Can you blame fans for snickering over TMP being rated G ?

[Mutara Nebula 1967]

I mean c'mon

G? Seriously that is for Disney and kids movies!

The horrified screams of the transporter accident victims (the stuff of Barclay's nightmares) coupled with the sexual innuendo surrounding the Deltans seems like enough basis to catapult the film to the ratings category is belongs in.

PG

But hey, who knows..the way Roddenberry was eccentric maybe he was cool with a G rating in hopes of attracting as many people as possible....

Still it seems laughable to see a G slapped onto a Star Trek movie.

 

[Christopher]

But hey, who knows..the way Roddenberry was eccentric maybe he was cool with a G rating in hopes of attracting as many people as possible....

It wasn't Roddenberry's idea. I mean, this is the guy who added a navigator character who was from the intensely sexual Deltan species, who had to take an "oath of celibacy" just to be able to serve on a human ship, and who had a gratuitous nude scene in the sonic shower. This is the guy whose one other feature film credit as a producer was Pretty Maids All In a Row, a dark sex comedy that was one of the first US feature films to take advantage of the new R rating and show substantial female nudity. The last thing he would've wanted was a G rating. Left to his own devices, he probably would've made Star Trek into an R-rated feature with plenty of nudity and sex.

But science fiction has long been stereotyped as a kids' medium, and that was even more the case in 1979 than it is today. Star Trek itself was often assumed to be a kids' show by people who didn't know better. So the studio and the MPAA saw TMP as a family film and insisted on a G rating. The sexual content Roddenberry put in had to be trimmed to the bare minimum (so to speak).

 

[Mutara Nebula 1967]

Nice pun CHRISTOPHER in that last line.\
Scary to think Paramount who was producing the film didn't realize STAR TREK is NOT a kid's show.

 

[sonak]

I don't understand the "G" rating in TMP as opposed to the "PG" in the other classic Trek films. The distinction appears to be arbitrary.



Then again, film ratings are so absurd that graphic, ultra-violent disgusting films can't get worse than an "R," but an erect penis can send a film into NC-17 territory.


I find graphic violence to be more disturbing than bare skin, but hey, that's just me.

 

[Gojira]

I think we need to remember the time TMP was released. Today it would have a PG rating. I think, as been mentioned, Star Trek was seen as a wholesome an inoffensive show.

I also think standards have changed and the people who rate movies are a little more meticulous knowing that people these days can easily get offended.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Scary to think Paramount who was producing the film didn't realize STAR TREK is NOT a kid's show.

Paramount knew exactly who its audience were.

While TOS spent its first three years in late prime time adult viewing time slot, but you have to remember that it created astounding ratings and longevity for its time in the 70s and early 80s, running "stripped" (ie, five nights per week) and syndicated in an early prime time slot. In the 60s, TOS was popular with university students, who supposedly gathered for dorm parties to watch a b/w TV set together. They had no disposable income (except for those, ah, necessities of university) By 1979, though, TOS reruns were being watched by the kids of those university graduated.

So ST:TMP was expected to tap into that new and building audience: young kids and their whole family unit, who were getting to know these characters who'd originally ran on TV before many of them were born. And now were in a show that was a healthy ratings lead-in to the news (or was alternate viewing to another channel's news).

"G" films in 1979 did not have the stigma they do today. It was suitable for family viewing, not that TMP was necessarily terribly entertaining for some kids. Note that the Director's Edition DVD doesn't carry a "G". The addition of bonus footage, the commentary track and supplementary materials, plus changed standards, was enough to shunt it into a higher classification.

I don't understand the "G" rating in TMP as opposed to the "PG" in the other classic Trek films. The distinction appears to be arbitrary.

Films are classified by an independent arbiter, not the studio.

TMP's Billy Van Zandt (the Rhaandarite ensign) was also in "Jaws 2". During filming, he got to do two final scenes: getting eaten by the shark and getting washed up onto the rocks. His was the pivotal death scene that would have kicked the film into an "R" rating. Because the film was about teenagers, the movie needed to be "M", not "R", otherwise no teenagers could see the movie with their Friday night dates. So Bob Burnside got to live! The studio complied with classification guidelines to scrape into "M", rather than be labeled an "R".

 

[Maurice]

^^^Commentary tracks and other items outside the film itself do not effect the MPAA rating, which applies only to the film itself.

 

[Merky]

The simplier answer to this is that the rating system of the 70s and early 80s was just a lot less restrictive than it is today. The word "shit" is an automatic PG-13 rating today, back in the 80s it was a PG movie rating. Star Trek IV would have been rated PG-13 because Kirk and Gillian slipped the word four times in their conversation the truck.

The movie Airplane II got a PG rating, the first 5 minutes contains boobies bouncing everywhere in a X-Ray scanner scene. Today that joke would instantaneously make that movie rated R.

It was just a different time, different rating system. Parent watch organizations just forced the MPAA to strengthen their ratings over the years.

 

[Botany Bay]

I mean c'mon

G? Seriously that is for Disney and kids movies!

The horrified screams of the transporter accident victims (the stuff of Barclay's nightmares) coupled with the sexual innuendo surrounding the Deltans seems like enough basis to catapult the film to the ratings category is belongs in.

I agree - seems like it was placed in the wrong category.

The same thing happened here in Australia.

