Hardest PG Films

[Blumf]

In the Jaws thread:

It's [Jaws, shark film] gotta be the strongest PG rated films*, maybe pipped slightly by Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Anybody top that? What are the most brutal PG or U rated films out there?

I see Watership Down (1978) got a U and that doesn't pull it's punches.

[Bad Ambassador]

Biggles: Adventures in Time has the rotten corpse with eyes falling out.

[Big Mclargehuge]

Jaws isn't a PG :) it's been a 12 now since at least the 1990's, Jaws 2 is a PG though

Back to the future is one that springs to mind...if only for the fact it uses "Shit" a few times and it has strong themes of Incest...

"When the wind blows" is another one...it's not near the knuckle but who subjects there 6-11 year old to that nightmare fuel?!

Also in the vein of Watership down theres Plague Dogs...that's a proper nasty...

[Blumf]

Biggles: Adventures in Time has the rotten corpse with eyes falling out.

Yeah, I think that one beats Raider's ark burned Gestapo for melting Nazi horror. The panic at the start, then the skull dissolving and breaking up at the end, horrific.

Jaws isn't a PG :) it's been a 12 now since at least the 1990's, Jaws 2 is a PG though

According to AsparagusTrevor who is an expert on the matter, I'm sure:

_{*The DVD/Bluray is 12-rated but only for swearing in one of the featurettes, the film itself is still PG}

[Huxleys Babkins]

It always struck me as mental that the original Star Wars trilogy and Episode I were all rated U. Scenes of implied torture, dismemberment (bloody too, in Star Wars), murder, sex slavery. In films rated U. Bonkers.

[idunnosomename]

Do you think the bloke from the BBFC popped out for a crafty wee during Owen and Beru's smouldering skeletons

[bgmnts]

Watership Down is hard to look past, being a fucking U. 70's and all that but still, it WILL ruin a child.

[non capisco]

Temple Of Doom with old 'om nom shiva' chops getting his ticker ripped out and screaming in fear and agony during a scene of ritual human sacrifice. Even in its cutdown version it's a bit much. Didn't bother me when I saw it in the cinema aged 6 though. "Bloody loving it, he was" according to my mum.

[bgmnts]

Temple is a PG? Always thought it was a 12.

The film classification boards are weird.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Do you think the bloke from the BBFC popped out for a crafty wee during Owen and Beru's smouldering skeletons

He must have been pissing for two hours straight.

Meanwhile, this is a PG:



"Contains potentially dangerous behaviour" unlike Star Wars which has at least 10 deaths from gunfire and a man is tortured and killed by having his throat crushed, complete with gruesome SFX within the first five minutes.

[non capisco]

Temple is a PG? Always thought it was a 12.

The film classification boards are weird.

Deffo a PG when it first came out in the UK. The first 12 certificate film was Tim Burton's Batman five years later.

[DukeDeMondo]

Babe: Pig In The City has a U rating and it's loaded tits to trotters with distressing images and bad old vibes.

Narrative that just lays into everyone. Disaster upon disaster. Shit luck all roads and directions. Pitiless and relentless. Dogs hanging off bridges. Folk clattering down wells. It's all your fault, over and over. Fuck me. It's an amazing film, one of my very favourite films ever made,* but it's not a U.


* Wasn't always one of my very favourite films ever made. By fuck. Like everyone else, I hated it at the time. Thought it was fucking horrible. Most folk thought it was fucking horrible. Leonard Klady got it ("Tour-de-force filmmaking"), and Roger Ebert got it ("A wonderment lolling in its enchanting images... Literate, humane, wicked"), but everyone else thought it was fucking turnip. Peter Stark's review for the San Francisco Chronicle was far more in tune with the consensus:

"A desperate, pathetic mess... Much too dark and cruel for children."

If the IMDB reviews from the time are anything to go by, that's how audiences were feeling too:

"Dark, depressing, disjointed and unfit for ANY type of viewing, much less family viewing." (J.S. Bricker Jr.)

"There were scenes that upset me to the point of near tears and I am an adult. I think taking a child to see this movie would be a huge mistake." (Candy-10)

"I have never forgotten some kids crying because of what they were seeing and outraged parents storming out of the theatre and complaining LOUDLY that this was not a kids film. The original had dark moments but nothing like what we see here." (Wayne Malin)

"The cute pig and sweet singing mice did not offset the disturbing, vile nature of the film. [...] There were countless scenes of cruelty and violence - maimings and barbarism. The film is a sick parody of a children's movie." (Chaz-19)

And so on and so forth.

