Debate: Spoilers: POTC PG-13 VS AOTC PG (was Disney...Get Lost)

[d-r]

There be spoilers in here for both Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars: Atack of the Clones.

OK, just a fun little debate, having seen both Pirates of the Caribbean this weekend and star wars attack of the clones on hbo this morning.

On another thread on this board, the star wars movies were listed as movies that were appropriate for young viewers as opposed to potc. I don't see it. Is there anything worse in potc than in aotc?

Of course this is all my opinion and not presented as fact, I wonder what other people think.

I'm going to go with some of the reviewer comments that were posted on that thread.

I'm going to use the comments from the movie mom review as a guide.

First, a lot of violence.

POTC has a long sword fight / other weapon fight with Jack and Will, then lots of sword fights.
AOTC has a light sabre/other weopan fight between obi wan and Jango Fett. Then there are the fights at the end between Anakin and Obi Wan and the Count Duku and Yoda comes in and kicks Duku's butt like a crazy monkey. POTC has a crazy monkey, too. AOTC has the chase scene through curascant after the assassin, and the scene in the droid factory with a lot of violence.

Battle Scenes.
POTC The pirates attack the port city and raid it. There is also a battle between the black pearl and the intercepter. At the end the skeleton pirates walk out to attack the Dauntless.
AOTC The last what, 1/2 hour or so is a big battle scene between the droid army of the trade federation and the clone army. There are tons of explosions, very intense shooting, one scene it is completely fogged out so much gun play. Leading up to that is the light saber battle between all of the jedi knights and the driods/aliens/monsters in the gladiator ring. Earlier in the film there is the chase battle scene through the asteroids between Jango Fett in the Slave 1 and Obi Wan in the jedi starfighter.

Grossness
POTC has the pirate whose eye falls out, what three times? In one scene, a fork is shot from a cannon and hits the eye, this was pretty un-necessary.
AOTC Jango Fett is beheaded in front as his son young Boba looks on. Anakin's hand is cut off. In the scene in the gladiator ring thing, a monster jumps up and pulls an alien off his ride and eats him.

Death
POTC the villain Barbossa is shot and killed. You know that a lot of other pirates and soldiers are killed in the battles, you see some stabbed and shot. The butler is shot when he opens the door. A bomb is put in a skeleton and three blow up.
AOTC in the opening scene Amadala's hand maiden is killed in an explosion. An assassin is killed after she is caught by Anakin and Obi Wan. Anakin's mother is held captive and dies on screen. Jango Fett is beheaded. Plus we know and see a lot of jedi knights, aliens and clones killed in the battle scenes at the end, and droids destroyed for that matter. Some of it is pretty graphic in those battle scenes - I think the battles are as evenly graphic at least. What do you think?

Creepiness
POTC has pirates that turn into cgi skeletons in the moonlight. (what is cool about this is when they turn partially, or the fact that they are not just generic skeletons but have their individual personalities still).
AOTC has weird cgi aliens. They are in curoscent, in the bar scene, in the diner. There is the creepy clone factory planet, with creepy tall aliens, not to mention the clone assembly line with the suspended babies. There are the tuskan raiders, who have kidnapped Shmi Skywalker. There are the weird flying aliens - the grandchildren of the wizard of oz's flying monkey's - tons of them - on the planet where the trade federation driods are, especially in the scene in the driod factory and the gladiator ring. Also, there are several alien monsters in the gladiator scene, whose job it is to eat the heros, and who do eat a few background characters before having rather gruesome deaths themselves.

In terms of visual things that would burn a picture in a kid's mind and turn up later than night in a nightmare, I think there are as many or more in AOTC.

Drugs and Alcohol
POTC has some drunken pirates in the Tortugas, and Jack and Elizabeth (well, Jack) drink rum when they are marooned. No more drinking than in the ride, really.
AOTC has drinking in the bar when Anakin and Obi Wan are chasing the assassin, and someone tries to sell Obi Wan some "death sticks," which apparently isn't a straight forward enough drug reference to get a pg-13.

"revealing bodices and some sexual references, including prostitutes"
POTC - I didn't find any of the old style clothes particularly revealing, some of the women on the Tortugas were busty.
AOTC - Padme Amadala wears more revealing clothes than anything in POTC. IMHO.

Would you rather your teen daughter dress up in one of those long dresses in potc or in one of Senator Amadala's outfits?

Prostitutes - there wasn't anything in POTC that said "this woman is a prostitute," but someone could infer it. You could assume it. I don't know if they were, they may have just been rough women and wenches who hung out there, for all I know. No more prostitutes than the red head in the ride frankly - what I'm trying to say is, you can figure they are prostitutes, but if you were a kid and didn't know about such things you wouldn't infer it. In AOTC there are people in the bar scene that could have been prostitutes for all I know. A female slave is sold to a man who marries her.

"some strong and colorful pirate language"
POTC - frankly, I missed this. I asked Melissa and she couldn't think of any, either. I did hear the obligatory "Arrr." Maybe there was a bloody or a damn in there. Anybody remember?
AOTC - I don't remember any language here, either.

I'll add a couple of things here that sometimes I've noticed parents concerned about-

Magic/ spirtuality-
POTC - has an aztec curse and skeleton pirates
AOTC - has the force, things can be levitated, future divination

Vague, ambiguous roles for hero-
POTC - Jack Sparrow is an unclear character - is he a good guy or a bad guy? He's a pirate, but he does some hero things. Some people may worry that might confuse their kids.
AOTC - Anakin Skywalker is shown killing tusken raiders, and then brags that he killed not only the men, but all of the women and children as well. Now, we know that he has to start being taken in by the dark side, but this might be too ambiguous a role for some parents to like their children to try to figure out.

