Dune gets an official rating, and it’s a little mild
By Dan Selcke
Dune, Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic, gets an MPAA rating, and for some reason I expected something a bit more hardcore.
According to ComicBook.com, Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi classic Dune has an official rating from the MPAA. And the story of big reveal is…it’s rated PG-13 for “sequences of strong violence, some disturbing images, and suggestive material.”
My first instinct is that the rating seems a tad soft. Part of me was expecting an “R.” The story of Dune is pretty intense, about a young noble named Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) who travels with his family to the desert planet of Arrakis, aka Dune, where he deals with treachery, betrayal, exile, violence and ecology.
And there a few scenes that would definitely mandate an “R” rating if they were adapted true to the book. For example, if this movie is PG-13, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t include the bit where the nephew of main villain Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) tries to assassinate his uncle by booby-trapping the Baron’s child sex slave, whom the Baron then kills…or maybe they’re saving that for Part 2.
On the other hand, MPAA ratings are mostly based on stuff like sex, violence and curse words, and as intense as Dune is, it doesn’t actually trip many of those wires, at least not explicitly. There are fights, but since so many people use advanced shield technology, we’ll probably be spared a lot of blood. There’s sex, but excepting some gross stuff like I described above, it mostly happens offscreen. And there just aren’t many curse words. David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune was rated PG-13 as well.
Dune was originally scheduled to come out this month, but has been pushed all the way back to October 1, 2021, when it will be released to theaters and to HBO Max simultaneously!
dark. Next. Character comparisons: Dune 1984 vs Dune 2020
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