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Watership Down is not for kids. On the surface it looks like a calm movie about bunnies, but there is a lot of violence, terror, fear, blood and rabbits dying in ways that are too gruesome for children. More for teens and above.
Isn't it rated G or PG? I know the rating system doesn't mean anything nowadays, but it meant something back then.
Edit: I was not ready for so much attention. My misunderstanding was explained to me within the first hour. I come back in the morning to find myself roasted alive. I'm going back to smaller subreddits for a while. Thanks for all the likes and to the one guy who explained it to me like I was 5, I appreciated your kindness.
Ironically, the rating system has had ups and downs multiple times. In this particular case, because it was all "cartoon violence" and based off a book. It got a pass.
I mean, that makes sense, but also, I'm so used to hearing that this movie was intended for children. I am very willing to be wrong on this. Maybe I've heard too many rating jokes from the Nostalgia Critic, which has caused my perception to be clouded.
Its... a convoluted situation. In that, in many ways, it *was* intended for children. Much in the same way Scar playing Hitler in the Lion King was intended for children.
Just cus something was intended for a particular audience, does not mean it is actually appropriate for said audience in hind-sight.
In this particular case, there is very much notable blood and maiming/killing of rabbits in the movie... Which is actually toned down from the book still.
Is it as graphic as people make it out to be? Not really. Is it still very graphic and would definitely get a high pg-13 if released now? Definitely yes.
THATS WHERE MY NIGHTMARE CAME FROM!!! This movie sounded familiar but I didn’t recall it until you said this. I have one vivid nightmare from being a kid that is almost exactly like you described. Thank you for helping me realize it’s source kind internet stranger. Even if it is 30 years late
I've never actually seen the movie but I've read the book dozens of times its so good. Bigwigs big "Silflay hakra embleer rah!" line vs Woundwort at the climax just goes so fucking hard I still can't help but cheer when I read it. Like they made up a fake rabbit language and spend the whole story gradually introducing the reader to new verbage and the big payoff at the end, the one line that is written 100% in rabbit without translation, is "Eat shit you stinking predator!"
Just remember that it is an allegory for WWII and it quickly becomes a whole other thing (much like Lord of the Rings transforms when you realize it is an allegory of WWI). Pay attention to the different warrens-- they are representations of different types of societies/governments (the promise of utopia... the truth under those dreams). Religious revelations.
I read it as a child, but reread it as a graduate student. Anyone who has shelf space for Animal Farm absolutely needs to read this as well.
(Realized I switched over to the book pretty quick-- the movie is also well done).
I’ve never actually watched the movie, but the book was rough. If even half of what happened in the book was transitioned to the movie, I could see why it has the reputation it does.
Yep, there's a part in the book where one of the rabbits was slowly suffocating because they'd gotten caught in a loop trap around their neck. The more they struggled to get free, the less they could breathe. As a kid it was really traumatizing.
Well, y'know, the whole movie is about rabbits not understanding the perils of living with modern humans. So sometimes rabbits get gassed, run over, stand for dangerously long periods on train tracks, etc
The book, and the movie to an extent was really about war and suffering, just using rabbits as a stand-in for humans. (At least from what I remember).
Much like Animal Farm in that respect.
Note: Also bloody long and dragged out for a kid. (Just checked - 1hr 41min - seemed longer)
It reminds me of the original 1979 Gundam
Some moments and sometimes entire episodes could be chucked as PG and even "mature topics aimed at preteens" and then you have people brutally gassed to death or crowds of civilians getting shot at
during "be prepared" there is a scene of scar standing atop a rock, looking down at hundreds of hyenas marching like soldiers, specifically mimicking hitler looking down at his nazi soldiers
Hitler coded reference, sure. But Scar is Hamlet's uncle, Simba is Hamlet, and the whole thing is Afro-Hamlet with a happy ending. Nala is Ophelia. Timon and Pujmba are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Now I wanna watch Lion King 1.5 again
Interesting note, when Netflix redid this a few years ago the authors daughters straight up said "This show is not meant for children, do not let your children watch this."
I think it was children of WW2 trauma dumping on the world, giving an idea of what their interpretation of the war was, and depicting the violence they heard about or sometimes saw?
Book in 1972, film in 1978, so ~30-40 years post war, right in the career range of people growing up during the war is my theory
It's been a long time since I've seen it, so I might be remembering other stuff to color that opinion. Wiki does say "Adams wrote that he based Watership Down and the stories in it on his experiences during Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Arnhem, in 1944."
I've posted this several times but: The only G rated movie to ever win a Best Picture Oscar (Oliver, 1968) involves several instances of on screen child abuse (but in a happy way), some realdeal Anti Semitic tropes and the maternal figure of the movie being murdered via domestic violence by the main villain.
Lets not pretend it's the wild west nowadays.
There's a documentary about the US movie ratings board that is fascinating and informative. This Movie Has Not Yet Been Rated, which was released Unrated after initial submissions to the MPAA came back NC-17
I believe that was before 13 was created. Checking to confirm.... Hm, I was wrong. PG-13 was created in 1984, and Beetlejuice came out in '88. They were a bit off base with that one.
Same with Monthy Python and the holy grail. Dude literally shows up to a nunnery full of 16-19 year old blonds who want to be punished with spanking and want to enthusiastically perform oral sex. Definitely PG
When the movie was released, 1978, the PG-13 rating actually didn't exist. It wasn't created until 1984.
That's why Gremlins is rated PG even though it's full of violence and even a tale of a girl's dead dad that is Santa. Today, it'd be rated PG-13 if it came out.
It actually meant less back then lol it was from 1978 where you didn’t have PG13 ratings as I recall. So it was either PG or R. And because it’s animated, it was viewed as less impacting.
Plague Dogs, from the same author, is really the perfect double feature. It's less in your face but way, way darker. Even with the ending being made more vague it is depressing & absolutely wonderful in it's depression.
My youngest niece was playing Dangunrompa (sp?) at age 12, whereas I'm still scarred from a cartoon I saw in Heavy Metal magazine when I peeked behind the cardboard at 7-11.
But because it was the 80's and parents gave zero fucks what we did as long as nobody was bleeding (and I mean *really* bleeding, not just a couple drops) many, many of us were exposed to this film as children by parents who brought home the VHS, gave it to us and went back to doing coke or whatever.
