THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF FIVE ARMIES Extended Edition Receives R-Rating

Wow, I actually haven't seen any of the Hobbit movies but I will be sure to buy them all when they release a full box set for all the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films together.

I'll do the same for Star Wars when all of the upcoming films come to an end.

@Issac Orr

I thought R-Rating was the America equivalent to a UK 15? Was Kick Ass R-Rated because that was a 15 in the UK.

I'm not a big Tolkien guy but I was told by friends that the Hobbit trilogy was garbage for being as long as they were so....

why do they think an extra 20 minutes is cool?

Yup, because this light-hearted children's story REALLY needed a 3+ hour, R Rated cut.

[frick] this franchise, man.

Okay, I've known about this for a while thanks to a friend who keeps tabs on these things, but now that it's getting more attention I really want my voice to be heard.
THE HOBBIT SHOULD NOT BE RATED R!!!! This is stupid, this is wrong, this is an insult to Tolkien. It is based off a CHILDREN'S book! I work in a library and I see both 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy in the teen and children's section as well as the adult fiction area. How are you supposed to explain to your young child that the book they love reading has been made into a movie they can't see?
And just as a matter of continuity, it makes no sense that in a series of 12 movies, the LAST one is R. There's going to be a theater marathon of these EEs and now they've just alienated many of their potential buyers.
As a matter of moral integrity I don't watch rated R movies and I know many other people who feel the same way I do. I have been living in Middle-earth since I was 8 years old and now I am being denied the final piece of this world. This is absolutely unacceptable.
If you don't care what the rating is, fine. But if you don't want to see that terrible boxed R on the back of the final piece of this decade long franchise, then please help support my friend's petition to make The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies a FAMILY FRIENDLY movie!

https://www.change.org/p/new-line-cinema-wingnut-films-metro-goldwyn-mayer-peter-jackson-make-the-hobbit-the-battle-of-the-five-armies-extended-edition-rated-pg-13?just_created=true

Thank you!

@Gutspinner

Thank you for your very courteous and respectful comments. I've had people respond very negatively to this petition so I very much appreciate how tactfully you put this.

I am fully aware that there is chance that this would ever be PG. I simply am aiming to get it to the more family friendly rating of PG-13. So maybe my comment about the young children wasn't quite what I wanted to say. Maybe something more along the lines of "how do you explain to your child that this book they love was made into an adult movie" or something like that.

As for the rating coming from the additional footage, I'm sure that not all of the footage that is being added would garner an R rating. And probably those scenes that did contribute to it could be edited to show less blood or a bit less brutal: the swing that takes off the head is shown but the actual beheading isn't--that sort of thing. Which actually brings me to another point.

The guidelines for the MPAA change over time and apparently, from what I've heard in comments from theonering.net (where my friend first heard about the rating and brought my attention to it), the LOTR extended editions "should" have been R by today's standards. Apparently that scene in FORT when Lurtz licks his bloody blade was cut from the theatrical edition because it made it R, but was there in the EE...which was still rated PG-13. Also, apparently, in other countries, the LOTR EEs have an equivalent rating to our USA R-rating. The fact that the standards seem to be changing all the time is really confusing and annoying. I remember when the MPAA was considering making every movie to feature smoking R! There go your classic '40s movies with not a single drop of blood or obscenity! So I guess we should really be asking the MPAA to reconsider the rating or for PJ and Co. to contest it. I'll let my friend know so they can make whatever changes to the petition they want. I know it seems strange that I would watch footage that was PG-13 but not if the exact same stuff was R, but it's the implications that rating gives it that makes me uneasy and worry about how brutal and graphic it will be. If the amount/severity of the violence is the same that we've been seeing for he past decade from the other films then there is no reason to make it R. You might as well re-release the entire series as R!

I didn't mean to rant there but I'm just really passionate about this and hopefully there's still time to change it. Hopefully...

Thanks again for your comments!

Great trilogy's. I'm really hoping The Silmarillion will be made as well.

Shit trilogy,a shame compared to the original classic LOTR,people have already forgot this stupid CGI extravaganza.

@Gutspinner

Likewise. But from what I've read, that particular book's rights are still with the Tolkien Estate and they aren't keen on selling them. Apparently, they aren't happy with Jackson's interpretation of the LOTR/Hobbit series.

Calm down about the R rating horseshit. They're just using it as a marketing gimmick and you're all giving them exactly the attention they want. There's probably one bit of violence that pushes the film over the (utterly arbitrary) MPAA line - like the original cut of Avengers - and rather than re-edit and resubmit the film they're milking it for free publicity. Actually, I'm surprised they're not slapping a giant "unrated version" across the Blu-Ray like some studios do. And as has been said, the extended cuts of the LOTR movies could have easily gotten R ratings, too. There are plenty of other, better things to bitch about with the Hobbit movies, although I still enjoyed them.

Yes, I copied and pasted my own comment from the other thread.