"This book is for anyone who wants to read it." Richard Adams "Any book is a children's book if the child can read." --Mitch Hedberg These two would have been fast friends.
@@KharonDeLune_vtb Those are for adolescents, AKA children AKA young adults. Thats their target audience. Adults can find them enteraining, but that goes for alot of things like lego or pokemon.
My granddad showed me it at around that age, except he just noticed it on sky and said it was good, i never found out whether he knew how messed up it was. I certainly did by the end.
Another traumatized kid here.. Saw when I was 8 years old, thinking it was a cute movie about wabbits... Fuck me freddy.. I could not sleep for a week because of the 'gassing scene', the 'bloody field' one and...ffs the strangled one. Still, it's the most deep animation movie I've ever seen. The music, the art and spiritual references about life and death. Amazing.
I am 43@iv had a verry dark,twisted childhood.The kids of my time where so much stronger then most today.Wake up little ones!To much native can kill you.
Wouter d. B. Here is the thing. Rabbits are savage. Male Rabbits have a habbit of killing their offspring and raping each other to show dominance. Nature can be brutal and I feel like today people are only seeing nature as this pure and innocent thing, which it isn't
am I the only one who didn't get traumatized by this as a kid and actually liked the gore? lol Like I always took the movie for what it was and what nature really is and we've had rabbits for meat ourselves (I've watched my grandpa kill and skin rabbits countless times) and I knew how they act between each other and it wasn't shocking or scary for me at all
Poor Ralph and Snitter you are rooting for them all the way. But you kind of understand when older, the panic of a plague and to destroy, would be the only solution.
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
Ironically, as a kid, I loved the Watership Down movie but got too disturbed by Chicken Run and to this day I can't watch it again. Lol I am prolly the only one
The end of Watership Down is kind of interesting in terms of religious symbolism in that it ends with confirmation. Plague Dogs is bleak because there's no true confirmation that the island is real, or at least not concrete, but Hazel meeting the black rabbit and being shown to head into the afterlife is very confirming of the rabbits religious beliefs. The idea that there is an afterlife, that pressing onward will reward them, that there is hope, are all given legitimacy.
The rabbit's story of creation serves as the movie's frame. So there is in fact little doubt of their god and the afterlife being true is it not? They live and fight and sacrifice due to their faith in this. No matter how many fall , no matter how bad the odds are they will never perish if they are one step ahead. Everything grim in the movie is brightened by this trust.
I am a rabbit lover who saw this movie as a child. I read the book in pieces over several years because the movie impressed me so deeply. Yes, it's traumatic and dark, but it's so well made that I always remembered. The book is too complex to take in one sitting... or month ... though it's still well written.
@@wendychavez5348This movie scarred me so much as a 14 year old that i refuse to ever watch it again. I don't like movies that are just messed up just for the sake of being messed up. I'm talking about movies like Watership Down, Martyrs and The Human Centipede.
Felidae is definetly not for kids, since it's a murder mystery with references to ideals of the Third Reich that a kid wouldn't understand. But Grave of Fireflies is fine. Just because a movie is sad, doesn't mean kids shouldn't watch it. It's bad to shelter kids too much
Watership Down made me cry at the end, because of Hazel dying, but he wasn't worried about dying himself, only about the rabbits he was leaving behind, because he had been the leader. That got to me badly. Don't read The Plague Dogs by the same author, if Watership Down upsets you.
Watership down is an amazing, powerful, and influential story. Idk if you're trying to be quirky but you're doing yourself a disservice by refusing to watch it. It does have a couple of intense scenes, but they underscore the seriousness of the story's themes. Its jarring reputation comes from being one of the first animated films to tackle a mature theme. To me the story contrasts the benevolence of the natural order between that of man. Nature kills for the greater good of all under her dominion, whereas man kills for the good of an individual. However, all living things are part of and therefore subjected to nature. Eventally we will all succumb to the power she holds over us. As her subejcts we should try to understand and respect the order of the natural world as that of the greater good, even when it seems at odds with the interests of the individual. The hawk kills to feed its own but it also kills so that the rabbits don't overpopulate and inflict greater suffering upon each other. Writing this comment amid the Covid-19 crisis, btw. >
My parents recorded Watership Down off of the tv for me when I was about 3 and I watched it every Easter. I think that's why I could then never get into Disney films. They seemed far too bland in comparison.
It's not that I think they are bad, they just never did anything for me. Partly because I hate musicals and Disney films always had so many damn songs in I had to fast forward through. I was just always more into action animation. The one Disney cartoon I loved was Gargoyles but it's a nigh on forgotten show.
Rods toy box Well there's a handful of Disney films without songs in them. One I would suggest is The Black Cauldron. It's not the best film, but I think it's worth the watch.
My parents never showed me anything like this because they are from a foreign country but I stumbled upon this and I just messed up my life and love for rabbits
Funny I adored it so much. It was one of my favorite films throughout all of my childhood. I dont remember anything scary besides the part with the weasel and that wasnt that bad. Guess i was an edgelord kid. Lmao!
This movie always stirs strong emotions in me every time I watch it and even just watching this I feel like I'm going to cry. It's potent mixture of sadness and cuteness. No other movie give me such emotional feelings as this one.
The contrast between childhood warmth at the cuteness with the emotional slam of what happens heightens both the feeling of innocence as well as the gravity of the message.
Honestly agree with Adams. Sometimes, I just want to write a story and ready a story. Doesn't need to have a message or be masterfully interwoven with themes. In fact, I am kind of tired of thematic writing or at least how people portray it as the pinnacle, the golden rule, and necessity. If that is your cup of tea, by all means continue to enjoy it. But I swear that there are very few messages to deliver or themes to explore that I haven't already experienced by this point.
I get that, but I also feel that reading a story then afterwards realising that it had a subtle meaning to it can make the story feel all the more impactful
For the longest time, I thought I just imagined this film because, while I remembered scenes vividly, I couldn’t remember the name. It wasn’t until many years and many detailed descriptions typed into Google later, that I finally found the movie was not just some figment of my imagination. It’s one of those childhood films, that once in a blue moon (almost like a really bad acid trip,) I distinctly remember watching as a kid at my grandparents’ house with my sister -specifically the scene where one of the rabbits claws it’s way past a bunch of dead rabbits stuck in their burrow. I’ve asked my sister every time it pops up in my mind and she doesn’t remember it at all. I’m convinced she’s just repressed the horrifying memories.
slimkt ikr? There's a kid's movie that i forgot the name that's driving me crazy, it was a film where the main characters are a family and i think it was only the kids but i could be wrong but they drank a potion that transformed them into fishes (i remember the little girl was a starfish) but they were in great danger and the movie was tense and we even see the characters almost dying and after breaking down.... I WANT TO REWATCH IT DAMNIT!
Tori .W hahah i remember that oh my god my parents were so confused as they'd seen it and we were like wtf is this on and my younger brother wanted to watch it bc he didn't know what it was.
Theres at least one news article on this every year. They always seem to show it on Easter and parents always complain. A bit cruel really to the unsuspecting.
Even watching this video brought on a feeling of discomfort I haven't felt in years. This film gave me real trauma. I have never recovered fully from the gassing scene.
I'm actually kinda glad my parents thought this was typical Disney fair, too. For all the nightmares that the beginning scene (Fiver's premonition) gives me to this day, this movie was actually fricking brilliant (something I discovered rewatching it a couple years ago). And, yeah, more lucky sheltered kids should be aware that death and violence are, like, a major part of life before they grow up. --Another great analysis; thanks for the reminder, Ryan. I'm going to watch Plague Dogs now.
Be prepared for some depression and misery, I saw both watership and plague dogs as a kid and whilst both of them upset me at the time and I've definitely grown to appreciate them more as I've got older, I still find plague dogs the harder to watch of the two, it just leaves you feeling so hopeless... Still a great movie tho.
M'aiq the Liar maybe children shouldn't watch, read this because they'll see they are those rabbits with the golden rings around their necks. read you ignorant beasts!
Thank you SO much for making a video on Watership Down. I'm an animator, and 1978's Watership Down is one of my two favourite films ever; the other film being Yellow Submarine. I first saw the film when I was around eight years old, and I think Watership Down is beautifully animated, voice acted, and has wonderfully-detailed backgrounds.
I watched this film with my mother when I was nine. I was crying at a couple parts and my mom wanted to turn the movie off. "No, mom, I need to see what happens to the rabbits." It was a great story and even then I knew it....I knew that it was important that I see it. And it stayed with me too this very day....over thirty years later. Most films for adults do not have this quality of good storytelling.
Man, I remember the first time I saw this movie. I was five or six, and I was at my friend's house. I was super sick, so much so my mom had to pick me up later; so I watched this movie as a young boy drifting in between consciousness and fever dreams. It was crazy
There's a bit of a difference between Marvel Cartoons and Wizards...and my father found the experience to be very awkward. (But that's what he got for not actually looking at its rating.)
the trouble with the rating is that there was no PG, that won't appear for another 4 years and there is also no 12. All you have is a U or a A which is like a 15 so they had to go with the lower rating, if the BBFC was to rate in today, they gone on record to saying it is a 12/12A but no one is letting them rerate it
except pg is an american based rating. also lauren while i agree that it doesn't fit the modern pg rating it should be said that america at the time had 3 ratings PG,R,AO/XXX PG-13 wouldn't hit until Indiana Jones. Also PG fi9lms frequently showed bare TnA
Pg stands for Parental Guidance. Which means it's up to the Parent to decide if their child should watch the movie or not. By this definition, watership down does in fact fit in with the PG rating. If a child is made upset over what they say, it is entirely the parents fault.
S-Boy only problem is that felidae wasn’t advertised for kids and didn’t get a child friendly rating. yeah, it’s more messed up, but they made it pretty clear it wasn’t for kids
Dude you are spot on about how this movie scared kids into thinking Woundwort would come for them. I was literally terrified of that happening I had so many nightmares lol.
I think he was talking about how the narrator explains that communities of rabbits still talk about Woundwort's legacy to scare youngsters into behaving, as opposed to people in real life telling their kids that a rabbit is going to kill them XD
Indeed. My brother, a clinical psychologist jokes that he joined the Marines to get away from the nightmares this movie gave all of us. I still can't stand the song or sitting through the whole thing even on Xanax!
Just for clarification for those unfamiliar with the story, the protagonists are forced to eat a man at one point due to their starvation despite their (Snitter's really) love for humanity. That film is messed up.
I greatly dislike the “reputation” this movie (and by extention, the book) has. It seems to me like everyone dismisses or remembers the movie as “omg so violent, scarred, chilhood trauma xd” without looking at the truly great things and ideas the story has. Anyways, great video, you’ve earned a sub.
It's one of my favourite movies ever. I probably watched it first when I was 7 or so. Loved it then, still love it now. I also dislike its reputation and generally just how it's looked at and discussed. Even the framing of this video "why is watership down so messed up" irks me because it's not "messed up" especially not when compared to nearly any PG13 movie.
I haven't seen it yet, but as a child of the 90s who was shown a lot of spookier, shocking kids films from the 80s, I for one think we need more kids movies that aren't afraid to get frighteningly real with their audience. I feel much of today's children's media talks down to its audience, but I'd like to see a comprehensive study to find out if that's just my bias. There was plenty of patronizing drivel in my day, as well.
