11
votes
‘Predator: Badlands’ officially rated PG-13, meant to be “boundary-pushing”
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- Title
- Producer Explains Why 'Predator: Badlands' Was Meant to Be a Boundary-Pushing "PG-13" Movie
- Authors
- John Squires
- Published
- Oct 7 2025
- Word count
- 408 words
I’m not going to say you can’t make a good PG-13 predator movie but I’ll bet money they haven’t made a good PG-13 predator movie.
The only PG-13 films in the franchise are the AvP films. The reasoning here is that there are no human characters so all the gore is from aliens and androids
I want this logic to be extended to all fantasy humanoids.
Hyper violent movies that have a protagonist that is a half-elf or something tearing apart hordes of hobbits, as long as they aren't human!
The Samurai Jack method.
This was literally what I was thinking of, but I don't think you can get away with it when they look like weyland David androids or whatever.
Ratings in general are a mix of political nonsense and "I know it when I see it" factors so I very much doubt "oh yeah ripping that dude in half is fine because he's got white blood" gets a PG13.
It DOES however get to be shown on youtube, as anyone who watches games like MK knows.
I don't really care for Mortal Kombat, so I don't frequent channels who specialize in it, but I've heard that exclusively killing D'Vorah or the T-1000 isn't even a sure thing to prevent someone's channel from getting demonetized, so the hand wringing nonsense isn't a film exclusive thing.
Correct but the film stuff is at a lower volume and thus human reviewed.
YouTube stuff is automated which is why stuff like that works and why mk streams swap to black and white for X-rays/fatalities.
I'd again bet that's the excuse they're going to use so people still go.
I doubt sincerely the level to which you can actually get away with that (having watched the AvP films they ARE less violent) and again this reeks of a product designed by marketing teams trying to maximize audiences, not actually sticking to the strengths of the story.
I don’t disagree with your last point since Disney greenlit this with a 100M budget, probably with the caveat that it would be PG-13. For comparison, The Predator (2018) had an 88M budget and Alien: Romulus had an 80M budget as R-rated films.
That being said I think Tratchenberg is likely to actually turn up the fake gore unlike the filmmakers that handled the AvP films. Even from the trailer you can see some of the android blood on Elle Fanning’s character. We’ll see how it ultimately plays off but I think this will be different.
I was never really clear about the differences and Google was not helpful so I committed a tildes sin and asked AI.
PG13:
R:
This seems pretty unhelpful too. Perhaps someone can explain for example the difference between "intense" and "graphic" violence? Also, who cares if they can't swear. I don't recall ever watching a movie where swearing made it better or worse. Same with nudity. I'm probably just failing to understand though.
Edit: thanks for the replies all! I understand the difference now but can't say I "agree" with it - as in, I fail to see why it's necessary to make it R rated but that's just me (a probably unpopular opinion)
It's intentionally vague to allow a board of assessors to clutch pearls at what they find inappropriate. That's my cynical take. I'm not entirely sure of the inner workings but that's my, admittedly kneejerk, response.
Regardless, swearing with intent can be very impactful. Bojack Horseman comes to mind where they purposefully say "fuck" only once per season and each one hits like a ton of bricks and serves to elevate the heft of the scene.
This is not too far off. Tarantino got away with a lot, especially earlier in his career, because he was adored. Or so I've heard.
And that is also by design, but they did spill some beans a number of years ago. (For the non-native English speakers, "spill some beans" means "let loose some secrets" more or less).
Hmm this one is definitely a cultural difference then
I'm not from the US. Swearing in the Netherlands can be done almost anywhere. That's why it's also mostly powerless.
On the contrary, when Bojack swears it has a lot of power behind it because of the intent and the infrequency of the fucks. It transforms into an outcry of absolute despair. Fairly interesting how that changes my reaction to the word "fuck" too, when under normal real life circumstances I'd absentmindedly say it in the office/home/anywhere.
Swearing more, or less, on purpose, can have an effect on the overall feeling of the film/show.
Basically you can show someone getting shot in a PG-13 film as long as there’s no blood splatter (either squibs or CGI). In R rated films you can show all the blood that comes from that. And even go further with the gore like seeing people’s hands be chopped off or the skin being ripped off.
Giving an example. This shootout scene in Django Unchained uses a ton of squibs and you get explosive bloody shots. And now compare that to this scene in No Time To Die. People are still dying but there’s no blood to speak of. You don’t see anything other than people falling over.
Sci fi and fantasy films can still show a lot of gore and violence as long as it’s not directed at humans. So you can show some alien creature being detached bit by bit but since the blood is green you’re fine.
MPAA logic:
Violence is good if you sanitize and glorify it. Show the hero mowing down waves of generic people. Extra plus good if you have army guys doing the killing.
Violence is bad if you depict it realistically and with weight, especially in a context that humanizes the victims.
Depict humans in their natural state, without draping them in random cloth parasitism? That's straight out. How dare you.
I mean, can't lie, that's kinda true, MPAA or not. Like famous movie director Stalin said, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
Watching one guy get tortured in gruesome detail can be far more disturbing than watching millions of people get mowed in a war or shot by the hero.
I have not been in a war or anything but isn't this more realistic? That Django scene is absurd lol
Depends heavily on a lot of factors.
Tarantino is notorious for over the top stylized violence yes, but something like the beach landing in Saving Private Ryan which is pretty accurate.
"Intense" means a lot of it happens or it has strong implications, "graphic" means lots of blood and/or guts.
The Joker slamming a pencil through a guy's forehead in The Dark Knight is a good example of on-screen violence that is intense but not graphic in its depiction.
The rules get fuzzier the less human the targets of the violence are, which is probably why a science fiction movie about aliens getting hunted is able to "push boundaries".
That's PG13!? I thought this would have been a R film for sure
Christoper Nolan has only made three R rated movies: Memento, Insomnia, and Oppenheimer
I think this movie really rubbed up against the ceiling of the PG-13 rating when it comes to violence. Christopher Nolan is a talented filmmaker and really knew how to make the action feel gritty and intense without being outright graphic. The prosthetics and CGI for Harvey Dent's face post-injury are another area they spent considerable time fine tuning to get exactly the right vibe while keeping it PG-13.
That face just goes to show how silly this rating system is. That scene is some of the scariest gore I've ever seen and it still gets a pass somehow lol
Barely related to the thread, but I'd like to point out that the original cut of Robocop (1987) was rated NC-17 for violence. That is the only case of this that I know of, and is what you see when you watch the Criterion Edition of the movie. I imagine today it would have just been rated R.
The original Evil Dead was also rated NC-17 originally I believe. Natural Born Killers as well. I’m pretty sure Alvarez said his version of Evil Dead also originally got an NC-17 rating until he changed the ending to start raining blood.
That's interesting, I didn't think either were anywhere near that level of violence, but I suppose I was likely watching the "watered down" versions. I did have a VHS copy of the director's cut of Natural Born Killers, but still.