I decided to use a Christmas giftcard to purchase the final two installments in the Lord of the Rings trilogy (Previously, I only had Fellowship of the Ring). They arrived today, and I when looking over the packaging, I noticed the notes associated with their ratings. A few years ago the MPAA started including a blurb of text along with the rating to describe the reasons they came to their decision.
Both films are rated PG-13, and most people would probably agree that the films are cut from very similar cloth, but I noticed subtle differences in the notes between the two films:
- The Two Towers: “Epic Battle Sequences and Some Scary Images”
- Return of the King: “Intense Epic Battle Sequences and Frightening Images”
This led me to wonder where “scary” ends and “frightening” begins. Are they measuring the same value? If so, which term represents a larger value?
Eagerly awaiting the DVD release of TFINYR for more arbitrary grading of cultural products.
We caught it with the film club, it was really entertaining…
A bit of trivia, the director of TFINYR also directed Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, which is great and an FUMN classic.
After TFINYR, I rented Twist of Faith, which was also really good…
Return of the King has nearly twice as many human(oids) killed as The Two Towers, hence Scary to Frightning is somewhere between 468 and 836 slayings.
http://www.moviebodycounts.com/