I think the blame--as usual--lies with the marketing, which I'm glad Ryan mentioned. Watership Down is a great film and a beautiful story, but it falls into that grey area that marketing execs hate, where they're not sure if it's for kids or adults ("it's a cartoon? but there's blood and violence? we *must* have clearly defined categories, people!!") and they mess up audience's expectations for what the film is trying to say. It's a tragedy, really, because the movie is incredibly well done. I think if it had been marketed correctly it might not have quite the bad reputation it does, now.
yeah but unfortunately a ton of us were exposed to this movie WAY too early, by (grand)parents bought "the cute disney-esque bunny cartoon!!" without checking out the actual content. Plus the advertisements and ratings didn't help; by, bizarrely, avoiding all the "dark and scary" bits It's an excellent movie, coming back to it as an adult. One of my favorites! And tbh it probably wouldn't have bothered me back then, if i KNEW what it was about. Unfortunately my family had me *expecting* "Bambi with Rabbits," therefore the whole thing was a shock. i have a feeling a bunch of other tiny kids were exposed to it similarly, so i don't blame 'em I would recommend they watch it though, when they're ready
Yes I agree there is a meaning of this movie and it is very complex and deep meaning. I personally love this movie because it gives us a story of rabbits in nature and how they have to survive in order to stay alive.
As shocking and graphic as the content never stopped being, I am very weirdly thankful that it was part of my childhood. Yes, I may have yeeted out of the room to avoid the Violent Scary Parts(tm) every time, but there's something beautifully alluring and--as Ryan described--comforting that made me watch it over and over again. sans the Violent Scary Parts(tm).
One of my all-time favourite animated films based on one of my all-time favourite novels. Both are gorgeous, pastoral masterpieces that utterly capture the idea of nature in all of its states, both the beauty and the violence.
That unintentional symbolism plagued J. R. R. Tolkien to his death as well. Many during his time found allusions to religious iconography, environmentalism, and social commentary on World War 1 and 2. He frequently explained that he never intended any of it but people still saw what they saw. Unlike C.S. Lewis or Madeleine L'Engle who never cared for subtlety.
This is the constant conversation that we get in this postmodern age. People write about what they think and experience, and show things from their own viewpoint. Even if they didn't intend it, the things they write, the stories that they reveal about themselves and what they've seen and thought about can give deeper insight about their own world view. Just because you weren't intentionally trying to write a commentary on how we cope with an awful reality, doesn't mean that you didn't end up doing just that. And, in that sense, the "ownership" of a story's message or interpretation doesn't belong to the author - it belongs to his audience.
But then you have to analyse it this way. English teachers will however insists on finding the secret meaning behind all works of literature, regardless of whether there is one or not, leading to a lot of total bullshit.
Carewolf Art is subjective, and what it means to one person, can mean something *completely* different to one another, despite what others may tell you. Nobody should tell you how to analyze something for the sole purpose that "this is the correct and only meaning for this work of art" (school of course is the exception since you're doing it for an assignment, unless you have *A LOT* of wiggle room and are actually able to state your interpretation on it, in which case, by all means, go ahead and do so). We must all decide for ourselves for what something means to us, in which case we are *choosing* to analyze something in *our* own way, that nobody but *us* sees and believes. The "secret" meaning may be there and be a bit of a revelation to someone, and then it may not be there for someone else, because it didn't resonate with them. It's all about a matter of perspective
True, and you can analyse that, and you can analyse the story structure or unintended parallels, what you CANT do is pretend that this was the author intend when the author didn't intend it, and at least my teachers kept doing the latter.
Y That’s not someone’s weird poor attempt to claim something is for children, that’s an attempt to be depressing to an extreme while being recognised as based in reality
I can watch the most vicious horror movies, but I still can't bring myself to watch Watership Down, or read the book. That bloody Bright Eyes song still makes me bawl like a little baby, I had to try to hold it together in a store a few weeks ago when it was played on the radio. Failed. Failed miserably. Watching this made me cry enough, I really don't think I will survive the movie. No way in hell am I watching Plague Dogs either.
I watched some of it with my friend, wouldn't recommend it, I think it literally starts with them drowning a dog until it almost dies and then bring it back up before it does.
I looked up the movie and the book, didn't watch anything, but managed to cry for the entire day because that's all I could think about. Didn't help either that on the day I was looking it all up, it was the anniversary of my dogs death. Urgh.
The book is great, it's one of the inspirations for warrior cats but way better. It does have it's dark moments (okay, a lot of dark moments) but it's a lovely view into the world of rabbits and I'd recommend it to anyone over the age of maybe 9-12, depending on how you feel about that stuff. (Oh and the age suggestion is from personal experience, it may not be correct for everyone)
I saw Watership Down when I was 5 years old. My parents had no clue what they had rented for me. Simultaneously scarred me for life and cemented itself as one of my favorite films of all time. Funny how that can work that way.
I saw it when I was a child and remember it as a little dark sometimes. Saw it with my son and he screamed and said we should turn it off. Now as an adult, I realize that it is not a children's movie. The rabbits are just a wolf in sheep's clothing.
😄 Thank you, I was around 4 or 5 when I first watched this in German TV and I wasn't terrified but spellbound ... maybe also because I clearly remember I assumed the "bigger bunnies" being parents defending their children (Pipkin, Fiver and all smaller bunnies) against real REAL bad bunnies!) 😁 So the message it brought to me was entirely good. Hope can be desperate, but it still is hope & worth fighting for ... only I wasn't able to put that in words back than. ^^
Maybe you saw an edited version when you were 4? It could also be that everyone was tougher and stronger years ago, PC woke crap has softened everyone, maybe that's it...
It was the same with me! I saw it when I was about 7 or 8, and it was exciting and thrilling to me. The violence and gore didn't seem to affect me as much as it did when I watched it again a few years ago. The scene where the rabbits' burrow was tilled and all the holes filled up with dirt and dying screaming bodies horrified me. I think as a kid, it was just a cartoon, but as an adult, it was a story and I felt more connected with the characters and their suffering
I think people like Adams and Tolkien who claim they don't use allegory and symbolism know they're full of shit, they just want people to decipher meaning for themselves as it is very private to the them and they view it as the reader's responsibility to interpret. That's my theory anyway.
@@outlawscar3328 I bet there's a couple reasons he Adams claims it's not symbolic, Your reason makes sense, in that he doesn't want to spoonfeed meaning to readers and sometimes a story is best enjoyed without over-analyzing it to death. I think also it might be more valuable to see this story as a form of criticism or commentary. Don't focus too much on symbolism, besides just imagining if the rabbits were people, for example. Well when we make war stories about humans fighting in wars and struggling to survive, we don't really boil it down to symbolism do we? No, we look at the stories of humans in war and conflict through a lense of critiquing, analyzing and commenting on the dynamics of human nature, and symbols don't matter at that point. It's basically just "look how cruel living things are to each other, and yet at the same time look at how some of us cling on to hope and optimism." Again, no symbol interpretation is needed, as you can basically just quote the characters themselves.
@@outlawscar3328 actually Adam didn't care for interpretation. He recieved many fan mails from people who each gave their own theory and questions such as is it based on the cold war, is hazel Jesus Christ. He always scoffed and gave the same answer each time. Its just a story about rabbits, nothing more.
@@iiiivvvv9986 Go read the Lord of the Rings again and then tell me there's no direct allegory to Christian myth or World War II. Also tell me the Ring isn't symbolism for power and its corrupting and addictive nature.
When I read it I felt like I was reading a fantasy novel. Like Lord of the Rings, y'know? We had a group of characters each fitting some sort of role (leader, seer, fighter, etc.) escaping some predetermined calamity to find a place of their own.
I haven't seen both Watership Down or The Plague Dogs, but the one film that solidified the definition of "bleak" for me was actually the War of the Worlds (2005). Watching that film at age 9 was pretty crazy, and filled with the longest feeling of dread and hopelessness watching on a large-screen TV with surround sound and pitch-black night with no lights on. I hadn't yet been exposed to films of this sort before so I had no idea what to expect, much less recognise famous actors. So I was watching with a fresh set of eyes. I believe the greatest thing that affected me was watching the real faces of the people in the background. There's a greater scale of horror watching others getting wiped out being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Entire families, everyone moving to survive. And finally, the perspective of the few survivors while in the distance other humans, just like them and just like me were being hunted down in the distance by ominous and ever-present adversaries like those seemingly never-ending nightmares. All of these concepts were new to me, and I was seeing its portrayal in live-action realism.
I too saw The Plague Dogs a few years ago for the first time (at age 30) and the end brought me to tears. I can't remember the last time a movie left me feeling truly injured. Its an amazing film but doesn't have the same balance of beauty and brutality that makes Watership Down so rewatchable. The idea of watching The Plague Dogs again sounds unpleasant but I'll always respect it for being able to make me feel the way it did... just when I thought I'd seen it all.
Honestly there's a lot of edgelords in this comment section lol. "DON'T BE A SNOWFLAKE THIS PREPARES KIDS FOR THE REAL WORLD" Like... if your "real world" involved run-ins with dangerous cultlike groups and your friends dying like flies to random outside threats then, just as your first heads-up, you _may_ have had a bad childhood.
Tamar H. I think it’s more like you need to teach kids the world isn’t gonna treat them right and sometimes it’s not your job to fix the worlds problems and no matter what you keep moving on
there are plenty of places like that in the world. Even in the idealistic world of the US. Take a wrong turn in my city, St. Louis, you wear clothes that make you look like you got status and wealth, you leave valuable shit in your car on the wrong block, or just in general don't pay attention, you will be taken advantage of.
God I hate when people say we need to prepare kids for the real world. They’re fucking kids! There are ways to teach them about our world in a lighter manner. You can still teach kids about life without being an edge lord.
Totally Anonymous I apologize for your loss. Life is surely tough, but nonetheless if our intent after all the pain we go through is to feed it to others, then we’ve already let the worst happen, and that’s the death of our humanity and of hope.
Came across your Courage the Cowardly Dog video, then Coraline and now this - you netted yourself a new subscriber, friendo. Surprised I never had a run-in with the movie until I was about 13-14 (I saw King's It when I was 6, lol), but I totally understand what del Toro meant about how Watership Down could be a sort of rite of passage for kids interested in storytelling and animation. I remember how the movie didn't really shock me in the graphic department (don't get me wrong, General Woodwort was portrayed _terrifyingly villainous_ and the gassing scene was really dark) so much as the message behind it, as you so succinctly pointed out so well. I don't really know how my abilities as a writer and artist would have panned out if I didn't read more than just the school's "required reading" or go out of my way to find foreign movies I heard about on early 2000s message boards that sounded interesting and it's sad when I hear the younglings ask where I get my ideas from...
I saw this film as a kid and I never felt traumatized by it. If anything the violence is not mindless but well placed and not having the restrictions a kids' film has it was able to do a lot more. Incidentally anything involving animals might as well be animated even today with CGI. If anything this always seemed an intelligent film that didn't insult my intelligence, and I don't mind the religious overtones because it just gives more character to the film by including what the rabbits believe.
schizoidboy I loved this movie when I was a kid. I watched it over and over. My brothers and sister didn’t like it. The story was so emotional - it sucked me in!
I watched this movie as a kid I completely forgot about that scene in particular, seeing in this video past my 20s and it made me very uncomfortable, in an odd way I don't think any other horror could because it's recalling a primal thing embedded in my psyche as a fricking child
One memorable scene (if I remembered it fully): Big Wig "I told you I wanted to impress you, and hope I have." The General "And I told you Bigwig... I would kill you..!" See, fun for all ages, and quintessentially English.
