Why does everybody think that GL and Speilberg got soft with the birth of thier kids?

WHy? Everybody seems to think that GL and Speilberg both got soft and started to refrain from making dark movies for kids. They think this happened with the birth of their kids. I have some things to combat that statement.

I mean, if the above statement is true, how do you explain The Temple of Doom? Spielberg and Lucas were the ones who created the PG-13 rating so that they could show a little more violence without losing a huge share of thier adience, which is kids from 13 to 17 years of age. TTT of doom came out at least a year after Lucas's first child was born.

Also, AOTC so far has the most violence of any SW. 3 people get beheaded, one person gets his upper torso sliced off, and two people get their arm sliced off. What more do these people want?

 

> WHy? Everybody seems to think that GL and Speilberg both got soft and started to refrain from making dark movies for kids... What more do these people want?

What people?

If you're going to have a big rant at a presumably large proportion of people who hold a common opinion, could you please provide a few links to reviews / discussion where the stuff you are debating against is actually being said?

 

I recall Spielberg saying he wouldn't let his kids watch Jurassic Park.

 

Actually I would be one making that debate though I wouldn't put it such cut and dry terms. To me it' not as tied to thir children as much as the current climate of political correcteness, ezpecially all that nonsense that violence in TV and movies are the root cause of violence in children. Besides it wouldn't be the time of birth that is important but when the children would be old enough to start seeing some of their parents movie. Going by that then Lucas first kid was then born in 1983, but for a PG-13 it wouldn't be until 1996 where it would be advisable for them to see it. Curiously enough it's when all this sanitizing of movies started with the Special Editions and later ET.

But as I mentioned I think it has to be more about political correctness and the campaign about protecting families and young ones from the evil influences of Hollywood, which started really strong in the mid-90s which also started sshifting Hollywood to the PG-13 arena, and rampant "stretching the limits".

Now the best example is ET. I agree that you couldn't do an animated character back then the way now we can with CG. It's understandable though I like the classic ET. The stupid part was replacing the guns for walkie talkies. Since ET came out it has now become a children's classic, heck the original Star Wars is kinda considered a children's classic though back then it was more aimed towards the middle, teens. Anyway the argument now from Spielberg is that he never intended to have the guns then that it really bothered him and now he had to remove them. Well then, it was his movie then he could have easily shot the movie without the rifles. It's not like it was an VFX shot where there were limits, just a standard scene. He could have easily told the extras/actors not to have them. Couldn't have taken longer than 3 seconds to say it. The implications boggle the mind, I mean it sends the message that even showing weapons in a film geared towards children is harmful. It's stupid from a story POV, I mean federal agents try to enforce a highly critical situation by brandishing walkie talkies, cmon!!! If anything the original shows that adults are willing to brandish deadly force even at children for a specific purpose which is a much more powerful message and the fact that Elliot and the kids still went ahead show even more courage. And don't get me started about changing the line from "terrorist" to "hipie". Are we so wimpy now that we have to sanitize a 20 year old movie because that one word may damage kids?!?!?

The SE were even more subtle. There was once a website where they showed the slight editing changes where blast hits on people were edited out, either when they take over the hangar control or the cell block on the first film. Instead of showing the blast with the bit of smoke coming from someones chest or body, the SE changed them to cut back to Han or Luke firing. Of course that is nothin g compared to the Greedo thing. Again if the SE verison was the intended way, why was it not shot like that in '75? It was just a practical FX with minimal VFX (the laser bolt) afterwards. They had a script for ages storuboards, etc. Luvas could have easily shot that scene where Greedo shoots first and Han afterwards. But oh, no since 77, Han has become a hero, sorta good guy role model, we can't show kids him firing first in a "preemptive shot" that might injure them psychologically. It eliminates a key character development point of the film, where Han is shown as a rough, if likeable, and cunning smuggler. Now he is just going to be a goody two shoes.

For the record I (and most of my friends) saw SW originally on the theatres in 1977 where for the most part we were 7 and younger (including my youger brother who was younger then 4), and saw ET when we were all hitting out teen years. Let me tell you that we all came out fine.

The new films are interesting. Yes AOTC is a bit more violent, but most of the violence shown is towards aliens or others who are not humans. In those circles it's OK to show killing aliens and masked (clone

 

"For the record I (and most of my friends) saw SW originally on the theatres in 1977 where for the most part we were 7 and younger (including my youger brother who was younger then 4), and saw ET when we were all hitting out teen years. Let me tell you that we all came out fine."

That's because when we were kids, parents taught children right from wrong.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

"That's because when we were kids, parents taught children right from wrong."

whats that suppose to mean?

