+ for pop,popcorn,other things.. about $60.00 to see a movie (around here) Too bad there is not a nasty bad economy raging right now that would also hurt ticket sales....... Oh wait....
If this movie was released last year at this time it would have don FAR better.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
...lately, at least to me, is that they are elements of the fantastic that dovetail nicely into the hollywood version of 'the real world' that we live in. They are grittier, people are less 'cookie cutter/superficial bad guys.' In most of the non R rated superhero movies I've seen you could always walk away with the feeling that the main villain could have, at any moment, had a change of heart because he's not really evil - he's just made bad choices (lol.)
In the darker movies, the most definitely R rated movies, you can see struggle, ugliness, depravity, insanity (not the laughable kind), all things that give the villain and the unfolding events a sense of gravitas and immorality that you can't (imho) really get from a movie that HAS TO fit in some production company's ratings 'box.'
Personally, if there's a superhero movie where I'm not really interested in the super hero itself (for some reason), and it is R rated - there's a very good chance I'll go to see it because the director has obviously not pandered to the 13 year old boy market (although he may be pandering to me by throwing in R rated stuff.) If there's a superhero movie that I am interested in and then I find out that it is PG-13, it's unlikely that I'll see it. Perhaps on video.
Seriously, imagine if the Dark Knight movies were made PG-13? What a loss that would have been.
and here me thought there was only one dark night film. silly of me.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Heck, I agree with you: Watchmen is not suitable for an 11 yo. There is too much gratuitous violence (some of it from the HQ, some from the director), people being blown up to pieces, sexual violence, children being beat (and beating other children),murders, realistic sex scenes, complex themes that most 11 yo won't understand.
But it has nothing to do with Dr. Manhattan's penis. It appears because he doesn't care about clothes, not because he is about to have quantum sex with anyone. It is as sexual, in the context of the movie, as his arm or leg - he walks around naked just as a child would. I doubt any children would care about the penis - it's the fucked-up adults that instantly associate it with sexual perversion. Get over it, 50% of the human population have penises.
Besides, it is not even big. Heck, what size are yours to be so obsessed with his?
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
For a cross between a sex toy and a neon light?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I don't have a problem with the R rated movies, even violent crazy ones using existing well known characters (Batman, Iron Man, etc)
My problem is when they make a violent adult oriented movie, then come out with toys for 5 year olds matching the movie. (Sometimes even before the movie comes out!)
Sure, the parent as the consumer has the responsibility to not buy the toys, but if you've got kids you know that the batman toy commercial comes on and your kid goes "WOW I want one of those! Dad, can we go see the movie??"
Movies won't capture what you read as a kid. And I'm just trying to remember back when I was that age... but isn't 7 a little too young for super hero comics? I honestly don't remember when I got into them.
Just a word of advice, and this is just IMO, but don't force your memories on your kids. I introduce some things, like Bugs Bunny, to my kids just so I don't have to watch friggin' Dora again, but they didn't like it. Luckily, they like Road Runner. But don't force it. I find it creepy when parents try to make a little clone of themselves.
And I think the super hero movies should be made for those who grew up with them. I was very pleased with Iron Man and Batman Begins/The Dark Knight because of this. X-men series was good too. Let's NOT sanitize them for kids. Everything is geared towards kids these days, can we please keep these for ourselves? Fantastic Four was TERRIBLE for this very reason. I dub it the "Lucasizing" of movies. Enough with the Poochie-like characters and the belching after eathing something already.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Censoring it to PG-13 would be completely impossible.
Additioanlly most of us have/will have sex,...
Remember, this is Slashdot...
Yeah, I almost feel bad even going for such low-hanging fruit.
My grandmother used anecdotal evidence all the time, and she lived to be 120 years old.
Watchmen was the first superhero movie I've voluntarily watched since "Mystery Men" (which was pretty funny). I despise most comic book movies (unlike Watchmen, their source materials don't DESERVE to be called "graphic novels"). They're cookie-cutter, predictable, trite pieces of FX-driven shit. I had a girlfriend who forced me to watch the first Toby Macquire "Spiderman" movie and it made me almost physically ill. God, poor Willem Defoe and the indignities he had to endure in that turd (I think he actually shakes his fist in the air at one point and yells "I'll get you Spiderman!"). Sure, that kind of candy crap is fine for kids (and those with the maturity of kids), but I'm an ADULT. Watchmen was the first superhero movie in a long time that was actually geared toward me, and not just my 13-year-old nephew (who rates the quality of movies based solely on how many cool FX shots they contain and honestly doesn't see the "bad guy vanquished/good guy wins" ending of every Batman/Superman/X-men/Shitman movie coming long before the first frame even clicks).
The fact that so many supposed adults, when asked about the quality of Watchmen, responded with "OMG, they dared show a penis!!" shows how brain-dead and immature the average moviegoer really is. But for those of us who've matured beyond the mental age of a 14-year-old schoolgirl giggling at a Jonas Brothers video, it was a amazing anomaly--the first, and sadly probably last, adult superhero film.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We all know PG-13 is box office gold compared to an R rating for movies like this. But what exactly is an "R" rated superhero?
According to the MPAA, the superhero resides in a film that "contains some adult material. An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously." http://www.mpaa.org/FlmRat_Ratings.asp (source)
As you see, it's not just language, it's HARD language which of course is unspecified. It's not just violence, but intense and persistent. Nor is it just nudity, i.e. "naked women", it's nudity presented in a sexually oriented nature, and it's not just using drugs, but abusing them.
And even after all that:
"Generally, it is not appropriate for parents to bring their young children with them to R-rated motion pictures," says the MPAA guidelines.
This is all entirely subjective and as a result most movies are not faithful to their source screenplay or origin book due to cuts and re-edits to satisfy the MPAA so the most revenue can be squeezed from the largest possible audience. What you end up seeing onscreen is the result of a board of 10-13 individuals, each working periodically, each with their own agendas under a chairperson who has unlimited power to select anyone they choose - the qualifications being no more or less than experience with parenthood as an adult member of the community. Film producers are also under no obligation to submit a film for rating, but the industry as a whole has learned an unrated film squashes advertising revenue, reduced media exposure and opens up the door to lawsuits and negative publicity from special interest groups. So they play the system, often re-submitting films over and over after copious edits to try to satisfy the MPAA for that "gold" PG-13 rating. Any industry member knows it's not about being faithful to their art, it's all about that rating and the resulting increased revenue.
And the MPAA site states, "No one in the movie industry has the authority or power to push the Board in any direction or otherwise influence it."
We all know that the public influences the MPAA, society influences it, and the constant pushing of the envelope by film producers clearly influences how ratings are classified and assigned to those who "volunteer" for the MPAA's stamp of approval. There is no alternative, so this is how the system works until the industry and society as a whole puts enough pressure on the MPAA to put their loose standards to the test.
Is this system as described above corrupt? You're damned right it is.
No it isn't off-topic since this small thread of a discussion was about the differences in ratings between the two movies. I, however did not fixate on the male nudity, however I found it funny be it you find it immature or not. I don't really care. I somewhat enjoyed the movie without having read the graphic novel beforehand. Seeing as I am no longer 13 I could care less whether the movie is PG-13 or R since I base my interest in a movie not on its rating but whether I care to see it or not.
What makes Dr. Lecter the second last villain? That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Comic book films for the most part have been terrible. I dont care about their ratings, I care about their content! That is where they suffer.
Films should not be made to fit a certain rating. A rating should be assigned based on the content within the film. That content should be the artist's vision.