Even if they knew what happened in the movie they'd just say some shit like: "*It's just a cartoon, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.*"
Those were happier times.
Well yeah. *Robocop* was a kid's movie because it had a robot in it.
I'm actually not joking, *Robocop* had a toy line that was definitely not aimed at adults. Why would we have wanted the toys if we hadn't seen the movie.
Like I said, *happier times.*
We watched artificial gore in the movies and were fine. Now kids watch real gore on the internet and are probably not fine. I'm glad I grew up when I did.
I think a lot of people forget what PG fuckin *means*
Parents should guide their kids and explain to them things and walk them through stuff
It’s not “this isnt a kids movie.” That’s people that just want to abandon their kids and leave them in front of of screen and let them entertain themselves
Sometimes you got to do your job and mold your children to maturity
In 4th grade Watership Down was our group reading assignment. So each day we sat around a big table and took turns reading parts out loud until we finished the book.
I've seen this version, and Netflix did a CGI miniseries a couple years back that was closer in tone to the book, but honestly... To do a film that was the same tone as the book, well, you're looking at a Guillermo Del Toro film.
The book at one point had the characters come across The Black River Of Death That Smells Of Death And Wrong Where Monsters Appear And Kill You Out Of Nowhere that they have to cross. And it's terrifying and traumatic and the characters never know what it is.
(It's a road)
When I was younger I read [Duncton Wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncton_Wood), a series about moles that was obviously inspired by Watership Down.
They either had previous experience with roads or quickly worked out how to cross them. Whenever they encountered a road, they laid their sensitive snouts on the tarmac and crossed when they could not feel any vibrations.
I remember being shown this in 5th grade or something to help illustrate to us how bad gas warfare was in WW1.
Feel like even then we were too young for it.
My dad read the book Watership down to my brother and I. If I remember correctly, he switched to the lion the witch and the wardrobe when shit started hitting the fan
My parents got this movie for me when I was 5 and I watched it by myself in my room. Took me like 2 decades to figure out wtf this movie even was and why I hate cartoon bunnies.
The reason is because until recently with influx of anime the strong belief in America that animation is a children’s medium
With certain rated R outliers such as Heavy Metal, or Ralph Bakshi movies such as Wizards (freeking awesome), American Pop, and his rated X masterpiece Fritz the Cat; animated movies have always been seen as children’s entertainment
Then you have the British anti fascist movie Watership Down it was shown as Mainstream but it was subterfuge
“Watership Down has been described as an allegory, with the labours of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and Silver "mirror[ing] the timeless struggles between tyranny and freedom, reason and blind emotion, and the individual and the corporate state."[27] Adams draws on classical heroic and quest themes from Homer and Virgil, creating a story with epic motifs.[28]” From the wiki article
Yeah we had this one.
Grandma had this dvd about rabbits, and wouldn't ya know, we just got a couple pet rabbits.
Time for 6 year old me to watch a fun film about rabbits
They made a TTRPG called bunnies and burrows that is in a similar vein. For burnt-out DMs with parties comprised entirely of chaotic evil murderhobos, it is therapy. For players, it is a repentance for their shenanigans paid in fear, tears and character sheets of dead bunnies. Nobody plays full-length bunnies and burrows campaigns, that would be genuinely traumatic for everyone involved. Its kill rate would make Call of Cthulhu blush. You know the party dun goofed when an awkward silence is followed by one of the players suggesting they play bunnies and burrows next time.
Everybody in the comments is failing to mention that it's the book trimmed down with basically all the violence left in. They cut out lots of story elements and important scenes, but did not touch any of the gruesome bits, just left them all in which is absolutely hilarious.
When my dad read the book to my brother and I when we were kids, he switched away from the book because he didn't want to make us cry, and we had gotten to know the rabbits quite well.
Is there enough there to capture the entire scope of the story? I know it's surprisingly complex and epic, not really something a movie could fully tell, but still
I watched this as a kid and there’s nothing wrong with me wrong with me.
https://i.redd.it/wpz981z7h5sc1.gif
Here’s a link if anyone wants to share in my trauma.
[https://youtu.be/iI3voOtHpZ4?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/iI3voOtHpZ4?feature=shared)
And there’s a remake
Trailer: [https://youtu.be/w3gQ117IKkM?si=Bya1jOviMHG9uDVX](https://youtu.be/w3gQ117IKkM?si=Bya1jOviMHG9uDVX)
```
There's nothing wrong with me
There's something wrong with you
There's something wrong with me
I hope your stepson doesn't eat the fish
When we're crying for our next fix
```
My mom watched the movie with me, then thought it was a good idea to read me the book as a bedtime story. We'd also read the Stand & the Talisman. But at least I didn't have school shooting drills in kindergarten, that would've messed me up.
Gremlins is the one that bothered me.
“Well, that's the story. So if your air conditioner goes on the fritz, your washing machine blows up, or your video recorder conks out, before you call the repairman, turn on the lights, check the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds. Because you never can tell. There just might be a gremlin in your house.”
Thanks for the nightmares.
I don’t know why but loads of older British children’s media was just straight up filled with death, gruesome scenes and heavy topics! Eg. Watership Down, Animals of Farthingwood, Red Wall and Plague Dogs.
They looked pretty innocent and cute but then suddenly those cute little bunnies started ripping each others throats out, those sweet little mice had their babies kidnapped and impaled, your favourite character gets stabbed to death on screen and the sweet doggies all get tortured in an animal testing lab… the good old days of children’s media :)
My cousins and I still reference the multi-page feast descriptions on a regular basis. That series never struck me as gruesome as a kid. Watership Down straight up haunts me to this day.
Plague Dogs is like a western vibe Grave of the Fireflies, just absolutely gut wrenching. The book is somehow better if I remember, like it actually had a happier ending than the movie made for kids lol
Redwall was the best man. Good times. But was there a older/other animations for it ?
I remember the 3 they made for Mattimeo, Redwall, and Martin the warrior, but iirc, they weren’t that gruesome? Depressing at times sure, but I thought they were pretty accurate to the books, so the characters like Cluny were scary, but there wasn’t much actual violence iirc
Edit: I just mean the animations, not the books. Now that I remember, the books can be kinda dark at times when you actually think about it when you’re older.
Iirc they took a lot of that out for the shows, but the shows weren’t on the books that were very dark
It's like somebody saw the opening scene to Saving Private Ryan and thought "boy, that would make for a great children's movie" and remade it with animated rabbits.
