Star Wars: Attack of the Vague
A review of the new movie “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” in my paper today said it was rated PG for “Sci-fi action throughout, brief language, momentary smoking.” I guess everyone knows that brief language means cussin’. But it reads to me like everyone uses short words, or short sentences, maybe. “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.” Or maybe it reads like there is a sentence or two of foreign language, or an alien one, like Ewok. “Yub yub. Aiieeee!”
So if it really means that someone says damn once or twice (It was Star Wars after all. Obi-Wan Kenobi isn’t going to drop an f-bomb) then say “brief foul language.” Or “occasional cursing.”
Or, if its so minor, leave it out entirely, as the New York Times does: “Star Wars: The Clone Wars is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for bloodless sci-fi mayhem.” I mean, are people really so sensitive that they will stay away from a movie because of brief language? (Not to mention momentary smoking. Horrors!)
Are you kidding? You mean you didn’t know Sir Alec Guinness was the Bob Saget of his day? Sir Alec worked blue constantly; there’s, like, more than forty hours of unusable footage in the Lucasfilm archives of him. The outtakes from Empire Strikes Back in which Sir Alec kills Frank Oz and most of the crew with a running diatribe about where Oz has his hands is supposedly one of the funniest and simultaneously most appalling things ever captured on film.
I didn’t know that. Very interesting.