Public Service announcement:
Penultimate means second to last.
It has been my observation that it is in fact LIMITATIONS that spur creative more so then FREEDOM.
Some the the greatest literary works came about in some of the most heavly censored days. It forces the writers, film makers, etc to be creative. I have seen some increibly violent movies that didn't have a single drop of onscreen blood. They simply showed the shadows. I great example in a video game is the original SAM AND MAX when Max is 'killing' the scientist in the intro. All you see is the shadow on the wall and Max's 'wet fist' going to town.
Blanketly stating that the movie must be PG-13 doesn't mean sacrificing anything creatively, it forces the to be creative in fact. Moving violence off camera doesn't inheritly silence the point you are trying to make and pointless ANYTHING in a movie is just that, pointless.
I remember when I was subbing for an English Comp. teacher I gave out an assignment, "Write a short 2 page story without using the letter A once in the story." Oddly those were the best stories they wrote that year because the limitations forced them to think things through.
Restrictions can do more to IMPROVE stories\movies\comics then detract from them.
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Hrmmm, I sense that this will be an issue of great heat and little light, like the old "which one is better Star Wars, Star Trek, or Dr Who" (three guesses which one I like and the first two don't count)? Implying that Watchmen didn't have a plot is just spoiling for a fight. I haven't watched Dark Knight, though I think I know the plot pretty well. The plot is that (in case you weren't paying attention when you were watching the movie) a superhero dies and his old comrades try to figure out what happened to him. As the movie progresses, we realize that there is something deeper and more sinister going on. The reason that the movie isn't tight and focused on advancing the plot (unlike say Dark Knight, which probably was) is because there is more going on with the story than just the plot. As the other replier mentioned, there's the character studies, the play on comic book and movie conventions (eg, the villainous denouement at the end, the Ride of the Valkyries scene parodying Apocalypse Now, the Comedian being a grotesque anti-hero), the colorful alternate history (how things are same or different because superheroes exist), and the modern moral quandaries that the protagonists face throughout the film (though some have been poorly presented, I think, even in the original book). There is a good reason that the original Watchmen series is considered the greatest comic or graphical novel ever.
Lucky if you're a 12-year-old who thinks fart jokes are the just COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD. Not so lucky if you're an adult looking for movie fare a little more sophisticated that "LOOK AT HOW COOL OUR NEW FX SHOTS ARE!!!!"
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
In most of the non R rated superhero movies I've seen you could always walk away with the feeling that the main villain could have, at any moment, had a change of heart because he's not really evil - he's just made bad choices (lol.)
To me, that's not necessarily what makes the movie. I find that in most of the good superhero movies there is a sense of believability of the whole story, which you alluded to with the tie-in to realism of todays society. The rating of the movie itself is insignificant, as long as it succeeds in telling the story.
Part of what made the Wolverine + some Xmen (come now, Wolverine is their poster-child) movies actually work for me was the believability of Magneto. He's a villian that honestly thinks what he's doing isn't wrong. The Joker in The Dark Knight was a believable psychopath, there was no possibility for "change of heart". The Joker was well-defined as a character, he had some notion of what he was doing was "wrong", but he just didn't care. One of his great lines was in front of Two-Face "I just took your little plan and turned it on itself...", explaining that all he does is add a bit of chaos.
Of course, there are movies that just don't do that well. X-Men 3 and the Fantastic Four movies I just couldn't buy into as well. X-Men 3 suffered from the "lets-include-every-mutant-we've-ever-made-and-see-how-many-people-notice" syndrome that a lot of their cartoons did, and the Fantastic Four movies were all flash and not so much character building and story.
I'd consider Iron Man to be on the verge, there was a lot of good character development and build-up for Tony Stark, though I found the enemy to be underdeveloped. I could buy into the "you brought the company down" stuff, but there just wasn't enough of a build to give any sense of real conflict.
Looking purely at the numbers, by the third week the worldwide box office receipts are $148,909,463. The production cost was around $130,000,000. Factor in publicity and a few non-production costs and they are probably around break even right now. Anything they earn from here on out is profit.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
It's the old conflict between movies that juice the market and movies that are worth watching. One side says that market value is supreme, and so there is no need to have anything but formulaic movies based on market research. The other side says that the quality of the movie is all that matters, and so the massive flow of cash to low-quality movies is lamentable waste in the system. You seem to be solidly in the first group, but most people take a more nuanced position between the two.
Just consider, your 'most important single studio' was the strongest supporter and the last studio holdout in the Blu-rav vs. HDDVD war, which they lost. A lot of clout? absolutely- absolute leverage? demonstratably not so.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I saw it last night. I'll admit that I didn't read the novel when it was trendy to do so... Never really got into the whole comics thing. Not that I look down on them -- I just chose to escape into non-graphic media (i.e. as much sci-fi as the local library had) during my formative years.
However, I did make a point of buying and reading the novel before I saw the film. Loved the novel. Inhaled it in one sitting because I just happened to be too sick to deal with normal weekend responsibilities.
As others have said, 90% of the film is pure fan service, and likely incomprehensible to someone who didn't read the novel. I'm not complaining, in fact I was awe-struck at how well the director managed to retain the core themes, art design, and overall feeling of the story. I can see, though, why the film won't do well in the end.
It wasn't made for your average "Superhero" movie-goer. The whole point of the story wasn't to set up a superhero franchise. There won't be a Watchmen IV in 10 years. It was an exploration of the characters themselves, and in that respect has more in relation to a biographical drama than a blockbuster action flick. In other words, snooze-fest for most.
Yes, there was a lot of nudity and some sex. To be honest, though, I barely noticed it. I guess having already read the novel, I just wasn't surprised to see a giant blue dong onscreen every once in a while. Nudity doesn't much bother me anyhow. As a well-adjusted adult, I can separate nudity from sexuality. The actual sex scenes were necessary, although a little gratuitous (at least the second one was). The violence was also necessary, as it served to set the tone.
Neutering the adult content would certainly have made the film more accessible in the sense that it could have gotten a PG-13 rating, but it would have made even less sense and alienated its true target audience even more.
I was disappointed with the ending, but as others have pointed out, the director probably did the best he could, given the limitations of the format. Establishing the backstory necessary to make the novel's ending work would have made the film at least half an hour longer, and even then it probably would have seemed ridiculous.
In the end, I don't think that anyone on the creative side ever really expected it to be a blockbuster. On the financing side, sure... They always do. I suspect that the folks on the creative side were surprised that they got the money to do it, and just jumped at the opportunity. I'm glad that they managed to avoid watering it down too much. And I will be shocked if we ever see something like this get that kind of budget again. :)
A host is a host from coast to coast...
Unless it's down, or slow, or fails to POST!
It doesn't matter. In today's rating system, the only difference between PG-13 and R is "Does the show contain boobies?" Violence has no impact on ratings.
Violence is a core part of the superhero genre, but explicit sex is not. You can do all the superhero movie you want inside a PG-13 rating.
Dark Knight proved that.
It was PG-13!
IMBD: The Dark Night
Jason Wohlford
insanity (not the laughable kind)
Why so serious?
Damn you. I thought -I- was going to be the first to point out the necessity of Transmetropolitan being at LEAST R-Rated.
Magical Truthsaying Bastard, indeed.
I actually just read the series for the first time recently and thought it was probably the best comic series I'd ever read. The problem is, there's no WAY you're going to do it justice with a couple hours on the screen. Transmetropolitan is the kind of thing that needs to have each major story arc turned into its own movie. I mean, Watchmen was tough to squeeze into whatever-the-hell the uncut version is (Four hours or something?) and it's only 12 issues. Transmetropolitan is like 60.
