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TimeWellWasted25 t1_j2b4k9l wrote

I remember watching Airplane fairly recently and being surprised that it was a PG film. There’s nudity and drug use in that one.

Compare that with some of the R movies that came out around that time and it’s just like…how did Airplane not get an R when this movie did?

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MrBlahg t1_j2c58bj wrote

Jaws was PG

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KingMario05 t1_j2cwzge wrote

Raiders of the Lost Ark, too. Somehow.

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DBCOOPER888 t1_j2d0jhv wrote

That was always a weird one to me. A guy's heart is literally ripped out of his chest in graphic detail and he is burned alive.

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ReasonableSail7589 t1_j2d2u2m wrote

That’s temple of doom, my guy. Granted that scene is a big reason the PG-13 rating exists

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oldnick40 t1_j2ehfxi wrote

Yup! PG-13 was created in response to Temple of Doom and Gremlins in 1984 or so.

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Like_Fahrenheit t1_j2ddm42 wrote

Star Wars too. That had a bloodied severed arm, charred corpses, implicit torture, explicit torture, genocide, and racism (leia calling chewie a walking carpet).

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blue_27 t1_j2debj6 wrote

Are you seriously saying that Star Wars was too edgy for you?

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Ocular_Username t1_j2eh8my wrote

Moana and Star Wars are both rated PG. But they are vastly different in terms of content, like Maui doesn’t choke a dude and crack bones and throw him into a wall.

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CobRooter t1_j2ekj2a wrote

The ratings never cared about violence, only how many F words and titles were on.

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Like_Fahrenheit t1_j2defe8 wrote

No. Just that today it probably wouldn't be rated pg imo. Maybe I’m wrong

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blue_27 t1_j2dgyt8 wrote

I suppose it might get a PG-13 rating.

Your last point about "racism" is a bit of a stretch. Was it also racist when Han called him a "furball"?

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Like_Fahrenheit t1_j2dh7zl wrote

I'll agree to that being a stretch. as to Han’s remark, eh they're good friends so I presume chewie would let it slide as a joke.

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GatoradeNipples t1_j2eug3h wrote

I don't know why you're getting downvoted for this; ANH gets resubmitted every time they do a new edit of it, and gets the same PG every time, but they've had to trim the movie down to keep that PG.

We still don't know why exactly Greedo shoots first in the cantina in the newer edits, but one of the more smell-test-passing theories is that the MPAA griped about Han, a heroic character, gunning Greedo down in cold blood and threatened the movie with a PG-13 unless they changed it (and Lucas' apparent displeasure with having to make the change, with him going around wearing Han Shot First shirts in public, seems to indicate it wasn't his idea even if this isn't the case).

On top of that, while it's way, way more subtle, in the shot where Obi-Wan cuts that one alien's arm off, the current edits have the shot last for a much shorter amount of time (and, while I haven't actively checked against Harmy or 4K77, it seems to be a little zoomed in to hide the blood pool, with the blood being color-graded to be darker and more obviously alien). In the current edit, it's only on screen for about a second, whereas it's a pretty clear shot in every version up to at least 97 (the one I had on VHS as a kid).

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3720-To-One t1_j2ezfoa wrote

That isn’t even in cold blood. Cold blood would be sneaking up and shooting a guy in the back.

Han was defending himself against someone pointing a gun in his face, trying to collect a bounty on his head, who for all he knew, could killed him at any moment.

It was self defense.

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GatoradeNipples t1_j2f8o2d wrote

Sure, that's clearly how it's intended, but that's apparently not how the MPAA saw it.

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jinxed_07 t1_j2d7ivn wrote

I think Airplane! doesn't really deserve an R rating since the nudity is just a blip of 5 seconds compared to the run time, and the alcohol/drug use is shown in a comedic light and also for brief periods of time, so there's not a compelling argument that the film promotes or glorifies it in any way

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TimeWellWasted25 t1_j2dm3x0 wrote

I get where you’re coming from, I’m just surprised that it didn’t get an R by 70’s-80’s standards.

Like The Jerk, MASH, Student Bodies and Halloween all came out in the 70’s/early 80’s. They all got an R and they’re all tamer than Airplane, IMHO. And I’m sure there’s films that got an R in the 70’s/80’s just for brief shots of nudity or someone briefly smoking a joint.

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