What if TMP had been R-rated ?

[TrickyDickie]

With all of the speculation about a future R-rated Trek movie, I thought this might be an interesting idea to discuss.

What do you think they might have done?

Made use of the Deltan thing to include a love scene with Decker and Ilia to celebrate their reunion....with Ilia shown topless during part of the scene? Obviously they would not have done anything super explicit, but something on the lighter side would have been in keeping with other films of the time.

Persis Khambatta turned down Hugh Hefner's request for her to pose in Playboy magazine, but for the sake of the discussion let's say that she changed her mind about a nude scene.

Do you think that involvement in a love scene would have made Stephen Collins' personal problems worse? Do you think it would have improved Persis' film career?

Would they have had McCoy saying he was going down to see 'How they've f*cked up sickbay' ?

Would an R-rating have made the film more popular among general audiences? Among Trek fans?

Whether the reception by moviegoers had been more favorable or less favorable, in your opinion, do you feel that the plot of the second film would have been very different from what we saw in TWOK?

It's not my intention to make this discussion offensive, so I hope no one takes their speculation farther than what would have been reasonably likely in 1979.

 

[Armus]

I can definitely see McCoy cursing and Roddenberry pushing for Deltan sex. Perhaps they could have had a few scenes where the Illia probe throws some security officers into a bulkhead and almost kills them. Obviously a R rated Star Trek film would not have been a success in 1979, since children and families made up a large chunk of the film's audience. I remember one of my high school friends disparaged TMP for having a G rating. I think that it was great that they could tell the story within the confines of a G rating.

 

[Lord Garth]

The only ways I see TMP getting an R-rating, in a manner that would be consistent with the film, would be if we were actually shown what happened to Commander Sonak and if sexuality were explored between Decker and the Ilia-droid. Maybe a full-frontal nude shot of the Ilia-droid appearing onto the ship and then Kirk ordering clothes. Maybe some coarser langue here and there.

It wouldn't be an R-rated movie in the way an R-rated movie today would be.

An R-rated Star Trek movie right from the get-go might've changed everything that followed if it were successful. TWOK would've been more graphic. The rest of the films would've been tonally different. And TNG, if it ever got off the ground in this scenario, would be strange. It would be seen as a throwback to something family-friendly with an episode like "Conspiracy" being seen as a return to form, on par with the movies.

 

[Captain Nebula]

It was... In the novel. There are several scenes in the novel that would have made the movie R-rated in 1979.

 

[plynch]

waiting for a picture of Decker's unit . . . annnnny second now . . .

 

[Lord Garth]

It was... In the novel. There are several scenes in the novel that would have made the movie R-rated in 1979.

Oddly enough... I signed out the novelization from the school library when I was in seventh grade! Whoever approved of the book being in a junior high must've never read it.

 

[thribs]

Only way I can think of to make it R rated would be to show the Deltan properly when she was naked.
That and the remains of the transporter accident

 

[CorporalCaptain]

It would have been a marketing disaster.

 

[XCV330]

it wasn't that kind of movie.

 

[XCV330]

waiting for a picture of Decker's unit . . . annnnny second now . . .

 

[Lance]

IIRC, the version of the script written to be the pilot episode of Phase II featured descriptions of future Roddenberrian Earth including people walking around naked in the background as a shorthand of how liberal and over modern social hangups future society is... of course, those scenes may not have been likely to have made it to TV either

 

[Maurice]

Standards were different then. I remember seeing topless women in PG rated comedy films in the 70s. AIRPLANE! (1980) even has a brief shot of bare breasts.

And they'd never have done it anything to get an R. There would have been no value in it and too many risks.

 

[Commishsleer]

Just as long as we don't get the unseen bits in the novelisation filmed I'm OK.
Don't want to see Kirk swimming nude. Maybe its just me.

I don't think Persis Khambatta would have been comfortable with any more nudity than there was already.
If it was going to be naked Trek then she probably would have to have been recast.

 

[J.T.B.]

It's not my intention to make this discussion offensive, so I hope no one takes their speculation farther than what would have been reasonably likely in 1979.

What was reasonably likely in 1979 was that an R-rating was a non-starter. The most recent thing most people would have seen of Star Trek was toy commercials.

Standards were different then. I remember seeing topless women in PG rated comedy films in the 70s. AIRPLANE! (1980) even has a brief shot of bare breasts.

And Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a pretty scary PG about a year before TMP. And Kramer vs. Kramer, the biggest hit of 1979.

It was related in the Return to Tomorrow book that Robert Wise did have to talk Roddenberry out of some "we've learned to be comfortable with our bodies in the enlightened future" nudity. It sounded like it was background or incidental, though, not involving the main cast. And that still might have been PG.

 

[Kor]

Yes, PG movies of the decade such as Logan's Run and The Omega Man got away with nudity to varying degrees. It was the Swinging '70s, after all.