Someone should animate it. :D Transmetropolitan would actually be the perfect subject matter for the format of an anime. Each story arc a 13 episode season. If you look at the comic issue-by-issue, it breaks down perfectly. Each issue has a beginning, build-up, and an end. It would transition to 22 minute episodes nicely. And cost something less than the 'metric fuckton of assloads of money' a decent live action version would, without having to cut really anything content-wise.
Too bad we still think of animation as 'cartoons' instead of just being a different medium. (Unless it's CG, then we think 'Aww, isn't that cute? The cartoon is pretending it's real!')
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
I think the PG-13 came in large part from the lack of sex. That always triggers the ratings. Plus, despite the implied grotesque violence, the only depicted violence was rather sanitized. I mean, sure, Batman would hurl a man into a steel beam with great force, but The Dark Knight didn't show his shattered bones and ruptured soft tissues. Watchmen did.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
I don't know if you have children, but if you think that PG-13 movies are "not scary", I would recommend that you screen at least The Ring and Sixth Sense yourself before showing it to your 7-yr-old.
I don't think you are correct about Hannibal Lecter not being portrayable in a PG-13 film. A good filmmaker can make something just as scary (The Ring (opinions vary on that one though) and Sixth Sense being good examples) without depicting the gore graphically. It's not done as often, partly because people like the gore. It's part of the fun of the movie (for people who like that), and you're making something that would scare kids anyway, so what point is there in toning the graphic violence down?
If there was a way to throw down the guantlet and challenge filmmakers to make scary films that fit withing PG-13 guidelines, you would see exactly how terrifying a film can be without on-screen gore or extreme violence. (Although if you did this you might get parents screaming to modify the rating system after those movies came out :).
Liberty uber alles.
Take a look at some of the countless great movies from the 1980s, especially comedies (like Howard the duck), and you will see alot of things that you say should be in a pg-13 rating now but it still has a pg rating from back then. I think people are just overly sensitive and as always WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS!!!!.
If it is naturally interesting for a kid to be like, look at the huge blue thing, then maybe it should be explained but how many kids would actually know to point it out unless someone says something.
Is Warner Brothers prohibiting independent studios from making their own R-Rated superhero movies?
Yes, by buying up exclusive rights to recognizable superheroes before the indies can.
You haven't seen 'W' yet, have you?
As in it was a work of art - not a commercial for toys.
I thought it was perfect. Everything about it was gritty and sublime. Super heroes, super problems. An alternate timeline where superheroes destroy the VC in vietnam and with as much ignorance and lack of humanity as was present in our own timeline? Then as a result Nixon is hailed and re-elected 3 times? Wonderful social commentary on what could have been.
Watchmen was about a real scenario where people have super-powers, all the ignorance and corruption and pettiness mixed up with noble intentions, fear driven obsessions and moral paranoia which would affect our society if this was the norm.
You want a story that matches up with this and is kid safe? Watch The Incredibles. It has a similar timeline but leaves out all the confusing parts. Want something more adult but still sanitized.. watch that Will Smith movie (at least he's a drunk).
The Watchmen did very well in it's opening weekend when all the fans went out to see it. No it did not appeal to the masses... did it have to? There are a lot of films that don't convert into blockbusters but are considered to be incredible works that stand on their own merit (rather than how much money they bring in).
Pop culture can have it's heroes, just let those of us who aren't afraid to experience a different reality have a few of our own.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I was referring to the comics when I used the term 'Dark Knight movies.' The Frank Miller approach.
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Are you sure? While comedies have started delving into the R-rated territory more and more, it seems like action and horror movies have dropped down into the PG-13 range to try to get a larger audience.
Men have penises. Deal with it. This is what happens when you have a society that is founded by fundamentalist extremists. It's perfectly fine to see people bash the shit out of each other on screen, or to view bodies in various states of death or dismemberment, but show a penis, and all of a sudden, people have no idea what to do. If you can't deal with such simple facts as the natural state of our own bodies, then you shouldn't be a parent in the first place, because as a parent, it's your fucking JOB to make your children aware of the world, and prepare them for greater things. One thing we don't need, is for people to breed like rats while passing on their own fears and limitations into their offspring, thus ensuring yet another generation of mediocrity. Grow the fuck up, people. The key word is: EVOLVE. I know that word scares some folks, and rightly so, as those people are correctly sensing that they have been earmarked for extinction. Let's raise the bar for a change, instead of lowering it into the gutter, shall we? Let's get over the fact that someone dared to be creative, and someone else actually had the balls to present that creativity with something approaching the original spirit of the source material, instead of bowing to the knuckle-dragging, 'think-of-the-children', mentality that's been holding this country back for over three decades, and instead, encourage others to raise the bar as well. Let's try something NEW for a change, because the other way hasn't worked . . . ever. Either that, or report to the nearest Soylent Green Manufacturing Facility for immediate processing. . . .
This was a 3 hour movie! You're telling me by making it kid friendly, it's going to do even better? Kids don't have that kind of attention span, I don't have that kind of attention span. If you're going to make a 3 hour movie you may as well make it adult to keep my interest.
Most comics and graphic novel enthusiasts have known for years that not all comics are for kids. Some are, and those are fine to be made into the PG movies you desperately want to take your kids to. Some are most certainly not, and Watchmen is one of those comics. There was no way to do the series credit with a rating of less than "R" because the series deals with some dirty, not-at-all family-friendly subjects. Any informed source could have told you this before you showed up, and you would have known what to expect. This is another example of using a 3rd party to fill in for parental responsibilities. Take the effort to know what you are going to see before you go, and explain to your kid why you can't go if you can't go. If I see a PG adaptation of "The Sandman" before I die, you will see a grown man weep.
From what I understand about the Watchmen, it's about the human condition not making 10 billion at the box office. I loved the movie, never a dull moment. Maybe some people just don't understand the storyline well enough to follow along. Oh and I liked the sex, nudity, violence too. I have a kid that is 14 and I wouldn't mind him seeing the movie but I would need to prepare him and explain the story before seeing it. It seems americans try to censor things instead of understand them.
had one merrit; gratuitous violence. A retarded villain and poor acting, was fine for the pg-13 movies. Like some garbage the kids can watch. But it's about a guy who kills people, how can you make it pg-13? Who REALLY cares about a bit of violence on screen? Those who're too sensitive, and those who are insane. Nudity and violence are what life is based on.
I'm not sure that anything involving regulation of the market such as ratings can be said in any meaningful sense to be a "free market". The point is that ratings are not merely a guideline, they are enforced with restrictions (obviously, who can see them, but there may also be issues with who may stock them - e.g., for games I believe it's the case in the US that may retailers don't want to stock an adult rated game at all, even if they're able to restrict the sale to adults). There may be other restrictions (e.g., advertising?)
Yes, it's true that there'll be less demand for a product that has Government imposed restrictions, and further restrictions added by retailers, but that's pointing out the bleeding obvious. This is not in any sense a "free market" where people are choosing what type of films they want to see.
and then create an R rated super hero movie
As pointed out, it doesn't help when all the copyrights of comic books seem to be owned perpetually by one big movie company now.