It took like 4 year to suppress this from my memory Oh boy, here we go with round two of the night terrors this brought Edit: I feel some weird kind of closure after seeing this. Thank you
I remember finding this vhs tape when I was little without the box or anything and it showed the cover of peaceful landscape with bunnies and figured it be a happy good movie. Boy was I wrong after watching those horrible scenes I was so confused and scared first seeing it
Francelia Valerio I highly recommend it. It’s a good intro to Ralph Bakshi (and arguably his least controversial film), but also it’s just a rly good movie. It’s a little clunky at times but I think part of that is due to (some p noticeable tbh) budget problems. Definitely go into it with an open mind; personally, I think it’s more of a passion project, as opposed to Bakshi’s other films that are more political. There’s some political message to it, but it’s very basic/on-the-nose. But yeah, I say definitely watch wizards whenever you can, it’s free on TH-cam and there’s an interesting twist at the end (subversion might be a better word? I’m not sure but it’s partly why wizards is one of my fave movies)
I remember watching this at my grandparents when I was like 5. It surprised me at how graphic it was, but that didn’t stop me from watching it over and over!
2:35 I remember seeing this scene as a child and fainting for the first time. It's how I discovered my bloodphobia. Looking at it now, still makes me a little dizzy. 😅
I bet blood draws are a nightmare for you. I had a bad experience with them as a kid. I almost fainted taking my pulse in middle school. Now I can have a blood draw sitting up without getting dizzy but I still can't look. I also don't like taking my blood pressure and it's harder to look at blood in movies and TV now more than before.
Yeah, I've never seen it either. The scene at 5:50 with the cars made me laugh hard, and the "Violet's gone!" line around 9:57 came close to bringing me to tears. I think I may need to watch this movie... Oh, and if the scenes here bother you, do yourself a favor by NEVER watching Grave of the Fireflies.
I watched Watership Down when I was about 5 or 6 years old, it messed my older sister up a bit but I loved this story, I still love it and I understand why my mind is so messed up today lol.
"They're not humans, so it's perfectly okay to show this much violence to young children!" At least that's the logic the MPAA gave to Transformers: The Movie before they threw in an "Oh shit'
@@KrisFrost4359 Yeah. The whole "They did it so that parents would have to come along and know what toys to buy" theory doesn't really hold much water when you consider that Arcee and Unicron didn't even make it past the prototype phase.
Whenever people say the movie is messed up I just wanna ask "hey, duderino...dude...DID YOU READ THE BOOK THO?" because the book is far more brutal, more twisted and sad. I mean, I recall MURDERS and more. It's the same with the Ga'Hoole books. You go all "oh cool, a book about owls cool!" First book starts with attempted murder. Includes what can only be called child psychological and physical abuse. Books get more brutal at points after that. ...so, children books are kind of fucked up
I remember reading the Ga'Hoole books BECAUSE of the violence. I'm sure if i read Watership Down I'd wanna see the adaptation be as gruesome as the book, even as a 9 year old kid. (Not that we were trying to be edgy, we just thought it was cool and mature or something)
I got this on VHS as a 10-year old kid, not sure if it was from my parents or grandparents. I don't know if they knew how it was, but at least they let me watch it over and over again and never seemed surprised or said anything. I instantly loved it and the violence never bothered me, I recall it surprising me but that's about it. I always thought the film was just showing the harshness of nature and life, and how people destroy nature and take living space from other animals. I think I've seen this like a hundred times. It's one of my favourite animated movies and always has been.
That's because back then all film was just made and ages where not thought about. Hell, I think the whole cartoons are for kids only thing started in the late 70's to 80's when it was getting on TV just for that reason with nothing with any one else in mind. At least in the 60's you didn't need extra warnings to tell parents that you might not want your kids to go out and see things like Friz the Cat and Coonskin, yet bring out a CG film like Sausage Party or South Park the movie and theaters have to break out extra signs to remind parents that R means R.
This movie never came to my country, so when i watched (mostly 'cause i was utterly terrified by the animations clips youtube keep recommending me) i was already 25. So it was a brand new fresh experience to me with an old animation movie. And boy... Boy, oh boy! What a masterpiece! I've start watching because of the gore but, in the end, what captivated me was the strong characters, awesome storytelling, unique voice acting and the memorable dialogue. It is now one of my favorite movies ever! I'm very happy this movie keeps getting attention! Thanks, Ryan! ((:
"Bright eyes, burning like fire Bright eyes, how can you close and fail? How can the light that burned so brightly Suddenly burn so pale? Bright eyes" T_T our dad made us watch this when we were just 5 and 4 years old, and that song still to gets me even after 23 years, damn
I don’t even have a major childhood connection to Watership Down so having watched it for the first time a couple of years ago helped me to appreciate it for the brilliant work of art that it truly is and is often forgotten to be. It makes me sad that people only want to look at this film as “the scary animated film about rabbits” that they watched as a kid and haven’t bothered to check it out since. It’s a powerful film that deserves so much more respect in discussion.
I was terrified of this film when I was little. I did almost everything just to get rid of the VHS tape. After years has gone by, it kinda grew on me. But I'll only watch it early in the morning.
Eh, it looks that way but it really isnt. I remember watching this when I was around 5-7 and not being scared. I am a little unsettled that my parents showed to me at that age tho...
This is the kind of story I can really empathise with and enjoy.....as an adult. The overall message can be good for kids. But I keep thinking about the age I was I watched it (and other people my age) and this film fucked us up. I still have never seen this all the way from beginning to end and I still feel ill when I think about Bigwig's death scene. I was way too young to appreciate or understand this film. As a kid I had a fondness for the Animals of Farthing Wood. Which had a similar message and tone, but was much tamer in its depiction of violence. Which was still there, but not enough to leave lasting mental scars. A lot of American kids were traumatised by Bambi. But I was made to watch Watership Down several times before I'd ever seen Bambi. (At least Thumper gets to live and have babies! There's hope for rabbits yet!) Watership Down....rated U. Five of the Harry Potter films...rated 12.
Bigwig didn't die. The "speech" was a little premature. But the SPEECH could make me cry at any age!! 😢 What genius put that scene on the cover of the video?! Maybe someone's desperate attempt to WARN people!? 😓
Each person has their own life experience and philosophy of life. So even if an author claims not to have meaning in their story, it will have meaning nonetheless because it often (not always) reflects the author's perceptions of the world around them. This, as you point out very eloquently, happened in Richard Adams' novel.
My parents bought this movie when I was little thinking it looked cute and we watched it together. I was 6 or 7, and my sisters were around 4 years old. Needless to say, all of us were pretty horrified as it wasn't at all what we had expected. But even then, it had an impact on me that had nothing to do with the violence. It moved me. Though I couldn't understand it back then and much less put into words, the imagery with the black rabbit and that scene where their burrow gets filled somehow always stuck with me and made me want to understand more. I was simultaneously afraid of the movie and fascinated by it. My parents got rid of the film eventually, and it slipped out of our collective mind for over a decade, until by browsing youtube one day, I came across a video that mentioned watership down and suddenly it all came back to me. It's weird to put it that way, but I felt rewatching the movie again and truly understanding and experiencing the story was like a rite of passage. I wanted to put that weird combination of fear and curiosity behind me and understand why I had been captivated by this movie so many years ago. So I found a stream and watched it. I was 19 at the time. It was one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. To this day, Watership Down remains one of my favorite movies of all time.
It is...messed up. I watched it with my Dad, and I’m young, but I’m chill with adult themes such as violence, so my dad lets my watch older stuff, and yet, truly, this kid’s film is one of the most mentally damaging films I have ever seen.
Finally seeing this kind of comment. Could not believe this many people advocating over “kids should watch these kind of content cause it teaches about death”. There are other ways… Once I got watched a horro movie and I do believe it is connected to my anxiety too so I hope you get over it friend, I feel you.
I remember watching this when I was around nine years old. I loved it and always cried when the elderly Hazel dies at the end. But I felt comforted that his offspring would remember him and his journey and pass this wisdom onto their children. Imagine my horror when I read the book and discovered Hazel's offspring and grandchildren completely thought the whole thing was a myth or just a bedtime story and within just a few generations it would be twisted beyond all recognition and dismissed as folklore. THAT traumatised me more than anything. I was heartbroken. Every time I read the first line of the book, about the time of the primroses, I start to bawl and have to pause and pull myself together. I'm 48!!!
Barefoot Gen is actually a great film, full of hope. It's about moving on after a tragedy. The bombing happens in the begaining and the rest of the film is just Gen's life after that point.
Lesbian Lioness Yes, it does end with a positive message, but the amount of corpses pulverizing in the air, eyeballs melting, babies and little kids dying that a kid would experience before the hopeful ending, though.
I've never been able to get past the bunnies. I get why it fits with what's being portrayed, but it just seems weird watching such a dark movie through the eyes of animals I think are adorable.
Furious Sherman Definitely. It's just shock value done well, I must begrudgingly admit, combining two completely polar opposites: the grim and dark themes you'd expect to see with adults, and the child friendly art.
Furious Sherman i actually think that that’s the point. in the same way lord of the flies was made with children to emphasise the brutality of the events, using rabbits kind of shows how shamelessly bloody human war can be in a way that wouldn’t work with humans as we’re desensitised to human violence. obviously this interpretation only works if you’re looking at the film/book as an allegory for world war, but that’s kind of how i saw it
@@thefanofthreethings6595 what? Happy Tree Friends is funny because they over exaggerate. I don´t think it is funny, mroe boring. But cartoon animals slaughter each other for no reason is supposed to be funny . Like a harmless children cartoon mixed with splatter is just dumb. Even if you liek animals you should understand that it is just a dumb cartoon. Nobody said dying animals are funny to watch. And I also said that because Watership Down is not comedy, but Happy Tree Friends is Comedy, maybe w weird kind of comedy, but it is. Same liek when Kenny is dying in South Park all the time.
My granny bought the dvd when I was young without knowing what it was. After watching it, we were both completely terrified and gave me nightmares for weeks
I remember it was a stinking hot summer day in Australia, I was only about 10 years old when I stumbled upon the VCR tape Watership Down (ah, good ol VCR's). My dad and Aunty had taught me how to survive from an early age, ride horses, how to hunt and skin, what plants i can and can't eat, how to track ect; so when i watched this I felt like I was watching through a helpless perspective, I have a great respect and love for all animals as it is, even though I know how to hunt, but as Guillermo Del Toro said, it really did feel like a right of passage, a sort of...understanding of the bigger picture so to speak. Modern day animations have truly lost that enchanting aspect of storytelling though. I feel like nothing that comes out in modern times has any real substance or deep life lessons, like how they used to when I was little; even Disney have become dulled down, I mean Lion King - shows the cycle of life and death, Snow White - she's seen in a freakin coffin for crying out loud, and need I mention Bambi - his mother being shot, still makes me tear up every time but the overall message of Bambi (that I perceived at least) was, even in the hardest of times, you have to just keep going, to be strong, and resilient to whatever life throws at you. But these are lessons of life that I can't help but feel are crucial for kids growing up and venturing further into the "real" world, a sort of softer way of education in the fact that life is cruel and can be harsh, but to also equally know that it's just as important to rise up to the occasion and be strong in the face of adversity. (That's what i took from these movies any way).
i saw this as a child. it inspired me. its a tale of camradarie akin to the hobbit, its adventure story. its full of bravery and self sacrafice as well as brutality. wow dont we coddle kids these days n wonder why they fail to luanch
I also adored this story. It seems like a lot of the stories I read when I was young were in part conveying that life is 'valuable' in some kind of vague and abstract sense. That's great, but then Richard Adams comes in with his rabbits in a relentlessly dangerous world and conveys that life is not just vaguely valuable... it is urgently precious.
