Mastodawn

I think I read the book first. I was probably already a teenager when I did. Not because it was necessarily mature content—I’d already eaten through the Foundation trilogy and the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by then—but I’d already developed a tsundoku pile by that age. I would’ve been 6 years old when the movie came to cinemas; Mum would have read the book already and rightly vetoed going to see it.

Dgar Aug 20, 2024

@futzle
I was 12 when I watched The “Bright Eyes” Cartoon. It was pretty full-on.
😄😲😳🥺😢😭😨

Biggles 20X6!Aug 20, 2024

@futzle I understand it is about a bunch of bunnies buying the farm or some such, and is apparently quite traumatic

@Taco_lad It’s … intense. Certainly requires a degree of maturity in the reader/viewer. I’d rate it PG, and I think the 1978 movie does have that rating now, finally.

Biggles 20X6!Aug 20, 2024

@futzle i remember seeing a picture of my grandparents' school class age 10, and remember thinking "these kids have SEEN SOME SHIT" and being grateful for being born when I was.
Then I found out grandma had a sister die at age 8 from polio, and 2 stillborn siblings as well. Kids died *a lot* back then

Cycling Stu Aug 20, 2024

@futzle @Taco_lad I remember seeing it in the cinema when it came out, but I’d already either started the book, or had the book read to me, but I don’t recall that I had finished it before seeing the movie. (I was stupidly precocious in my reading)

Mike [SEC=OFFICIAL]Aug 20, 2024

@futzle it's one of the first two but I honestly can't recall which one.

ahistorical immaterialist Aug 20, 2024

@futzle first came across it as a *slide collection* of stills from the film in my primary school library, for some reason they had a whole section of these.

Never actually watched the film, but I've read the book at least 10 times.

Timmy Aug 20, 2024

@futzle Where is "I know the memes and pop culture references but have never consumed the story"

Mike Lynch Aug 20, 2024

@futzle oh dang I didn’t see the Goodies option till after I’d voted

Primo Aug 20, 2024

@futzle I have only seen a few disturbing sequences ina video while "sweet dreams" played.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down_(film)#Effects_on_children_and_BBFC_classification

EdwinAdams Aug 20, 2024

@futzle Print

✋ Another victim of television station deciding to screen film in a kids' schedule. 😱

Parents, please don't show this to kids! It's for teenagers and adults, it's not a kids' story!

p.s. Astonished to find that critics at the time apparently all dismissed concerns about the film version's effect on small children:

...the critics really dropped the ball on this one! 😬

Watership Down (film) - Wikipedia

@FediThing “Not as bad as the scene with Bambi’s mother” 😧

Interesting to hear the classification board saying "Animation removes the realistic gory horror", as if an animation simply is not capable of being traumatising.

Maybe a generational thing where adults had only ever seen deliberately unrealistic cartoons like Tom & Jerry, and had trouble taking any animation seriously? Whereas children were taking it very seriously without the adults realising?

Made the mistake of watching the relevant scenes to compare them after all these years... oh heck. 😞

"Bambi's mother"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTZPMJj-X9M

"Watership Down's deaths" (Warning: shows horrifying deaths of animals although uploader has added a comedy element to it)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1dHLS7ocpw

...just cannot see where the critics are coming from. The fates of the rabbits are depicted in a far, far more disturbing manner.

Disney's Bambi - Mother's Death

YouTube

eyajpng Aug 20, 2024

@futzle i only know it from when Sawyer read it on LOST

Richard 塚正ー緑 Aug 20, 2024

@futzle *straightening toga* Virgil recited the original to me himself

CharlieG Aug 20, 2024

@futzle @mike The 1978 film and by god did it traumatise me in three different directions when I was ~6 years old.

RadioPhobicSherkPop Aug 20, 2024

@futzle I voted novel, but I don't think I finished it, being very young at the time. Possibly had it read to us at school, was a bit older when I saw the first film and still bear the scars

AspiringLuddite Aug 20, 2024

@futzle

Although, I didn't consume it at all. It's still there! I encountered it, read it, enjoyed it, and so on.

opal the fruit

@futzle they played the video for us when i was in primary school and had to turn it off bc a lot of the younger kids started crying

Bryn Aug 20, 2024

@futzle I had no idea what it was about, but had heard the title. I was looking for audiobooks at the library for a road trip with my kids and they had it, so I got it to listen to on our drive.

@bryn Which is how Richard Adams made the story: keeping his kids from boredom on long drives!

Julie Bozza Aug 20, 2024

@[email protected] Ah, The Goodies!!! Thank you. Just the thought of them makes me laugh with joy.
P.S. But, yes, I read the original print novel first, back in the day.

Zatty

@futzle Despite not having read the adventure novel about rabbits in Hampshire, I _have_ read the adventure novel about squirrels in Dorset, so that's pretty close.

(It's called "The Silver Tide" and is about squirrels, magic, math, colonization and oppression.)

@zatnosk Definitely sticking that on my list.

Zatty

@futzle I read it multiple times as a kid, and only as a grown up, did I learn that it's the first book in a series.

I don't think the others were translated to danish. I still have the book on my bookshelf

Ember is so tired of people.

@futzle book, then the 1999/2000 show

Fraser Aug 20, 2024

@futzle I am in the category of know bits of the story, but have never read, seen or listened to any version of it as yet.