I was sitting 4 or 5 seats away from a couple of early teen boys whose parents were two rows up. The scene where the little girl's leg bone was being fought over by the dogs or when the cleaver ended up in the guy's skull did not elicit any attempts by the parents to stop the viewing, yet when the two main characters began to screw in the ship, Mom was turned around and motioning for them to cover their eyes. Are you freaking kidding me? These Sex vs. Violence discussions always bring me back to a Vanity Card by Chuck Lorre: http://www.chucklorre.com/index.php?p=155
Haha, I had the same experience, where was this infamous blue dong? I immediately grasped and accepted the concept that Dr. Manhattan did not care about clothes, but I didn't even know there was "full frontal" (CG at that) until after the movie, when people were walking out all "Baah! penis! I hate penis!".
It was well done, fit the character so well it didn't distract me from the scene/story/characters. The rest of the move though - woah - not a kid's movie. Neither was the Dark Knight though. I thought this movie was waaaaay better than the Dark Knight. I'd even go as far as saying best comic movie yet.
Don't worry, in the quest to get larger audiences into PG-13, the ratings system will get so skewed that R will become "ultraviolence" and pr0n, and pg-13 will be the regular old killing, torture, and skinemax.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Is a share of nothing.
I too found the movie interesting, thoughtful, well written and played. It was an intelligent movie, and probably too insightful to be popular.
What's not helping the studio is that the merchandising opportunities will probably be more limited.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Fun fact: "penultimate" means "next to last"
So who's the ultimate villain of movies, then?
The penultimate villain of movies: Hannibal Lecter could have been conveyed in a PG-13 movie. R gave the director alot more to work with but the chilling aspect of Dr. Lecter is his normalcy up to the point where he does or says something taboo to our culture.
No, he couldn't. "PG" means Parental Guidance. As in, you actually talk to your kid about the film, and try to "reverse the damage" it might've done. Arguably, you could've rated Kill Bill as "PG-13". If you watch Kill Bill with your kid, I think you can easily make him see that it's all a live-action Tom and Jerry thing. People don't go around with katanas cutting arms off. How the hell do you do that with Hannibal Lecter? The reason why the rendition of the character is so famous is because it's freaking disturbing. It's lifelike. It's the stuff that makes your kid have nightmares that night, because anybody around him could be like that.
Both of those are rated R, though, so go watch The Prestige instead. That's PG-13, dunno why. It's a pretty obsessive, twisted, violent plot, it's just not all that violent on the surface. In general, I wouldn't trust most 13 year olds to get the film, but, for the ones mature enough to actually get it, I'd worry whether they were then mature enough to stomach it. Plus it's not an easy film to help a kid to digest. Hence, I'd rate it R.
I didn't know but good luck with your quest with trying to sway a connotation that is so far from the denotation.
Honestly the frequency of R-ratings have gone up for all movies. I remember when there were countless great movies from the 1980s that were all rated PG. Now most comedies seem to be rated PG-13 and R. I don't personally have anything against R-rated movies being that I use "fuck" as a comma and have nothing against watching on-screen violence, but I'm wondering if the movie industry is hoping to move back to where it was 20 years ago. Hell, we say that they need to change how they do business, perhaps this is a step in that direction--something which they hope they will get back to a time when they feel that they were a little more successful?
Obviously they thought that their core demographic required that they have a movie rated R to attract viewers. Instead of flashy CGI they're moving to over-the-top language and T&A to cover the fact that the dialogue kinda fucking sucks. IMHO Iron Man, while rated PG-13, wouldn't have gained anything by becoming rated R.
the "ratings drift" has less to do with the content of the movies changing and more to do with the rightward shift of the US as a whole causing the ratings themselves to skew.
For another more polar example of this see the "virgin killer" album cover, which was displayed in neighborhood record stores in the 70's and is now on CP blacklists in several nations.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The reason this sucks is the indirection. It means that movie makers aren't going to be quite thinking about the vision they want, which includes whatever amount of sex/violence/harshlanguage/etc.
Instead, they'll be thinking about MPAA ratings.
"R" doesn't necessarily mean "bad for your kids" and "G" doesn't necessarily mean "good for your kids." Sure, the MPAA's goal probably really is honestly an attempt to categorize movies that way, but their criteria (e.g. n violence units is PG-13, n+1 violence units is R) will always be arbitrary (it's impossible to do otherwise). There's just no way their opinion is always going to exactly match your own. We should always remember that their ratings are really just rough approximate guesses, intended to correlate with some generic median American opinion (and likely actually correlated to some distorted sample within that).
When movie makers set these rating categories as goals, and when theaters use these ratings rigidly (e.g. "we don't show unrated or NC-17 movies"), the MPAA's rough approximation is being taken way too seriously and given too much power. This just can't be nondestructive to creativity and art.
It would be one thing if Warner Brothers said they're going to make less violent movies from now on. I wouldn't have a problem with that. I wouldn't even object if they made a statement along the lines of, "Our future movies being less violent, we predict that most of them will probably end up getting rated as PG-13." But if they're going to target a rating and adjust their movies to fit, then I can't help but think of them as less artistically-oriented and more factory-like.
Should we fear it? Well, no, as long as you support independents. There will always be someone out there who intends to make good movies without sweating over MPAA ratings. Support them, and movies will live on.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If the big studios stop making $100m blockbuster R-rated movies, then a smart film company should start leveraging CGI to make $5-$10m ones to tap into that market.
Which, since CGI will inevitably continue to drop in price, is why we need not fear an absence of such films.
Let the big studio serve up the vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. That will grow, rather than shrink, the market for a fine Goat Cheese Sorbet.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
If the story doesn't work or isn't true to its creators intent without the violence or sex then it should be there. I know this is a very "naive" idea but really the artistic continuity is much more important than what rating it has or how much audience it has. If the story is compelling enough and supports the sex and violence then it should be there and people will come and see it. It is hard for me to understand why people get so upset about a blue penis or bare boobies. That really is not the story or the message it is just our hangups limiting our world
Um, the issue here is that they are two completely different stories. One is a graphic novel and the other is a comic book - in no universe should they be considered the same thing... ever.
Personally, I don't want directors and studios to pander to 13 year olds and try and shoe horn a great story into a crappy rating... what I want them to pander to is my inner 13 year old. I want to see comic book movies that are built for my adult self but lend themselves to what I used to read as a 13 year old. And my adult self doesn't want fluff. I want the stories I read as a kid played out in a manner that my brain remembers them now and wants to see them... visceral, real, exciting, full of depth.
Movies in the 70s-80s that were rated PG often showed breasts. Funny how something that we would rate PG then would be an instant R rating now just because of some womans bosom.
Watchmen could have easily toned down the sex and violence. I mean seriously, we get the point, they're having sex. We don't need the scene to go on for a minute and a half (although the fire jet as apparent orgasm symbol was funny). Similarly, we didn't need the length of violence in which the Comedian is killed. It was more detailed and longer than the comic. The sex and violence could have been reduced and then we could have had the plot from the book, i.e. giant squid not crap that doesn't make sense duplicating Dr. Manhattan's power. In this case, if they had tried to make a PG-13 movie it would have been better.
For a cross between a sex toy and a neon light? /shrugs
Who am I to judge? :)
But if you keep going with that line of thinking, you might have a hot seller of a product on your hands.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
If this is the kind of reaction scenes from the Watchmen gets, you REALLY shouldn't let your kids watch "Schindler's List" until they graduate highschool.
Works for me.
Penultimate: Lechter.
