Watership Down, I feel traumatised, won't someone think of the children?

[XmasPostmanBos]

If you ever wondered what would have happened if Walt Disney decided to make a dark, noir, thiller based on a terrifying journey through a hostile land with a kind of concentration camp in it.
The weird CGI rabbits make it even creepier.

Oh now it works

Technology and I are never going to be buds

Doubt the remake will be as brutal and horrifying as the original.

That film was distressing when I was a child and still is. Rabbits being run over, chased by dogs, shot at by farmers, hunted and taken by birds, trapped in snares and buried alive

Sister had it on when I arrived yesterday. I had a cup of tea and fell asleep.

Even the title gives me the creeps! I was genuinely traumatised by it as a child. I’m not joking - I was a very sensitive kid and my parents should never have let me watch it. It gave me the most horrific nightmares and I started going to bed before dark, a habit I kept up for nearly ten years!

Well this thread makes me feel better...one of my most vivid memories from early childhood was my mum refusing to let me go to the cinema to watch this but my (slightly) older siblings were allowed to.

It is, what, 40ish years ago and I still moan about it to her - it's become a standing joke now. But maybe she was right all along??

I watched the BBC one yesterday then had a conversation with my parents about it. Apparently my mum doesn't think the original was traumatic (I did I had nightmares) apparently she thought I was upset because she thought I believed there would be real rabbits. She obviously didn't watch it properly as she doesn't understand the emotion trauma of Bright eyes!

@Giraffeowlllama Did your Mum actually see it???

I can't imagine anyone who's genuinely at a loss as to why it's distressing it's horrible

The suffocation / buried alive scene stayed with me for a long while and even now I wouldn't sit and watch that over again.

That scene and the one from Never-ending Story where Artex lets himself die in the swamps bothered me something awful. At least Artex appeared all happy and alive again in the end but you couldn't write a Disney ending for those bunnies :(

I remember feeling really scared and anxious by Hazel's anxiety whenever Hazel freaked out and had premonitions and kept repeating they had to move and something bad was going to happen it absolutely frightened the living shit out of me.

*Artax sorry.

normal apparently she believes we went to the cinema to watch it? I genuinely believe that never happened and I watched it on TV. I don't think she's ever watched it. I think it's a belief that she took me to the cinema to watch all kids films growing up.

Giraffeowlllama Pretty sure you're right cos you wouldn't watch that in a cinema and not be shitting the bed traumatised the rest of your life.

I read and loved the book and a few of Richard Adams' other books. ESP is a massive feature in his books and it just doesn't come across in any of the adaptations.

Hazel didn't have premonitions, Fiver did,

Bright Eyes makes me cry even now. I had the film picture book as a child (for some reason my mum bought it) so was able to dwell on the most horrific scenes at length. Fun! But also the most beautiful - like the origin of the world story, and of course Hazel's afterlife.

Not a patch on the original, and whats with all this 'rabbit love interest crap' They needed doe's, they looked and found doe's they didn't have to woo the bloody doe's. I need to stop or I will go into rant mode, what happened to pipkin? whats with the rewrites grrrrrr.....

I hated Watership down it scared me as a child 😢😟😞

I went to see it at the pictures when I was 11
I thought it was a fluffy film about bunnies
Good character building stuff

I quite liked this new version actually, General Woundwort was good. But yes the way they loved was a bit rubbish except when they were running as a group, viewed from the side, that looked pretty real. But definitely not a patch on the first one, none of the menace, darkness or apprehension.

The original is a valuable life lesson in a world full of fake lollipops and flowers

MaggieAndHopey - I paid £1 for a copy of that book just recently -stills from the film?
It's old and many of its pages are loose. I wanted to frame them, but DS (25) said he would never visit again, if I did!

He's here for Xmas and complained all the way through the new version. I got as far as Kehar with that accent before I admitted defeat.

The BBC day it's not a remake, that it's an adaptation from the book, made for a new young audience. I get what they were aiming for, but imo it just didn't need doing.

That's the one, MockneyReject. I've looked for a second hand copy myself but they're expensive on ebay - £1 is a steal, even with some loose pages!

billybagpuss I completely agree about the spurious rabbit love interests.

Richard Adams was very clear about the rabbits' matter-of-fact attitude to sex. There's a scene in the book where one of the bucks asks, apropos of the new does, 'has anyone mated with them yet?'

The original should be banned and no remakes ever made. The one that was should be banned too.

This is the most traumatic film of my childhood.

I won't watch it again.

I think I was an unusual child in that the book and film didn’t traumatise me exactly, but did inspire a kind of obsession with the rabbits. I read the book at about age 6-7, and watched the film afterwards at some point. I read the book through the night when shipped off for summer with my grandparents, and would spend all the rest of the time trying and mostly failing to discuss the characters with them. I remember trying to get my mum to discuss Campion, whether or not he was good or bad, and she kept getting mixed up with other rabbits but finished off with something like “oh I don’t know, bad then” when I pressed the subject. It left me feeling really frustrated and confused, perhaps I think I need to read it again to decide about Campion. As a child I would write something a bit like fan-fiction/hate-fiction about Bigwig/General Woundwort, and would fantasise about setting our neighbours’ rabbits free. I think my love for the natural world and respect for living things really blossomed after reading the book, and expected everyone else to have some kind of epiphany after watching the film - whereas they were mostly just shocked and traumatised. I have always been able to cope with trauma, death, difficult subjects and can’t be sure if that started before or after reading things like watership down and ring of bright water. Things like the suffocation of the rabbits, and particularly Bigwig (my favourite) being caught in the snare, really got me upset, but I still read on. If I really think about it I could say that Bigwig, Fiver and Hazel had some kind of influence on me. I’ve always had nerve, as a kid and an adult. Proper nerve. Would defend anyone or anything no matter what the consequences. I’ve always stood up to bullies, even got into fights as a kid for standing up for what I felt was right. I still now will always say if something isn’t on, even if it’s embarrassing or seemingly career suicide to question someone high up. Fiver’s plight really touched me, and I think I’ve always taken a sort of Bigwig/Hazel role for the Fiver’s I meet or hear about. I always try to show my children the reality of this world, and don’t shield them from the hardships and traumas that people and animals suffer with. I think that if you can’t face scary things head on, you can’t help and can’t be of use or comfort. Probably helps that my mum doesn’t ever face reality at all, actively avoids it, and I’m determined not to be like that.

Campion - good