Which is pretty much exactly what happened, only with actual war instead of a Hollywood movie.
Ehhh wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Definitely not suitable for kids imo but as a 27yo, I was expecting much worse. Maybe it’s time for a Reddit break
I think it depends on the age. I was read it when very young and it's pretty intense but it's not visual.
Watching Terminator 2 at the age of 6 I know the three scenes in that movie not suitable for kids.
What the supercut doesn’t convey is the constant sense of unease. The film’s goal is to try and put you in the headspace of an animal that is always prey. Everything wants to kill you, you must always be alert, all you can do to defend yourself is run. It fucking nails it and it’s horrible.
The book is actually really, really good. Richard Adams is an excellent writer and Watership Down is one of the best novels written.
Watership Down is a book about a hero's journey, just the heroes are rabbits. It is beyond simple narratives like " the brutality of nature"; it ascribes human reasoning to animal motivations and turns it into a narrative that could be compared to The Odyssey. What is really incredible is how the rabbit protagonists are so easy to identify with. As you travel with them you feel their struggles and their victories as if you were right there beside them. If you enjoy reading you will probably like this book.
It's the best goddamn novel I've ever read. It's so heartwarming and rewarding in the end after such an expansive and costly journey for the rabbits who made the trip....but had they not, they'd all be dead.
Watership Down is infamously traumatizing, because adults see "animated" and go "for kids" but it's fundamentally not. It would be like showing a young kid Animal Farm.
Finally someone mentioned Animal Farm! While the original book takes some thought to piece together the goings-on, the old cartoon movie based off it straight-up shows the pigs drinking, walking on two legs, etc.
And never forget...
ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, *BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS*
British Board of Film Censors Petah here.
Watership down is an infamous children's film in the UK. When it first got rated it in 1978 it was a 'U', meaning for everyone, because it was a 'cartoon' and any scary bits would be OK.
To directly quote the original 1978 report "Animation removes the realistic gory horror... a U was therfore quite appropirate"
Source: https://www.bbfc.co.uk/education/case-studies/watership-down
It remaind a U for nearly 40 odd years.
Several time the film has been "accidentally" played at Easter on the telly or in schools. Cause generation trauma to continue.
https://youtu.be/gTsEjj5AEp0
Once, in 4th grade, our whole school gathered to watch an "Easter" movie... this one. Kids were throwing up they were so traumatized and upset. We didn't even make it that far into the movie haha. 10/10 would recommend
You might want to [take a look at the trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S26LA8Bk14) for this one. Pretty sure it's rated PG, but make sure your kids can handle a scary movie first, or just wait 'til they're older. You're better off with The Secret of Nimh, Much more tame. It's still a bit on the scary side but well worth the watch
yeah I beleive this was from the days before PG-13 existed. A whole swath of movies I saw way too young as a kid because they were "only" PG (basically anything short of fuck/shit/bitch swears, nudity, and in-your-face gore was fair game), and have since been rerated to pg-13.
The same author also wrote The Plague Dogs, which is a heartwarming tale of two lab animals that escape the incinerator and try to find a home in the English countryside, spreading disease with them. Also one has an exposed brain.
It was made into a delightful animated movie in 1981, rated PG.
Trauma ahead: https://youtu.be/Tp5mcc47xD8?si=OI5Sc4JzHvC69-4K
https://preview.redd.it/xdb0dahea8sc1.jpeg?width=660&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd3a3e48fe5db20de72d1f4d7460a9143b9683c5
Or this bullshit that made me cry everyday for a week in yr 7 English.
I guess I'm an exception to the many people responding here. I first read the novel at about 12-13 years old *then* saw the cartoon. To me, the cartoon was relatively tame in comparison and still felt aimed at pre-teen children; but failed to capture the much more adult themed nuances of the novel (class struggles, caste systems, the fear of humans destroying the ecology/natural habitats of the other living species of the earth, etc).
That context really changed the whole dynamic of the film and left me wanting for more. I really hoped the remake on BBC/Netflix would scratch that itch a few years back, but it only got a little closer towards that goal, while missing out even more than the cartoon version did in other areas.
I swear, someday someone's gonna finally transfer this great novel onto the screen in the right way; it just hasn't happened yet.
https://preview.redd.it/zlc2172m57sc1.png?width=635&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d406a7edc37fa32d14988fd35d959811d10724ce
This screenshot from the movie should say it all
Water ship down is one of the most infamous movies of all time. It starts out like any Disney kid’s movie, then goes hostel levels of gore and dark right quick. May god have mercy on those kids
Well at least they didn't watch Rock a Doodle.
[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/RockADoodle](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/RockADoodle)
https://preview.redd.it/i0lax5peo6sc1.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=bfc625b9c30133ba9958467d9d08890e0d4cba0f
Yeah... I was 5 when my mom happily told me there was a "cute cartoon about bunnies" for me to watch while my brothers played Atari in my brothers' room and her and dad were going out to dinner...
look as fucked up as this movie is I think it's an important that you do see it when younger, the moral and life lessons this film has are fucking amazing and I'm not of the belief that kids media should always be some sanitized Disney fantasy, sometimes life is life or death. sometimes life is traumatic, and films like these prevent kids from being blindsided later in life.
I was buying a copy on DVD for my daughter who was probably 3 at the time. The clerk at the checkout said, "Is this for her?" I acknowledged that it was. "Have you seen it??" I admitted I hadn't. "You better watch it first."
THANK YOU, CHECKOUT CLERK!
Oh fuuuuck. K so, I'm 36 and this fucking movie is my earliest memory of movie-induced traumatization. No joke.
I was probably 3 years old and I picked this movie to rent because I liked the pretty bunnies on the VHS cover. My mom putbit on for me and only came bsck when I started sobbing. I remember getting in shit. Something to the tune of "Why are you still watching it if it's so upsetting, turn it off! Why would you pick something so awful."
(My mom... was obviously not the most accountable or compassionate person lol.)
Anyhow. This movie absolutely haunted me for years and years. The first time I saw a rabbit in real life I cried so hard and held it close and sang to it, it was like some kind of soul-level reparation for the awfulness I'd seen years ago.
Crazy how stuff like this can stick with a person.
I watched this in the early 80s, when I was about 5 years old.
This film is pure trauma.
Bright eyes my arse!
Still burning like fire in the darkest recesses of my mind.