Dunno if they're still there or not, those reviews, I grabbed them before IMDB blasted its message boards to bejeesus for I was for writing about it, is why. Writing about Babe: Pig In The City. Could write about it for days. Never finished what I started, mind you, but that's my fault, not the film's fault. Enough going on in the film to fill a hundred journals a dozen times over. Babe by way of Baudrillard, like. And that's only the half of it. Fucking hell.

One of Tom Waits's  favourite films, by the chat.

Anyway, sorry, you're looking Hardest PGs and I'm swinging a Hardest U about. But Pig In The City should be a hardest PG. Dunno how it isn't.

[popcorn]

Just to check, does "hardest PG films" mean "hardest Penis Girth films". In fact I'm not even going to check if it does, I am certain that it does.

[Shit Good Nose]

According to AsparagusTrevor who is an expert on the matter, I'm sure:

That WAS the case, however the film itself was upped to a 12 (12A for cinema) as well for its 37th (or whatever it was) anniversary release -  there were rumours that the BBFC considered the gore to be that much more vivid due to the new 4K scan showing up a lot more detail (that, at least, is fact - it was the first time most of us were able to see the stuff Brody's breathing in whilst chumming is Old Spice), but either way it's now a 12/12A.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Yes this is true, that re-rating passed me by and I stand corrected. Although technically the film is still PG rated on home media (on a 12-rated disc).

Jaws 2 is a hard PG.

[greenman]

Nunchucks and nipples got you an 18, everything else was a PG.

[AsparagusTrevor]

I'd like to see a film called Nunchucks and Nipples

[Blumf]

The fact there isn't a film with that title shows a deep error within the universe

[idunnosomename]

I'd like to see a film called Nunchucks and Nipples

maybe when you're older!

[A Hat Like That]

Biggles: Adventures in Time has the rotten corpse with eyes falling out.

cut to pieces on Movies4Men

should do the same to the soundtrack as well tbf

[H-O-W-L]

Definitely the original Back to the Future and the sequel. 3 is a lot lighter in content but BTTF1 has a lot of nasty shit that surprised me when I rewatched it. George fondling the bras, repeated swearing, the Libyans letting loose on Doc somewhat graphically, the implication of the Libyans in general... Then 2 has the horrible alternate timeline where George has been shot in the mouth and Biff is basically melting the planet down for scrap metal. Really amazing that it wasn't a 12 considering how mature most of the concepts in it are.

Still three cracking films tho.

[thecuriousorange]

Airplane was a PG and features a naked woman.

[Gulftastic]

Airplane was a PG and features a naked woman.

It was an 'A'!

[Phil_A]

We watched Dragonslayer on the stream the other night and I was fairly surprised to find out that film was a "U" on video, even with stabbings galore, nudity and a large part of the plot concerning the sacrifice of virginal young girls to the dragon.

Although admittedly, the scene where Ralph Richardson gets a sword up him is a lot less graphic than I remembered, you don't actually see it "going in".

[Mister Six]

Temple is a PG? Always thought it was a 12.

The film classification boards are weird.

Temple of Doom led to the outcry that resulted in the creation of the US PG-13 rating.

[Noodle Lizard]

To suggest a comedy, Airplane! is a PG in the US, bizarrely.  That's got tits, blowjob jokes, paedo jokes, the works. 15 in the UK, iirc.

EDIT: Didn't see someone had already mentioned this.
Was it a 15 on DVD because of the commentaries/extras?

[Noodle Lizard]

Temple of Doom led to the outcry that resulted in the creation of the US PG-13 rating.

Yeah, that and Gremlins.

The Goonies is also a pretty harsh PG, as far as kids movies go.  Rewatched it with the stepson recently.  Corey Feldman threatening to kidnap and torture a prospective housekeeper, the fat kid getting trapped in a small space with the corpse of a murdered old man with a bullet in the head falling all over him - twice.  I think there's a recurring dildo joke too.

[Mister Six]

Does anyone have a link to the Biggles scene? I can't find anything but I'm not really sure what to search for.

[bgmnts]

Yeah but The Goonies has a real kids adventure feel, it's exhilarating and magical rather than horrifying.

Whereas Temple of Doom has human fucking sacrifice where a man gets his heart ripped out and burned alive.

[popcorn]

Temple of Doom is a fucking sadistic nightmare. Horrified me and I only watched it a couple of years ago.