It really is starting to feel like old times again, what with the familiar faces and the multiple lines of discussion that characterized this thread's heyday. Other things which characterized this thread's heyday included frequent and prompt responses from Yours Truly, so perhaps I should make an effort to get back to that...
I think I would read the ever living lights out of any more creative type who did a TL on an alternate religious broadcasting situation. Like, for example, a POD where Mother Angelica retains creative control over EWTN until her death. Or Raymond Arroyo does other things. Or Family Channel goes non-profit.
I find myself vaguely interested in a TL where Robertson keeps Family Channel and doesn't sell to FOX, as I think FOX Family (and then ABC Family) and its programming played a key role in the formative years of a number of this thread's participants, including myself.
Another thing you would have to consider if what happens to Crosby if sexual harassment allegations occur here?
It took a while for allegations to "stick" to Cosby - even when I was writing TWR he'd already been accused
and had given a deposition in which he confessed to felonious acts. It cannot be understated how dramatic a cultural shift we have seen in the very recent past. It is
very difficult to project that backwards in time at all convincingly.
That and the fact Matt Lauer works there = Disaster for NBC.
For the record, Lauer did not assume co-hosting duties on
Today until 1994 IOTL. He replaced Bryant Gumbel, the co-host since 1982.
Yah. 
I like the attempt to salvage the NC-17 rating, but don't like that PG still ends up getting watered down.
In my notes for my TL-in-dev.-hell I had the Hays Code thrown out early with the equivalent of the MPAA, the AFRC - American Film Ratings Council, being created in 1935 and the ratings system slowly expanding until the mid-60s.
I've given this a lot of thought and I think we might be able to eke out a berth for the "R" rating ITTL. (But not PG, and I'll explain why.)
"G" and "PG" are functionally identical in terms of admission. PG is a guideline, not an expected restriction. Anyone can be admitted to any of these movies. For this reason, PG has been deprecated - kid-friendly movies are rated G, movies which small children should not watch are PG-13, and that's that.
But "R" occupies a different berth. Children under 17 are not to be admitted to an R-rated film without adult supervision; children under 17 are not to be admitted to an NC-17-rated film,
full stop. That eliminates a large potential audience from NC-17 films. This creates a niche for films which
can appeal to teenage audiences but aren't
intended for them. Looking at the 1990s, one filmmaker who immediately jumps to mind is Kevin Smith. I might have been too hasty putting him into the NC-17 pile. Teenagers in the 1990s
loved his movies. And
Mallrats was basically a 1980s teen comedy for the 1990s, as Kevin Smith has himself admitted. So although ITTL he would wear the NC-17 awarded to
Clerks, I think he (or more accurately his studio) would fight for
Mallrats to get an R. This will have knock-on effects.
In my original sketch, I pointed out several films, all released at around the same time, which would receive an NC-17 rating based solely on dialogue. I think this would become An Issue ITTL. I call it the "word vs. deed" debate. I posit that the studios decide to advocate on behalf of filmmakers to the MPAA that graphic
dialogue alone (the "word") is less severe in all circumstances than
depictions of a graphic nature (the "deed") and that this alone does not merit an NC-17 under any circumstance. Children are exposed to disturbing language in the course of their education, and as long as this is mediated by their educators (or adult accompaniment, as the case may be) they should be allowed to be exposed to it. Therefore, graphic language alone is not sufficient to be awarded an NC-17 rating, thus sparing all of Kevin Smith's films,
Good Will Hunting, and
The Big Lebowski (this last one being particularly controversial because of its record-setting use of profanity).
At some point the MPAA will also agree in principle that nudity, even full-frontal nudity, of a non-sexual nature is not worthy of an NC-17 rating, though of course they get to decide what is and is not sexual, and of course they get to keep their decision parameters confidential. This one is based partly on precedent: full frontal nudity has appeared in films rated as low as PG in the past. Yes, even
male full frontal nudity. "Sexualized" nudity is always NC-17. Films which cross the line into pornography don't get a rating. As with the famous "one f-bomb rule" separating PG-13 from "R", a few parameters are well-known. An erection, in any circumstance. Any graphically depicted, unsimulated sex act of any kind. (So
The Brown Bunny wouldn't get an NC-17 ITTL, it would have to go unrated.) But since even a Supreme Court justice has used the "I know it when I see it" definition, expect further vagueness.