 

I saw Raiders when I was 7 and Temple of Doom when I was 10. I have an irrational fear of snakes but otherwise I'm ok.

But you're right. Whether it has to do with kids, I don't know but they definitly have gone soft. I mean replacing guns with walkie talkies? Did anyone see the South Park episode about this very subject? I think they're going to repeat it on Saturday at 10:00pm eastern. Even if you don't like South Park, check it out, it's genius.

 

I've read more than once that Drew Barrymore, who is very anti-gun, persuaded
Spielberg to remove the guns and replace
them with walkie-talkies, which was ridiculous.

In the original version, the Mom yells
"no guns, they're children!" just as they reach the playground. That was
sufficient. And it made the government
threat stronger.

Most people grow softer and mellower as they grow older and have kids, that's normal, that's the way life develops. BUT I think the guns being replaced by Walkie-Talkies is absurd.

 

Well Drew Barrymore might have helped in Spielberg's decision, but I don't think any actor or actress could convince the most powerful man in Hollywood about something he didn't want to. I think it was in the special before the release of the new ET (it aired on ABC I believe) or maybe in the DVD where he says that he now thinks the guns were too much.

bedada3 got it right. It's funny how nowadays people want the government to interfere more, but when it's about movies and TV they want the big government to come in and interfere, and for that matter educate the children. The film ratings are guidelines, not laws or strict rules, I still don't get why kids are carded. Shouldn't be the parents responsability to check what their children watch, to teach them right from wrong in the context of movies. For the most part now kids are just let go. And that's the problem now, some adults demand to have removed the "dangerous" parts in movies. Hence the guns in ET, Greedo shoots first, etc. and who knows what else

What was I talking about ;-).

 

Notice how the movies become more gentle to make them more family oriented and so kids can watch them, yet the toys become more dangerous.

 

Lucas was already softening in 1983. Witness the saber battle on ROTJ's sail barge, where the saber cuts through no flesh and bone, and is used as a space-age wiffle bat for knocking aliens off the craft & into the sand below.

 

Yeah but 1984's Temple of Doom was hardcore.

 

When you get old, you get soft. GL and Speilberg made hardcore movies when they were young and hardcore, now they are older with children. The same sort of movies:

a) Won't appeal to them anymore ; and
b) Are probably not what they want for their kids.

I don't think this is a bad thing for them to believe, but there is little that anyone can do about it. These sort of things are just natural.

 

I don't consider the ROTJ softening, even if that was true the much more kid oriented prequels had their share of gore (Qui Gon's demise, Maul falling out). It would have not served any real purpose and besides it woud have eeb unfeasible back then to show properly. After all we witness a few scenes before how that Rancor chomps on the poor Gamorrean!!! ;-)

And Temple of Doom hardcore?!?!? not by a long shot, especially by the standards of the 80s. Remember all those cheap and explotation movies? Remember the Cannon films from Golan Globus? Besides some cartoony gore does not equate with hardcore violence. Witness something with great use editing but little gore like the 13th Warrior which is certainly more hardcore than some movie that have gore flying all over the place.

And also it doesn't matter if directors get older. After all Spielberg did Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List which contain quite horrorific images. Both AI and Minority Report were adult themed movies. What about other directors that continue to do R movies? I never saw saw Scorcese or David Lynch go soft simply because they were older or had kids. There is no correlation. That it might sometimes happen, like with Lucas, yes, but it's far from being a certain for everybody.

There was someone, either a comedian or someone famous (might have been Hitchcock but if someone remmbers let me know) who said about movies safe for kids, "screw the kids, one day they'll grow up" (and watch movies for adults). If you are concerned with your kids, simply don't let it watch it, that's what parents are for. Keep making all sorts of movies.

 

Quote:
"And Temple of Doom hardcore?!?!? not by a long shot, especially by the standards of the 80s. "

True, compared to some horror films of the 80's Temple of Doom wasn't so bad but you're talking about an entirely different genre. We're talking about filmmakers that up to that point made relatively family friendly films. And to be honest I can't really think of a movie in the 80's that had scenes like a guy's heart being ripped out by hand or some of the stuff that went on in the dinner scene.

 

Well Spielberg did Jaws, and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind is not exactly a kids movie. Never saw Sugarland Express so i can't comment on that but I believe it's not exactly for kids either. Spielberg almost did Poltergeist, even though he gave it to Tobe Hopper so he could do ET. Lucas did THX1138, which is a film for adults. American Graffitti is for teend and older, niot exactly kids back then. Beofre that he was an assistant to Coppola, and was even set to direct Apocalypse Now before he went on to do Star Wars. Not exactly kiddy stuff either.

