Not exactly off topic but here's a few things maybe someone could explain for me!!
...though please excuse a little ranting first...
I recently saw a movie called The Hunger Games, recommended to me by friends after reading the book, so I was dragged along too. It wasn't exactly a bad film, just so long and unnecessary on too many occassions, I almost fell asleep watching it half way through,lol. But here's the thing! That movie is 142 minutes long, rated a 12a here in UK (the equivalent of PG-13 in the States), but there wasn't one time in the first week (except the really late showings) the queue to see it wasn't right round my local cinema, so clearly the length of a PG-13 film doesn't necessarily affect its popularity, yet it doesn't appear anyone at FOX nor Riddles himself, gave this any thought with their puny 119 minute effort.
So why is this movie really finding it so hard to get a PG-13 rating, while Scott continues to lay the blame firmly with the MPAA (for reasons I'm curious about), and Rothman is quite happy defending everything because he knows he can't lose, I shudder to think what's going on behind the scenes. Like most films, I assume an uncut verson of Prometheus was made anywhere up to 180 minutes long, most of which would have been cut by the director and his assistant several times over before the MPAA sees anything, mostly unwanted material, resulting in a final cut for them to decide what needs to go in order to gain the required rating, which they still haven't done.
Also with Prometheus it sounds like there were two seperate cuts made, an 'R' cut first for the DVD/Blu Ray, then a PG-13 cut from the same thing for the cinema release, is that right??? Anyway, reports suggest up to 17 minutes have supposedly been cut from this 'R' rated version in order to get that PG-13 the studio wanted, so one would assume the film was made with PG-13 in mind, but if that was the case what did FOX submit to the MPAA which they ended up cutting so much from before the movie even got an 'R' rating. Indeed, after all that, why is it the MPAA STILL haven't finished when, for all we know, they could realistically cut Prometheus down to 90 minutes before they are satisfied!!
Like I said, maybe I'm missing something here and someone else knows more about the film editing process than I do, but something tells me we're being screwed with this movie. Old Riddles is going to get his version out anyway so I doubt he's even bothered (he probably never wanted a PG-13 just like the rest of us), while those of you who prefer to pay extra for the pleasure of seeing Prometheus in 3D may lose out twice, especially if the medium doesn't do the it any justice (I've yet to see any live action movie really do 3D justice), while I suspect Rothman is laughing all the way to the bank even if this film only breaks even!!
...end of another rant! lol