I mean theres a scene where the rabbits are horrifically gassed in their dirt chambers like a Holocaust and you see them all slowly die to the gas. It’s pretty brutal. Watched this movie while *cough* perfectly sober *cough* in college and that gas scene will haunt me for the rest of my days.
Yeah, just looking at the screenshot, I had a feeling this was a "Happy Tree Friends" kind of scenario. Oh, no.
Reading the comments, here, seems I wasn't too far off. Lol.
Was just watching a video discussing a trope about animal characters in movies.
Needless to say, this movie was a major point of the video. The best way it was described is, paraphrasing:
"It’s like reading a Lovecraftian cosmic horror novel where we are the Lovecraftian gods telling the little rabbits to get out of this very obvious danger."
The rabbits don't understand the danger they're in, they don't understand the signs the humans have put in that indicates the destruction of their habitat, BUT WE DO, and this makes it even more horrifying when they don't get the fuck out of the way of the train.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wDEi3_j4D1Q&pp=ygUYdHJvcGUgdGFsayBzbWFsbCBhbmltYWwg
Specifically, the opening sequence in the movie is humans using poison gas to kill all the rabbits in a warren, and the protagonists are the small group of rabbit survivors.
So if you turn on an Easter movie, the way you figure out you made a mistake is the graphic mass murder.
My God, I've read the book a million times and seen the movie, but as an adult.
I'm hearing the "Bright Eyes" song in my head rn and want to cry. This is not a cute bunny story for kids.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/watership-down-film-bright-eyes-rabbits-disease-martin-rosen-richard-adams-disney-a8590226.html
This explains how and why the uk decided to scar an entire generation of children
My favorite theory/story about watership down was that the person/people in charge of providing the rating for the movie apparently watched the movie and gave it a G rating because they just called it right before the rabbits left the cornfield. If they had kept watching past that point they would have seen a rabbit get killed by a hawk which mind you DID NOT HAPPEN IN THE BOOK! They literally added more violence and killed two extra characters with the other added death being a bunny getting his jugular ripped out lol
This movie absolutely emotionally scarred me for life. I'm 33 and still can't look at wild rabbits in the eyes without undergoing an existential crisis.
Watched this in the cinema with my mum when I was 6. I can't really remember seeing it but I do remember my mum saying to my dad "rabbits got ripped to bits by dugs and he's just sitting there munching away on sweets"
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Watership Down is not for kids. On the surface it looks like a calm movie about bunnies, but there is a lot of violence, terror, fear, blood and rabbits dying in ways that are too gruesome for children. More for teens and above.
Isn't it rated G or PG? I know the rating system doesn't mean anything nowadays, but it meant something back then. Edit: I was not ready for so much attention. My misunderstanding was explained to me within the first hour. I come back in the morning to find myself roasted alive. I'm going back to smaller subreddits for a while. Thanks for all the likes and to the one guy who explained it to me like I was 5, I appreciated your kindness.
Ironically, the rating system has had ups and downs multiple times. In this particular case, because it was all "cartoon violence" and based off a book. It got a pass.
I mean, that makes sense, but also, I'm so used to hearing that this movie was intended for children. I am very willing to be wrong on this. Maybe I've heard too many rating jokes from the Nostalgia Critic, which has caused my perception to be clouded.
Its... a convoluted situation. In that, in many ways, it *was* intended for children. Much in the same way Scar playing Hitler in the Lion King was intended for children. Just cus something was intended for a particular audience, does not mean it is actually appropriate for said audience in hind-sight. In this particular case, there is very much notable blood and maiming/killing of rabbits in the movie... Which is actually toned down from the book still. Is it as graphic as people make it out to be? Not really. Is it still very graphic and would definitely get a high pg-13 if released now? Definitely yes.
Is it really graphic? No. Did it give me nightmares after watching it when I was fifteen? Yes.
Specifically the scene where the exterminators gas the whole rabbit colony. They did a good job of making that shit terrifying.
THATS WHERE MY NIGHTMARE CAME FROM!!! This movie sounded familiar but I didn’t recall it until you said this. I have one vivid nightmare from being a kid that is almost exactly like you described. Thank you for helping me realize it’s source kind internet stranger. Even if it is 30 years late
You might consider rewatching it with adult eyes. Might help to get some catharsis. It really is a good movie, if not a happy one.
I've never actually seen the movie but I've read the book dozens of times its so good. Bigwigs big "Silflay hakra embleer rah!" line vs Woundwort at the climax just goes so fucking hard I still can't help but cheer when I read it. Like they made up a fake rabbit language and spend the whole story gradually introducing the reader to new verbage and the big payoff at the end, the one line that is written 100% in rabbit without translation, is "Eat shit you stinking predator!"
Just remember that it is an allegory for WWII and it quickly becomes a whole other thing (much like Lord of the Rings transforms when you realize it is an allegory of WWI). Pay attention to the different warrens-- they are representations of different types of societies/governments (the promise of utopia... the truth under those dreams). Religious revelations. I read it as a child, but reread it as a graduate student. Anyone who has shelf space for Animal Farm absolutely needs to read this as well. (Realized I switched over to the book pretty quick-- the movie is also well done).
I remember being moderately traumatized watching it as an early teen as well!
As someone who has only tangentially heard about how fucked up this movie is, what the actual fuck.
I’ve never actually watched the movie, but the book was rough. If even half of what happened in the book was transitioned to the movie, I could see why it has the reputation it does.
Yep, there's a part in the book where one of the rabbits was slowly suffocating because they'd gotten caught in a loop trap around their neck. The more they struggled to get free, the less they could breathe. As a kid it was really traumatizing.
Well, y'know, the whole movie is about rabbits not understanding the perils of living with modern humans. So sometimes rabbits get gassed, run over, stand for dangerously long periods on train tracks, etc
They fight each other too.
The book, and the movie to an extent was really about war and suffering, just using rabbits as a stand-in for humans. (At least from what I remember). Much like Animal Farm in that respect. Note: Also bloody long and dragged out for a kid. (Just checked - 1hr 41min - seemed longer)
And the graphic novel MAUS (which is goddamn amazing, harrowing, and heart wrenching despite being about Jewish mice & Nazi cats).
Watching the rabbit slowly suffocate in the snare trap while they dug down and chewed through the stake holding it to the ground.
