Generally, is there much (or any) difference in the content of the Rated version vs. the Unrated version of the same movie?  Or is it nothing more than marketing hype?

Mike

In most cases, the rated film was for theater and submitted to the MPAA or such for rating.

The decision for that cut could have been time (how long will a person stay interested in a theater) violence, language or other such that may have made a particular rating questionable, or even scenes that were cut out for who knows what reason.

In the unrated version, they added any or all scenes back to the original.  If submitted then it could have actually achieved a different rating, or been considered too long or what ever.  Since that particular cut was never sent to the MPAA it will be unrated.

Some of the extra scenes are worth it, some are not.  It is a gamble and a gimmick at times.

In some cases the difference is minimal while in others it can be significant.

I read online dvd website reviews - the good ones will offer an opnion as to whether they noticed any differences.

Hope this helps.

The best example (IMO) would be Kingdom of Heaven, night and day difference between the theatrical version and the director's cut (more depth with the story and characters).

Another one (although not rated vs. unrated) is Daredevil. I know even the director's cut isn't great, but I liked it. I also liked the fact that rather than slapping the unrated tag on it, they let the R-rating stand (so it went from PG-13 to R).

I've noticed many where they throw in a dialogue scene and call it unrated, and lots of UR's I haven't been able to spot anything different.
Dawn of the Dead 04 was great, so much more gore and plot in the unrated compared. Live Free or Die Hard just did a lot of voice looping, and added about 45 F-bombs to the flick, but you can feel it plays different with more realistic language.

Basicly look at the runtimes and that will start to tell you if any particular unrated has more to offer. When it's within 2 minutes, I can rarely tell.

Best thing about that Team America unrated cut is it could be R. Can't recall if it was the extras on the disc, but think it was from "This Film is Not Yet Rated", there was an interview with Trey and Matt about it. They went so far over the top with the sex scene, offering it as something for the MPAA to bitch about and cut (knowing sex raises more issues than anything and not wanting to cut any other part of the film). They said it first came back as R with that intact, which they planned to cut the scene down the whole time. So basicly while that unrated does have more footage, the lack of rating is a lie! That came back with an R rating, the studio just ignored that fact and put the buzzword on the front cover to sell more dvds.

This site shows frame-by-frame comparisons between many rated/unrated versions.