Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to Get a PG Rating
The website, Rope of Silicon is reporting that the MPAA has given Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince a PG Rating for “for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality.”
Interestingly, this is the first movie in the Potter franchise since Prisoner of Azkaban that is receiving a rating under PG-13.
It is very possible that this is only a rumor, but usually these rumors end up being true.
What are your thoughts?
(Thanks to BlogHogwarts for the tip)
Tags: Half Blood Prince Rating, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince PG Rating, Harry Potter PG
January 7th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Wow! That seems very odd! I was assuming the movies, like the books, would get darker as they progressed but I guess WB has different plans. I really hope this isn’t a bad sign of things to come…
January 7th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Judgeing by the book, I would have given it PG13 maybe even R, I really hope this isn’t a bad sign. The book is very dark and I would have thought the movie would hold true to the book. The cave scene alone I thought would have made it PG13 at least. I hope this is not true because, again, NOT A GOOD SIGN!
January 7th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
i don’t believe it. the end of the book is way scarier than the end of the 4th and 5th. i mean i actually had nightmares after i read it.
January 7th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Agreed, it can not be true. The force is not strong with this idea!
January 7th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
This makes about… yep, no sense. Forget all the dark stuff, I would think that the teenage snogging alone would keep it PG-13 easily.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Also doesn’t Harry Potter almost kill Malfoy? If that is done well, then it will more then G
January 8th, 2009 at 6:23 am
Dumbledore drinking the potion alone garners a PG-13 as well as the teenage actions.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I think it is true, according to leaky it says the ‘MPAA website’ has confimed it.
January 8th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
He-who-must-not-be-named cannot be happy about this.
January 8th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
well, at least this will stop all the actors from saying “this movie is a lot darker than the previous one” don’t they get tired of repeating themselves?
January 8th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
They really must change the movie around then, because the book is not PG!
January 8th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
LOL- Alyce. I had the same exact thought.
January 8th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Where is the violence and the sexual undertones? I think one of the biggest problems I have with the series is that people say it is for kids, but once you hit book 3 I dont think it is. If they don’t let the movies get as dark as the books this misperception will continue.
Wow I sound really serious about this! ha!
January 8th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
It all depends on how things are shown and in what context. Gratuitous sensuality and nudity will always get an “R” rating, but Titanic for example has both but because its artistic and tactful, it only got a PG-13 rating.
I am surprised that it isn’t getting a PG-13 rating. Between what others have said with the inferi and the Sectumsempre scene, I thought both would have probably been as intense as their prior equivalents which I saw as the Dementors and graveyard rebirth scene in Goblet.
If those two scenes in Prince are done up to what I consider good, and this movie gets an PG rating, I will be surprised that Order got a PG rating because I don’t remember many scenes in that movie that needed to be censored up to thirteen year olds.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
i think that this is sooooooo not true. I agree with everyone else who commented. The snogging and the violence is way more than a PG rating. Quite a few people almost die. I think that the movie should get PG-13.
January 9th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Hey!
I’m a fan of your YouTube account (that Hitler video was made of awesome) that only recently discovered the podcast and I am quite impressed by your intellectual insights.
Anyway, the PG rating is completely inapproprate; it does nothing but propogate the myth that stories about children are children’s stories. I was hoping for an “R” for at least one of the Deathly Hallows movies; I doubt that will happen now.
It pains me that they don’t give the first Horcrux hunt the re-enactment it deserves; it’s not a matter of needless viloence, but of respect for the series. A PG-13 rating makes most parents stop and think before assuming Harry Potter is a few hours of destraction for a grade-schooler.
January 9th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
uh oh a have feeling that a lot of the stuff that improves the books will be cut out
January 9th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
I love how people make such broad assumptions about the film based on the rating (as with the trailer). I find it difficult to believe, though; if any of the movies thus far should be rated PG-13, it should be HBP (maybe GoF). I don’t think it means much about the darkness of the movie, but maybe the scenes were just found not entirely unsuitable for < 13 year olds.
But really, why would any of the Potter films be rated PG-13? What content in them would make it advisory for parents to “determine whether their children under age 13 should view the motion picture”? Maybe there’s some language and violence, but is it really necessary? I’m rambling, but I’m actually interested in what other people think. Oh, and I am 99.99% sure that no Harry Potter film will ever be rated R.
January 9th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Maybe R is a little strong, however, PG-13 is not strange at all. The last two movies needed to be PG-13 simply because of the Death Eaters, Grave yard scene, and other immages. My 10 and 11 year-old cousins wer really scared during Goblet mostly in the grave yare scene, but the Dementors in Azkaban had them scared as well. I guess what I’m trying to say is that a PG-13 rading is not a strech for the Potter movies.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
i agree i dont think that murder and being pithed of an astronemy tower is good for kids under 13 and seroiusly zombie like cmonsters crawling out of a lake is enough to give any pg movie going child nightmares
January 11th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
around the third book must have been when jk rowling decided that it was going to be more then a childrens book seeing that wormtail got away and all didnt end well for the trio it had more of a (greg correct me if im wrong) ambiguous ending i mean wormtail got away but harry and hermione saved buck beak and black
January 12th, 2009 at 2:23 am
I must say: i already found the first movies very scary. In germany they were recommendet for viewers older than 6 years. Ans for this age there were definitely the wrong pictures.
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:07 pm
?
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
If this movie was given a PG rating, then it wasn’t made correctly. It’s as simple as that.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Agreed 100 percent!!!
April 7th, 2009 at 6:28 am
The movie if its anything like the book should be a 15!
April 27th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
i thought this film was gonna be a 15’s
May 16th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
I really dont understand this at all. This book was way darker then the others before it. The only thing that i can keep saying to reassure myself that there might be some salvaging of this movie is that “year 1″ was originally going to R but they knocked it down to pg13…i can only hope that they will knock this up before they release it. definately not a pg movie. and in my opinion, they would make more money for a pg13.
but what disappoints me too is that i heard a rumor that the entire battle for hogwarts at the end is removed. along with the funeral. Now this…what the freak?
May 20th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
yea agreed if they changed the rating to PG then theres gotta be something wrong with the movie itself its that simple….
if it truely is PG and it stays that rating til it finally comes out i can almost 100% guarantee you that the movie WILL NOT follow the book and there WILL BE LOTS of angry people…nuff said
July 13th, 2009 at 12:38 am
i really don’t get why they couldn’t have just put it as PG-13.
if the Sectumspempra scene isn’t as bloody as it was in the
book i’ll be mad.
besides, the last couple were PG-13, so if it’s not as bloody,
then i’d be like WTF. they could have done it if they wanted
to since there were others as PG-13.
i’m just worried about that part. lol. i mean, and others, but
this is the part i’ve been waiting for most of all.
October 5th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Awesome post!