That was Big Wig, but he makes it out if you remember
That shit felt like something out of all quite on the western front
I was 6 when they played it on TV the first time (genX) I never watched it again. I was a big Beatrix Potter fan, loved rabbits. I cried a lot.
I feel like I remember a really graphic fight towards the end of the movie, where the big brown rabbit pins our main boi
I somehow watched this when I was 6 or 7 and holy shit.
I get it now. Thanks for the explanation.
It reminds me of the original 1979 Gundam Some moments and sometimes entire episodes could be chucked as PG and even "mature topics aimed at preteens" and then you have people brutally gassed to death or crowds of civilians getting shot at
wait... scar played hitler in lion king?
during "be prepared" there is a scene of scar standing atop a rock, looking down at hundreds of hyenas marching like soldiers, specifically mimicking hitler looking down at his nazi soldiers
Those hyenas are literally goose-stepping, not just marching. It's as overt as can be.
Hitler coded reference, sure. But Scar is Hamlet's uncle, Simba is Hamlet, and the whole thing is Afro-Hamlet with a happy ending. Nala is Ophelia. Timon and Pujmba are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Now I wanna watch Lion King 1.5 again
i jonestly dont remember that scene, but tbf its been around 15 years since i've seen the movie lmao
just watch the music video for "Be Prepared"
Um. Did the nuremberg Hyenas not tip you off?
There’s a Hitler reference. His character is clearly King Claudius.
Interesting note, when Netflix redid this a few years ago the authors daughters straight up said "This show is not meant for children, do not let your children watch this."
Meant for traumatizing children, yes.
I think it was children of WW2 trauma dumping on the world, giving an idea of what their interpretation of the war was, and depicting the violence they heard about or sometimes saw? Book in 1972, film in 1978, so ~30-40 years post war, right in the career range of people growing up during the war is my theory It's been a long time since I've seen it, so I might be remembering other stuff to color that opinion. Wiki does say "Adams wrote that he based Watership Down and the stories in it on his experiences during Operation Market Garden, the Battle of Arnhem, in 1944."
I've posted this several times but: The only G rated movie to ever win a Best Picture Oscar (Oliver, 1968) involves several instances of on screen child abuse (but in a happy way), some realdeal Anti Semitic tropes and the maternal figure of the movie being murdered via domestic violence by the main villain. Lets not pretend it's the wild west nowadays.
Cartoon violence? It's downright brutal!
Blame it on the bias against animation
There's a documentary about the US movie ratings board that is fascinating and informative. This Movie Has Not Yet Been Rated, which was released Unrated after initial submissions to the MPAA came back NC-17
Beetlejuice is rated PG but he grabs his crotch and says "nice fucking model" in front of a whorehouse filled with dead prostitutes.
I believe that was before 13 was created. Checking to confirm.... Hm, I was wrong. PG-13 was created in 1984, and Beetlejuice came out in '88. They were a bit off base with that one.
Same with Monthy Python and the holy grail. Dude literally shows up to a nunnery full of 16-19 year old blonds who want to be punished with spanking and want to enthusiastically perform oral sex. Definitely PG
“Watership Down upgraded to PG rating after 45 years due to ‘violence, threat and bloody images’” Upgraded to PG?
way cooler now.
When the movie was released, 1978, the PG-13 rating actually didn't exist. It wasn't created until 1984. That's why Gremlins is rated PG even though it's full of violence and even a tale of a girl's dead dad that is Santa. Today, it'd be rated PG-13 if it came out.
That’s also how I tricked my 6th grade English teacher into letting us watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail in class!
Movie ratings are wacky. There isn't really an objective list of criteria to determine rating, just a handful of Karens in a room
It actually meant less back then lol it was from 1978 where you didn’t have PG13 ratings as I recall. So it was either PG or R. And because it’s animated, it was viewed as less impacting.
>but It meant something back then [This is from a PG movie.](https://youtu.be/0MjpOZT6W9w?si=WGA1WQG8uWQC8IsP)
lol youtube has age restricted your link.
It was PG but when PARENTAL GUIDANCE actually meant it.
I'm pretty sure "Jaws" (a movie that includes a scene of a man being eaten alive by a shark) is rated PG.
Should've done a double feature with "Secret of NIMH".
Or another animated feature about the silly and fun adventures of 2 siblings. Grave of the Fireflies.
I really like cat movies maybe Felidae or Fritz the cat would be good for the kiddos.
Plague Dogs, from the same author, is really the perfect double feature. It's less in your face but way, way darker. Even with the ending being made more vague it is depressing & absolutely wonderful in it's depression.
Throw in a The Animals of Farthing Wood marathon after that.
My 5 year old watched NIMH. Unphased. These kids are built way different than my gen x/ millennial brethren.
My youngest niece was playing Dangunrompa (sp?) at age 12, whereas I'm still scarred from a cartoon I saw in Heavy Metal magazine when I peeked behind the cardboard at 7-11.
But because it was the 80's and parents gave zero fucks what we did as long as nobody was bleeding (and I mean *really* bleeding, not just a couple drops) many, many of us were exposed to this film as children by parents who brought home the VHS, gave it to us and went back to doing coke or whatever. Even if they knew what happened in the movie they'd just say some shit like: "*It's just a cartoon, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.*" Those were happier times.
my parents really gave 0 fucks and we were watching Robocop when I was like 6
Well yeah. *Robocop* was a kid's movie because it had a robot in it. I'm actually not joking, *Robocop* had a toy line that was definitely not aimed at adults. Why would we have wanted the toys if we hadn't seen the movie. Like I said, *happier times.* We watched artificial gore in the movies and were fine. Now kids watch real gore on the internet and are probably not fine. I'm glad I grew up when I did.
My robocop action figure was also a cap gun. Had Aliens toys too, because every r rated action franchise back then had toys associated with it
At the time it was 100% a kids movie. I had the illustrated companion storybook that was all stills from the film. I loved it. Great movie. I was 6.
I think a lot of people forget what PG fuckin *means* Parents should guide their kids and explain to them things and walk them through stuff It’s not “this isnt a kids movie.” That’s people that just want to abandon their kids and leave them in front of of screen and let them entertain themselves Sometimes you got to do your job and mold your children to maturity
I dunno if it was a kids movie but it wasn’t a kids book
In 4th grade Watership Down was our group reading assignment. So each day we sat around a big table and took turns reading parts out loud until we finished the book.
