I said "could have been." Of course there would have been differences in all three movies; you can't simply ask the MPAA to change a G to a PG (or a PG to a PG-13, or a PG-13 to an R); it doesn't work that way, and neither should it.
Swearing in Star Trek - Steve Shives
- Thread starter Tuskin38
- Start date
Then that contradicts the assertion that they "could have been" G-rated.
What you're trying to say, apparently, is that different edits of the films (however slightly different you'd like to try to cast it) could have been released with G ratings. But then, in the case of Star Wars, we would have lost some of the footage establishing the extent to which the heroes were in peril. And quite possibly, it wouldn't have been as financially successful. Lucas pushed for that PG rating for a reason; he knew what he was doing.
I remember when "PG" was "GP." I believe COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE, way back in 1970, was the first GP-rated movie I ever saw at a theater. Always wondered why they switched the letters around, but, yes, now I see how "GP" could be mistaken for "General Public" rather than "Parental Guidance."
Interesting.
Interesting.
That's also about as far back as I remember. I was alive (and six years old) when the ratings system replaced the Hays Code, but I wasn't reading movie ads in the newspapers (The New Golden Encylopedia was more my speed), and the only movies I'd ever seen theatrically were Peter Pan (Disney), and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (not Disney, but could have been), both in a drive-in. The first I saw indoors was The Million Dollar Duck, on a double-bill with The Barefoot Executive (both Disney). The very next one I saw was the MGM retrospective, That's Entertainment. I would like to have seen The Sting (between the Joplin/Hamlisch score and the setting/plot that seemed a lot like TOS: "A Piece of the Action," it appealed to me), which would have been my first PG; ultimately, SW was my first PG (and I still haven't seen The Sting all the way through!).
I remember a newspaper headline following the Oscars, that year: "The Sting beats the devil out of The Exorcist" (It's been decades since I paid the slightest attention to the Oscars: between SW getting beaten by a movie by Woody Allen and his girlfriend, about Woody Allen and his girlfriend, starring Woody Allen and his girlfriend as Woody Allen and his girlfriend [what an acting job that must have been!], and The Right Stuff getting beaten by Terms of Endearment, I stopped giving a rodent's ass about them.)
Not at all. And what you said is exactly how they could have been G-rated. In ET, it may very well have been Elliot calling his brother "penis breath" that tipped the scale, and it might have been as simple as language in the other two as well.
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CE3K has the government conspiracy subplot, gassed and unconscious farm animals visible to all on the big screen and a dysfunctional family atmosphere that only gets worse as Roy's obsession deepens so I don't think it ever would have rated a G but hey, 1977 was a different time and TMP had two officers turned inside out by a transporter while screaming in pain and the MPAA slapped a G on that movie so...what do I know?
I will note that the movie Mr. Cox mentioned, Count Yorga, Vampire, was originally rated "GP," (according to the poster at the head of its IMDB page), but IMDB lists its current rating as PG-13 (not sure whether that's a mistake at IMDB or an actual re-rating, especially given that it's a more-or-less forgotten movie. According to Wikipedia, it was originally intended to be a soft-porn film.
Not a movie I have any interest in seeing, if the Wikipedia article, the IMDB article, or the poster is any indication, Mr. Cox, was it as bad as it looks?
Oh, and remember how gruesome parts of Disney's Snow White and Pinocchio were. They passed Hays, and as such, were likely grandfathered into G without the ratings board actually bothering to screen them. Not that they would have gotten anything but a G, if Yorga is any indication of what was regarded as GP material in 1970.
Not a movie I have any interest in seeing, if the Wikipedia article, the IMDB article, or the poster is any indication, Mr. Cox, was it as bad as it looks?
Oh, and remember how gruesome parts of Disney's Snow White and Pinocchio were. They passed Hays, and as such, were likely grandfathered into G without the ratings board actually bothering to screen them. Not that they would have gotten anything but a G, if Yorga is any indication of what was regarded as GP material in 1970.
YORGA was obviously not PG-13 at the time, since PG-13 was more than a decade away from being a thing in 1970, so maybe it was re-rated at some point? Not sure why, although there is a nasty bit of business where a semi-vampirized woman is caught eating her pet cat, which, trust me, was strong stuff back in 1970.