Ultimate: Darth Vader (Pre-prequels, before he was reduced to a whiny little bitch).
http://www.mpaa.org/Ratings_HowRated.asp The major criteria is the content (i.e. language, nudity, etc) the minor criteria is the context. While cannibalism is a concept that is ill suited for 13 year olds, I do think that it could be presented in a way to get a lower rating while at the same time (with Anthony Hopkins' portrayal) being disturbing and creepy even to the level it is in the films. Hence the difficulty many parents have with the MPAA ratings. The ratings tell me generally how much mature or violent content is in the film but not whether the issues involving the plot are appropriate for my child or even palatable to me as an adult.
they're not willing to give up merchandising to all those kids.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Why is it okay to show a pole but no hole?
Balance the movie out! Show us some chick crotch too. I would much rather see that than a schlong anyway.
I hate these double standards.
Are you sure? While comedies have started delving into the R-rated territory more and more...
Caddyshack, Stripes, Tootsie?
it seems like action and horror movies have dropped down into the PG-13 range to try to get a larger audience.
The tolerance level for individual ratings have just increased (which is generally a good thing). The Dark Knight was PG-13, but back in 1999 The Matrix was rated R. Similarly, I have no idea how Kevin Smith managed to get Zack and Miri down from NC-17 to R, but he did.
There's no way Watchmen would have been made ten years ago, at least not in a way as faithful as it was made today. The studio would know that it would get rated NC-17, and NC-17 movies just don't bring in the cash necessary for a movie with a budget of that size.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Well, there's no more R-rated superhero movies. But keep in mind that the Dark Knight, which has lots of sadistic violence, somehow got a PG-13. Violence which would have earned an "R" even 5 years ago is now PG-13 material. On the other hand, PG movies from the 70's and 80's featured brief nudity, which would earn an automatic "R" today.
Ratings change, there's no doubt about it. I'm not sure if this change was for the best, however...
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Honestly the frequency of R-ratings have gone up for all movies. I remember when there were countless great movies from the 1980s that were all rated PG. Now most comedies seem to be rated PG-13 and R.
This is because of changes in how the ratings are assessed.
For example, I remember watching the comedy "nuns on the run" which included a full-frontal nudity shower scene. The move was rated PG (there was no PG-13 at that time). If it was release today, that movie would probably not be rated even PG-13, but given an R rating instead.
So it's more a reflection on the increasing "prudishness" and "OMG SAVE THE CHILDREN" in our society than the movies themselves.
Because you don't want to?
Well, maybe he doesn't either.
You know, if someone makes a turd sandwich and people don't complain, how will the sandwich maker know that the reason he's not selling is because people don't like turd sandwiches rather than it being because of the competition with the burger van down the road from him?
Why MUST the response to a comlpaint now always give some twat a reason to say "well, why don't YOU do it" (and oddly enough, the same person who rails against the "if you want X in FOSS project Y, write it yourself", as if the fact that you are getting FREE FOSS is a reason why you should expect MORE from them than someone who wants you to PAY THEM).
Novelty hood ornaments?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Buuut in the 80's there was no PG-13 rating. PG covered everything that wasn't explicitly "R". A few of them had boobs and some had strong language, up to and including "fuck".
Yeah, well that might have SOMETHING to do with the fact that "PG-13" didn't exist in the 80's ?
And lets face it, the reason Watchmen was undervalued was that it had that dumb love plot. Audiences have seen it before, and it made the movie seem sickeningly predictable. Thank heavens I stayed to watch the end, and the Rorschach bits - 5 star material there.
They aren't buying exclusive rights
It did in 1969 when it bought DC.
In response to all the innapproiate for children remarks:
Who are you to decide what's innapproiate for my children? I have 2 kids, and I'm not interested in putting blinders on their eyes until they are of an age when you decide they are mature enough to have them removed.
If they see scenes of graphic sex and violence on the TV, in movies or on the internet, they are seeing them with my consent. Not behind my back. And they know that, and they can discuss their thoughts with me. Your kids will only see them by subterfuge, and will not want to mention them to you, because its something they are not supposed to be doing.
Take your pick, you want kids who grew up in the real world, or disneyland?
I didn't fully realize just how much cussing Bruce Willis did until I saw DH1 & 2 on TV. They replaced the words with a voiceover with milder language, and the vocieover didn't even sound like willis. It was more jarring to me than the language was. And "Yippie Kayay, Mr. Falcon"? Barf!
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Try this... Write down how you remember that scene, and go and watch it again and write down what you actually see.
Compare notes.
Does he slit his throat or just his mouth? If he is holding a knife in his mouth, how many cuts does he make? Does he stab him or just cut him?
Also... what happens to the Chechen? Does he get fed to his dogs? How about Lau? Does he burn along with the money? Do we get to see it?
Most of the violence in The Dark Knight is left to the viewers' imagination.
It is played up before that, by actors, by direction, editing, music...
So, when the actual scene does come - just a hint of what is supposed to happen in the scene is enough.
You add the last piece of the puzzle yourself.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Ok, I wasn't clear: I meant how the system would make sense, not how it effectively works. Then again, I'm expecting parents to go to the cinema with their children and discuss the film afterwards, so I'm already working on pretty flawed premises :).
Honestly, though, I can't conceive Hannibal Lecter still spooking the crap out of me the way he does while being innocuous enough for a kid young teenager, but, to me, it's not the cannibalism that's scary, it's the way he plays with people. It's his smug superiority, his geniality, the way, even incarcerated, he reaches out and attacks. It's a man that even in almost full lockdown still has power. And he's almost pure evil.
(Incidentally, I am obviously stating that, if Anthony Hopkins's performance hadn't been quite as good, the character itself might not have warranted an 'R')
I didn't even realize that The Dark Knight was PG-13. I assumed it was R. No way in hell would I let a 13 year old see that w/o a parent. My wife won't even watch it a second time, it creeped her out way too much.
Alas, R ratings are about nudity and words, not the overall psychological effect the movie might have on someone.
Batman Begins was OK as PG-13, that seems appropriate. The Dark Knight was far, far too dark & disturbing for that rating though.
Re the sorbet recipe: dry ice should work just as well, and is easier to get hold of than liquid nitrogen. Just be sure to break it up into small bits first.
I loved the movie, and it wasn't too violent or too much sex for me, but I am 36. What really bothered me was that all these retarded parents brought their 9 and 10 year olds tot his film. I ran into one parent I knew at the concession stand, bringing his 9 year old and I tried to talk him out of it. I asked if he knew anything about the show or the comic, etc. He didn't. I tried to tell him how graphic it would be, but he had already spent $10 on his kid's ticket. I wonder how much he'll spend on psych bills later on. :) I talked to him a couple of days later and he wished he had taken heed to my warning. I actually found it hard to enjoy the movie because there were so many kids in there. I thought this film should have had an NC17 rating for sure, just to stop the moron parents from bringing their kids. I left my 4 kids at home, and I was glad I did.
Yea, why not make it a saturday morning cartoon.
Surely none of the artistic meaning would be lost...
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
If a comic book can show images of obviously fake characters being eviscerated, beheaded, blown in half, and having various body parts ripped off in a gory manner, why can't movies?
Next thing you know, we'll be seeing Superman, Batman, The Incredible Hulk, and X-Men-esque films replaced by the likes of Bob The Builder and Gumby. .....And, when these films inevitably fail, the film industry will start to blame pirates for the decline in box office revenue.
