The MPAA is really dumb with their ratings and should quite honestly get a major revamp of their current methods considering both how unneffective and how massively flawed they are. It's hilarious how they literally COUNT the number of swears on a movie by word to determine a rating. 1 "fuck" is okay but TWO "FUCK"S??? This guy's a madman!
I thought the shot would’ve looked better if the cut had been from behind and we saw the royal guard fall. Then it would’ve made sense that maybe we don’t see blood. And they could’ve focused on the other guard’s reactions to it as it was happening
Yeah I don't wanna try to defend Adam too much for his pretension, but I would agree that throat cuts should probably either be bloody or not on the screen at all.
Lots of movies avoid gore by cutting away, or casting the fodder as some sort of non-gory alien/robot. Much better techniques that can avoid gore and breaking immersion while still including some violence.
There's a whole separate discussion about what violence should or should not be shown in movies for kids, but no matter what your intended audience, showing a literal throat cut with no blood is going to be distracting for most people.
I really liked the movie, but that one thing was enough to undercut that whole scene’s tension for me. Maybe I am just being a nitpick, but it really took me out of the movie.
Logan and Deadpool really changed my perspective on R-rated superhero movies. I don't think every movie should be R-rated from now on, and I know Marvel/Disney would never go for it, but I'm quite certain THIS movie would have been a better film if it was R-rated.
On the action side, sorry but after Logan a bunch of people swinging bladed weapons in PG-13 just kinda looks stupid. When the rhinos were rampaging through the last battle, it just looked so goofy there's no tension or emotional response whatsoever. It's just a slapstick routine.
On the storytelling side, I'm not asking for 12 Years a Slave or anything, but some brutality would've sold Killmonger's motivations and backstory better. Edit to clarify: Killmonger only works if you already know about the history of black people in America. Unlike Magneto where they showed a clip of kid Magneto in a concentration camp, here they chose to tell instead of show. They tell you just enough to know what Killmonger is referencing, but only if you already know what he's talking about. I can see a lot of Asians being confused.
That's literally what I was discussing with my friends immediately after watching it. This movie easily could have been R. For a movie with such a message and some of the scenes being particularly violent, the lack of swears and blood were actually jarring. Add onto the fact that they couldn't use pretty much any of the songs off their own soundtrack because of profanity is annoying.
But then again, part of the whole big deal about this film is that it's a big, mainstream, big budget movie made by black people celebrating black people as heroes, and that it can be watched by children. I think that's a big deal, something you'd lose by making the movie R rated.
These movies are also not rated PG, but PG-13. That means it's not meant for kids, but teenagers and up.
If this movie were explicitly a children's movie, and people were talking about it as such, he wouldn't complain about lack of blood. But because this is being heralded as this "important" "masterpiece" for adults, he's right to complain.
I still have no idea to this day how Hannibal got a tv 14 rating. It really should've been TV MA. It's arguably one of the most violent tv shows I've ever seen. Like Game of Thromes level. It's filled with gore in each episode
I'm an adult, and my life went on just fine without seeing a spray of arterial blood that one time.
What an asinine comment. It was jarring and removed some of us from the film. It killed the tension and immersion of the scene. What's difficult to understand about that?
Also: Everyone commenting on this who has actually witnessed what a human having their throat slit looks like raise your hand.
raises hand
There's blood. A lot of blood. If blood isn't instantly spraying, then there's at least instantly a huge visible opening in the neck and blood is gushing out.
They could have avoided the whole thing by just killing her in a different way. A way that isn't literally one of the most graphic and bloody possible executions in reality.
What an asinine comment. It was jarring and removed some of us from the film. It killed the tension and immersion of the scene. What's difficult to understand about that?
It didn't kill it for me. What's difficult to understand about that?
Do you ever go to the theater? Live theater is full of moments like this, where what's happening on stage isn't "real" but you still live in the moment even though you're sitting in a chair in a building and not actually standing in a battlefield covered in dusts and blood.
But it isn't a play, it's a movie. Two entirely different mediums. The criticism is valid, and there's no need for whataboutism or melodrama like "my life was able to continue on after that scene".
That's quite the hyperbole. They both use actors and sets to tell a story that is not real. Both involve suspension of disbelief. Even if a film has 100% perfect visual realism it still requires immersing onself in the story in the theater.
The real melodrama is people claiming that not seeing graphically violent arterial spray in a family film ruins the film and makes that film--and I quote--"not going to be appealing to adults".
I'm an adult, it appealed to me.
299 film reviews liked it, it appealed to them.
44,360 user reviews liked it, it appealed to them.
Audiences scientifically polled by Cinemascore gave it an A+, it appealed to them.
So maybe let's not say things like "I didn't see the graphic violence I need in superhero movies, therefore this film cannot appeal to adults."
It's amazing how far you're taking this, when all we're saying is that they could have simply not chosen one of the most graphic executions in reality, and made it as unrealistically non-graphic as possible. He could have easily just snapped her neck. Knowing you can't show any blood should mean you choose anything other than the bloodiest of executions. It was a poor directorial choice that removed some of us from the scene. Period. It didn't ruin the film for me, but it's a valid criticism. You can still enjoy a film, despite what others think of it. Or at least you should be able to. And you should especially be able to understand a single criticism some people have with a film, even if you didn't notice it as much or care as much. The level at which you're taking this as some personal attack, like you made the film yourself, is remarkable.
Lol, how far I'm taking it, while you have reply after reply. I simply responded to this exact statement:
yes, but when you cut a throat and there's no blood, it's not going to be appealling to adults
Because yes, I took issue with that statement. And I still take issue with that statement, because it's not just subjectively untrue, it's objectively untrue. It tries to imply that only children don't have a problem with it, a not-so-subtle attempt to insult people who didn't have a problem with it.
But by all means, you feel free to have the last word on this issue that only I am taking too far.
As much as I feel Adam gets really biased here and is overreacting to his point about spears I do gotta agree with the throat cutting scene. If they didn’t want to put a bunch of blood there they needed to shoot it differently because it was super distracting to me.
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u/mathswarrior Feb 17 '18 edited Feb 17 '18
yes, but when you cut a throat and there's no blood, it's not going to be appealling to adults - it will probably take them out of the experience