Why was TMP G-rated?

[J.T.B.]

Meanwhile "PG" meant... parental guidance. PG movies used to regularly feature adult content and even full Nudity, making it more "adult" in many ways than even today's PG-13.

Thank you Logan's Run.

Quite so. I mentioned recently in another thread how I and many others in my elementary school saw the PG Jaws, but I also had classmates who saw '79's The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, also PG but with some pretty intense imagery, gore and brief toplessness.

I well remember Sixteen Candles coming in just before PG-13 with a very prominent PG topless shower scene.

The original True Grit is rated G, and it has:
"Fill yer' hand you son of a bitch!"

And also Dennis Hopper's fingers getting chopped off and flipping up off the table.

Star Wars had the burned corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle a bloody arm on the floor, Greedo's charred body, imperial officers having holes burned in them when they got shot and rebel pilots seen in the cockpit with the explosion around them before they cut to an exterior shot of the ship being destroyed.....It really was pretty graphic compared to TMP

And a guy choked to death and tossed against a wall.. but it was initially rated G until 20th Century Fox appealed and got a PG rating, which was almost unprecedented at the time. Partly out of concern for how some young viewers had reacted in test screenings, but also for marketing: Teen audiences were seen as more important after Jaws and might find a G movie "uncool."

 

[Greg Cox]

I have a tough time imagining the standards were tighter in 2001 than they were in 1979 though.

They absolutely were. Watch the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's got gore and nudity, in addition to being a genuinely scary film. It's PG.

Airplane! (1980) has bare breasts filling the screen for several seconds and it is also PG.

Neil

And, as mentioned, Logan's Run, which got a PG rating in 1976, despite frequent nudity and sexual references that would surely get it rated PG-13 or even R today.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

(Of course, if anti-smoking lobbyists had their way, TCOFS would be R rated for all the smoking in the movie.)

Yeah. Sure.

At one point, some anti-smoking lobbyists were pushing for precisely that. They wanted any movie that had smoking in it to get an automatic R rating.

Read the fourth paragraph in this link to get an interesting point of view. This guy cites that such activists would probably not demand retro-rating for movies that already have smoking in them, but he confirms that the idea is/was there.

http://nymag.com/daily/movies/2010/01/ao_scotts_meditation_on_tobacc.html

There are other examples out there.

For the record, I am a non-smoker.... I just don't get activist about it.

Sweet! The Chipmunk Adventure would be rated R now!

 

[martok2112]

Yeah. Sure.

At one point, some anti-smoking lobbyists were pushing for precisely that. They wanted any movie that had smoking in it to get an automatic R rating.

Read the fourth paragraph in this link to get an interesting point of view. This guy cites that such activists would probably not demand retro-rating for movies that already have smoking in them, but he confirms that the idea is/was there.

http://nymag.com/daily/movies/2010/01/ao_scotts_meditation_on_tobacc.html

There are other examples out there.

For the record, I am a non-smoker.... I just don't get activist about it.

Sweet! The Chipmunk Adventure would be rated R now!

.......

 

[Peach Wookiee]

At one point, some anti-smoking lobbyists were pushing for precisely that. They wanted any movie that had smoking in it to get an automatic R rating.

Read the fourth paragraph in this link to get an interesting point of view. This guy cites that such activists would probably not demand retro-rating for movies that already have smoking in them, but he confirms that the idea is/was there.

http://nymag.com/daily/movies/2010/01/ao_scotts_meditation_on_tobacc.html

There are other examples out there.

For the record, I am a non-smoker.... I just don't get activist about it.

Sweet! The Chipmunk Adventure would be rated R now!

.......

I mean, sure, it was only the bad guys that smoked, but it's funny!

 

[enterprisecvn65]

Star Wars had the burned corpses of Luke's aunt and uncle a bloody arm on the floor, Greedo's charred body, imperial officers having holes burned in them when they got shot and rebel pilots seen in the cockpit with the explosion around them before they cut to an exterior shot of the ship being destroyed.....It really was pretty graphic compared to TMP

Plus the bit a the beginning where Vader crushes that guys throat - that used to scare the hell out of me as a kid, the noise it makes was and still it pretty grim. How Star Wars got the 'U' rating it did is beyond me, it should have been easily been a PG and if was released today should be a 12/12A.

