Watership Down

darkman2

Anyone else think in retrospect (I watched it as a kid) that this film is a teeny bit violent and scary for young kids. It's just it is on Channel 4 and the BEEB every year in the afternoon and evening at Christmas. As a kid I found some parts scary - as an adult I actually find some of it violent. Maybe im being sensitive but seriously it is a bit dodgy in places for kids. I enjoy it though - it is a nice cartoon. But perhaps aimed at the wrong audience in retrospect?

Here is an example of the end

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9KSIeQUgT4&feature=related

Nearer the start, as a kid, I do remember feeling distinctly uncomfortable. There is also a scene where rabbits are dug up and buried alive in a redevelopment of some sort.

This is part of the scene here actually

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkU1lyvPn_A&feature=related

Anyway it is a great cartoon no doubt but perhaps not quite for young kids....what do you think?

Nolanger

darkman2 wrote: »

Anyone else think in retrospect (I watched it as a kid) that this film is a teeny bit violent and scary for young kids.

It's from the '70s - before everything was dumbed down and sanitised.
Don't think it was meant to be a kid's movie anyway.

darkman2

But it was always on during the day at Christmas as far as im aware. Like I say I saw this every year as a kid. I was not allowed up late. It was always on during the day.

brendansmith

Never seen it but it does look a bit intense.

Its on the must see list now. Cheers

ziedth

I watched it as a kid and it didn't do me any harm, guess it must be just video games do all the damage

r3nu4l

It was originally a book and in fact it's one of my favourite books of all time. As an adult, reading the book you can see a lot of 'hidden' meaning and multiple layers in it.

However as a young child our teacher showed us the video in school, I was probably about 6 and I remember balling my eyes out watching it. However, I also remember enjoying it Strange!

I do think it's probably a bit strong for kids but I'd rather they saw something like this than some of the other absolute crap that's available today for kids. At least Watership Down had a decent storyline and plot

constitutionus

i thought it was bloody briliant.

i remember watching it over and over on video when i was a kid. in retrospect yes it is very violent, hell its got neo nazi totalitarian rabits for gods sake and its incredibly disturbing in places.

but kids love to have the shyte scared out of em. particularly if theres a reason and its a very good story.

i have to agree with what another poster said about WHEN it was made too. this was the 70s. even the 80s wasnt as sanatised as the stuff we get now. i remember watching the first animated transformers film in the cinema and when i got to see it on DVD for the first time in ages it actually took my breath away as to how brutally violent the first 40mins of that is for a "kids cartoon".

corpses literally get dragged onscreen, of beloved characters no less.

guess it just shows how times change. TBH when i was a kid i used to love sapphire and steel. cant see any network with the balls to try anything that terrifying again now (that one episode with the bloke with no face that murders people in pictures STILL gives me the willies now )

there was also allegations of mysoginy in the film too as in when they all go on a bunny run to find females to repopulate the new burrow but thats probably just the bra burning brigade for you.

Galvasean

Quality film. Long gone are the days when kids' animated films were not afraid to make you think. I mean compare Watership Down to Cars.
I blame Disney for monopolizing the market and then dumbing everything down.

darkman2

I agree with the general concensus that cartoons today are just so brutal (even when you compare it with the mid 90's when the rot was setting in), so lazy, (those Japanese style animations - Pokemon need I say more - how many kids did that corrupt it was so sh*te? that's just pure lazyness and takes very little effort and probrably costs less) and just seem to lack any sort of inventiveness. I agree with alot of the above.

Im only commenting on stuff I happened to come across - I may be wrong. I don't watch cartoons but from snippets I have seen here and there cartoons seem brutal now compared to when I was a child in the early 90's even.

Jenroche

The book (by Richard Adams) had quite a dark theme if I remember rightly. I read it a couple of times as a child. Also read his other book, The Plague Dogs, about animals who escaped from a laboratory, equally dark. Maybe it should have been more marketed as an adult movie but as it was animated, I guess most people assumed this was one for the kids. This was back in the days when only kids watched cartoons, lol!

It was a rather strange film, and quite intense. It was on tv a few months back and I let my daughter watch a bit of it. She ended up asking me to turn it off because it was too scary for her. Guess kids were tougher back in the seventies. Yes, I also blame Disney and the pc-revolution. :mad:

Jen ;->

Micky Dolenz

That movie made a big impact on me, I didn't care for rabbits much after it and evetytime I hear bright eyes i feel sad.

Galvasean

There was a remake TV series in 1999. I seem to remember it not being nearly as violent and the whole 'bunny run' aspect of the story wasn't included. Also, the 'vision' of the destruction of the burrows (the most striking scene in the original) was nowhere near as intense.
So, basically a toned down version for a new generation. *bah*
Plus the animation style was unsuitably bright. What was really cool about the original's was that it was kind of dank looking, which suited the subject matter.

chamlis

Yeah the Plague Dogs had a big effect on me as well as Watership Down. I guess I was probably around 6 or so.