I'm not exactly arguing with you. It's more a matter of context, at least to me. You can have movies with lots of blood and gore and being relatively tame (either because the type of movie, or it's over the top), while other films with little blood and gore could still be very violent and geared for adults. My example is 13th Warrior, a movie with barely any blood and gore (and most of it in the dark or quick shots) which is an excellent action movie but not for kids. The Jurassic Park movies had lmost not gore but they sometimes were a bit too intense for young kids. On the other hand take many of todays action films which have gone back to not showing bullet hits for example (just the classic fall off) and still come as violent.

As far as the 80s, as far as "kids" movies in certain ways Gremlins was a lot more violent. But for comparisson about gore, violence and popular films, well you have Robocop, with it very over the top violence and gore (which was part of the comedy), Mothy Python and the Meaning of Life had a very gross but funny scene of a fat guy exploding and then showing his interiors. The original Terminator could almost be considered a kids movie nowadays, certainly for teen and it has that eye gouging scene. What about the orgy scene in Conan the Barbarian, certainly on par with the Temple of Doom stuff. Poltergeist was not exactly tame and very on par with the Raiders "gross" stuff. There's The Fly too!!! Although of course many of those movies didn't come from family friendly directors, but then again Lucas and Spielberg didn't start being that kind themselves. It's just later that this notion came into being because they made films that got turned into "kids" classics.

 

"Jurassic Park" was a classic -- how funny was it to open a theme park where kids have to run for their lives from deadly dinosaurs? Very subversive, to me, at least. I thought Speilburg did a great job of taking more Michael Crichton schlock and turning it into something moral and culturally reflective, i.e. our great desire for extreme sports, jumping out of planes, theme park rides that do a zillion loops... "JP" took it to the ultimate extreme and posed some interesting questions.

Spielburg's film based on the Kubrick treatments ("A.I.") and his last two movies ("Minority Report" and "Catch Me If You Can") were phenomenal, daring, with interesting moral and social issues that weren't kid friendly and would not be easy for kids to understand, I'm sure. "A.I." reminded me a lot of "THX 1138," in its dark overtones.

I can't say if Lucas went soft after "Star Wars" (1977), because he didn't direct anything. TPM and AOTC are cut from the same cloth as ANH, so the lack of nudity or subversion isn't surprising... "Star Wars" was meant to be a fairy tale with heroes and villans, not something that would have been dark, even in 1977 (before Lucas's kids came). However, all of the characters breaking their loyalties in III is somewhat dark, if in theme only.

I would say that Spielburg was never a real "dark" filmmaker to begin with. So I'd say, "no," him having kids didn't make him softer or lighter in tone. Remember "1941" or "Close Encounters..."? Those weren't "dark" films. "Schindler's List," "Private Ryan" and "A.I." were much darker. If anything, he's much edgier now than he was in the '70s and '80s. "Jaws" was just a scary movie. It wasn't like seeing "Easy Rider" or "Last House On The Left" though.

However, I'd like to see Lucas start making films like "THX" or "Jurassic Park" (no sequals, though) or "A.I." again. Him doing "Star Wars" for all these years is great, I love it, but I'm ready for him to move on and make a few more edgy-theme films before he passes on.

 

Who are these people you are referring to? I don't know anyone here on these forums or in the real world that think George Lucas and his friend Speilburg have got soft with the birth of their children?

 

You really should watch not only the south park episode where he replaces the guns in saving private ryan with walkie talkies and also the daily show Back in Black segiment were he rants about how stupid putting walkie talkies in ET was. Funny stuff

 

I couldn't agree more with what Malducin said at the top of this page. I'm 18 now. I grew up watching a lot of these movies - the SW films, the Indy films (Temple of Doom was my favorite, and still is), the Gremlins movies, Jaws, E.T., the whole lot. And this was when I was, oh, 5 or so. Since then, I've gotten a major jones for cheesy, gory exploitation films like Evil Dead and Dead Alive. I was "exposed" to those in middle school. Hell, I read Naked Lunch when I was 12.

And you know how I turned out? Fine. I'm a pacifist. I've never been in a physical fight. The thought of real-life violence makes me ill. And what's more, I'M NOT ALONE. I can think of countless friends of mine with similar upbringings who hold similar views.

Everyone who insists that the media has a negative impact on kids is full of ***t. The only people who are having a negative impact are the parents who let their kids watch it and don't explain that what they're seeing is wrong. Political corectness is one of the worst things about the world today. A couple bad eggs from Colorado read a copy of Mein Kampf, and suddenly the media's to blame for all of society's woes. I'm sick of seeing our media getting castrated like this.

...what was I talking about again?

Bottom line: censorship=evil.