TMP however I was happy with it's rating, the only disturbing bit is the transporter accident, and that's more your imagination at play with that scene (Brundle-fly anyone?).

Yeah the transporter part was the most graphic part of the film, but it really wasn't the visual element that made it graphic as much as the screams IMHO.

Spock and Chekov both get zapped, but it's tame. Ilea dies...but when most kids would't even realize she was still dead when the robot Ilea shows up. I know I didn't realize it, I thought it was Ilea still alive but under some alien control.

I take back my comment about no swearing. I remember McCoy saying V'ger's liable to be in for one hell of a disappointment near the end. That's all though.

For comparison the cartoon Transformers the movie that came out in the mid 80's was PG........Personally I think with good reason. We'd watched two seasons of the characters getting shot all the time with no lasting, then suddenly in the first 10 minutes 4 main Autobots are flat out killed by Decepticons gunfire, including an implied Ironhide getting his read blown off by Megatron when he used his last ounce of strength to grab Megatron's leg.

Then the big battle on earth you see other Autobots dead. Then Optimus Prime arrives and wastes about 5 Decepticons and is about to end Megatron when fucking stupid Hot Rod gets in the way allowing Megatron (in a scene that still makes me queasy) hit Prime with fatal shots, but not before Prime knocks Megatron's ass off a hundred foot cliff.........All of the Decepticons Prime hit, including Megatron, would have died except they were reformed by Unicron. And then later Starscream is vaporized by Galvatron (new megatron...voiced by Leonard Nimoy).

Plus Spike says "Oh Shit" (which is hilarious) when they get sucked in by Unicron and I think Ultra Magnus says "Damn You" when he's trying to open the marix.

Transformers made TMP look like kids play by comparison.

Plus the new generation of Autobots they killed off the first generation for were lame, except Ultra Magnus who was like Optimus Prime's brother.

Rodamus Prime was a complete and utter puss. It was like George Lazenby taking over as 007 from Sean Connery, only worse.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

^Transformers The Movie... Hasbro took no prisoners! I still watch that and I'm like... HOLY CRAP! Yeah, that should've had a PG rating!

 

[Nerys Myk]

.

Yeah the uniforms highlighted certain "features" but I think most young kids wouldn't catch on with just one viewing.

I was twenty when I saw TMP ( several times) and never noticed until it was mentioned here years ago.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Well, the aesthetic in the TMP costuming was clearly one of a future in which people weren't ashamed of their bodies in the slightest. IMO, that's actually something to respect the film for, despite certain issues with the execution, that correcting would have involved subtle shifts in tone.

I think it's also interesting that TMP came in the wake of Logan's Run, another film set in the 23rd century. Civilian costumes in TMP San Francisco have been compared to L'sR before, but I think beyond that that there's an overlap in terms of what kinds of attitudes people in the future are imagined to have, of them not being as hung up as we are today about either sex specifically or their bodies more generally (thankfully, the most egregious reactions towards Ilia were cut in the theatrical edition). I don't believe you need to read the novelization to pick up on that.

 

[FormerLurker]

The mindset of the MPAA has gotten more conservative over the years. As far as nudity, breasts and buttocks were PG fodder for all the '70s and much of the '80s, until Red Dawn prompted the creation of the PG-13 rating. Only lower frontal nudity received an R rating before that. Thus the '70s gave us at least two G rated films with obviously nude women in them, and got away with it because they didn't actually show anything, those two films being TMP and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

They have also gotten more conservative about language. TMP has both "Damn it, Bones, I NEED you." and "V'Ger's in for one hell of a disappointment." in a G rated film, while films from a decade later and beyond have routinely gotten the PG-13 rating for similar language.

Oh, and Logan's Run had only breast and buttock nudity. In one scene, in fact, Jenny Agutter drops her top and then turns her back to the camera to finish stripping so they can get away with it. That's why it's PG.

 

[eyeresist]

Yeah the uniforms highlighted certain "features" but I think most young kids wouldn't catch on with just one viewing.