Kids these days don't know they're born
/get off my lawn rant

darkman2

It's worth saying that the two scenes I posted are but sanitised themselves. There are scenes more disturbing to kids then that (I know because I was the kid watching it). Near the start there is a scene just before they (the rabbits) enter a dark forest and I always thought that was uncomfortable. It was just scary to me as a kid.

But it is a brilliant film all the same. And I do agree the "Nazi" rabbits - yeah thats really good for effect.


I should add on Youtube alot of the posters say they are over 20 and watched this for the first time and they say it is "distrubing" and "scary"....some of them watched it as a kid but they find it "uncomfortable"...maybe tis just them.

However the last 2 minutes of this was really dodgy stuff when I was a kid (video below). Then of course they enter the forest which I was always scared of after that. The thing about this film is the images mould perception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gYpLGxAetg

Galvasean

If anyone is still curious as to exactly how violent/disturbing the 70s version is check out this compilation video (remixed to Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5I9izys2ek

biko

Nolanger wrote: »

It's from the '70s - before everything was dumbed down and sanitised.

+1

Yes it is scary and violent but that is precisely what makes it a good film.

darkman2

If anyone tried to make this cartoon today and it was put in front of a director - makes you wonder.

Das Kitty

Jenroche wrote: »

his other book, The Plague Dogs

Thank You!!

I remember C4 showing a cartoon of this, pretty disturbing stuff when you're 8 and love dogs!

As a kid I did find Watership Down quite disturbing I have to say. I was pretty morbid at a few different stages, I still get a pit of my stomach feeling when I see the film. Not that it did me any harm though!

darkman2

There is a scene where a rabbit gets caught in wire trap which is fairly bad aswell. In the neck I think with blood flowing everywhere.

LittleBook

Galvasean wrote: »

Quality film. Long gone are the days when kids' animated films were not afraid to make you think. I mean compare Watership Down to Cars.
I blame Disney for monopolizing the market and then dumbing everything down.

Online reviews for Cars:

a world devoid of humans where the machines come to life? This is nothing more than the animated version of a James Cameron post-apocalyptic fever dream. When exactly did SkyNet take over? There is no bleaker film

Where are the humans? WHERE ARE THE HUMANS? Did global warming finally do us in, ironically leaving only the instruments of our destruction behind? Did they give birth to Skynet? If there aren't any humans, then who makes the cars? Are there little assembly lines where cars manufacture other cars? Do they reproduce sexually? If a car is manufactured from used parts, is that cannibalism!!??

The most disturbing part of Watership Down for me was the rabbits being buried alive, I'm convinced it's where my claustrophobia comes from.

The Black Cauldron was another fairly disturbing animated kids film.

ztoical

I adore Watership down and along with the Last Unicorn and When the wind blows is one of my fav animated films. It is very heavy when you look at it - a film about bunnies that find themselves trapped in communist community with a crazed general bunny. The scenes of the rabbits fighting and clawing at each other with blood dripping out everywhere is really wonderfully animated. Then there's the whole bunny religion and the back rabbit and the poster with the rabbit in the snare....it really isn't a 'kids' film in the sense that it's not dumbed down and made all round shapes and primary colours. It's such a shame that british animation hasn't kept up producing films films like Watership Down and When The Wind Blows. O there's the odd flash but everything reverts back to sanitized 'suitable for children' material. Alot it is due to censorship rubbish - I currently work on a kids tv show and the list of stuff your not allowed do, say or show is massive.

On a nerdy side note I'm currently sat in the animation studio with one of the lead character animators on Watership Down. His only comment on the film is that they use to fight over animating the seagull as they all get really really sick of drawing rabbits

Galvasean

LittleBook wrote: »

Online reviews for Cars:

I think they missed a trick by not having a human skeleton on display in the a natural history museum or something.

ztoical wrote: »

When the wind blows is one of my fav animated films.

Just looked it up on Wikipedia. Now I know where Iron Maiden got their latest song idea (they often directly reference films):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHg9PJc1Nds

It's my favourite song of recent years. Must look up the inspiration.

ztoical

Galvasean wrote: »

I think they missed a trick by not having a human skeleton on display in the a natural history museum or something.



Just looked it up on Wikipedia. Now I know where Iron Maiden got their latest song idea (they often directly reference films):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHg9PJc1Nds

It's my favourite song of recent years. Must look up the inspiration.

Looking at the lyrics it does have alot of similarities to the comic/film so might well have been inspired by it. Should really brush on my Maiden esp as I'm being dragged to see them twice next month

The film is based off a comic by Raymond Briggs who did the Snowman so the animation style is similar to the animated version of the Snowman but the story is really harrowing and depressing. It starts off funny enough with an old couple not understanding modern warfare and thinking it will be like the war and they'll tighten their belts and solider on and as it goes it just becomes more and more dark. Really worth watching but I've only sat through the whole thing from start to finish maybe 3 times as the couple just remind me of my grandparents way too much!

Nolanger

Check out a '40s animated film called Hoppity goes to town. It's about insects but with a similar story to WD!

losthorizon

The great thing about Watership Down the film is that it stays true to the spirit of the book. The book is fairly nasty in some parts - it actually reminds me of animal farm.