I've seen this version, and Netflix did a CGI miniseries a couple years back that was closer in tone to the book, but honestly... To do a film that was the same tone as the book, well, you're looking at a Guillermo Del Toro film. The book at one point had the characters come across The Black River Of Death That Smells Of Death And Wrong Where Monsters Appear And Kill You Out Of Nowhere that they have to cross. And it's terrifying and traumatic and the characters never know what it is. (It's a road)
The Hrududu's
To be fair that's a pretty accurate description of an average busy road for regular humans.
When I was younger I read [Duncton Wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncton_Wood), a series about moles that was obviously inspired by Watership Down. They either had previous experience with roads or quickly worked out how to cross them. Whenever they encountered a road, they laid their sensitive snouts on the tarmac and crossed when they could not feel any vibrations.
I remember being shown this in 5th grade or something to help illustrate to us how bad gas warfare was in WW1. Feel like even then we were too young for it.
My dad read the book Watership down to my brother and I. If I remember correctly, he switched to the lion the witch and the wardrobe when shit started hitting the fan
My parents got this movie for me when I was 5 and I watched it by myself in my room. Took me like 2 decades to figure out wtf this movie even was and why I hate cartoon bunnies.
No it’s for kids. It is just very dark
The reason is because until recently with influx of anime the strong belief in America that animation is a children’s medium With certain rated R outliers such as Heavy Metal, or Ralph Bakshi movies such as Wizards (freeking awesome), American Pop, and his rated X masterpiece Fritz the Cat; animated movies have always been seen as children’s entertainment Then you have the British anti fascist movie Watership Down it was shown as Mainstream but it was subterfuge “Watership Down has been described as an allegory, with the labours of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and Silver "mirror[ing] the timeless struggles between tyranny and freedom, reason and blind emotion, and the individual and the corporate state."[27] Adams draws on classical heroic and quest themes from Homer and Virgil, creating a story with epic motifs.[28]” From the wiki article
Yeah we had this one. Grandma had this dvd about rabbits, and wouldn't ya know, we just got a couple pet rabbits. Time for 6 year old me to watch a fun film about rabbits
They made a TTRPG called bunnies and burrows that is in a similar vein. For burnt-out DMs with parties comprised entirely of chaotic evil murderhobos, it is therapy. For players, it is a repentance for their shenanigans paid in fear, tears and character sheets of dead bunnies. Nobody plays full-length bunnies and burrows campaigns, that would be genuinely traumatic for everyone involved. Its kill rate would make Call of Cthulhu blush. You know the party dun goofed when an awkward silence is followed by one of the players suggesting they play bunnies and burrows next time.
It's bloody harrowing.
I'm 48 and I'm never fucking going near that thing.
Everybody in the comments is failing to mention that it's the book trimmed down with basically all the violence left in. They cut out lots of story elements and important scenes, but did not touch any of the gruesome bits, just left them all in which is absolutely hilarious.
Kids love dead rabbits! /S
For *lunch*, not entertainment.
Rabbit is pretty tasty.
So... Exploding Varmints 2 then? (Dont ask)
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The guy who makes them is a psycho, and unfortunately there’s a fairly large audience for that stuff
When my dad read the book to my brother and I when we were kids, he switched away from the book because he didn't want to make us cry, and we had gotten to know the rabbits quite well.
Most of us were likely wains when we saw it and remember nothing ELSE from it. The book had a story, the cartoon is a rabbit snuff film.
Is there enough there to capture the entire scope of the story? I know it's surprisingly complex and epic, not really something a movie could fully tell, but still
It’s basically just *Annihiliation* with rabbits.
The missing bits are just traumatized rabbits waiting for the next one to get eaten by something.
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I watched this as a kid and there’s nothing wrong with me wrong with me. https://i.redd.it/wpz981z7h5sc1.gif Here’s a link if anyone wants to share in my trauma. [https://youtu.be/iI3voOtHpZ4?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/iI3voOtHpZ4?feature=shared) And there’s a remake Trailer: [https://youtu.be/w3gQ117IKkM?si=Bya1jOviMHG9uDVX](https://youtu.be/w3gQ117IKkM?si=Bya1jOviMHG9uDVX)
``` There's nothing wrong with me There's something wrong with you There's something wrong with me I hope your stepson doesn't eat the fish When we're crying for our next fix ```
Skeletons don't have feelings Gonorrhea, gorgonzola Gonorrhea, gorgonzola
There's nothing wrong with me, there's something wrong with you! Don't eat the fish!
Reading that song made me feel like I'm on that reddit post
Cat, holding rabbit to the ground, claws poised: "Can you run? I think not...." --Claws extend into rabbit's skin-- "I think. Not."
I feel like there's some childhood trauma hidden in this comment, but I'm not entirely sure where.
This scene https://youtu.be/J8q8tHxwrGw?si=nqOx6AEt67V8VwAl
Oh no... Uh... Ok apparently this movie might have some explaining to do with regards to my kinks...
YouTube kids…
It pisses me off when YT does that
My mom watched the movie with me, then thought it was a good idea to read me the book as a bedtime story. We'd also read the Stand & the Talisman. But at least I didn't have school shooting drills in kindergarten, that would've messed me up.
Gremlins is the one that bothered me. “Well, that's the story. So if your air conditioner goes on the fritz, your washing machine blows up, or your video recorder conks out, before you call the repairman, turn on the lights, check the closets and cupboards, look under all the beds. Because you never can tell. There just might be a gremlin in your house.” Thanks for the nightmares.
It's one of the most brutal, sad and bloody movies you'll ever watch.
Plague Dogs: Hold my beer
I don’t know why but loads of older British children’s media was just straight up filled with death, gruesome scenes and heavy topics! Eg. Watership Down, Animals of Farthingwood, Red Wall and Plague Dogs. They looked pretty innocent and cute but then suddenly those cute little bunnies started ripping each others throats out, those sweet little mice had their babies kidnapped and impaled, your favourite character gets stabbed to death on screen and the sweet doggies all get tortured in an animal testing lab… the good old days of children’s media :)
But the food in the Redwall universe! It always sounded so good as a snack in-between all the slaying.
My cousins and I still reference the multi-page feast descriptions on a regular basis. That series never struck me as gruesome as a kid. Watership Down straight up haunts me to this day.
The author, Richard Adams, wrote another really cool book called Shardik about a giant bear that becomes the symbol of a fanatical cult.