It's going to follow the same path as the music industry: Fewer and fewer people are buying songs because nobody feels that they are worth the money. When the film industry starts offering crappier and crappier movies, nobody will want to pay $10+ for a ticket (plus the $20 for a soda and popcorn) to see them, and they'll download them instead for free. If you offer a crappy product, and consumers do not feel that it is worth the price (regardless of what you say it's worth), they'll either try to get it for free or whatever price they feel it's worth, provided they actually want it. Cram it full of previews and 'Coming Soon!' advertisements will *DEFINITELY* increase your chances of losing a legal sale to an illegal download.
The biggest reasons people download instead of purchase a movie is:
1: No monetary losses for a sub-par film,
2: People don't feel like shelling out $25 for a film,
3: No previews or 'Coming Soon!' advertisements,
4: No menus,
5: No add-on software,
6: No changing disks for different movies,
7: "Instant Playback" (The movie starts the moment you open the file),
8: No irrelevant trailers,
9: Easy to make back-up copies,
10: DVDs are non-replaceable,
11: Cheaper popcord and soda,
12: No regional encoding.
The MPAA and RIAA don't want to admit that people do not feel that their products warrant the prices they are offering them at.
If you offer shitty products, you'll make shitty profits.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I was looking forward to a Emma Frost movie... :evil laugh:
Oh Cyclops!... OOOOH (Insert choice one eyed monster innuendo,)ahhHH!!!11111!1!!!one!!!one!!!!!
You don't need gore to sell a movie, unless your movie is based on gore.
You don't need sex to sell a movie, unless your movies is based on sex.
Superhero movies are based on the concept of a 'superhero'. The most profitable movies of all time, have been geared to be watchable by 'families'. Now, family-friends does not mean that Mom and Dad and their 2.3 kids are all going to the theater, it also means that parents will permit thier young daughter, Barbie, go out with 'Ken' to see a movie that they feel comfortable sending young adults on a date to go and see.
There are plenty of movies that fulfill the 'R' rated audience demands. These seldom are huge cash machines, in fact one could argue that as a percentage of all movies made, the 'R' rated movies make less money than the 'G' rated movies.
As a movie executive, the goal is to make money from your movie. You can do like Pixar and make a fortune on your movie, then make double that in after-market toys, pajamas, T-shirts and lunch boxes. Why? Because their movies appeal to young and old alike. Parents buy the DVD, and they know that when the grandkids, cousins, neighborhood kids come to visit; they can watch those movies without any parent being offended.
A superhero movie's demographic is going to be minors to young adults. The older classics (Iron Man, Batman, Spiderman) are going to appeal to a wider age range than the 'Watchmen', simply because of the age of those people who read the comics. Simply stated, when you make an 'R' rated movie, you immediately remove the family and young adult (12-18) group from the customer list. Those 18-90 yr olds are going to be more mature, those who are 'adults' will want a compelling story, and there had better be a good reason why the story required them to find babysitters. Boobs, graphic violence jsut doesn't cut it. Now, movies that tell a historic event fall into a category that is unique. The 'R' rating is justified, in fact 'defended' in movies like "Saving Private Benjamin", "The Passion", "The Patriot" and "Schlinder's List" for the fact that the movie depicts actual events.
Having a big blue guy with full frontal nudity for 3 hours isn't defendable. There is no reason, other than the Director's wish to shock his audience. Guess what? Most 18-24 yr olds weren't shocked, and those 25-90 didn't find the rationale for having to include the scenes that gave it an 'R' rating defendable. Hence, the movie didn't make money.
Plastic Man
The pile of rubbish that was X-Men 3. X3 was one of the most cynically produced films I have ever seen in a effort to get the PG-13/12A rating. It's an incredibly violent movie with lots and lots of death. How many people does Wolverine stab in the chest/stomach? The answer is lots, but because we didn't see any blood that is somehow OK. I was actually offended by the efforts the film went to to make the rating. Also, it should have been an R/18 just to protect young children from the dialogue alone.
Puzzle Daze is now my job
Why are superhero movies even PG as a norm? shouldnt they be G? they are based on comics which conform to the moralist comics code, ie the source material is G rated (dark knight is part of a more recent era of comics which is no longer bound by the old code. its an exception).
To add some perspective, what would you think about a remake of the Wizard of Oz with an R rating for nudity and profanity. How about Tom Sawyer and Huckfinn adapted to the big screen with that R rating, and the screenplay altered to be more commercially viable-- Jim is now secretly working for the 'railroad' and huck and tom have repressed feelings for each other.
How about King Lear being performed for over a 150 years with an alternate 'Happy' ending written by Johnson?
I'm not saying no to non-G super hero movies, just think about why PG-13 or R would be considered the norm, when the source material is so 'clean'
---
A few years ago Wizard ran a list of the 100 greatest villains. Included is Hannibal Lechter. The following is a link to the Wikipedia page: ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anakinjmt/Wizard's_100_Greatest_Villains_Listrel=url2html-29842http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anakinjmt/Wizard's_100_Greatest_Villains_List>
In other countries people make movies using the shots that are necessary in order to make the movie they envision. In America, we construct movies piece by piece, at every step having them torn to shreds and glued back together by some panel of idiots. This is why books like Huck Finn get censored, and we get R rated movies where every nude scene has to comment on itself, as if to say, "How deliciously rebellious that we should have this scene". A vast portion of the American people have lost the ability to look at the big picture, and instead nitpick every little thing until the wholes have lost all their meaning. That's why practically all we see any more in entertainment is the most uneducating, valueless material imaginable. "Entertainment" used to be buddies with "art", and its purpose included education.
Here
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Americans, Brits and the French massively overemphasize the west front in WWII, and tend to ignore the East Front. A more fair assessment is that the Soviet Union defeated Germany, with significant logistical and material support from the USA (the most important of which was trucks and food, IIRC). Germany was already losing against the Soviets by the time of the Normandy invasions.
Are you adequate?
You jest, but an ex of mine had a glow-in-the-dark blue dildo. That's what I immediately thought of when I saw Dr. Manhattan's junk. Coincidently, she names her sex toys, and that particular one was named "John".
Every time a character referred ti Dr. Manhattan by his first name (Jon), I actually laughed.
Sigs are for losers
I always hate the "X army did more than Y army" debate of WWII.
There was one overriding thing that dictated the outcome of WWII.
America's manufacturing centers were basically untouchable.
In the end, we simply made material faster than it could be destroyed.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
"Sex is one thing, nudity is another my dad had no problem with me watching total recall (there is a non-sexual seen with 3 nipples in it :O) when i was >10."
So someone groping a three breasted prostitute is not sexual? Interesting....
I want to address the real question here - am I afraid I am not going to get to see Rated R Superhero films?
No.
The reason I am not afraid is that the whole Watchmen 'failure', as the studios call it, is based on $150 million cost of the movie, and not recouping that cost within the first 3 weeks.
If the studios want to place those type of sales expectations on a graphic novel film that was heavily hyped for 2 years, where their marketing regime was responsible for creating the long runway in which the movie was setup to crash and burn, and then saying that the public isn't ready for Rated R Superhero films, then that's fine for them.
The percentage of the public that had actually read the graphic novel before the movie came out was microscopic, despite the fact that it was touted as 'the most popular graphic novel of all time'. So, the film has to stand on its own for both people who had read it, and a huge number of people who hadn't. Then, there are of course other factors that keep people away from the theater. If they hear there is violence and sex, some people are turned away. If you are below 17, you are automatically turned away. If you typically go to the movies with family, you aren't necessarily going to see this on your own. The reasons people might not have come to the theater to see this go on and on.
