Speeding Bullets #1

“Speeding Bullets” is the new segment where I write a quick article on something that’s going on in the world of entertainment and fandom. Here’s my first one…

Rating Versus Writing by Vance McCarty

As of this writing, Deadpool has made 300 million dollars. Deadpool is rated R and for many good reasons. It’s violent, sexual, vulgar and just downright offensive to multiple different people but it is incredibly successful and now there is word of Fox making the next Wolverine movie R as well. This is where I get a little upset.

Now whether this was going to be the plan before or after Deadpool had a great first week is up for debate but that’s honestly not the point. The point is that you shouldn’t write to do anything other than tell a great story and try to get your point across. That’s it. End of story. The reason that many R rated films fail or aren’t as good as some others is because they focus too much on pushing that rating as far as they can and forget common story elements like pacing, character development and subtlety.

I understand that Wolverine is a more adult character in some of the comics but but he’s been used well in the past without having to glorify the harsher aspects of his character. I’m not saying we make him a G rated film but write the script and then focus on how it’s gong to be viewed by the critics and rating board.

The real reason this upsets me is that if the movie is good then everyone’s going to say that it was because it was rated R and that’s not the reason. The film “The Wolverine” had it’s fair share of problems but a PG-13 rating was not one of them. It’s actually a pretty good movie until about 30 minutes before the ending. I understand that there’s not buckets of blood like there logically should be but that’s not really what makes Wolverine who he is.

What makes a good film isn’t it’s rating, it’s the heart of the characters that shine through it. When Wolverine is written well it doesn’t matter if we have or haven’t seen him naked, heard him drop 40 F-Bombs or seen him commit gratuitously realistic violence, it matters that he is the honorable, fallen warrior with the heart of gold.

-Vance