Moon Bloodgood's Topless 'Terminator: Salvation' Scene: Worth the 'R' Rating?
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Warner Brothers, RumorMonger, Fandom, Home Entertainment, Remakes and Sequels
What's happened to all the great movie nudity lately? Billy Crudup started the year off with a bang, so to speak, with his big blue penis in Watchmen, and Marcus Nispel's Friday the 13th reboot featured sweaty sex and generous amounts of naked female flesh, but the summer and fall seasons have been curiosly bereft of talked-about sex scenes or body parts. Jessica Biel's bravely-bared breasts and backside in Powder Blue went direct to video, Hayden Panetierre nonchalantly limited her exposure to 'side boobage' in I Love You, Beth Cooper, and Megan Fox decided to keep her nipples to herself in the proudly feminist relationship drama ('cause it sure wasn't horror) Jennifer's Body.
In my youth, movies educated me about the wonderful diversity of naked bodies. Today, television and the Internet have stolen much of the thunder once claimed exclusively by the theatrical experience. (Case in point: Susan Sarandon's daughter, Eva Amurri, just made a big splash by going topless in Californication.) No wonder Terminator: Salvation director McG teased the audience at WonderCon earlier this year, bringing actress Moon Bloodgood up on stage and asking: "Who wants to see Moon's boobs in the picture?" She later said: "I'm a woman, I have boobs, it's a beautiful shot." As anyone who saw the movie in a theater knows, though, her toplessness was cut, reportedly as part of Warner Bros.' effort to secure a PG-13 rating.
The unrated director's cut is due out on DVD and Blu-ray on December 1, and the deleted scene has, apparently, hit the Internet (watch it after the jump). The verdict?
Gentlemen, start your search engines. Based on a viewing of unofficial footage posted below (beware of brief topless nudity), Bloodgood was right: it's a beautiful shot. It's a fleeting glimpse as she takes off her shirt outdoors on a rainy night. If that's the complete version of the scene, it's hard to believe the brief exposure, in a non-sexual context, would be sufficient grounds to justify an "R" rating -- or to set many tongues wagging. We'll have to wait until people who aren't anonymous Internet horndogs confirm what is, or is not, on the home video version.
But, still, we live in strange times, in which the MPAA assigns ratings with a mysterious and capricious hand, and it's much easier to see boobs on a tube than in a theater. Lately I've been wondering if movie nudity has become a casualty of these changing times. Fleeting glimpses in forgotten films from forty years ago can be resurrected, immortalized, and freeze-framed ad infinitum. Actors and actresses have to think even longer and harder about nude scenes, which may be part of the reason why they've been going out of style for years.
Or is this a temporary phase, soon to be forgotten when the next memorable nude scene (male and/or female) pops up on everyone's radar?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2009 @ 12:23PM
cablebfg said...
My initial reaction after watching the clip?
"F&*KING REALLY?"
THAT is what all the hubbub was made about? That was the scene removed in part to secure a PG-13 rating? A silhouette of cleavage?
I am tired of the MPAA and their indefensible ratings and mystic anonymity. It's time that directors who, I have to assume, have been given unfair ratings to stand up and speak out against this. We can have numerous instances of violence and gore, but as soon as someone shows any nudity, even outside of a sexual context, the general sense is that it becomes R-rated material.
I know, I know, more than just this (if this is, indeed, all of this scene) was cut to secure that PG-13 rating, but come on.
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10-30-2009 @ 1:53PM
Matthew said...
I agree entirely - the whole mentality that is imposed on us here in the states that sex and nudity is made worse than violence and gore...it is just plain backwards
10-30-2009 @ 12:57PM
Andy said...
You know, boobs or not, this scene's absence did make this whole sequence very disjointed.
Don't get me wrong, when boobs come up for a vote, I'm always on the 'yah' side of the aisle. But I'll admit they're often not necessary.
But here, I actually remember how odd this sequence was by the slash and dash of this scene.
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10-30-2009 @ 2:09PM
j said...
someone ought to make a movie with great writing, no sexual content, no violence, nothing else remotely controversial and have everyone in the movie, everyone, completely naked. I guarantee it'll garner an X.
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10-31-2009 @ 1:38AM
Dan said...
I would bet good money that you're absolutely right.
10-30-2009 @ 2:12PM
Mo said...
Amazing how everyone keeps whining about how prudish America is when they can't even bring themselves to type or say the word "breast." Too scary for you, I guess. We have to keep using inane words that 2 year olds use like "boob" and "boobage."
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10-30-2009 @ 2:24PM
cablebfg said...
What, exactly, are you complaining about? The use of the word BREAST vs BOOB? Really? If anything, boob has a larger sexual twinge than breast IMO.
This isn't an anatomy class. It's a discussion about why her breasts/tits/boobs/cleavage/rack/bajongas weren't included in the theatrical release.
10-30-2009 @ 3:19PM
joits said...
wow that was pretty tame. but if that's the only reason the movie would have gotten an R rating... then the MPAA is really a joke. how many people die in this movie and how many of those deaths are violent?
but i suppose WB was right... this movie barely made it over $100 million domestically, imagine if it was rated R... it would have made a whole lot less. i think the bigger problem was that the movie wasn't that good. no one but james cameron should be touching this franchise.
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10-30-2009 @ 4:25PM
Mic said...
It was only a year ago that I had to endure the two pleasureless hours of my life known as Fool's Gold. And as awfully brief as it was, they had a boob flash with a far more exposing position and a ton more lighting than this did...and they still made it to theaters on a PG-13!
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10-30-2009 @ 4:43PM
DAVID F said...
Oh please....this, this was nothing.
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10-31-2009 @ 1:38AM
Dan said...
What!? How wack! You didn't even see her boobs...major bummer.
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11-09-2009 @ 9:49AM
O Bloody Hell said...
> no one but james cameron should be touching this franchise.
I have to say that, with T3, this franchise achieved something absurd, and that was to represent a second movie series associated with Cameron that the subsequent writers showed they did not GET IT at all when they watched his film, and screwed up utterly and completely.
Aliens -- Ripley is bereft, lost, after being stuck in suspended animation for 70-odd years. Everyone she knew and loved is long since dead. When she attaches herself to Newt, her maternal instincts kick in and she finds purpose in life. Which Aliens 3 starts off with by killing Newt before she's ever on screen, "Hey, it was all worthless, Ripley!"
And then T3, in which the writers cluelessly rewrite Cameron's "No Fate But What We Make" into "Bend Over And Kiss Your A** Goodbye, It Was ALWAYS Going To Happen".
Yet another example of how you can screw up a franchise by not getting even the simplest thing that made it successful -- Cameron's films are successful because, no matter what, they end on an up note, with hope and possibility for the future. You cannot "improve" on that, or even follow it, with a message of pointless dispair and nihilism.
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