The studios might be wiser to wait until the DVD sales are over before they make up their minds about success or failure. If it becomes profitable after the DVD comes out, then maybe they spoke too soon. This may have been the perfect film to start the trend of releasing DVD to stores and film to theater at the same time.
I want to see Superhero films, as well as other kinds of films, in all ratings, and I will get to do that as long as studios don't place unrealistic expectations on these films, and maybe they think about cutting costs on the production of these films so they don't cost so much to make. And please, lessen the hype so that the film can really speak for itself, instead of people having ideas, whether good or bad, about what the film is going to be like before deciding about if they are going into the theater.
Meh. Have to disagree on their first two. I always thought batman villains, especially the joker, were over the top to the point of ridiculous, and Pazuzu? Maybe I was just jaded by the time I saw the exorcist but... yeesh.
shaking into the camera for a good few seconds.
In the 80's a PG rating was equivelent to a PG-13/R rating today. I remember thinking if Airplane was PG then what would an R rated movie be like. Then I picked up Taxi Driver. An 80's movie rated R. The guy goes to a porn flick.
So there you go. In the 80's, an R rating was reserved for blurred out porn and graphic violence.
Boobies got you a PG.
So it's only been the last 10-20 years that nudity has become rated on the same level as violence.
Work Safe Porn
I was looking forward to the movie version of P0rn Girl.
The one wearing the superhero cape.... and nothing else.
Have gnu, will travel.
Honestly the frequency of R-ratings have gone up for all movies. I remember when there were countless great movies from the 1980s that were all rated PG. Now most comedies seem to be rated PG-13 and R. I don't personally have anything against R-rated movies being that I use "fuck" as a comma and have nothing against watching on-screen violence fuck but I'm wondering if the movie industry is hoping to move back to where it was 20 years ago. Hell fuck we say that they need to change how they do business fuck perhaps this is a step in that direction--something which they hope they will get back to a time when they feel that they were a little more successful?
Obviously they thought that their core demographic required that they have a movie rated R to attract viewers. Instead of flashy CGI they're moving to over-the-top language and T&A to cover the fact that the dialogue kinda fucking sucks. IMHO Iron Man fuck while rated PG-13 fuck wouldn't have gained anything by becoming rated R.
Fixed that for you.
Yeah, it's not as funny as I had hoped. :( You should have used more commas.
The Dark Night was an R-rated super hero movie with a PG-13 rating. Obviously they're referring to the fact that if you put a superhero in it the MPAA is willing to give you a PG-13 rating. There won't be any further superhero movies with blood, since that appears to be the dividing line.
Which especially for The Dark Knight kind of surprises me. Both were dark movie and have large amounts of violence. They are good, but I've seen less graphic movies with less violence get an R.
As a Brit, I really can't understand why anyone over the age of 7 years would want to read about or watch super hero stories. That was the age I started to find Batman and Superman cheesy.
Can someone please explain. Is it only Americans who like this sort of thing?
I saw the Tim Burton Batman when it came out, and the X-Men with Patrick Stewart and found them very pathetic. What am I missing?
Stick Men
I agree with your views mostly - the day we are able to (individually, socially impossible) go around without clothes, see another woman (or man) naked, but not get sexually aroused, that day will be great. BUT that is extremely difficult and dangerous too. Mahatma Gandhi used to recommend something like this for people known to have integrity, whom he trusted had the inner ability to stand such temptation.
(Hint: Dont even think of trying this - irreparable damage will almost surely result in multiple disastrous ways.)
But, there is a counterpoint: Darwin proved that man evolved from animals. Nature gave the restless thoughtless minds hair and fur and colorful coats, but man being intelligent has not much hair. Probably expected to be intelligent and evolved enough to be clothed everywhere except in solitude, that too for a short time (bath, toilet). Nature schedules specific mating seasons for most species, but man is at the mercy of his weak will while fighting the urge throughout the year. Man can control - turn off or turn on his urge by mild suggestion - and that is the dangerous aspect. Seduction is easy in humans as compared to animals. Manipulative beliefs can make males harbor strong desires to "satisfy the urge whenever possible". That's not how animals are, and not how Nature probably expected higher beings to behave.
So clothes are a pretty good thing - they're, as incredible as it may sound, *natural*.
Animals and birds have fur, hair, scales, thick skin and mating seasons.
Corporate America has studied many human societies and zeroed in on a formula to convert your reproductive systems into a form of crack that you have to carry around with you without choice.
Don't cut them out yet!
You'll grow tits and you can't fix/screw them back again.
But handle this sex thing like nature does - once per year in mating season. Not more.
and live a relatively doubt-free/worry-free life.
It's this crucial statistic - once a year - that everyone in the media skips - they need you to screw and get into trouble - to sustain profitable business models.
This is also why the Church does not like Darwin - evolution implies sex is a much lesser crime - so they cannot taint you with eternal sin - and at the same time, they cannot urge you to do more because nature, again, says "once a year only".
Nah.
What would have Pwned would have been if the director had CGI'ed low-grade military secrets onto that portion of screenspace. Or the secret key to a contest worth a lot of money.
Then you'd have people torn desperately between their lust for intrigue & money, which would win, vs. their supposed disgust for the nudity.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
R ratings have also been more prudishly applied. Logan's Run was rated PG and it had some tits and a vaguely filmed orgy scene.
An animated version was attempted. If you hunt around the internet, you can find a few frames of teaser animation for a show that (as far as I could tell) has never seen the light of day.
/..
I agree, miniseries would be the ideal format. But American TV hates miniseries. "If it's good, why the heck would we end it? If it's bad, why bother making it at all?" The best hope would be to commission a Japanese studio to do it, the same way Afro Samurai came to be. But Blah, I should've stopped a paragraph ago, no need to travel this path; this discussion is all over the various fanboards, no need to drag up again on
Excuse me? Ripping out major parts of Volume VI? Butchering THE ONE pivotal moment where Kovacs becomes Rorschach?
[spoiler alert] How is the movie version of the kidnapper/murderers death (man handcuffed, having his head split with a meat cleaver) better than the original (man handcuffed to stove, given a hacksaw, but not enough time to saw through the metal)?
The movie makes Rorschach into a mentally unstable kook that one day flips and kills a (defenseless!) man. Murder one. End of Story.
In the Comic Rorschach gives the man a (small) chance to get out (admitting his lack of humanity by "gnawing off its paw"). The man fails this 'trial by fire' and Kovacs -watching the house burn down like a funeral pyre for humanity as a whole- turns into Rorschach.
By the way: The Psychiatrist losing his sleep, his illusions, and eventually his wife .. all from "gazing into the abyss"?
IMHO he's a symbol for the reader of the comic. Us. How do WE cope with that final truth? "we are alone. there is nothing else".
What's your way of blocking out the darkness? Religion? Booze? Dope? Anti-acids against the growing Ulcers? Cowboy Neal?
Dark, edgy, destroy-everything-while-swearing-like-a-sailor characters were popular in the 80's, scaled back in the 90's and returned at the turn of the millenium after 9/11. It seems to have something to do with the bounce in our collective personality between a sense of rebellion versus the whole "won't anyone think of the children" mindset.
I'm sure once everyone decides they hate democrats again and reverts back to electing the next gun-toting, beer-swilling, secretly gay/publicly straight militant christian president, we'll get our R-rated violence and swearing... which will probably be the new standard for the "PG"-rating in 2016.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Yeah -- I think that was it -- it wasn't really that violent -- certainly not more than many PG-13 movies. Must of been the blue flaccid barely-visible schlong...
What a hypocritical, fracked up morality this country has....