Watership Down is one of my all time favorite movies. This movie shows kids that nature is brutal, but that the rabbits can endure and live on and build a new world for themselves. The chaos between death and success. The movie also showed that people grieve over lost ones, as did Fiver when he thought Hazel was dead. Efrafa shows how harsh social order can get, and Hazel and Bigwig showed how they can create a peaceful social order (ex. Watership Down with the Efrafans and the Sandleford rabbits). The kind of movie parents should watch with their kids, and explain the hard shit to 'em.
This film accomplished a couple things in my household way back when I was a kid... 6 or 8 maybe... First, and at least it seemed most important to me, "Watership Down" was the first time I saw an animation as art, rather than the usual Bugs Bunny and Disney schtick I'd been growing up with since I could remember. Cartoons dropped anvils and pianos on people's (and rabbits) heads like such things could rain from the sky, and you didn't take it seriously... It was ALWAYS some kind of gag. Cartoons were silly, childish, and just fun to watch... Animation, on the other hand, was a finely crafted thing of story-telling. It was beautiful and awful all at once, and it was my first exposure to that complicated an idea. I had nightmares for a week or two...(lolz) BUT all of a sudden, I was fascinated. It would turn out just a couple years later, I would take up D&D and start crafting stories and fairy tales and all kinds of crazy sh*t... Thirty odd years later, I'm still happily welcomed at tables, still GM'ing as often as Playing, and still enjoying every aspect of that craft. Second... My mom... poor woman. She was the poor soul who had the Disney and Bugs Bunny mindset that Cartoons were Cartoons... If it was animated, it was kiddie-friendly... AND then "Watership Down" happened... she stuck it in the VCR (back when they were serious) and... Frankly, I think she suffered the worst. She came back in to check on us, kids, during one of the "more notorious" scenes... and we can leave it at "that didn't go well for her"... Looking back, it's kind of more a "lolz" than anything, but at the time, she not only had to confront her own misinterpretations of animated entertainment values... BUT the potential trauma she'd rained upon her kids. All in all, everyone turned out alright. We grew up, relatively unscathed, at least as far as our explorations into fantasy and animation were concerned with our psyche's... AND Maw eventually reached a certain level of forgiving herself for that little mishap... Perhaps, she simply reckoned that if "Watership Down" was the worst to expose her kids to, we were probably flying pretty high... And you do really well in exploring it without exposing too much for those who haven't watched it or read it through. I think it might be worth noting in some context, that like many other works, there's a certain element of psychology in the writer that can be spoken for in the script, novel, or finished animation as well... I mean, Adams was from a military background, and had faced some degree of the realities of war when he wrote it, so some aspects of his own process in dealing psychologically with life and existence and all that is beautiful and horrible in a single scope shows in his work. Of course, the same can be said for nearly every written work... if one wants to explore it that way. I think there is some truth to Peterson's suggestions that myth, lore, and religion comes in the symbolism of psychology. I don't know entirely how much truth one can glean, exactly, since there are cultural differences that poke holes in some of his suggestions, but... well... that's a little different subject, too. ;o)
If they do remake this it will be a watered down pussified version. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a gay or trans rabbit or some stupid shit in it too.
![เปิดใจ “ต้นหอม ศกุนตลา” หลังโดนพาดพิงธุรกิจที่เคยทำ และผลกระทบทำถูกปลดฟ้าผ่า! | แฉ 24 ต.ค.67 [2/3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vCi5OIqlxaE/mqdefault.jpg)
"This book is for anyone who wants to read it." Richard Adams
"Any book is a children's book if the child can read." --Mitch Hedberg
These two would have been fast friends.
He selectively ignored the fact he made parts of the book discuss the kidnapping of females to use as breeding stock.
@@RamusHelstein you miss the point that it's a story about animals and not humans.
@@RamusHelstein Yeah, I came four months later to also let you know that they're animals
its kinda funny, now people are gonna think mitch is some philosopher or something when hes just a crackhead comdeian
Now I'm just imagining a preschool where they read they read stuff like Mein Kampf and Kama Sutra
"Think of it as the Revenant but with rabbits"
*whispers to self* "The Rabbenant.."
🤣🤣🤣🤣
😂😂😂 omg
Rofl
The fact that even in 2019 people try to claim animation is only for children... baffles me.
Found the weeb.
@@coenvdb6032 yes, because South Park, Archer, and Rick and Morty are all from Japan. You solved the riddle, m8
@@KharonDeLune_vtb Those are for adolescents, AKA children AKA young adults. Thats their target audience. Adults can find them enteraining, but that goes for alot of things like lego or pokemon.
@@coenvdb6032 Dunno if I agree there, but to each their own I suppose. However.
Sausage Party.
@@KharonDeLune_vtb fine, but ehh... those are facts. The target audience of those shows are 14-25. Kids, adolescents and young adults.
My grandpa showed me this movie knowing full well how fucked up it was. I was seven. Thanks grandpa.
Your grandad loves you very much
Trying to prepare you for the harsh realities of life.
leathery420 True man
I think I was FIVE when my mum made me watch this
My granddad showed me it at around that age, except he just noticed it on sky and said it was good, i never found out whether he knew how messed up it was.
I certainly did by the end.
Another traumatized kid here.. Saw when I was 8 years old, thinking it was a cute movie about wabbits... Fuck me freddy.. I could not sleep for a week because of the 'gassing scene', the 'bloody field' one and...ffs the strangled one. Still, it's the most deep animation movie I've ever seen. The music, the art and spiritual references about life and death. Amazing.
I am 43@iv had a verry dark,twisted childhood.The kids of my time where so much stronger then most today.Wake up little ones!To much native can kill you.
Wouter d. B.
Here is the thing. Rabbits are savage. Male Rabbits have a habbit of killing their offspring and raping each other to show dominance. Nature can be brutal and I feel like today people are only seeing nature as this pure and innocent thing, which it isn't
Fuck me Freddy > Stephen King's Dreamcatcher?
am I the only one who didn't get traumatized by this as a kid and actually liked the gore? lol Like I always took the movie for what it was and what nature really is and we've had rabbits for meat ourselves (I've watched my grandpa kill and skin rabbits countless times) and I knew how they act between each other and it wasn't shocking or scary for me at all
@@TheAkwarium
You're not the only one. I am also not a pampered city baby and I know what nature is like.
Watership Down was dark as hell, but it's a merry ray of sunshine compared to The Plague Dogs.
Poor Ralph and Snitter you are rooting for them all the way. But you kind of understand when older, the panic of a plague and to destroy, would be the only solution.
They got to the island. They did.
@@rayrayfad3654 Really? It was left rather ambiguous as to whether they made it or not.
The Unholy Messiah If I didn’t believe they made it, I’d be miserable the rest of my life.
True. That movie haunts me...
Jesus, did every child in Britain get traumatized by this film?
most of us, yeah
Dunno about Britain, but as a Kiwi that was made to watch it in school at about 7 years, yeah.
Here in the Philippines as well. After watching the movie I never saw rabbits the same way again.
American kids who's parents watched it in the 80s too
It looks like it :)
I saw this in 79 when I was 18,and stoned. Blew my mind.
Out of the Grave how did you live
😅
Well good for you for not getting scar for life
@TheHorsePrincess QueenOfHorses You might bee exaggerating a bit there, he's not even 60
Hmm... Sounds like something to try.☺
All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies,
and whenever they catch you, they will kill you.
But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning.
Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.
I loved Chicken Run holy shit that got dark
Kayla Johnson Lmao right?!
I had no idea chicken run was based on a concentration camp 😭
What gave it away the barbed wire fences or Europe with flak lights
I mean this is the story where once the chickens stop laying eggs they are eaten as a reflection of how replaceable they are
Ironically, as a kid, I loved the Watership Down movie but got too disturbed by Chicken Run and to this day I can't watch it again. Lol I am prolly the only one
The end of Watership Down is kind of interesting in terms of religious symbolism in that it ends with confirmation. Plague Dogs is bleak because there's no true confirmation that the island is real, or at least not concrete, but Hazel meeting the black rabbit and being shown to head into the afterlife is very confirming of the rabbits religious beliefs. The idea that there is an afterlife, that pressing onward will reward them, that there is hope, are all given legitimacy.
@ClandestineOstrich that's the point though, as a outside viewer we cant be certain.
The rabbit's story of creation serves as the movie's frame. So there is in fact little doubt of their god and the afterlife being true is it not? They live and fight and sacrifice due to their faith in this. No matter how many fall , no matter how bad the odds are they will never perish if they are one step ahead. Everything grim in the movie is brightened by this trust.
Watership Down is an Amazing movie. Both dark and disgusting, yet very well made
I am a rabbit lover who saw this movie as a child. I read the book in pieces over several years because the movie impressed me so deeply. Yes, it's traumatic and dark, but it's so well made that I always remembered. The book is too complex to take in one sitting... or month ... though it's still well written.
@@wendychavez5348 I love your bunnies!❤️🐰
@@wendychavez5348This movie scarred me so much as a 14 year old that i refuse to ever watch it again. I don't like movies that are just messed up just for the sake of being messed up. I'm talking about movies like Watership Down, Martyrs and The Human Centipede.
At least she didn't show you Plague Dogs, Grave of the Fireflies or Felidae...
Grave of fireflies is definitely not for children, that movie hits you hard
God, Grave of the Fireflies was sad, gives me chills thinking about it
Plague dogs!! Thats the other movie I knew I watched I forgot the name of
Felidae is definetly not for kids, since it's a murder mystery with references to ideals of the Third Reich that a kid wouldn't understand.
But Grave of Fireflies is fine. Just because a movie is sad, doesn't mean kids shouldn't watch it. It's bad to shelter kids too much
payson terhune those stuff are horrible...
Watership Down made me cry at the end, because of Hazel dying, but he wasn't worried about dying himself, only about the rabbits he was leaving behind, because he had been the leader. That got to me badly.
Don't read The Plague Dogs by the same author, if Watership Down upsets you.
Zappa Woman too late. Lol
Zappa Woman thanks for spoiling it ffs
At least Watership Down had a happy ending, at least compared to the film version of Plague Dogs
I can do Watership Down, but I can't do Plague Dogs. I need a bitter sweet ending, not bitterly sad.
thanks for the spoil, bitch. I was about to smoke a bowl and watch that
I'm a grown-ass woman in my thirties and I _still_ refuse to watch Watership Down.
Jexxer do it! You’re ready ! The time has come
Yes me too, I’m 46 saw it when I was 7 and I won’t watch it again.
Your loss~
Watership down is an amazing, powerful, and influential story. Idk if you're trying to be quirky but you're doing yourself a disservice by refusing to watch it. It does have a couple of intense scenes, but they underscore the seriousness of the story's themes. Its jarring reputation comes from being one of the first animated films to tackle a mature theme. To me the story contrasts the benevolence of the natural order between that of man. Nature kills for the greater good of all under her dominion, whereas man kills for the good of an individual. However, all living things are part of and therefore subjected to nature. Eventally we will all succumb to the power she holds over us. As her subejcts we should try to understand and respect the order of the natural world as that of the greater good, even when it seems at odds with the interests of the individual. The hawk kills to feed its own but it also kills so that the rabbits don't overpopulate and inflict greater suffering upon each other.
