First movie to get a PG-13 Rating

....was Red Dawn

I just found that out today. I thought it was interesting so I figured I'd mention it.

Although that statement is true, I remember reading somewhere (I think even in the Red Dawn DVD booklet) that Dreamscape with Dennis Quaid was the first movie to get a PG-13 rating, although it was released after Red Dawn had come out.

I'm almost 100% positive on my statement, and if it's true, then we'd both be right.

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That's is a pretty well-known piece of trivia.

It's also just as well-known that Red Dawn was not the first movie to be rated PG-13, just the first to be released. The Flamingo Kid was actually the first movie to earn a PG-13 from the MPAA, but it sat on the shelf unreleased until Christmas of 1984.

Dreamscape, also PG-13, was released only a week after Red Dawn and also received it's rating before Milius' Cold War paranoid fantasy.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Thanks Holden for that.

I could have sworn that I had heard somewhere that Raiders of the Lost Ark (Or one of the Indy movies) was the movie to trigger PG-13 ratings. Maybe not the first, but the movie that had them questioning whether or not they needed a new rating.

Right you are, they mention it on the bonus DVD that comes with the set. And it was Temple of Doom, just so you know.

Source

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Yeah, I believe Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the first high-profile release to earn the rating.

But yeah, I heard the Red Dawn thing a few years back and for whatever reason, it happened to stick with me. I find it somewhat interesting, I suppose, but I find mentioning Temple of Doom among the very first to receive the rating is a bit more interesting, and actually more helpful for illustrating to most people just how new the rating is.

Make me wonder if I should bother to see Red Dawn. Probably not. But I 'spect I will, anyway.

What was the first movie to be rated R?

Nope, Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom and Gremlins, released in May and June of 1984, were the movies that finally got the MPAA to include another rating, but both were rated PG. Ghostbusters, also released in June '84, got some of the heat as well. After parents' groups and a general media consensus that they were too scary and extreme for young children but understanding that, certainly the two with Spielberg's name on them especially, they were going to draw in lots of tots, it was the responsible thing to do to amend the ratings so that you'd have at least a little better idea what you were in for before you bought tix for the tykes.

The MPAA had occasionally added tags to the PG ratings, such as the one for Jaws (1975) that had a "MAY BE TOO INTENSE FOR YOUNGER VIEWERS" addition to the PG it received. But it just made more sense to have a fifth rating in there between PG and R. Should have been done earlier, but there you are.

My bad. I was too lazy to look it up, and thought it a safe bet that any film in which a man rips out a still-beating heart and holds it in front of the camera would have a higher rating than Shark Tale.

Oh please, kids can handle the blood.

Think Spiderman was first film to introduce the new 12A Certificate in UK by the by.

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