The real crimes are pleasure, love and sex. The issues on "drug abuse" are about people "getting high". That's what the euphemism "abuse" means. And getting 'high' a euphemism for getting into some type of pleasurable state. So our society calls 'pleasure', abuse and makes it illegal. Just the site of a flaccid representation of a source of pleasure they haven't yet figured out a way to make 'illegal' is enough to earn an 'R' rating. With sex, it gets put down, as dirty, disgusting, icky, filthy, perverted -- everything to counter the reality that it's the only legal source of pleasure. And even at that, the sick people in society do everything to make it problematic or troublesome -- forcing babies on pleasure seekers, or forcing pregnancy risks, or saying sex is only for procreation or every sexual actual act should have the potential for procreation.
Drugs are just another outlet to access 'pleasure', that doesn't have the pregnancy and STD risks -- but since it isn't necessary for life, we can make all such drugs illegal.
A flaccid blue is just oh so disruptive to our society.... Not like showing rapes killings and murders...
no, those are just fine. Caught the end of a junkshow last night (ABC runs their programs slow). Last scene from lost: "You know, you were right" (Man to cute young kid(boy)). "I am a murder." Man pulls out a gun and shoots him with the kid. Kid is shocked, and holds his bloody chest with as he falls, dead to ground. Kid looked like "an innocent"..*blam*. End of story. Another death carved into my eyes before I knew what I was watching (was looking for "Life on Mars"...found death on earth instead).
Just great -- I went the whole evening avoiding graphic murder and death and then had it shockingly shoved right in my face -- thank you ABC. Killing like that -- that should be the real obscenity. Not a barely visible (you have to look really closely) flaccid member (it's mostly hidden in the blue glow).
Just completely fracked up.
Someone needs to make a picture and go 'if you noticed the blue dick I have some bad news...'
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+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Mate, if your gf doesn't like penis, you should probably start looking somewhere else for a moist hole.
"Nature" doesn't expect jack shit, and your understanding of animal mating behaviour is beyond abysmal.
And when you are trying to grade something "objectively" (or at least you are trying to keep the pretense of objectivity - like MPAA) - you must be able to quantify.
So, you get people counting F-words, stab wounds, examining bullet holes, measuring puddles of blood and etc. - pretending that they are actually doing something more than just saying "I like this movie, it is OK" or "I don't like this movie, give it an R or NC-17".
On another note - graphic violence is dulling.
You see it clearly in front of you and it becomes clinical. Like those re-enactment scenes on the CSI shows.
Bullet goes from A to B, puncturing some meat, bones, exiting the body and jamming itself in the wall. Yawn.
In case of the implied violence (if done right) - you, the audience, take part in deciding the extent of the violence.
You add the blood, the gushing wounds, the pain...
Explicit violence just for the violence's sake just gets you a Grindhouse movie.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
As a long time comic book reader I agree with the decision to eliminate the rated R super hero movies. There are a lot of people, like myself, who are older and want a more advanced story line, but I have to take a backseat to how kids will view a character. I don't want my daughter or son popping claws and killing Spiderman when they go out trick n' treating in October. What Marvel also has to work on is the message that some of their characters send out to kids. I understand the motivations behind the Punisher and Wolverine's blood lust, but a kid will just thing 'it's cool' to kill off the bad guys. A little nerfing on the violence is a step in the right direction. One of the bigger problems MARVEL has is that there are not a lot of titles suited for kids to READ. Most comic books, printed these days, are targeted to a much older demographic. When the Iron Man movie came out, sales of the comic book sky rocketed with under 12 crowd.
The Watchmen graphic novel was not made for kids to read and I don't see why the movie should be any different. I thought the violence was tastefully done for the movie adaptation. The dialogue was almost the same but obviously there were changes. The only thing I keep hearing from people was about the constant blue-wang popping up from scene to scene.
But that has nothing to do with guns. Anyone can throw someone out of a window, or push them off a bridge. Just ask that fine father in the news in Australia a few weeks back. Kids have been known to bite, and so did the guy in Watchmen. Rape also doesn't require a gun, nor does beating women.
The simple fact is, much of the violence in Watchmen is fairly accessible. It was VERY visceral. As an adult, some of it wasn't pleasant, but I don't think it was gratuitous. Which gets back down to the original issue. Why does it all centre around guns for you?
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Excerpt from the Wikipedia description:
The film discusses disparities the filmmaker sees in ratings and feedback: between Hollywood and independent films, between homosexual and heterosexual sexual situations, between male and female sexual depictions, and between violence and sexual content.
[...]
The director used a private investigator [...] to unmask the identities of the ratings and appeals board members.
It doesn't. It was a quick example of extreme violence that is deemed OK for youngsters to watch.
Guns allow allow for extreme violence (in death count) to not be bad to watch.
I was simply commenting on my opinion of what people generally find to be acceptable movie violence.
I don't really care what people watch, I was trying to speculate what the reason for the ridiculous reaction to sex in media, compared to the much more reasoned response people generally have to violence.
To me the issue is, why does a little wang make an R-rated movie, and lots of killing doesn't.
My answer was that a little wang is a much closer to life experience that large amounts of killing. And I do think that guns make large amounts of killing easier, but it really is not the issue. The issue is why don't people care, and I think it has to do with familiarity.
I imagine most gun advocates have never shot anyone, and many people have at the very least beat someone else (in a fight). So I would expect beating a person in a movie to be reacted to more strongly than something like Rambo for example (though I haven't actually seen Rambo, I just assume it is some guy in a head band shooting people).
I could be wrong, and somebody will probably prove it, but the reason my comment was about guns, is that "acceptable" violence tends to be about guns, especially about guns in fantasy settings.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
1) A lot of people don't seem to take it well when their partner goes and fucks someone else, and it doesn't seem like something that will go away so easily. In fact it appears to be a "natural" result - after all it threatens the success of your genes.
2) There are lots of nasty STDs, condoms stop some of them, but they won't stop the others.
3) So if you encourage the creation of a society where fucking around is common place, don't be surprised if it falls apart more easily.
Well, I can't argue that part. As far as fantasy violence is concerned, I'm not worried about it for my kids. Cartoonish violence of any degree falls with the funny/indifferent range in my opinion. I really don't think the coyote vs. roadrunner anvil scenes are damaging at all. But realistic violence is out for my kids, and so is nudity, gratuitous or otherwise. When they're older, and I judge they're able to be exposed to that with little or no negative effects, my restrictions will be relaxed.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Most comic book movies don't need R ratings. Most of these beloved characters came into being o ratleast had the most of there development under the CCA comic book code. Probably to a PG level. The writers knew children would read them without parental supervision and wrote (even now write) great stories that don't need to belabor "adult" topics. When Peter Parker falls off his bed with Mary Jane your imagination automatically fills in the age appropriate content. The exact details aren't that important to the story anyway. It is a little more difficult to write/direct scenes that merely allude to events, but I think they usually turn out better than being spoon fed content.
That said some stories, Watchmen, need an R-rating. The point of the story is the disturbing visuals contrast to our internalized view of life with superheroes. Watchmen is a great piece of literature, but was doomed to never really do well. You probably need to spend 10 years reading silver age comics or watch 10 super hero movies before you can really appreciate it.
>But the Soviets also managed to outproduce the Germans.
Perhaps they did, by moving and protecting their manufacturing assets.
But the Soviet future was in doubt. America's never was. Aside from the few some months of uboat work off the cost of the United States, basically we were out of harms way.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.