Writing this comment amid the Covid-19 crisis, btw. >
Zach B you fucking owned her
My parents recorded Watership Down off of the tv for me when I was about 3 and I watched it every Easter. I think that's why I could then never get into Disney films. They seemed far too bland in comparison.
Lol
Disney movies are amazing.
It's not that I think they are bad, they just never did anything for me. Partly because I hate musicals and Disney films always had so many damn songs in I had to fast forward through. I was just always more into action animation. The one Disney cartoon I loved was Gargoyles but it's a nigh on forgotten show.
Rods toy box Well there's a handful of Disney films without songs in them. One I would suggest is The Black Cauldron. It's not the best film, but I think it's worth the watch.
This was highkey one of my favourite movies when I was four, I feel you bud.
lol, we literally just finished watching this movie at school today and i saw it in my recomended videos. Well played FBI guy in my phone
Google and Facebook are always listening.
"Don't worry, it's cute. It talks about bunnies:)"
-my dad when I was like four
My parents never showed me anything like this because they are from a foreign country but I stumbled upon this and I just messed up my life and love for rabbits
Honastly I still think about this film today. I can’t name another film that upset me so much as a child
Funny I adored it so much. It was one of my favorite films throughout all of my childhood. I dont remember anything scary besides the part with the weasel and that wasnt that bad. Guess i was an edgelord kid. Lmao!
Scarlett Creek caroline
Youre not alone Scarlett.
This movie always stirs strong emotions in me every time I watch it and even just watching this I feel like I'm going to cry. It's potent mixture of sadness and cuteness. No other movie give me such emotional feelings as this one.
Domenic Hood If you're trying to advertise porn, then I'm gonna tell you: We don't want any of it.
Dragon Skunk ii
Dragon Skunk me too
The contrast between childhood warmth at the cuteness with the emotional slam of what happens heightens both the feeling of innocence as well as the gravity of the message.
Dragon 🐉jj
Honestly agree with Adams. Sometimes, I just want to write a story and ready a story. Doesn't need to have a message or be masterfully interwoven with themes. In fact, I am kind of tired of thematic writing or at least how people portray it as the pinnacle, the golden rule, and necessity. If that is your cup of tea, by all means continue to enjoy it. But I swear that there are very few messages to deliver or themes to explore that I haven't already experienced by this point.
I get that, but I also feel that reading a story then afterwards realising that it had a subtle meaning to it can make the story feel all the more impactful
lolwut, then why you here when you can avoid.
But it always has a meta meaning, even if you don't intend to
For the longest time, I thought I just imagined this film because, while I remembered scenes vividly, I couldn’t remember the name. It wasn’t until many years and many detailed descriptions typed into Google later, that I finally found the movie was not just some figment of my imagination. It’s one of those childhood films, that once in a blue moon (almost like a really bad acid trip,) I distinctly remember watching as a kid at my grandparents’ house with my sister -specifically the scene where one of the rabbits claws it’s way past a bunch of dead rabbits stuck in their burrow. I’ve asked my sister every time it pops up in my mind and she doesn’t remember it at all. I’m convinced she’s just repressed the horrifying memories.
slimkt ikr? There's a kid's movie that i forgot the name that's driving me crazy, it was a film where the main characters are a family and i think it was only the kids but i could be wrong but they drank a potion that transformed them into fishes (i remember the little girl was a starfish) but they were in great danger and the movie was tense and we even see the characters almost dying and after breaking down.... I WANT TO REWATCH IT DAMNIT!
That sounds a lot like like Help! I'm a fish from 2000.
@@Annakanerva HOLY SHIT!!! I LOVE YOU AND THE POWER OF INTERNET
@@KingkyLeor glad to help 😄
SAME!!!
Once they aired this film on Easter....many angry parents and scarred kids.
Tori .W hahah i remember that oh my god my parents were so confused as they'd seen it and we were like wtf is this on and my younger brother wanted to watch it bc he didn't know what it was.
Someone who saw drawn bunnies on the movie poster, but didn't watch it.
Theres at least one news article on this every year. They always seem to show it on Easter and parents always complain. A bit cruel really to the unsuspecting.
oh my godddddd
Even watching this video brought on a feeling of discomfort I haven't felt in years. This film gave me real trauma. I have never recovered fully from the gassing scene.
G T I still cannot believe my parents sat there and let us watch something So disturbing. WTF?
More disturbing is that it happens irl
You're an empath who can recognize suffering in others, that's a good thing
we watched this on the last day on 3rd grade, im 27 now and JUST started being able to handle disturbing media
There was a gassing scene?!
I have to go back and watch it again. It gas been yrs. The remake is ok, not great.
I'm actually kinda glad my parents thought this was typical Disney fair, too. For all the nightmares that the beginning scene (Fiver's premonition) gives me to this day, this movie was actually fricking brilliant (something I discovered rewatching it a couple years ago). And, yeah, more lucky sheltered kids should be aware that death and violence are, like, a major part of life before they grow up. --Another great analysis; thanks for the reminder, Ryan. I'm going to watch Plague Dogs now.
Good luck, man. Plague Dogs is super good and it left a huge mark on me but I can't bring myself to watch it again... It's one of those.
Be prepared for some depression and misery, I saw both watership and plague dogs as a kid and whilst both of them upset me at the time and I've definitely grown to appreciate them more as I've got older, I still find plague dogs the harder to watch of the two, it just leaves you feeling so hopeless...
Still a great movie tho.
The Plague Dogs is rough. Really, really rough.
M'aiq the Liar Plague Dogs is a wonderful movie.
M'aiq the Liar maybe children shouldn't watch, read this because they'll see they are those rabbits with the golden rings around their necks. read you ignorant beasts!
Thank you SO much for making a video on Watership Down. I'm an animator, and 1978's Watership Down is one of my two favourite films ever; the other film being Yellow Submarine. I first saw the film when I was around eight years old, and I think Watership Down is beautifully animated, voice acted, and has wonderfully-detailed backgrounds.
I watched this film with my mother when I was nine. I was crying at a couple parts and my mom wanted to turn the movie off. "No, mom, I need to see what happens to the rabbits." It was a great story and even then I knew it....I knew that it was important that I see it. And it stayed with me too this very day....over thirty years later. Most films for adults do not have this quality of good storytelling.
Bright eyes burning like fire
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale
Bright eyes .
I cut it from the credits because I couldn't chance a CR claim... Btw, I miss Casper.
It's such a beautiful film Patricia. The little rabbits they are so brave...
This song helped me grieve and cope with the death of my first dog. Still cannot sing it without some healthy tears.
Omg so this movie wasn't a hallucination.
poofylove2 could never remember the name, but it started showing up again everywhere last year
I remember i was like why am i being allowed to watch this
I remember this movie so vividly from my childhood, but I could never think of the name... Until this video
poofylove2 when this movie is scarier than some of Stephen Kings books...
Man, I remember the first time I saw this movie. I was five or six, and I was at my friend's house. I was super sick, so much so my mom had to pick me up later; so I watched this movie as a young boy drifting in between consciousness and fever dreams. It was crazy
The Revenant+Rabbits=The Rabinant
Can someone make this a thing please?
The rabbits found a new habitat. Rabitat.
Hearthstone+Hares=Harestone
Rabbits discover drums. Rabbit-tat-tat
Lol...my dad used the same "it's animated, it must be for children!" logic when he took me (then a child) to the theater to see Wizards. Awwwwwwkward.
shammy dammy Mine were never like that, dad used to love watching marvel cartoons with me 😆
There's a bit of a difference between Marvel Cartoons and Wizards...and my father found the experience to be very awkward. (But that's what he got for not actually looking at its rating.)
shammy dammy when he talked about the alwaus innocent thing first movie i thought of was wizards
Out of curiosity, what happened in Wizards that was awkward? I never watched it, obviously
Harry, you're a wizard
This story still intrigues me. I’ve never looked at a rabbit without thinking is that an officer rabbit on a wide patrol. Amazing.
Me too lol. When they freeze, the first thing i think is "tharn"
Black Cauldron was a superbly dark animation as well.
I agree It was bloody brilliant. I watched it recently and its still great
dang, 166 people actually liked black cauldron. I guess there's a movie for everyone.
This movie really stressed me out so much as a kid. Wtf where they thinking when they rated it PG?
the trouble with the rating is that there was no PG, that won't appear for another 4 years and there is also no 12. All you have is a U or a A which is like a 15 so they had to go with the lower rating, if the BBFC was to rate in today, they gone on record to saying it is a 12/12A but no one is letting them rerate it
except pg is an american based rating. also lauren while i agree that it doesn't fit the modern pg rating it should be said that america at the time had 3 ratings PG,R,AO/XXX PG-13 wouldn't hit until Indiana Jones. Also PG fi9lms frequently showed bare TnA
Pg stands for Parental Guidance. Which means it's up to the Parent to decide if their child should watch the movie or not. By this definition, watership down does in fact fit in with the PG rating. If a child is made upset over what they say, it is entirely the parents fault.
@@IceLizardsUnited very true except in the UK, dont know about the US, the film came out as a U and not PG.
@@IceLizardsUnited
That's exactly what I was gonna reply!
"Why was watership down so messed up!?"
Felidae: _"How cute...."_
S-Boy only problem is that felidae wasn’t advertised for kids and didn’t get a child friendly rating. yeah, it’s more messed up, but they made it pretty clear it wasn’t for kids
True but Felidae never got a U for "universal" rating (one down from PG)
Haha lol so true
Dude you are spot on about how this movie scared kids into thinking Woundwort would come for them. I was literally terrified of that happening I had so many nightmares lol.
I think he was talking about how the narrator explains that communities of rabbits still talk about Woundwort's legacy to scare youngsters into behaving, as opposed to people in real life telling their kids that a rabbit is going to kill them XD
SnowBooper ! The Rabbit is going to kill you. Unless you have the Holy Handgrenade of Antioc
SnowBooper ! Yeah I know but as a kid I remember hearing that line and thinking it was true lol
Indeed. My brother, a clinical psychologist jokes that he joined the Marines to get away from the nightmares this movie gave all of us. I still can't stand the song or sitting through the whole thing even on Xanax!
"run away!"
Oh boy can't wait for the remake for this one.
P-13 with a rap remix in the ending
yes, I watched it and I loved it
Vicente Ortega Rubilar rabbits from Compton
Directed by Michael Bay ofc
And, of course, made in CGI.
Vicente Ortega Rubilar it should be so toned from the messege it is presenting, oh and the blood.
Cartoons being child-friendly.
Watership Down: *hold my beer*
Watership Down: We don’t do that here
Happy tree friends:Hold my beer
Fritz the cat: hold my crack pipe
Felidae: Hold my vodka
Hentai: Hold my dick
For another heartbreaking animation, watch The Plague Dogs, from the author of Watership Down, same producer, too. It's horrific but so good.
yes - Snitter the terrier's story will rip your soul apart.
Just for clarification for those unfamiliar with the story, the protagonists are forced to eat a man at one point due to their starvation despite their (Snitter's really) love for humanity. That film is messed up.