I have a sentimental fondness for the YORGA movies, which scared me silly as a kid, and I recently rewatched both of them for nostalgia's sake, but I'll concede that they probably haven't aged well, especially in the post-Buffy, post-True Blood, post-Underworld, post-Blade, post-Twilight, post-Vampire Diaries era. At the time, the central conceit -- a genuine vampire on the loose in everyday, ordinary America -- was still relatively fresh and scary. (Remember, this was two years before THE NIGHT STALKER hit TV). It felt more real and raw than the Gothic Victoriana of the Hammer vampire movies. Nowadays, however, modern-day vampires are practically a subgenre of their own, so it doesn't have quite the same impact anymore. I still enjoy the YORGA films, but that may be nostalgia speaking. Adjust your expectations accordingly.
Oh, a Star Trek connection: Mariette Hartley, who played Zarabeth on TOS, stars as Yorga's amnesiac love interest in the second movie.
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Look at Kevin Smith's Mallrats. The theatrical edit is so radically different in parts from the later DVD and Bluray "Director's Edition" that watching the longer home video version is almost like watching a parallel universe Mallrats where the beginning is almost completely different and its absence from the theatrical version makes the story narrative noticeably different.
That's great, but that's a very personal, specific, subjective experience that doesn't reflect the nature of "cursing" as a whole.
Speaking of personal experiences, I've told this story before, but . . . .
I still remember the first time I ever discussed this issue, way back in 1972. My dad had just discovered that the paperback novel I was reading featured pretty strong language for a twelve-year-old. "Are you screwing my wife, you son of a bitch?" -- that kinda thing. Rather than take the book away from me, or scold me for reading it, he used this as a teaching opportunity to explain that, while I certainly shouldn't talk like that at school or around the house, it was sometimes appropriate for authors to use "bad" words if it fit the character or the setting or the story. In short, there was a place for profanity in fiction, depending on the context.
Obviously, I took that lesson to heart.
The book in question, btw, was the novelization of DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN. Clearly, a classic of modern literature.
I still remember the first time I ever discussed this issue, way back in 1972. My dad had just discovered that the paperback novel I was reading featured pretty strong language for a twelve-year-old. "Are you screwing my wife, you son of a bitch?" -- that kinda thing. Rather than take the book away from me, or scold me for reading it, he used this as a teaching opportunity to explain that, while I certainly shouldn't talk like that at school or around the house, it was sometimes appropriate for authors to use "bad" words if it fit the character or the setting or the story. In short, there was a place for profanity in fiction, depending on the context.
Obviously, I took that lesson to heart.
The book in question, btw, was the novelization of DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN. Clearly, a classic of modern literature.
Did I say anything about "exactly the same" anything?
No. Obviously it would have to be a different finished product to get a different rating, because (to paraphrase what I said earlier) you can't get a different rating just by asking. At the very least, you have to formally appeal the rating, and that, by itself, is only going to work in true borderline cases.
There are broadcast television versions of Airplane! and Blazing Saddles. Ever see the campfire scene in the latter?
Exactly. So the saying that the first Star Wars film could have been rated G was false. It could have been re-edited to get a G-rating. Why is it so hard to just say the latter (true) instead of the former (false)? You may not care about the difference, but obviously the ratings board did. Numerous other fans care too, or they'd just be satisfied with the special editions, and getting high-quality transfers of the original editions on Blu-ray wouldn't be so important to them.
What started it:
My reply:
Your reply to that:
I mean, instead of, "Not at all," what you really must mean is, "Yes, exactly."
Star Wars in the UK is a "U" (universal -- so equivalent of a G in the US). Despite the burnt corpses. Same as Empire, Jedi and Phantom Menace. ET is a U too.
BBFC reports from the releases
Oddly enough all the new (7/8/9) films are 12As (so I guess equivalent of PG-13), 2 "levels" up from U.
On a Star Trek front, BBFC aren't too worried about "Sheer Fucking Hubris", giving that Picard episode a 12. Other Picard episodes get 15s.
To the death and Shattered Mirror on DS9 also got a 15. Several DS9 and Voyager episodes were 12s, including Deadlock, Q+theGrey, Body Parts, Sons of Mogh etc.
Oddly Voyager's The Thaw was only a PG.
BBFC reports from the releases
Empire Strikes Back said:
Phantom Menace said:
Return of the Jedi (1997 edition) said:
Oddly enough all the new (7/8/9) films are 12As (so I guess equivalent of PG-13), 2 "levels" up from U.
On a Star Trek front, BBFC aren't too worried about "Sheer Fucking Hubris", giving that Picard episode a 12. Other Picard episodes get 15s.
To the death and Shattered Mirror on DS9 also got a 15. Several DS9 and Voyager episodes were 12s, including Deadlock, Q+theGrey, Body Parts, Sons of Mogh etc.
Oddly Voyager's The Thaw was only a PG.
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Really now?
Because from what I observed, most people I encountered behaved EXACTLY the same.
