How do you interpret the new rating rule for this situation: A movie was submitted to the MPAA and rated. The same version is on a DVD, Blu-ray, etc. However, the rating is not listed on the package.

This isn't just a hypothetical. Lots and lots of Crtierions are like this, as are a few Anchor Bay titles, some releases of the restored version of Touch of Evil and the director's cut of Ali. In some cases, the movie was submitted to the MPAA after the DVD was published. In others, it was an oversight or the distributor just doesn't care about ratings.

How should we handle these? We coudl enter the MPAA ratign with some sort of documentation it's the same version, enter "NR," which would also require some documentation so show that it's not an alternate version (because if it was, it would be "unrated") or enter "unrated," which is easy, but goes against the rules for unrated discs and gives lots of stuff the highest rating when it doesn't really deserve it.

OK... found the conversation...

Quoting Me:

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that would be true if it is an alternate version. What about the regular version of the movie that just does not have the rating listed anywhere on the case or disc?

Quoting Ken Cole:

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Is it shown when you play the disc?  I guess my question is, if it's not shown on the disc, the cover, or when playing the movie, how do you know its the same as the theatrical release?

At any rate I expect those would be quite rare?

Quoting Me:

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No ratings anywhere on the case or disc... not even when you play the disc.  I only seen it a few times myself but there has been times. I wish I could remember where I seen this to give you a list. And that is it... there is no way to know if it is the theatrical release or an alternate cut.. in these (what I imagine is rare) cases... what do we go with?

Edit:
I imagine there is 3 choices here...
- Allow from the MPAA (or whatever official site for the region)
- Use NR
- Use Unrated

Quoting Ken Cole:

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You could argue that they're not unrated, but the same would hold true for NR.  I would have no problem accepting the rating, but the burden of supporting the fact that they are the rated version would fall to the submitter.  I do not, however, see the need to add this special case into the rules.

So going by that the only way you could use MPAA is if you can document that it is indeed the theatrical version of the movie. Not sure how you would do it. But that is what Ken left us with when it comes to using the MPAA rating.

As for NR or Unrated... he really didn't put forth too much other then saying both could be argued against.

So really not sure what to say there.

While I personally agree... unfortunately Ken wants some sort of documentation that it is the same theatrical cut to use it.

I personally would have went the other way with it. Use MPAA (or whatever official site for the region) unless you can document that it is a cut other then the theatrical cut. I think it would have given us much better info. And come on... how do you document that it is a theatrical cut? I still haven't figured that out.

Although I don't have any strong feelings in this matter, as I never use that information locally, I agree with Ace and Addicted. I believe the community at large is best served with a rating that reflects the content as closely as possible, so that those users who filter on it get correct results. I like Addicted's wording a lot ... however, I think as the current rules stand we can't use the MPAA rating, I believe ...

In absence of other info, documentation of the same running time is good enough for me.

Not sure ... how are you are going to document the running time of the theatrical cut? Well maybe if there is another release of the movie that is rated that you can compare it to. But if it is the only release?

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

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For a lot of releases you can use something like this. The Criterion is only 5 seconds longer than the Universal, which could easily just be black space before or after the movie. The fact it's called the theatrical edition helps, too. For something like the director's cut of Ali, it's easy to just look up of filmratings.com.

The above I put in bold. If it is the director's cut it would automatically be Unrated as it is an alternate cut. So per rules that is Unrated. Or am I misunderstanding you somehow?

Hey Skip...

The rules for this wasn't clear at all to me. So you think if there is nothing on the case what so ever then the field should be empty in profiler? While I can understand that viewpoint. I don't see it as being clear in the rules. And if that is what Ken intends then I think it should be added into the rules as such.