I Love Watership Down. Its a metaphore for living togther
The author must've been an incredibly dour man to have come up with such grim, hopeless stories.
I greatly dislike the “reputation” this movie (and by extention, the book) has.
It seems to me like everyone dismisses or remembers the movie as “omg so violent, scarred, chilhood trauma xd” without looking at the truly great things and ideas the story has.
Anyways, great video, you’ve earned a sub.
It's one of my favourite movies ever. I probably watched it first when I was 7 or so. Loved it then, still love it now. I also dislike its reputation and generally just how it's looked at and discussed. Even the framing of this video "why is watership down so messed up" irks me because it's not "messed up" especially not when compared to nearly any PG13 movie.
I haven't seen it yet, but as a child of the 90s who was shown a lot of spookier, shocking kids films from the 80s, I for one think we need more kids movies that aren't afraid to get frighteningly real with their audience. I feel much of today's children's media talks down to its audience, but I'd like to see a comprehensive study to find out if that's just my bias. There was plenty of patronizing drivel in my day, as well.
I think the blame--as usual--lies with the marketing, which I'm glad Ryan mentioned. Watership Down is a great film and a beautiful story, but it falls into that grey area that marketing execs hate, where they're not sure if it's for kids or adults ("it's a cartoon? but there's blood and violence? we *must* have clearly defined categories, people!!") and they mess up audience's expectations for what the film is trying to say. It's a tragedy, really, because the movie is incredibly well done. I think if it had been marketed correctly it might not have quite the bad reputation it does, now.
yeah
but unfortunately a ton of us were exposed to this movie WAY too early, by (grand)parents bought "the cute disney-esque bunny cartoon!!" without checking out the actual content.
Plus the advertisements and ratings didn't help; by, bizarrely, avoiding all the "dark and scary" bits
It's an excellent movie, coming back to it as an adult. One of my favorites!
And tbh it probably wouldn't have bothered me back then, if i KNEW what it was about.
Unfortunately my family had me *expecting* "Bambi with Rabbits," therefore the whole thing was a shock.
i have a feeling a bunch of other tiny kids were exposed to it similarly, so i don't blame 'em
I would recommend they watch it though, when they're ready
Yes I agree there is a meaning of this movie and it is very complex and deep meaning. I personally love this movie because it gives us a story of rabbits in nature and how they have to survive in order to stay alive.
As shocking and graphic as the content never stopped being, I am very weirdly thankful that it was part of my childhood. Yes, I may have yeeted out of the room to avoid the Violent Scary Parts(tm) every time, but there's something beautifully alluring and--as Ryan described--comforting that made me watch it over and over again. sans the Violent Scary Parts(tm).
One of my all-time favourite animated films based on one of my all-time favourite novels. Both are gorgeous, pastoral masterpieces that utterly capture the idea of nature in all of its states, both the beauty and the violence.
police, Police, POLICE!!!!!
Bob hill
???
rb driftin Hell yes 👍🏻
rb driftin nevet read the book but now i might have to if i can get, loved the movie🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Bob hill boy ain’t right
That unintentional symbolism plagued J. R. R. Tolkien to his death as well. Many during his time found allusions to religious iconography, environmentalism, and social commentary on World War 1 and 2. He frequently explained that he never intended any of it but people still saw what they saw. Unlike C.S. Lewis or Madeleine L'Engle who never cared for subtlety.
This is the constant conversation that we get in this postmodern age. People write about what they think and experience, and show things from their own viewpoint. Even if they didn't intend it, the things they write, the stories that they reveal about themselves and what they've seen and thought about can give deeper insight about their own world view. Just because you weren't intentionally trying to write a commentary on how we cope with an awful reality, doesn't mean that you didn't end up doing just that. And, in that sense, the "ownership" of a story's message or interpretation doesn't belong to the author - it belongs to his audience.
But then you have to analyse it this way. English teachers will however insists on finding the secret meaning behind all works of literature, regardless of whether there is one or not, leading to a lot of total bullshit.
Carewolf Art is subjective, and what it means to one person, can mean something *completely* different to one another, despite what others may tell you. Nobody should tell you how to analyze something for the sole purpose that "this is the correct and only meaning for this work of art" (school of course is the exception since you're doing it for an assignment, unless you have *A LOT* of wiggle room and are actually able to state your interpretation on it, in which case, by all means, go ahead and do so).
We must all decide for ourselves for what something means to us, in which case we are *choosing* to analyze something in *our* own way, that nobody but *us* sees and believes. The "secret" meaning may be there and be a bit of a revelation to someone, and then it may not be there for someone else, because it didn't resonate with them. It's all about a matter of perspective
True, and you can analyse that, and you can analyse the story structure or unintended parallels, what you CANT do is pretend that this was the author intend when the author didn't intend it, and at least my teachers kept doing the latter.
Youve never been to Art school huh?
SOME aspects of SOME Arts is subjective.
You should do Why the Plague Dogs is so messed up!
Y
That’s not someone’s weird poor attempt to claim something is for children, that’s an attempt to be depressing to an extreme while being recognised as based in reality
I can watch the most vicious horror movies, but I still can't bring myself to watch Watership Down, or read the book. That bloody Bright Eyes song still makes me bawl like a little baby, I had to try to hold it together in a store a few weeks ago when it was played on the radio. Failed. Failed miserably. Watching this made me cry enough, I really don't think I will survive the movie. No way in hell am I watching Plague Dogs either.
I watched some of it with my friend, wouldn't recommend it, I think it literally starts with them drowning a dog until it almost dies and then bring it back up before it does.
@@xunox9304 😭 no way could I handle that
Yeah, and that's the beginning.
I looked up the movie and the book, didn't watch anything, but managed to cry for the entire day because that's all I could think about. Didn't help either that on the day I was looking it all up, it was the anniversary of my dogs death. Urgh.
The book is great, it's one of the inspirations for warrior cats but way better. It does have it's dark moments (okay, a lot of dark moments) but it's a lovely view into the world of rabbits and I'd recommend it to anyone over the age of maybe 9-12, depending on how you feel about that stuff.
(Oh and the age suggestion is from personal experience, it may not be correct for everyone)
I saw Watership Down when I was 5 years old. My parents had no clue what they had rented for me. Simultaneously scarred me for life and cemented itself as one of my favorite films of all time. Funny how that can work that way.
I loved this movie when I was like 4. But after seeing some clips as an adult, I see it’s actually terrifying. What the hell was wrong with me.
I saw it when I was a child and remember it as a little dark sometimes. Saw it with my son and he screamed and said we should turn it off. Now as an adult, I realize that it is not a children's movie.
The rabbits are just a wolf in sheep's clothing.
A child's perception is much different from an adults, go watch The Last Unicorn and look at the reviews
😄 Thank you, I was around 4 or 5 when I first watched this in German TV and I wasn't terrified but spellbound ... maybe also because I clearly remember I assumed the "bigger bunnies" being parents defending their children (Pipkin, Fiver and all smaller bunnies) against real REAL bad bunnies!) 😁 So the message it brought to me was entirely good. Hope can be desperate, but it still is hope & worth fighting for ... only I wasn't able to put that in words back than. ^^
Maybe you saw an edited version when you were 4? It could also be that everyone was tougher and stronger years ago, PC woke crap has softened everyone, maybe that's it...
It was the same with me! I saw it when I was about 7 or 8, and it was exciting and thrilling to me. The violence and gore didn't seem to affect me as much as it did when I watched it again a few years ago. The scene where the rabbits' burrow was tilled and all the holes filled up with dirt and dying screaming bodies horrified me. I think as a kid, it was just a cartoon, but as an adult, it was a story and I felt more connected with the characters and their suffering
Adams sounds like a military man, who recreated the world as he said saw it, without understanding the ideas behind it.
I think people like Adams and Tolkien who claim they don't use allegory and symbolism know they're full of shit, they just want people to decipher meaning for themselves as it is very private to the them and they view it as the reader's responsibility to interpret. That's my theory anyway.
@@outlawscar3328 I bet there's a couple reasons he Adams claims it's not symbolic, Your reason makes sense, in that he doesn't want to spoonfeed meaning to readers and sometimes a story is best enjoyed without over-analyzing it to death. I think also it might be more valuable to see this story as a form of criticism or commentary. Don't focus too much on symbolism, besides just imagining if the rabbits were people, for example. Well when we make war stories about humans fighting in wars and struggling to survive, we don't really boil it down to symbolism do we? No, we look at the stories of humans in war and conflict through a lense of critiquing, analyzing and commenting on the dynamics of human nature, and symbols don't matter at that point. It's basically just "look how cruel living things are to each other, and yet at the same time look at how some of us cling on to hope and optimism." Again, no symbol interpretation is needed, as you can basically just quote the characters themselves.
@@outlawscar3328 actually Adam didn't care for interpretation. He recieved many fan mails from people who each gave their own theory and questions such as is it based on the cold war, is hazel Jesus Christ. He always scoffed and gave the same answer each time. Its just a story about rabbits, nothing more.
@@outlawscar3328 or they just wrote a cool story which happened to carry heavy symbolism as a result of their good writing?
@@iiiivvvv9986 Go read the Lord of the Rings again and then tell me there's no direct allegory to Christian myth or World War II.
Also tell me the Ring isn't symbolism for power and its corrupting and addictive nature.
When I read it I felt like I was reading a fantasy novel. Like Lord of the Rings, y'know?
We had a group of characters each fitting some sort of role (leader, seer, fighter, etc.) escaping some predetermined calamity to find a place of their own.
This is in the catergory of films that are way beyond of understanding, like chicken run too or the last unicorn.
The film of "The Plague Dogs" messed me up....and I watched it a year ago, as a full-grown adult.
Seriously, that movie is the definition of "bleak".
I would prefer Watership Down over The Plague Dogs any day. The Plague Dogs freaked the shit out of me.
I haven't seen both Watership Down or The Plague Dogs, but the one film that solidified the definition of "bleak" for me was actually the War of the Worlds (2005). Watching that film at age 9 was pretty crazy, and filled with the longest feeling of dread and hopelessness watching on a large-screen TV with surround sound and pitch-black night with no lights on. I hadn't yet been exposed to films of this sort before so I had no idea what to expect, much less recognise famous actors. So I was watching with a fresh set of eyes.
I believe the greatest thing that affected me was watching the real faces of the people in the background. There's a greater scale of horror watching others getting wiped out being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Entire families, everyone moving to survive. And finally, the perspective of the few survivors while in the distance other humans, just like them and just like me were being hunted down in the distance by ominous and ever-present adversaries like those seemingly never-ending nightmares. All of these concepts were new to me, and I was seeing its portrayal in live-action realism.
I too saw The Plague Dogs a few years ago for the first time (at age 30) and the end brought me to tears. I can't remember the last time a movie left me feeling truly injured. Its an amazing film but doesn't have the same balance of beauty and brutality that makes Watership Down so rewatchable. The idea of watching The Plague Dogs again sounds unpleasant but I'll always respect it for being able to make me feel the way it did... just when I thought I'd seen it all.
Matty Brown VHS Archives I know a movie I can't even bare to watch a second time. It's called _The Grave Of The Fireflies._ It's so super depressing.
Agree completely. And "injured" is absolutely how it felt...well put.
Honestly there's a lot of edgelords in this comment section lol. "DON'T BE A SNOWFLAKE THIS PREPARES KIDS FOR THE REAL WORLD"
Like... if your "real world" involved run-ins with dangerous cultlike groups and your friends dying like flies to random outside threats then, just as your first heads-up, you _may_ have had a bad childhood.