I was twenty when I saw TMP ( several times) and never noticed until it was mentioned here years ago.

Ditto. Some people just have their minds in the gutter.

 

[enterprisecvn65]

^Transformers The Movie... Hasbro took no prisoners! I still watch that and I'm like... HOLY CRAP! Yeah, that should've had a PG rating!

It's a little weird. On one hand I give Hasbro for doing what no franchise of that scale would ever dare do......wipe out a majority of the main characters in one fell swoop. Even though it was to introduce a new generation of toys, that's still pretty ballsy.

Even though Optimus Prime and Starscream both came back in the show's run, that was it. The other characters stayed dead or altered in the show's run.

OTOH for young kids who had the toys and watched the cartoon, to see all these characters who had actual personalities and were loved by many kids suddenly get mowed down en masse....it was like "holy shit!" Especially considering we'd gotten to them getting hit all the time and always being fine.

Because it was a cartoon based on toys I think people often underestimate how bad it was. Pound for pound it is one of the most traumatic kid oriented films ever.

It would be like the casts of TOS TNG and DS9 united for a big battle and like 3 characters survived.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Was the G rating for TMP mandated by Paramount before the start of production? If so, why? If not, how was the decision made along the way to keep within the confines of G? Has anyone come across any documentary evidence one way or the other?

I recall reading commentary on the rating as the film was nearing its premiere. (A memo from Roddenberry sent to all the fan club newsletters, I think, and an article in the Lincoln Enterprises-produced Fan Club magazine.) IIRC, it was the huge success of TOS in early evening prime time syndication that greenlit the movie in the first place, and the demographics (and convention attendances) indicated that the university fans of the 60s had become parents of young families in the late 70s, and Paramount and Roddenberry were committed to appealing to the largest audience possible.

Despite the knowledge that they were heading for a G rating, references to Deltan sexuality and suggested nudity, the transporter accident, and mild swearing, were typical of Roddenberry pushing the envelope.

also for marketing: Teen audiences were seen as more important after Jaws and might find a G movie "uncool."

The teen-heavy cast for "Jaws 2" meant that avoiding an "R" was crucial; its script had been designed for maximum teen appeal. ST:TMP's Billy Van Zandt was in "Jaws 2" and he got to film two versions of his last scene: where his character gets washed up safely onto rocks and gets eaten by the shark. His was the crucial death that would have tipped the film into an "R" rating (thus preventing it attracting the teen date-night crowds).

 

[mb22]

Red Dawn prompted the creation of the PG-13 rating.

I seem to recall it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins earlier that summer.

 

[J.T.B.]

Red Dawn prompted the creation of the PG-13 rating.

I seem to recall it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins earlier that summer.

Agreed. The Flamingo Kid with Matt Dillon was the first film rated PG-13 by the MPAA; when its release was delayed, Red Dawn became the first film to open with the new rating in late summer '84.

 

[martok2112]

Red Dawn prompted the creation of the PG-13 rating.

I seem to recall it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins earlier that summer.

Agreed. The Flamingo Kid with Matt Dillon was the first film rated PG-13 by the MPAA; when its release was delayed, Red Dawn became the first film to open with the new rating in late summer '84.

And Dune shortly after that.
Before the film's release, there were actually posters of Dune that had a PG rating on them, before it was decided to rate it PG-13. Such posters are no doubt rare.

 

[Smellmet]

Red Dawn prompted the creation of the PG-13 rating.

I seem to recall it was Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins earlier that summer.

Correct. TWOK was a 15 in the UK for a long time before the 12 rating came into force.

 

[Mk_Sn]

Because it doesn't have any adult content of any kind, it's just people talking slowly in a slow ship with weird special effects for two or so hours.

 

[Maurice]

You don't get a PG-13 for saying "Hell" and "damn".

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If by adult content one means content unsuitable for some children, it's definitely there.

The transporter accident that depicts people suffering in an accident that ultimately kills them more than qualifies. The fact that they die off-screen probably helps "keep it clean."

Klingons, the Epsilon IX crew, and Ilia are disintegrated by V'ger, and Ilia is digitized completely on-screen. Arguably "that unit no longer functions" means that Ilia is dead and therefore killed on-screen.