Final Trailer for PG-Rated "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" Raises More Questions About Legitimacy of MPAA

By: Adam Quigley Posted: April 19, 2009 Filed under: Trailers

It's no mystery that the MPAA's ass-backwards rating system has been shown to favor big-budget film releases backed by major studios over smaller indie releases, or that their views on what constitutes necessary censorship are irrational and utterly warped. This was proven extensively in the year 2007 alone, when they granted the touching, innocent Once an R-rating for simply using the F-word a few times, and even banned the poster for Taxi to the Dark Side. Meanwhile, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, a film which featured countless violent deaths (including a young boy being hanged and a fully visible shot of a woman getting a bullet to the head), had no trouble receiving its expected PG-13 rating, and posters like the ones for Saw IV and Hostel: Part II were granted an easy pass.

One of the more recent MPAA mindfucks though, wasn't part of the usual PG-13/R/NC-17 debacle that so ofen rears its nasty head in the movie business. In this particular case, the questionable rating came courtesy of the family-friendly The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which offered all sorts of swordplay fun (decaption, stabbing, throat-slitting, etc.) and was somehow given a baffling PG-rating. This decision becomes decidedly less surprising though, when you take into consideration that Walt Disney Pictures is one of the "big six" major Hollywood studios that holds a spot on the MPAA's members board.

Another of those "big six" studios is Warner Bros., which brings us to the unveiling of the final trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Whereas the previous two Harry Potter films were the first in the series to be provided with understandable PG-13 ratings, this sixth entry has returned to the PG-roots of the earlier films in the franchise. Does this mean that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will have more family-friendly appeal than either Goblet of Fire or Order of the Phoenix?

No, evidently not. If anything, this looks to be the darkest Harry Potter film to date, and possibly the darkest PG movie since the introduction of the PG-13 rating in the '80s. Of course, this is based strictly off the trailer, so it's possible the MPAA knows something we don't. What was it exactly that qualified the previous two films for a PG-13 rating but not this most recent one? Apparently it comes down to the difference between "scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality" and "sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images". Try to guess which films apply to what. No, seriously, try.

Attempting to decipher the MPAA's frustratingly simplistic and vague justifications for ratings is a task that rarely yields any satisfying results. Even in knowing that the first description was assigned to The Half-Blood Prince while the prior two films were assigned the latter, I find myself struggling to make sense of the particular qualities that differentiate them (other than the addition of 'language' and 'sensuality' to the PG-rated film, of course). According to the MPAA, 'some violence' and 'scary images' are a whole rating's worth of difference than 'sequences of fantasy violence' and 'frightening images'. And even then, it's worth noting that just because they're using words that sound somewhat less harsh, that doesn't actually make it so in the context of the film itself.

In this trailer alone, there's a staggering amount of violence and frightening imagery (oh I'm sorry, that's 'scary' imagery - 'frightening' imagery only applies to the last two films). Between a demonic face appearing from the clouds, a possessed-looking girl hovering in the air while screaming, hundreds of horrifying goblin-esque creatures swarming around Harry, shadowy figures causing the destruction of a bridge as innocent civilians hold on for dear life, and several instances of characters attempting to escape massive rings of fire, it's already clear that the level of violence and dark imagery on display here is easily on par with anything found in Order of the Phoenix and Goblet of Fire.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that younger kids shouldn't be allowed to see this movie. If anything, it's refreshing to see a studio not afraid to deliver on the progressively darker and more mature edge that eventually became so readily apparent in the books. But for the sake of consistency, this movie deserves to be rated PG-13, plain and simple. Clearly though, consistency is not one of the MPAA's strong suits, so there's no really no reason people should bother attributing any meaning to their ratings at all; but given that people do (and will continue to do so), I will continue to be on the lookout for more reasons to further discredit their already tarnished name. I suppose I should just be grateful that they make it so easy.