Tamar H. I think it’s more like you need to teach kids the world isn’t gonna treat them right and sometimes it’s not your job to fix the worlds problems and no matter what you keep moving on
there are plenty of places like that in the world. Even in the idealistic world of the US. Take a wrong turn in my city, St. Louis, you wear clothes that make you look like you got status and wealth, you leave valuable shit in your car on the wrong block, or just in general don't pay attention, you will be taken advantage of.
God I hate when people say we need to prepare kids for the real world. They’re fucking kids! There are ways to teach them about our world in a lighter manner. You can still teach kids about life without being an edge lord.
Tamar H. Undoubtedly, about time someone says it.
Totally Anonymous I apologize for your loss. Life is surely tough, but nonetheless if our intent after all the pain we go through is to feed it to others, then we’ve already let the worst happen, and that’s the death of our humanity and of hope.
"Watership Down" is a masterpiece.
You're high
Total bollocks
Agree
@@GabidenZhazylbekov damn right
@@GabidenZhazylbekov wait you agree this film is bad or goid
Came across your Courage the Cowardly Dog video, then Coraline and now this - you netted yourself a new subscriber, friendo.
Surprised I never had a run-in with the movie until I was about 13-14 (I saw King's It when I was 6, lol), but I totally understand what del Toro meant about how Watership Down could be a sort of rite of passage for kids interested in storytelling and animation. I remember how the movie didn't really shock me in the graphic department (don't get me wrong, General Woodwort was portrayed _terrifyingly villainous_ and the gassing scene was really dark) so much as the message behind it, as you so succinctly pointed out so well.
I don't really know how my abilities as a writer and artist would have panned out if I didn't read more than just the school's "required reading" or go out of my way to find foreign movies I heard about on early 2000s message boards that sounded interesting and it's sad when I hear the younglings ask where I get my ideas from...
I saw this film as a kid and I never felt traumatized by it. If anything the violence is not mindless but well placed and not having the restrictions a kids' film has it was able to do a lot more. Incidentally anything involving animals might as well be animated even today with CGI. If anything this always seemed an intelligent film that didn't insult my intelligence, and I don't mind the religious overtones because it just gives more character to the film by including what the rabbits believe.
schizoidboy I loved this movie when I was a kid. I watched it over and over. My brothers and sister didn’t like it. The story was so emotional - it sucked me in!
i'm so depressed and traumatized forever, that fields full of blood thing, at no age could i have taken that calmly
That scene was and still is terrifying
I wanna see it now
wølf North :0 ドギー‹‹‡›› do it
I watched this movie as a kid I completely forgot about that scene in particular, seeing in this video past my 20s and it made me very uncomfortable, in an odd way I don't think any other horror could because it's recalling a primal thing embedded in my psyche as a fricking child
I took it calmly.
I feel like I’m getting depressed just watching small clips of the film
The ending always brings me down.
Don't get me wrong, it's got a positive ending. It's just a bitter sweet ending.
One memorable scene (if I remembered it fully):
Big Wig "I told you I wanted to impress you, and hope I have."
The General "And I told you Bigwig... I would kill you..!"
See, fun for all ages, and quintessentially English.
12:34 That scene where the rabbit said "that's no good" i thought it was cute.
The Reviewing Area Pipkin is such an adorable little rabbit 🐇
Pipkin is a mood
It took like 4 year to suppress this from my memory
Oh boy, here we go with round two of the night terrors this brought
Edit: I feel some weird kind of closure after seeing this. Thank you
Mindy Auron r
The fear of death this film inspired in me as a child has shaped so many of my views later in life. From politics to philosophy and religion.
Loser/ pity for you
luciferangelica oh shut the fuck up
Darren Hawkins I don’t need your fucking pity
I remember finding this vhs tape when I was little without the box or anything and it showed the cover of peaceful landscape with bunnies and figured it be a happy good movie. Boy was I wrong after watching those horrible scenes I was so confused and scared first seeing it
Has anyone seen Wizards? That is one film I will never forget.
Fritz?! They killed Fritz!! Those dirty lousy rotten stinking faeries! They killed Fritz!
I could listen to that narrator forever
I know this is 9 months old, but should I watch wizards? I've heard of it but never if it was any good and TH-cam really seems to want me to watch it.
Francelia Valerio I highly recommend it. It’s a good intro to Ralph Bakshi (and arguably his least controversial film), but also it’s just a rly good movie. It’s a little clunky at times but I think part of that is due to (some p noticeable tbh) budget problems. Definitely go into it with an open mind; personally, I think it’s more of a passion project, as opposed to Bakshi’s other films that are more political. There’s some political message to it, but it’s very basic/on-the-nose.
But yeah, I say definitely watch wizards whenever you can, it’s free on TH-cam and there’s an interesting twist at the end (subversion might be a better word? I’m not sure but it’s partly why wizards is one of my fave movies)
Zzzz 😴 Heavy Metal was better
Ah, Watership Down! How many children had their first existential crisis because of this movie?
I'm guessing it was more than two.
I remember watching this at my grandparents when I was like 5. It surprised me at how graphic it was, but that didn’t stop me from watching it over and over!
2:35 I remember seeing this scene as a child and fainting for the first time. It's how I discovered my bloodphobia. Looking at it now, still makes me a little dizzy. 😅
I bet blood draws are a nightmare for you. I had a bad experience with them as a kid. I almost fainted taking my pulse in middle school. Now I can have a blood draw sitting up without getting dizzy but I still can't look. I also don't like taking my blood pressure and it's harder to look at blood in movies and TV now more than before.
I've never watched this movie and I want to cry
Edit: 9 minutes in I cried
Ohwont you tell us bout those rabbits gorge
Yeah, I've never seen it either. The scene at 5:50 with the cars made me laugh hard, and the "Violet's gone!" line around 9:57 came close to bringing me to tears. I think I may need to watch this movie...
Oh, and if the scenes here bother you, do yourself a favor by NEVER watching Grave of the Fireflies.
Pussy
I'd suggest staying away from Schindler's List, as it involves actual people, not a metaphor, with rabbits.
Same here.
I watched Watership Down when I was about 5 or 6 years old, it messed my older sister up a bit but I loved this story, I still love it and I understand why my mind is so messed up today lol.
Edenrose YT shut up bitch
How did it mess up your sis
"They're not humans, so it's perfectly okay to show this much violence to young children!"
At least that's the logic the MPAA gave to Transformers: The Movie before they threw in an "Oh shit'
They threw in the "oh shit" to get a PG rating because G/U rated movies didn't get as many screenings per day, apparently.
@@KrisFrost4359 Yeah. The whole "They did it so that parents would have to come along and know what toys to buy" theory doesn't really hold much water when you consider that Arcee and Unicron didn't even make it past the prototype phase.
Optimus Prime ...... NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Whenever people say the movie is messed up I just wanna ask "hey, duderino...dude...DID YOU READ THE BOOK THO?"
because the book is far more brutal, more twisted and sad. I mean, I recall MURDERS and more.
It's the same with the Ga'Hoole books. You go all "oh cool, a book about owls cool!"
First book starts with attempted murder. Includes what can only be called child psychological and physical abuse. Books get more brutal at points after that.
...so, children books are kind of fucked up
Tejoncita There is murder/attempted murder in the movie tho
Yeoooo loved both books so much tho
I remember reading the Ga'Hoole books BECAUSE of the violence. I'm sure if i read Watership Down I'd wanna see the adaptation be as gruesome as the book, even as a 9 year old kid. (Not that we were trying to be edgy, we just thought it was cool and mature or something)
The novel is fucking brilliant
I got this on VHS as a 10-year old kid, not sure if it was from my parents or grandparents. I don't know if they knew how it was, but at least they let me watch it over and over again and never seemed surprised or said anything. I instantly loved it and the violence never bothered me, I recall it surprising me but that's about it. I always thought the film was just showing the harshness of nature and life, and how people destroy nature and take living space from other animals. I think I've seen this like a hundred times. It's one of my favourite animated movies and always has been.
It's not just animation. I remember being given Howard the Duck to watch, during a primary school group sleepover. The scars are real... -_-
LexiconWaffle DUCK TITS! Woo hoo
In fairness, having to watch a movie as bad as Howard the Duck would also scar a lot of adults.
funny because back in the day when it was the 30s, animation was often targeted towards adults
yeah its weird to think. Mickey Mouse being a jerk to Minne and Porky swearing
Especially when betty boop was made as a sex icon, she's the first animated waifu basically.
That's because back then all film was just made and ages where not thought about. Hell, I think the whole cartoons are for kids only thing started in the late 70's to 80's when it was getting on TV just for that reason with nothing with any one else in mind. At least in the 60's you didn't need extra warnings to tell parents that you might not want your kids to go out and see things like Friz the Cat and Coonskin, yet bring out a CG film like Sausage Party or South Park the movie and theaters have to break out extra signs to remind parents that R means R.
This movie never came to my country, so when i watched (mostly 'cause i was utterly terrified by the animations clips youtube keep recommending me) i was already 25. So it was a brand new fresh experience to me with an old animation movie. And boy... Boy, oh boy! What a masterpiece! I've start watching because of the gore but, in the end, what captivated me was the strong characters, awesome storytelling, unique voice acting and the memorable dialogue. It is now one of my favorite movies ever! I'm very happy this movie keeps getting attention! Thanks, Ryan! ((:
C. Kim h him k him ill
C. Kim
You sick fuck!!!
C. Kim same in Northern Ireland we didn’t have electricity thanks to a brutal sectarian war but I did watch the flim later in the states
for me i especially loved the legend behind it.
Kinda makes it like a grounded fantasy movie in a way.
It’s the revenant with rabbits
Best analogy ever
"Bright eyes, burning like fire
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes" T_T our dad made us watch this when we were just 5 and 4 years old, and that song still to gets me even after 23 years, damn
Bright Eyes is one of my favorite songs.
same here
Warning: absolutely do not watch Watership Down while high.
ujustgotpwned2008 eh that's gonna be a challenge for me
I already love the movie and book. Probably won't do anything to me while high
That would completely harsh my mellow.
ujustgotpwned2008 excellent advice!!!
Or do, if you love horror films.
I don’t even have a major childhood connection to Watership Down so having watched it for the first time a couple of years ago helped me to appreciate it for the brilliant work of art that it truly is and is often forgotten to be. It makes me sad that people only want to look at this film as “the scary animated film about rabbits” that they watched as a kid and haven’t bothered to check it out since. It’s a powerful film that deserves so much more respect in discussion.
This looks fucking terrifying...
J Girl Oh it is, especially if you go into it unprepared. This ain't Bambi (and even that movie had its own intense moments).
I really enjoyed it as a child. Its not that bad
I was terrified of this film when I was little. I did almost everything just to get rid of the VHS tape. After years has gone by, it kinda grew on me. But I'll only watch it early in the morning.
J Girl it really does it makes me scared
Eh, it looks that way but it really isnt. I remember watching this when I was around 5-7 and not being scared. I am a little unsettled that my parents showed to me at that age tho...