PS the guy in POTC who is in the guy with the Pig who helps Jack raise a crew and is his first mate is the same guy who played Lars in AOTC.

 

[EUROPA]

It's simply a conspiracy against Disney started and funded by Lucas. Clearly some Car #3-4 people are on the MPA board.

No one is forced to submit a film to the Board for rating, but the vast majority of producers/distributors do in fact submit their films for ratings. Any producer/distributor who wants no part of any rating system is free to go to the market without any rating at all or with any description or symbol they choose as long as it is not confusingly similar to the G, PG, PG-13, R, and, NC-17.

 

[ErikdaRed]

According to the MPAA, AOTC has "sci-fi action/violence" and POTC has "action/adventure violence". I think the key word is sci-fi, in that it is less "real", so doesn't warrant the PG13. Most of the MPAA decisions make no sense to me anyways.

 

[KNWVIKING]

What was the rating of the very first Star Wars movie. Didn't Luke get half his arm cut off in the laser sabor fight with Vador ? I haven't seen PotC, is it more graphic ? And what red blooded male teenager can forget the outfit Leeya(sp) wore when she was the prisoner of Jabba the Hut in SW III.

 

[EUROPA]

Originally posted by KNWVIKING
What was the rating of the very first Star Wars movie. Didn't Luke get half his arm cut off in the laser sabor fight with Vador ? I haven't seen PotC, is it more graphic ? And what red blooded male teenager can forget the outfit Leeya(sp) wore when she was the prisoner of Jabba the Hut in SW III.

Same thing happened in Clones. Anakin got half his Arm cut off....Besides that was The Empire Strikes Back.

The ratings system was changed after Star Wars and The Empire Strkes Back and Return of the Jedi.

On July 1, 1984, we made another adjustment. We split the PG category into two groupings, PG and PG-13. PG-13 meant a higher level of intensity than was to be found in a film rated PG. Over the past years, parents have approved of this amplifying revision in the rating system.

On September 27, 1990, we announced two more revisions.

First, we introduced brief explanations of why a particular film received its R rating. Since, in the opinion of the Ratings Board, R rated films contain adult material, we believed it would be useful to parents to know a little more about that film's content before they allowed their children to accompany them. Sometime later we began applying the explanations in the PG, PG-13 and NC-17 categories as well. These explanations are available to parents at the theater (by telephone or at the box office), in certain media reviews and listings, and also made available on the MPAA's World Wide Web Home Page on the Internet. This internet address is http://www.mpaa.org.

Second, we changed the name of the X category to NC-17:NO ONE 17 AND UNDER ADMITTED. The X rating over the years appeared to have taken on a surly meaning in the minds of many people, a meaning that was never intended when we created the system. Therefore, we chose to reaffirm the original intent of the design we installed on November 1, 1968, in which this "adults only" category explicitly describes a movie that most parents would want to have barred to viewing by their children. That was and is our goal, nothing more, nothing less.

We have now trademarked "NC-17:NO ONE 17 AND UNDER ADMITTED" so that this rating symbol and the legend can be used only by those who submit their films for rating.

 

[laceemouse]

Great debate d-r!!! I am going to let DH read your analysis when he gets home. Our kids have seen all of the Star Wars flicks, we own most of them (DH is a sci-fi fanatic!) They have been asking to see POTC! They all do FINE on the ride and have never been scared of ANYTHING at Disney! However, we have a strict no PG 13 rule at our house, we are even picky about PG!!! We woild love to see POTC as a family, but our 2 youngest, 8 and 5, may be too young. I am pretty sure the 10 and 12 year olds could handle it. This is a tough call for us. Thanks again for the indepth info!

 

[d-r]

for me, 5 seems pretty young, but I'm sure that there are 5 year olds seeing it, and you know your kids.

I think that if there was such a thing as PG-9 or PG-10 then AOTC and POTC would both be rated it.

 

[goofy370]

My DS are 5 and 7. They absolutely loved PoTC. They have seen the movie twice. I think it is the parent's discression(spelling) if they feel under 13 can handle the movie. My kids also saw AoTC as well. I think they like PoTC much better, so did I. I liked the movie much much more than I thought I would. I thought from all I had read and heard that it was going to be over the top and cheesy. I was pleasantly surprised by how wonderful the movie was... anyhoo only my opinion.

 

[BRERALEX]

Anakin's hand

forearm buddy, forearm. since he couldnt weild a lightsaber to save his.........forearm.

AOTC - has the force, things can be levitated, future divination

I TPM they try to explain it scientifically.

PS the guy in POTC who is in the guy with the Pig who helps Jack raise a crew and is his first mate is the same guy who played Lars in AOTC.

now thats phat. i didnt know that.

the scene in the gladiator ring thing, a monster jumps up and pulls an alien off his ride and eats him.

aaaaa he didnt he eat him just mauled him a bit.

AOTC - Padme Amadala wears more revealing clothes than anything in POTC. IMHO.

when the main chic comes out of the water after being saved by Jack you seen more nips then anything with padme.

theres also that alien on the alien planet on the assemble line thatgets chopped in half, which is pretty graphic. AOTC should have been pg13 if related to POC

my son is five...and a half as he'd tell you and he liked POC he only got scared once but overall he wants o see it again. I think he got more scared at that one scene in pirates then in all og hulkZZZZzzzzzz