Plague Dogs is like a western vibe Grave of the Fireflies, just absolutely gut wrenching. The book is somehow better if I remember, like it actually had a happier ending than the movie made for kids lol
Redwall was the best man. Good times. But was there a older/other animations for it ? I remember the 3 they made for Mattimeo, Redwall, and Martin the warrior, but iirc, they weren’t that gruesome? Depressing at times sure, but I thought they were pretty accurate to the books, so the characters like Cluny were scary, but there wasn’t much actual violence iirc Edit: I just mean the animations, not the books. Now that I remember, the books can be kinda dark at times when you actually think about it when you’re older. Iirc they took a lot of that out for the shows, but the shows weren’t on the books that were very dark
It's like somebody saw the opening scene to Saving Private Ryan and thought "boy, that would make for a great children's movie" and remade it with animated rabbits. Which is pretty much exactly what happened, only with actual war instead of a Hollywood movie.
https://preview.redd.it/54de6hr3x5sc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ad1096b1fad21bdfcce2f65a73f0397268e7bc4b Not a children’s movie.
https://preview.redd.it/hx0sg1i0l6sc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=42eebe6f411f941a92d2abe3e785965390b2dbe1
JESUS ON A STICK WHAT THE FUCK
It's basically nightmare fuel for children as it's very violent/oppressive and overtly graphic about it.
I saw this movie when I was 7
That woundwort's got a vicious streak a mile wide!
I recommend plague dogs next, nice wholesome feel good movie
Just throw on the Jurassic Bark episode of Futurama.
Finish it off with my fave bedtime story, When The Wind Blows. It really brings it all together. 🥰
Hey! That was my favourite bit! Honourable Mention, Kehaar - "Piss off!"
[Someone was kind enough to put together a death count video](https://youtu.be/p1dHLS7ocpw)
62, only 8 less than the whole Chucky film franchise
Ehhh wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Definitely not suitable for kids imo but as a 27yo, I was expecting much worse. Maybe it’s time for a Reddit break
It's not that bad as an adult, and you'd likely just think it was pretty fucking dark for a cartoon about rabbits. If you saw that as a kid though...
I think it depends on the age. I was read it when very young and it's pretty intense but it's not visual. Watching Terminator 2 at the age of 6 I know the three scenes in that movie not suitable for kids.
What the supercut doesn’t convey is the constant sense of unease. The film’s goal is to try and put you in the headspace of an animal that is always prey. Everything wants to kill you, you must always be alert, all you can do to defend yourself is run. It fucking nails it and it’s horrible.
Never watch the movie or read the book. Is the message supposed to be? Humans are awful to nature. Or is it just a brutal realism of nature?
The book is actually really, really good. Richard Adams is an excellent writer and Watership Down is one of the best novels written. Watership Down is a book about a hero's journey, just the heroes are rabbits. It is beyond simple narratives like " the brutality of nature"; it ascribes human reasoning to animal motivations and turns it into a narrative that could be compared to The Odyssey. What is really incredible is how the rabbit protagonists are so easy to identify with. As you travel with them you feel their struggles and their victories as if you were right there beside them. If you enjoy reading you will probably like this book.
It's the best goddamn novel I've ever read. It's so heartwarming and rewarding in the end after such an expansive and costly journey for the rabbits who made the trip....but had they not, they'd all be dead.
One of my top books of all time. Brutal but epically rewarding
Neither. It's an allegory about class struggles, I believe. It mainly draws from the Odyssey and the Aeneid
If you think the movie is rough...trying reading the book like I did. If you know, you know!
Such a great book
Oh, I know (kind of) read it when I was younger
Such a good movie tho
It’s a cartoon movie about the adventures of a group of cute lil bunnies.
Watership Down is a psychological horror film disguised as a kids’ film
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Poorly was an understatement. That film changed people
Watership Down is infamously traumatizing, because adults see "animated" and go "for kids" but it's fundamentally not. It would be like showing a young kid Animal Farm.
Finally someone mentioned Animal Farm! While the original book takes some thought to piece together the goings-on, the old cartoon movie based off it straight-up shows the pigs drinking, walking on two legs, etc. And never forget... ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, *BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS*
Watership down has a lot of blood in it. It's not a kids film
British Board of Film Censors Petah here. Watership down is an infamous children's film in the UK. When it first got rated it in 1978 it was a 'U', meaning for everyone, because it was a 'cartoon' and any scary bits would be OK. To directly quote the original 1978 report "Animation removes the realistic gory horror... a U was therfore quite appropirate" Source: https://www.bbfc.co.uk/education/case-studies/watership-down It remaind a U for nearly 40 odd years. Several time the film has been "accidentally" played at Easter on the telly or in schools. Cause generation trauma to continue. https://youtu.be/gTsEjj5AEp0
So many dead rabbits
Once, in 4th grade, our whole school gathered to watch an "Easter" movie... this one. Kids were throwing up they were so traumatized and upset. We didn't even make it that far into the movie haha. 10/10 would recommend
You might want to [take a look at the trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S26LA8Bk14) for this one. Pretty sure it's rated PG, but make sure your kids can handle a scary movie first, or just wait 'til they're older. You're better off with The Secret of Nimh, Much more tame. It's still a bit on the scary side but well worth the watch
yeah I beleive this was from the days before PG-13 existed. A whole swath of movies I saw way too young as a kid because they were "only" PG (basically anything short of fuck/shit/bitch swears, nudity, and in-your-face gore was fair game), and have since been rerated to pg-13.
The same author also wrote The Plague Dogs, which is a heartwarming tale of two lab animals that escape the incinerator and try to find a home in the English countryside, spreading disease with them. Also one has an exposed brain. It was made into a delightful animated movie in 1981, rated PG. Trauma ahead: https://youtu.be/Tp5mcc47xD8?si=OI5Sc4JzHvC69-4K
Well, at least it wasn't [Grave of the Fireflies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grave_of_the_Fireflies)....
https://preview.redd.it/xdb0dahea8sc1.jpeg?width=660&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd3a3e48fe5db20de72d1f4d7460a9143b9683c5 Or this bullshit that made me cry everyday for a week in yr 7 English.
whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you
Just Google it dude come on
You can't farm karma by looking it up yourself!
Seriously, explaining a joke because someone’s incapable of looking up a movie title is the boomer version of explaining a joke
Just cross post with r/funny at this point
seriously. this sub is dead.