This is the kind of story I can really empathise with and enjoy.....as an adult. The overall message can be good for kids. But I keep thinking about the age I was I watched it (and other people my age) and this film fucked us up. I still have never seen this all the way from beginning to end and I still feel ill when I think about Bigwig's death scene. I was way too young to appreciate or understand this film. As a kid I had a fondness for the Animals of Farthing Wood. Which had a similar message and tone, but was much tamer in its depiction of violence. Which was still there, but not enough to leave lasting mental scars. A lot of American kids were traumatised by Bambi. But I was made to watch Watership Down several times before I'd ever seen Bambi. (At least Thumper gets to live and have babies! There's hope for rabbits yet!)
Watership Down....rated U.
Five of the Harry Potter films...rated 12.
Bigwig didn't die.
The "speech" was a little premature. But the SPEECH could make me cry at any age!! 😢
What genius put that scene on the cover of the video?! Maybe someone's desperate attempt to WARN people!? 😓
Each person has their own life experience and philosophy of life. So even if an author claims not to have meaning in their story, it will have meaning nonetheless because it often (not always) reflects the author's perceptions of the world around them.
This, as you point out very eloquently, happened in Richard Adams' novel.
Why is Guillermo Del Toro so effing cool???
My parents bought this movie when I was little thinking it looked cute and we watched it together. I was 6 or 7, and my sisters were around 4 years old. Needless to say, all of us were pretty horrified as it wasn't at all what we had expected. But even then, it had an impact on me that had nothing to do with the violence. It moved me. Though I couldn't understand it back then and much less put into words, the imagery with the black rabbit and that scene where their burrow gets filled somehow always stuck with me and made me want to understand more. I was simultaneously afraid of the movie and fascinated by it. My parents got rid of the film eventually, and it slipped out of our collective mind for over a decade, until by browsing youtube one day, I came across a video that mentioned watership down and suddenly it all came back to me. It's weird to put it that way, but I felt rewatching the movie again and truly understanding and experiencing the story was like a rite of passage. I wanted to put that weird combination of fear and curiosity behind me and understand why I had been captivated by this movie so many years ago. So I found a stream and watched it. I was 19 at the time. It was one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had. To this day, Watership Down remains one of my favorite movies of all time.
Magi V deep
0:09
All parents thought this seeing the start of the trailer for sausage party.
Everybody gangsta till the sausage gets a glock
This movie horrified me as a child. With all my anxiety problems, I wonder if they’re connected.
Was just thinking the exact same thing
It is...messed up. I watched it with my Dad, and I’m young, but I’m chill with adult themes such as violence, so my dad lets my watch older stuff, and yet, truly, this kid’s film is one of the most mentally damaging films I have ever seen.
Me too..... i think its related
Finally seeing this kind of comment. Could not believe this many people advocating over “kids should watch these kind of content cause it teaches about death”. There are other ways… Once I got watched a horro movie and I do believe it is connected to my anxiety too so I hope you get over it friend, I feel you.
you talking with your hands that much around the coffee mug gives me anxiety
WheatThicks123 Now that you mention it, he really is living on the edge.
THIS!
I remember watching this when I was around nine years old. I loved it and always cried when the elderly Hazel dies at the end. But I felt comforted that his offspring would remember him and his journey and pass this wisdom onto their children. Imagine my horror when I read the book and discovered Hazel's offspring and grandchildren completely thought the whole thing was a myth or just a bedtime story and within just a few generations it would be twisted beyond all recognition and dismissed as folklore. THAT traumatised me more than anything. I was heartbroken. Every time I read the first line of the book, about the time of the primroses, I start to bawl and have to pause and pull myself together. I'm 48!!!
Hey son look at these cute animated films I brought you,
*'watership down', 'Fritz the Cat' and 'barefoot Gen'*
Barefoot Gen is actually a great film, full of hope. It's about moving on after a tragedy. The bombing happens in the begaining and the rest of the film is just Gen's life after that point.
Lesbian Lioness
Yes, it does end with a positive message, but the amount of corpses pulverizing in the air, eyeballs melting, babies and little kids dying that a kid would experience before the hopeful ending, though.
Don't forget Felidae and the Plague Dogs!
(Both of which are fantastic movies but MAN. Grim as fuck)
The reason for using anthropomorphic animals, is to avoid a Grave of the Fireflies.
Barefoot Gen wasn't anthropomorphic, but otherwise yeah. GoF was grim as fuck.
I've never been able to get past the bunnies. I get why it fits with what's being portrayed, but it just seems weird watching such a dark movie through the eyes of animals I think are adorable.
Furious Sherman Definitely. It's just shock value done well, I must begrudgingly admit, combining two completely polar opposites: the grim and dark themes you'd expect to see with adults, and the child friendly art.
Furious Sherman i actually think that that’s the point. in the same way lord of the flies was made with children to emphasise the brutality of the events, using rabbits kind of shows how shamelessly bloody human war can be in a way that wouldn’t work with humans as we’re desensitised to human violence. obviously this interpretation only works if you’re looking at the film/book as an allegory for world war, but that’s kind of how i saw it
Rabbits are actually quite fierce creatures when fighting each other.
this is like happy tree friends. it looks innocent & sweet but GOD NO THIS IS NOT IT.
Watership Down seems to have a deeper meaning while Happy Tree friends is more comedy.
@@somtamthai9429 how is animals dieing funny?
@@thefanofthreethings6595 what? Happy Tree Friends is funny because they over
exaggerate. I don´t think it is funny, mroe boring. But cartoon animals slaughter each other for no reason is supposed to be funny . Like a harmless children cartoon mixed with splatter is just dumb. Even if you liek animals you should understand that it is just a dumb cartoon. Nobody said dying animals are funny to watch.
And I also said that because Watership Down is not comedy, but Happy Tree Friends is Comedy, maybe w weird kind of comedy, but it is. Same liek when Kenny is dying in South Park all the time.
@@thefanofthreethings6595 that’s literally not what he was saying at all
My granny bought the dvd when I was young without knowing what it was. After watching it, we were both completely terrified and gave me nightmares for weeks
THE BOOK WAS SO GOOD. BIGWIG AND WOUNDWORT FIGHTING GOT ME SO HYPED LMAO
Man I never thought animals & violence in a animated film can be so heavy, even back then.
I remember it was a stinking hot summer day in Australia, I was only about 10 years old when I stumbled upon the VCR tape Watership Down (ah, good ol VCR's). My dad and Aunty had taught me how to survive from an early age, ride horses, how to hunt and skin, what plants i can and can't eat, how to track ect; so when i watched this I felt like I was watching through a helpless perspective, I have a great respect and love for all animals as it is, even though I know how to hunt, but as Guillermo Del Toro said, it really did feel like a right of passage, a sort of...understanding of the bigger picture so to speak.
Modern day animations have truly lost that enchanting aspect of storytelling though. I feel like nothing that comes out in modern times has any real substance or deep life lessons, like how they used to when I was little; even Disney have become dulled down, I mean Lion King - shows the cycle of life and death, Snow White - she's seen in a freakin coffin for crying out loud, and need I mention Bambi - his mother being shot, still makes me tear up every time but the overall message of Bambi (that I perceived at least) was, even in the hardest of times, you have to just keep going, to be strong, and resilient to whatever life throws at you.
But these are lessons of life that I can't help but feel are crucial for kids growing up and venturing further into the "real" world, a sort of softer way of education in the fact that life is cruel and can be harsh, but to also equally know that it's just as important to rise up to the occasion and be strong in the face of adversity. (That's what i took from these movies any way).
i saw this as a child. it inspired me. its a tale of camradarie akin to the hobbit, its adventure story. its full of bravery and self sacrafice as well as brutality. wow dont we coddle kids these days n wonder why they fail to luanch
It's a book about politics and government
I also adored this story. It seems like a lot of the stories I read when I was young were in part conveying that life is 'valuable' in some kind of vague and abstract sense. That's great, but then Richard Adams comes in with his rabbits in a relentlessly dangerous world and conveys that life is not just vaguely valuable... it is urgently precious.
6:34 every creepypasta with hyper realistic in a nutshell
Watership Down is one of my all time favorite movies. This movie shows kids that nature is brutal, but that the rabbits can endure and live on and build a new world for themselves. The chaos between death and success. The movie also showed that people grieve over lost ones, as did Fiver when he thought Hazel was dead. Efrafa shows how harsh social order can get, and Hazel and Bigwig showed how they can create a peaceful social order (ex. Watership Down with the Efrafans and the Sandleford rabbits). The kind of movie parents should watch with their kids, and explain the hard shit to 'em.
Beautiful summary! But you forgot the hilarious bird, Keeha, which still cracks me up to this day. Beeg vater!
Watched this when I was kid. It was terrifying. I still remember that scene with the blood on the field. The music, the visuals. Terrifying.
This film accomplished a couple things in my household way back when I was a kid... 6 or 8 maybe...
First, and at least it seemed most important to me, "Watership Down" was the first time I saw an animation as art, rather than the usual Bugs Bunny and Disney schtick I'd been growing up with since I could remember. Cartoons dropped anvils and pianos on people's (and rabbits) heads like such things could rain from the sky, and you didn't take it seriously... It was ALWAYS some kind of gag. Cartoons were silly, childish, and just fun to watch...
Animation, on the other hand, was a finely crafted thing of story-telling. It was beautiful and awful all at once, and it was my first exposure to that complicated an idea. I had nightmares for a week or two...(lolz) BUT all of a sudden, I was fascinated. It would turn out just a couple years later, I would take up D&D and start crafting stories and fairy tales and all kinds of crazy sh*t... Thirty odd years later, I'm still happily welcomed at tables, still GM'ing as often as Playing, and still enjoying every aspect of that craft.
Second... My mom... poor woman. She was the poor soul who had the Disney and Bugs Bunny mindset that Cartoons were Cartoons... If it was animated, it was kiddie-friendly... AND then "Watership Down" happened... she stuck it in the VCR (back when they were serious) and... Frankly, I think she suffered the worst. She came back in to check on us, kids, during one of the "more notorious" scenes... and we can leave it at "that didn't go well for her"... Looking back, it's kind of more a "lolz" than anything, but at the time, she not only had to confront her own misinterpretations of animated entertainment values... BUT the potential trauma she'd rained upon her kids.
All in all, everyone turned out alright. We grew up, relatively unscathed, at least as far as our explorations into fantasy and animation were concerned with our psyche's... AND Maw eventually reached a certain level of forgiving herself for that little mishap... Perhaps, she simply reckoned that if "Watership Down" was the worst to expose her kids to, we were probably flying pretty high...
And you do really well in exploring it without exposing too much for those who haven't watched it or read it through. I think it might be worth noting in some context, that like many other works, there's a certain element of psychology in the writer that can be spoken for in the script, novel, or finished animation as well... I mean, Adams was from a military background, and had faced some degree of the realities of war when he wrote it, so some aspects of his own process in dealing psychologically with life and existence and all that is beautiful and horrible in a single scope shows in his work. Of course, the same can be said for nearly every written work... if one wants to explore it that way. I think there is some truth to Peterson's suggestions that myth, lore, and religion comes in the symbolism of psychology. I don't know entirely how much truth one can glean, exactly, since there are cultural differences that poke holes in some of his suggestions, but... well... that's a little different subject, too. ;o)
This should be the NEXT Pixar Movie
They will never remake this film because society today is too pussified.
But they are remaking it. Netflix is making a mini series this year!
If they do remake this it will be a watered down pussified version. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a gay or trans rabbit or some stupid shit in it too.
I am complaining that hollywood would make it into propaganda against trump.
Seriously? Look I know what media today is like but I don’t think rabbits have issues about sexuality and gender 😂