It's interesting, and somewhat confusing, that things got more uptight and puritan in this regard in later years, with everybody getting worked up in a knee-jerk frenzy over the briefest depiction of human anatomy, while nobody bats an eye at greater quantities of brutal, bone-crushing violence being depicted in the movies.

Kor

 

[Galileo7]

TMP R-rated probably would have had Ilia without the white robe or high heels, but with full nudity of V'ger Ilia.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Do you think that involvement in a love scene would have made Stephen Collins' personal problems worse? Do you think it would have improved Persis' film career?

No, a love scene would not have made Stephen Collins' personal problems worse, even with someone as incredibly hot as Persis Khambatta had been in the late 70's. Hollywood Love Scenes, we are frequently told by those who've been in them, are completely devoid of spark, they are cold and mechanical, purely for the camera. As well, Persis was a coworker and the illusion that Stephen projected that he was just an "awe shucks!" kind of guy was precisely for people like her. His criminal depravity was for his private life. Would having done a nude love scene have helped Persis career? No, because the interest and curiousity of what was going on under her blouse would've been what helped her career, actually. As in Real Life, it is more enticing to conceal than to reveal. Once you show all you've got to show, it's gone & nobody cares after that, audiences merely expect it.

But for TMP to have had gratuitous nudity in it, I suppose context would've decided the rating on that. If there were absolutely nothing sexual about it, it's the V'GER probe naked in the shower, lets say ... well that's simply her natural state and nothing to get panicky about. On the other hand, had she a sex scene in the raw, then a higher rating might be in order. But I do not believe it would've helped TMP, certainly in that era. STAR WARS was not a rated R movie and it was very generously received by audiences everywhere. TMP's having an R rating would've excluded certain audiences who were already devout fans and repeat cinema goers and it would've inspired a certain degree of resentment. TMP could've been anything other than what we got. It could've been exciting and action-packed, or whatever. But what we did get was classy, beautiful, thoughtful and surprising. I'm glad we have it in the state it's in.

 

[TrickyDickie]

So....seems like if TMP had some contextual nudity, such as when the Ilia probe arrives, but not necessarily a love scene, then it might have bypassed an R-rating and arguably not have been significantly different than it was?

Incidentally, I was just reading about the Hays Code and how it was eventually changed into the rating system that still exists today. Yes, there is very much a double standard operating when you compare nudity/sexuality with levels of very intense and graphic violence.

Here is a link to info about the Hays Code. Makes for quite interesting reading:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode?from=Main.HaysCode

My father was a theater manager from the late 1930s through 1952 (with hiatus for 3 years of service in World War II) and he had a lot of stories to tell about the Hays Code. He said they were particularly up in arms over the film 'The Outlaw' with Jane Russell.

 

[2takesfrakes]

So....seems like if TMP had some contextual nudity, such as when the Ilia probe arrives, but not necessarily a love scene, then it might have bypassed an R-rating and arguably not have been significantly different than it was?

That's my opinion on it, yes. If all that's nude in the movie is Persis in the shower, before Kirk beams her clothes on, then it could well have had its rating bumped up to PG, rather than G, and that would've been the full impact of it. It may not have even come to a PG rating, but who the hell can know? It's a joy to discuss the film in all of its aspects, but it's 40 YEARS old! Holy Shat ... FORTY years! Those deciding its rating were from a completely different time. The audience seeing it upon its initial release were from another time. All we can do is guess, at this point.

Incidentally, I was just reading about the Hays Code and how it was eventually changed into the rating system that still exists today. Yes, there is very much a double standard operating when you compare nudity/sexuality with levels of very intense and graphic violence.

Here is a link to info about the Hays Code. Makes for quite interesting reading:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode?from=Main.HaysCode

My father was a theater manager from the late 1930s through 1952 (with hiatus for 3 years of service in World War II) and he had a lot of stories to tell about the Hays Code. He said they were particularly up in arms over the film 'The Outlaw' with Jane Russell.

Yeah, I know some of what the Hays Code was about. It shocked the hell out of me that the movie studios were concerned about litigation way back in the day. I always thought that sue-happiness in America was a more recent phenomenon. I've never really been able to get into Jane Russell movies, to be honest. She had an interesting look, in her day. She's brunette, which is ... really a good thing. But I just don't like her ... I do love old black and white movies. And it's such a shame that they're just a niche market, now. I'm afraid that many that we shouldn't have lost will become lost and all we'll be left with are the usual staples you see on those "100 best movies of all time" lists. Watching these movies is as close as it gets to Time Travelling. And what Trekkie or STAR TREK fan doesn't dig that?

 

[plynch]

1. Well, me for one.
2. I don't go to superhero movies because I don't like seeing human beings smash and punch each other. I wonder why we went the direction of violence, good; nudity, bad for younger people. Now the school shooters are basically acting out a script they have seen dramatized onscreen a million times, of body-armored guy with badass assault rifle mowin' people down. Oh, well. You get what you get, world.