Looking at my Blu-Rays, all the other TOS films earn a PG (Wikipedia says that's equivalent to an MPAA 'PG') rating, but TMP (version screened in theatres) gets a 'G' (equivalent to an MPAA 'G'), despite the Australian legislation requiring that such films explicitly have no sexual references whatsoever, or content with any kind of "impact".

I'd argue the Roddenberry Deltan stuff falls into the former, and the transporter scene, plus the many murders by V'Ger fall into the latter.

Interesting that Therin mentions the TMP Director's Edition got a PG here in Australia. At least the censors were awake that day.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Never cared one wit what the MPAA thinks a picture should be rated unless there's a shenanigan involved.* There's hardly any cursing in TMP, the deaths are not gruesome, and the nude shower scene wasn't revealing. So it got a G rating. So did 2001: A Space Odyssey.

*Off topic, but what got me riled up was the PG rating for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" which deserved (and after watching it only a month ago STILL deserves) an R rating which it did not get. "Temple" got a break from the MPAA because of its producer and director.

 

[Christopher]

It was just a different time, different rating system. Parent watch organizations just forced the MPAA to strengthen their ratings over the years.

A lot of it is that the G rating has come to be seen as box-office death these days, so films that once would've gotten G ratings now strive for PG, even if they have to slip in a gratuitous swear word or something to get it. That, combined with the creation of the PG-13 rating, led to the PG rating kind of drifting downward. It now encompasses a lot of what would've once been G, and PG-13 has largely taken the place of what PG used to be.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Interesting that Therin mentions the TMP Director's Edition got a PG here in Australia. At least the censors were awake that day.

I have a friend who is a censorship classifier. Did you notice that even TAS, a 70s kids TV cartoon, got a PG rating for its DVD release?

 

[Therin of Andor]

^^^Commentary tracks and other items outside the film itself do not effect the MPAA rating, which applies only to the film itself.

Not referencing TMP here but I'm pretty sure that, in Australia, if a "G" movie has a rather risque commentary track, or bonus features, it can't be sold with in a package with "G" stickers on it that apply to the movie only. Somehow, parents have to be warned that the product is not "G".

 

[BlobVanDam]

It was just a different time, different rating system. Parent watch organizations just forced the MPAA to strengthen their ratings over the years.

A lot of it is that the G rating has come to be seen as box-office death these days, so films that once would've gotten G ratings now strive for PG, even if they have to slip in a gratuitous swear word or something to get it. That, combined with the creation of the PG-13 rating, led to the PG rating kind of drifting downward. It now encompasses a lot of what would've once been G, and PG-13 has largely taken the place of what PG used to be.

Like how the original Transformers cartoon movie slipped in the word "shit" randomly to get a PG rating because they were disappointed that the robot deaths didn't warrant a PG rating

 

[Indysolo]

There is the theory that the theatrical cut is kind of inert and has little impact, which is why it got the G rating. "The Director's Edition" is a tighter film and a little more intense and is rated PG.

Since the rating was altered for "The Director's Edition" the theatrical cut is now unrated.

 

[sonak]

Never cared one wit what the MPAA thinks a picture should be rated unless there's a shenanigan involved.* There's hardly any cursing in TMP, the deaths are not gruesome, and the nude shower scene wasn't revealing. So it got a G rating. So did 2001: A Space Odyssey.

*Off topic, but what got me riled up was the PG rating for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" which deserved (and after watching it only a month ago STILL deserves) an R rating which it did not get. "Temple" got a break from the MPAA because of its producer and director.

Indiana Jones and the TOD was the reason for the creation of the PG-13 rating. I can see why, but I don't agree that it should be rated "R."

Maybe for the time of its release, but certainly not grading on a curve. Your average PG-13 action movie today has far more violence.


TOD may be gross, but it never moves much beyond comic-book level stuff, at least IMHO.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Sure, PG13 was created as a direct result of Temple of Doom. But that doesn't change the fact that AT THAT TIME, the ripping out of the dude's still beating heart was over the top, and should have garnered the film an R rating.

It was not (and clearly still is NOT) PG. There was no PG-13 rating at the time, and since it wasn't PG, it should have been R. Plainly, there was a shenanigan involved at the time, and months later, the creation of the rating PG-13 rating.

Lastly, I'd like to amend something up above: nudity in context of bathing did not necessarily warrant a PG rating, reference "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" with both Jane Seymour and Taryn Powers bathing by the mountain stream.

 

[J.T.B.]

"G" films in 1979 did not have the stigma they do today. It was suitable for family viewing, not that TMP was necessarily terribly entertaining for some kids.

Probably so. But it's interesting that the MPAA was ready to give Star Wars a G rating in 1977, but 20th Century Fox pushed for PG because they thought G would be seen as "un-cool" by the teen audience.

--Justin

 

[Tomalak]

At the other end of the spectrum, Wrath of Khan was rated 15 in the UK until the director's cut DVD, when it came down to 12.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

TMP's Billy Van Zandt (the Rhaandarite ensign) was also in "Jaws 2". During filming, he got to do two final scenes: getting eaten by the shark and getting washed up onto the rocks. His was the pivotal death scene that would have kicked the film into an "R" rating. Because the film was about teenagers, the movie needed to be "M", not "R", otherwise no teenagers could see the movie with their Friday night dates. So Bob Burnside got to live! The studio complied with classification guidelines to scrape into "M", rather than be labeled an "R".

You mean "PG" instead of "M", right? I believe "M" was discontinued by early 1970.