Swearing has been used in that manner so often that if was extremely off-putting and I couldn't talk to people... regardless of the country I lived in.
Not to speak for Super but I think what was meant was that how you have perceived people's behaviour is subjective and internalised. So having formed a view of the use of language, maybe it creates a perception bias of how others use it? Or maybe it is simply that you have encountered many people with similar personality traits?
It is only human to create those "if person X does (insert action) and I have already met person Y who does the same then therefore both are similar".
Swearing can be a wonderful, almost artful, thing but it needs context and tone and body language for it to have that effect.
Something I learned about yesterday is that, according to some study or whatever, words make up only 7% of communication. 38% of it is tone and 55% is body language.
This says to me that someone throwing a few fucks around isn't so much the problem as someone throwing a few fucks around but in an unnecessarily aggressive tone for example.
For me, it will always depend on the person and context used.
Everyone perceives things in their own capacity, however, when the pattern repeats itself in pretty much the same manner from country to country in similar behaviors... it doesn't mean necessarily that I as a person am incorrectly interpreting it.
I'm well familiar with that... and usually such stories aren't reliable... but I'll pose a question for you below to see what I mean.
Indeed... then why is it that practically ALL employers DON'T allow use of swear words (or profanity) in the work place?
Speaking to your coworkers in a profane capacity can often have negative effects - it actually led to lawsuits.
Context and tone and body language shift from one person to the next.
And there are people who cannot read body language.
Do you approach people you don't know in the street and address them as Mr./Mrs./Miss or do you use profane language to address them?
WHY is it that if profanity is so 'good' and 'harmless' is that its NOT commonly used to politely address people?
That's probably because people are not exposed to basic methods of science of how the natural world works, nor do they learn how to express themselves properly through linguistic communication because most parents seem to be very bad at teaching their kids these things...
The literacy levels of people across the globe are not rated at very high levels... only 2% of global adults read at a high level for example.
If you noticed, a lot of parents are also embarrassed talking to their kids about relatively simple things like sex for example - this is because parents themselves tend to be fairly ignorant about most things who then transmit similar patterns of behavior to their kids.
Schools certainly don't impart this kind of knowledge as they are there for industrialized education... not to create individuals who understand how the present society and system work (otherwise, you'd be learning in school how to pay bills, manage your finances, do other stuff that's necessary for actual living and successful social interaction)
And yet, again, in the work place for example, throwing profane words around casually isn't really allowed at all (people have been fired for that you know)... and if you try to call someone the f word (you know, just to get their attention on the street or in the office)... what do you think their reaction would be?
Do you really think they would think it was meant innocently or as a 'joke' or that you're being impolite and incapable of extending basic courtesy and would in turn find you offensive?
If profane words are really 'innocent' and 'colorful'... then why aren't you addressing people that you do not know in that manner?
Agree that it does mean you are misinterpreting things - just taking the view that it could simply be a relatively small sample size. That said, you know the circumstances better than I so I won't contend it.
Well to be fair, in the UK there certainly doesn't seem to be a major problem with it. Don't call your colleagues or clients a cunt, but happily say that it has been a shitty day.
There are of course but, as with most studies, it is aimed at a cross-section rather than trying to cover every person.
That fact is that depending on body language and tone, the phrase "I'm doing fine" can mean a multitude of different things.
It isn't because people aren't literate or articulate, this is a real thing that relates more to the "social nature" or humans. Otherwise we would simply talk like robots and that would be no fun at all.
Frankly your comment dismissing the communication methods point and referring to people not knowing basic scientific method is a bit dickish in how it is phrased but maybe I have misconstrued what you have written.
Well no, you wouldn't shot f-----t at someone because it is a homophones slur (pretty sure this was the plot line of an IASIP episode). Anyone who thinks it is a joke can fuck off. Same as calling someone the N word.
That said, I'll happily call my friends dickhead, twat face, and many other colourful words but the key is always that they are not expressions related to protected characteristics like race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion etc.
One wouldn't address someone they don't know in the manner because they may not know that persons specific experiences and views.
You can't assume everyone to feel the same way you do so you default to a "safe mode" until you get a feel for them.
If the invite is there though - how you doing you crazy rat bastard?
Swearing among friends is quite common. Of course it's not universal. Sitting around in your underwear is something that can be done in front of your partner, and it's quite harmless. That doesn't mean you should greet strangers in your underwear. Also, watching films with car stunts that it would be crazy to attempt in real life is completely harmless. It doesn't mean you should attempt one the next time you drive to the grocery store. Movies and shows with swearing in them? They're not going to hurt anybody.
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