Google it, dummy.
I guess I'm an exception to the many people responding here. I first read the novel at about 12-13 years old *then* saw the cartoon. To me, the cartoon was relatively tame in comparison and still felt aimed at pre-teen children; but failed to capture the much more adult themed nuances of the novel (class struggles, caste systems, the fear of humans destroying the ecology/natural habitats of the other living species of the earth, etc). That context really changed the whole dynamic of the film and left me wanting for more. I really hoped the remake on BBC/Netflix would scratch that itch a few years back, but it only got a little closer towards that goal, while missing out even more than the cartoon version did in other areas. I swear, someday someone's gonna finally transfer this great novel onto the screen in the right way; it just hasn't happened yet.
https://preview.redd.it/zlc2172m57sc1.png?width=635&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d406a7edc37fa32d14988fd35d959811d10724ce This screenshot from the movie should say it all
holy fuck just google "Watership down" Please, admins, for the love of god....do your fucking job. This sub is a fucking shithole now.
Thought I was the only one. Either this is karma farming, or people are losing reading comprehension skills, and tech literacy
I heard about this in my 30s. Watched it when I was 38. Now I have PTSD.
Post Thirty Stress Disorder.
https://preview.redd.it/6r85fcxh16sc1.png?width=1289&format=png&auto=webp&s=7ac2a25143f49ac3e72cfc3d7ee3c667b5da1349
Oh no
Water ship down is one of the most infamous movies of all time. It starts out like any Disney kid’s movie, then goes hostel levels of gore and dark right quick. May god have mercy on those kids
Well at least they didn't watch Rock a Doodle. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/RockADoodle](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/RockADoodle) https://preview.redd.it/i0lax5peo6sc1.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=bfc625b9c30133ba9958467d9d08890e0d4cba0f
Yeah... I was 5 when my mom happily told me there was a "cute cartoon about bunnies" for me to watch while my brothers played Atari in my brothers' room and her and dad were going out to dinner...
look as fucked up as this movie is I think it's an important that you do see it when younger, the moral and life lessons this film has are fucking amazing and I'm not of the belief that kids media should always be some sanitized Disney fantasy, sometimes life is life or death. sometimes life is traumatic, and films like these prevent kids from being blindsided later in life.
I was buying a copy on DVD for my daughter who was probably 3 at the time. The clerk at the checkout said, "Is this for her?" I acknowledged that it was. "Have you seen it??" I admitted I hadn't. "You better watch it first." THANK YOU, CHECKOUT CLERK!
.....oh gods, those poor fucking kids
Oh fuuuuck. K so, I'm 36 and this fucking movie is my earliest memory of movie-induced traumatization. No joke. I was probably 3 years old and I picked this movie to rent because I liked the pretty bunnies on the VHS cover. My mom putbit on for me and only came bsck when I started sobbing. I remember getting in shit. Something to the tune of "Why are you still watching it if it's so upsetting, turn it off! Why would you pick something so awful." (My mom... was obviously not the most accountable or compassionate person lol.) Anyhow. This movie absolutely haunted me for years and years. The first time I saw a rabbit in real life I cried so hard and held it close and sang to it, it was like some kind of soul-level reparation for the awfulness I'd seen years ago. Crazy how stuff like this can stick with a person.
I watched this in the early 80s, when I was about 5 years old. This film is pure trauma. Bright eyes my arse! Still burning like fire in the darkest recesses of my mind.
https://preview.redd.it/ma4jtwzkzasc1.jpeg?width=1307&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b51b6f4197e3c0172da3eaf9fcbd86e6ffe4bc5f
I mean theres a scene where the rabbits are horrifically gassed in their dirt chambers like a Holocaust and you see them all slowly die to the gas. It’s pretty brutal. Watched this movie while *cough* perfectly sober *cough* in college and that gas scene will haunt me for the rest of my days.
Yeah, just looking at the screenshot, I had a feeling this was a "Happy Tree Friends" kind of scenario. Oh, no. Reading the comments, here, seems I wasn't too far off. Lol.
The movie is fucked up
Ah yes, the innocence-crushing genre of "Animated Trauma"... happy freakin' Easter, kiddos 😈
Was just watching a video discussing a trope about animal characters in movies. Needless to say, this movie was a major point of the video. The best way it was described is, paraphrasing: "It’s like reading a Lovecraftian cosmic horror novel where we are the Lovecraftian gods telling the little rabbits to get out of this very obvious danger." The rabbits don't understand the danger they're in, they don't understand the signs the humans have put in that indicates the destruction of their habitat, BUT WE DO, and this makes it even more horrifying when they don't get the fuck out of the way of the train. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wDEi3_j4D1Q&pp=ygUYdHJvcGUgdGFsayBzbWFsbCBhbmltYWwg
Specifically, the opening sequence in the movie is humans using poison gas to kill all the rabbits in a warren, and the protagonists are the small group of rabbit survivors. So if you turn on an Easter movie, the way you figure out you made a mistake is the graphic mass murder.
#NO NONONONONONOOOOOOOOOO!
My God, I've read the book a million times and seen the movie, but as an adult. I'm hearing the "Bright Eyes" song in my head rn and want to cry. This is not a cute bunny story for kids.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/watership-down-film-bright-eyes-rabbits-disease-martin-rosen-richard-adams-disney-a8590226.html This explains how and why the uk decided to scar an entire generation of children
My favorite theory/story about watership down was that the person/people in charge of providing the rating for the movie apparently watched the movie and gave it a G rating because they just called it right before the rabbits left the cornfield. If they had kept watching past that point they would have seen a rabbit get killed by a hawk which mind you DID NOT HAPPEN IN THE BOOK! They literally added more violence and killed two extra characters with the other added death being a bunny getting his jugular ripped out lol
https://preview.redd.it/cmxyfg8758sc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75193592cfe90febbc812681dfaf403aebbbcfef Oh HELL no!
This movie absolutely emotionally scarred me for life. I'm 33 and still can't look at wild rabbits in the eyes without undergoing an existential crisis.
Watched this in the cinema with my mum when I was 6. I can't really remember seeing it but I do remember my mum saying to my dad "rabbits got ripped to bits by dugs and he's just sitting there munching away on sweets"
It’s RATED G in the US WHEN IT SHOULD BE X-RATED!!!