It was an animated movie about bunny rabbits, so yeah it was shown to kids when I was a kid.
It was a really good movie despite the occasional nightmare. I wasn’t a very empathic kid, but after that movie I thought more about what I was doing, and was significantly less of an ass. So for me at least it was a good kids’ movie.
*shudder
BTW, did you see The Quatermass Conclusion (1979)?
Even by modern standards, that’s a special kind of terror…
My uncle gave me the book to read when I was about 8 years old, and the main characters looked like my grandparents. In the first half of the book, anyway.
Yuup.
Watership Down feels an awful lot like a story for adults, but apparently it was based on stories Richard Adams made up for his kids on long trips, so maybe he just had a different idea of what they can handle.
Yes, but…
“The rabbits were modeled after WWII officers…”
Lieutenant Richard Adams commanded C Platoon in 250 Company’s Seaborn Echelon, and, as he wrote in his autobiography, he based Watership Down and the stories in it around the men of the 250 Airborne Light Company RASC—specifically, on their role in the battle of Arnhem. The battle, fought over nine days in September 1944 in and around the Dutch towns of Arnhem, Oosterbeek, Driel, and Wolfheze, resulted in devastating losses for the Allied forces, including in Adams’ company. Adams says that two characters were directly drawn from life. Hazel was inspired by Adams’ commanding officer, Major John Gifford, a man he described as “brave in the most self-effacing way” and an “excellent organizer” who rarely raised his voice, adding, “Everything about him was quiet, crisp and unassuming.” Gifford survived the war; Captain Desmond “Paddy” Kavanagh, on whom warrior Bigwig was modeled, did not. Daring, debonair Kavanagh was, Adams wrote, “afraid of nothing,” a “sensationalist,” and “by nature entirely the public’s image of a parachute officer.” He was killed in action outside Oosterbeek while providing covering fire for his platoon, at just 25 years old.
As for Adams, he said in 2014 that he identifies more with Fiver: “Rather timid and not much of a fighter … but able to contribute something in the way of intuitive knowledge.”
One hutch too far?
Owsla out there, dying for little bunny berets.
Some stories also feel more appropriate for kids when they aren’t accompanied by visuals, or at least not explicit visuals. Take “Little Red Riding Hood” or the Czech fairy tale “Otesánek” for example; people tell their kids those kinds of stories all the time but when you actually film those scenes of ravenous beasts eating people they become literal horror movies (like Little Otik).
I still think ‘silflay’ when I see a rabbit on the grass.
I mean, yeah? How many other books where the protagonists are talking anthropomorphic animals are there that aren’t for kids?
I count this and Animal Farm. I’m sure I’m missing a few. But then pit those against the tens of thousands of books that are for kids.
Watership Down is in the top three of my favorite novels of all time, but I admit I bounced off it on my first try as a kid. I’ve read it many times and listened to the audio book last year. I love its complexity and the way it doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff. I’ll definitely look for the graphic novel.
Hard pass on that story; my personal quota of childhood trauma from viewing inappropriate content for kids is filled, thanks.
The Book of the Dun Cow. Its not well enough known and while not quite as horrifying as Watership Down’s nasty bits, its probably not for the majority of kids either.
I just read a book (set in 40s rural western USA) in which it was assumed kids would have been familiar with Bluebeard’s Castle as a folk tale; I first came across it (as an adult) as Bartok’s opera, which I always thought was pretty adult-horror. I could see it being older teen material but kids, yikes.
But like you say, when I read the folk-tale version it doesn’t quite pack the punch of a dramatic enactment.
“If you kids don’t quiet down right now, I’ll tell another story!”
Huffity, puffity, Ringstone Round,
If you lose your hat it will never be found,
So pull your britches right up to your chin,
And fasten your cloak with a bright new pin,
And when you are ready, then we can begin,
Huffity, puffity, puff!
All of the Quatermass stories are creepy as hell, but that was the only one I ever saw when it was new - and yes, it was terrifying.
Sure, Bambi, Isle of Dogs, Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, … Perfect Blue… ? Where does it stop? Well, I guess 10 volumes of Ichi the Killer are just waiting to be turned into an anime… 0_o
People did. I saw it with a parent each side at a matinee performance in half term.
Lots of parents had seen there was a film about bunnies and left their kids in the cinema while they did their shopping. There was screaming. There was hiding under the chairs.
The graphic novel looks great
One thing I’d dispute: “anthropomorphic”
These rabbits are quite definitely rabbits. They might think somewhat like humans, but they are very definitely not Morphic.
Also, Bigwig’s “My chief rabbit told me to defend this run…” speech is one of the greatest scenes in heroic literature ever. I will not be taking questions at this time.
