Big Fat Silver Screen: R vs. PG-13

It's an age old battle between film makers and the studios behind them. Creativity or Money? Freedom or Money? Respect or Money? Sophisticated Viewers or Money? Why fight the money? After all, making movies is not only done to amuse the masses, it's done to pay bills. What's wrong with PG-13 anyway? Some of the movies on my favorites list are PG-13! The answer is nothing at all. Unless...

Unless you made this movie.

Just to clarify things before I muddle them up, having a PG-13 rating does not mean that a movie is bad. As I said previously I have some PG-13 favorites. There are however a few issues in the world of cinema that sometimes define whether or not I will rush to see these films. Take Alien Vs. Predator for instance. Both the Alien and Predator legacies come from years of Rated R movies. Predator 1 and 2 were both rated R for violence, gore, and language just like all four Alien movies. Audiences around the planet enjoyed going to see these films (except for Alien Resurrection) because they were horror movies. The trademark for horror was intense scary moments and all the gory aftermath. Then you take both of the highest grossing sci-fi horror stories of our time and pit them against each other under a PG-13 rating? Are you insane? The studio executives would call it good business, but I call it disrespectful. The reason for making this film PG-13 is to allow for the widest possible age group to come and spend money to see it. Having an R rating means that everyone under 17 years of age has to be accompanied by a supervising adult. Since most parents aren't exactly "take your children to see two alien species slaughter each other" types, an R rating would have greatly (R)estricted the viewing audience and the earnings of the movie. So what does that mean? It means that the movie sucked, that's what. You can argue that there was a certain level of violence that kept in tradition to the characters, but that's because alien violence is granted more leniency than human violence. But what about things like plot, emotion-bending images, and being able to keep that camera still long enough to let us know what the hell was going on?

I knew it!!

Making movies like Die Hard into PG-13 movies isn't really the only travesty that's going on today. Sometimes it boils down to plain ol' story telling. Now this is where the line can get a little blurry: what is better for telling a story? Limited options that could inspire a director to be creative or the freedom to express in any sort of way what is happening in a story? Personally I would go with the R rating, just to be able to keep the story alive and true. Alien vs. Predator would have been a better movie if it were rated R, no question. The subject matter was too intense to be able to fully delve into under a PG-13 rating. I don't mean to imply that all rated R films are better, this isn't true. There are movies like any of Christopher Nolan's films (aside from Memento and Insomnia) that are perfect at a PG-13 because they have the creative story telling elements that keep an audience riveted without all the excess. You will get a shit-ton of excess in a lot of rated R films. There are hundreds of movies that try to make their millions by selling the graphic violence and swearing and nudity to the weekend flick fans out there. Just like a PG-13 movie selling to all audiences, R films sometimes sell the excess. Again, the thing to watch for is storytelling. I recently spoke in a previous post about Zach Snyder's Sucker Punch. Without an R rating, what is it except a special effects extravaganza?

I can tell from the preview that there is content involving an insane asylum, swords and samurai, dragons, SS looking soldiers, robots fighting robots, explosions, gun play, everything I could want in an action movie. Then I see that it has a PG-13 stamped on it. So from that I can assume that there will be very stylized camera movements to help hide the violence (quick cutting, character focus, etc.) and a lack of blood due to total CG immersion. Since the promise of intense graphic combat is now gone because of the rating, the studio has to find another hook to keep the audience in their seats. It cant have very much swearing because of the MPAA's prudeness, so it goes back again to special effects. I know that this analyzation goes way beyond what it should. After all, we should go to the movies for entertainment and you really shouldn't judge a book by its cover right? When you pay upwards of $8 damn dollars a ticket, you damn well better. It's gas money, ticket money, snack money, and my own finicky nature that will prevent me from having a good time without the movie sucking. I don't let that bring me down at the movies, don't get me wrong. A movie can be OK and I'll still have a good time. Those factors do however play a part in making me decide what movie I'm going to go see. So when I see an action/suspense/horror,thriller movie I check to see what it's rated first. Then once you analyze the content and director, you take a good look at the preview to see what type of action and thrills they are offering. What story are they trying to tell? Does it look a cheap cookie cut out, or an over the top mindless action vehicle? I realize this is a shallow view to take on cinema. but it's good to be able to tell the cheap films that are out there soley to make money from the good movies that are there to change your life.

Thanks for reading.