So whether a big-budget movie gets an "R" or an NC-17 depends on who is making the movie and what kind of movie is being made. Tarantino's movies are always going to be NC-17, and I think once Martin Scorsese crosses that line it will become the Rubicon for him. A movie like a
Deadpool, on the other hand, is always going to get an "R" - the producers still want teenagers to be
able to watch it.
It was this weird psychology of feeling like losers and believing "Leave It To Beaver" was real so this era must be a dark age and longing for the past, but at the same time, F the past because we're so cool and being in the mud and slathering yourself with the filth to be cool, with entropy and trashiness as a virtue. They're whiny and insecure. "Everything is bull**** man!", "I'm a loser but I'm cool because I'm a loser...but I'm a loser". And 90s cool is the least cool of the cools there is in retrospect. It does not hold up. So I think I may be right in thinking it sucked.
I have to admit, there's a certain psychology to the 1990s (which is hilarious since people are now nostalgic for them) which is not fun to revisit, and you've captured it here. There's a word which I feel captures the zeitgeist of the 1990s so perfectly, which is
ennui. They called it the "End of History". The show which perhaps most defines the decade is a show about "nothing". Say what you will about the post-9/11 cultural landscape, people
believed in things again. On the other hand, I grew up in the 1990s, I lived through them, and I remember them well. On the other
other hand, I wrote a TL which ends before I was born and it seems to have done quite well. I'm somewhat torn.
What are you planning on doing next Brainbin?
This is fun to discuss but my heart is well and truly set on a timeline with a POD c. 1900. I've been working on... supplementary aspects thereof elsewhere, which has certainly helped to scratch that itch.
This is interesting from a UK perspective, because as far as I know we never had any issue with the "adults only" rating (18 certificate, following the overhaul of the system in 1982) being taken seriously. Then again, many of the films on your list were 18s over here.
This leads me to the possible conclusion that the BBFC is or was stricter than the MPAA (at least in some respects) and, perhaps paradoxically, that this has led to the 18-cert being more "respectable", because so much gets put there.
(The Full Monty, incidentally, was a 15 in its native land. Based on the above, I suspect they made the film they wanted to make, and a more acceptable NC-17 rating wouldn't affect it in the slightest.)
I have to thank
@Dan1988 for linking me to a fascinating video on the history of the BBFC, and it's really quite remarkable - they were (and presumably still are) in charge of home video certification as well, and they actually rated
how-to sex videos. I'm not joking. I almost want to write about that simply for the "you might think this is ASB but it's actually OTL" factor.
I agree about
The Full Monty - I admit I was reaching with that one and only singled it out because it was a Best Picture nominee. ITTL, given that the nudity is not only non-sexual but also not even frontal, it will receive an "R" rating.
I think one potentially interesting effect of a more successful NC-17 would be the effect it would have on horror film making, since this would likely make it harder for the MPAA to use the the threat of an NC-17 rating to force directors to edit films down to obtain the R rating. The slasher subgenre in particular might end up getting a bit of a boost around the same time Scream becomes a big hit, since it might not run into the same problems with the MPAA that movies like the Friday the 13th series did in the 80s.
An excellent observation. Horror is very cheap to make, too - the problem is, it's extremely popular with teenagers, and giving it an NC-17 takes a big bite out of any potential markets. Then again, why
not just aggressively target college-age kids instead? On the downside, of course, there's the exploitation angle again - horror movies are notorious for gratuitous female nudity and sexuality and I can't imagine how many more young women are likely to be forced into compromising positions in a TL where NC-17-rated horror is the standard.
With that, onto the main event!
Let's talk about Treks, baby...
(A Salt-N-Pepa pun. How's that for the '90s overkill?)
Planning a pop culture TL with a POD in the late 1980s, and you haven't even addressed the elephant in the room: the return of Star Trek to television!
First of all, welcome back,
@vultan It's really great to see your insightful thoughts gracing this thread once more. (As Khan would say: "You still remember. I cannot help but be touched.")
vultan said:
Now
@Brainbin , I know you're not so fond of TNG and its direct spin-offs, so I imagine that you'll be tempted to have the show cancelled after one or two seasons. Certainly realistic. However, I've always been fond of a scenario that sees J. Michael Straczynski pitching his idea for
Babylon 5 to Paramount, and them deciding to greenlight the series... as part of the Star Trek franchise!
Star Trek: Babylon 5, if you will. Here, I think such a scenario would be even more likely. Picture Paramount's position: they've just cancelled the lackluster TNG, but they still want a way to profit from the Star Trek brand. They'd like to have a TV show on the air, but most of the original cast either won't play ball or would demand too high a salary for such a project, and TNG's cancellation would make them wary of doing a show that could be accused of being a TOS rip-off. Then they hear Straczynski's pitch (which happened IOTL) for a show on a space station, and one that would be even cheaper to produce than TNG (which was also the case for Babylon 5 IOTL). Instead of telling Piller and Berman to do something similar to that (which, c'mon, we all know is what happened), given that their Trek show just got cancelled, they tell Straczynski to do his thing, after changing the concept just enough to have it fit within the Trek universe.
Straight to Final Jeopardy, as they say.
I was saving
Star Trek for last, but yes, the long and short of it is that ITTL the spinoff would have been cancelled at the end of its second season, in 1989. Along with the box-office failure and critical drubbing of
Star Trek V, the franchise would be looking moribund and tired. Nicholas Meyer would be probably be able to pull what strings he could to get Paramount to agree to a sendoff in the form of a 25th anniversary movie, and then the franchise would be left to lay fallow.
I'm not going to say your
Star Trek: Babylon 5 idea doesn't have a lot of potential. Of course it does. I'd love to read a TL about it someday. But there are problems:
The spinoff proved to executives that
Star Trek can't succeed with a crew who are not Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty. (And the rest.) Why would they try again so soon with another new set of faces?
The spinoff was
expensive - this new show will have to be made on the cheap. Sure,
Babylon 5 was made on the cheap IOTL, but it's not an ideal situation.
Roddenberry is a wildcard. While he's still alive, he'll vehemently oppose Straczynski's plans for his baby. On the other hand, with the failure of the spinoff, his name is mud. In fact, this might mean he won't be able to veto Saavik as the surprise co-conspirator in
Star Trek VI. And if I can keep Shelley Long on
Cheers, that means Kirstie Alley is available to play her again to boot. That means a better
Star Trek VI which packs a bigger emotional punch. "That was a bigger shock than Saavik working with the Klingons!"
Of course, Roddenberry is dead in 1991.
There's also the meta-personal aspect. As
@e of pi and
@nixonshead can tell you, I wrote about an alternate
Babylon 5 for
Eyes Turned Skyward and it was... a complicated experience. I admit to some reservations about revisiting the subject. Granted, that's a personal hangup on my end, but it
is there.
I'm certainly willing to hear rebuttals to all of the above points.
Beyond that, of course, there's the question of when they reboot the original series continuity. It's pretty much inevitable. New episodes of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, and the
Enterprise-no-bloody-A-B-C-or-D on weekly series television? It'd probably be a disaster, but it's still
so hard to resist.
I assume you refer to the first spinoff. 'Tis true, but I note the dip at what I must presume is the end of season two. Did I mention how expensive it was to produce? Not to mention the lead actor was apparently dissatisfied with the role and almost walked at the end of the following season. There are always... possibilities.
(Side OOC note:
Love the graph. It sheds a light on so many truisms of modern-era
Trek fandom.)
