We want blood.
On Friday morning, BBC made the welcome announcement that it would producing a CGI remake of cartoon-bunny-apocalypse-nightmare movie Watership Down just in time for Christmas.
The latest adaptation of the 1972 Richard Adams novel will be shown on BBC One as two special feature-length episodes during the festive season this year.
For those of you who may be unaware, Watership Down was the predecessor to Animals of Farthing Wood in that weird genre of British cartoons where animals are mercilessly tortured by one another and the cruel landscape that surrounds them. Many inattentive parents think of Watership Down as a movie “for kids”, though Wikipedia describes it as a “survival” movie — which is literally not a genre I have ever heard used to describe any other piece of media. Ever.
What does that even mean? That the genre of the movie is just for the characters to try not to die for as long as possible?
In all seriousness, what the fuck was wrong with that rabbit?
The animated adaptation of the book was originally released in 1978, back in the days when men were men and everyone was sick of Bugs Bunny and Peter Rabbit galavanting around like they were untouchable.
It tells the story of a psychic bunny named Fiver who foresees the destruction of his family’s warren, prompting him and several other bunnies to venture out into the wide world and seek safety somewhere else.
After that, the movie is a beautifully illustrated cross-country adventure spliced together with scenes of rabbits scratching one another’s eyes out, biting each other’s ears off and getting snagged on barbed wire, with one profoundly haunting song by Art Garfunkel thrown in for good measure.
Spoiler alert: Things are really bad for these rabbits. They are forced from their homes by human over-development, only to learn that they have enemies everywhere in the animal kingdom and that a neighbouring warren is being ruled by a huge tyrant bunny rabbit called General Woundwort. What army was he even a part of? Which army accepts rabbits? How bloodthirtsy does a rabbit need to be to be enlisted in an army, let alone rise to the rank of general? Exactly.
Thanks to the limits of technology in the late ’70s, the original Watership Down couldn’t communicate the visceral horror of hundreds of rabbits suffocating to death as their burrow is filled in with cement. This time around, filmmakers have the opportunity to really go for it. Really stack those CGI rabbits one on top of another and recreate exactly what it would be like as they run out of air in their little tunnel. Survival movie? Not for these guys. Not much survivin’ being done around those parts.
This is a still image from the scene where hundreds of rabbits suffocate to death as their burrows are filled in from above. Their eyes are red because they are suffocating to death.
For anyone who complains that children these days have it too easy, this reboot is a golden opportunity. Anyone who has ever been up in arms over “safe spaces” and “snowflakes” and what have you should be recording Watership Down and playing that shit on repeat over the festive season.
You should be showing this to your kid before gifting them their Christmas present — a bunny rabbit. A dead one. And not one that has died in some kind of normal way. It has to have been killed by another rabbit. Just the way Watership Down intended.
We finally have a vehicle to teach the youth of today that it’s not all participation medals and government handouts. Sometimes, it’s all about deformed rabbits desperately avoiding death from all angles. From a farmer’s shotgun, from the flesh-tearing barbed wire, from General Woundwort — the huge psycho-bunny dictator with one dead eye. That’s what life is all about.
But the producers have to get it right.
Get up Bigwig, you big wuss.
All eyes should be on the BBC to make sure that they do not throw this chance away. A first-look at the CGI rabbits from the upcoming remake doesn’t seem to feature any blood whatsoever, which is an extremely worrying sign. But you never know. It could just be that the British national broadcaster is holding back to make sure we tune in for the real carnage.
We’ll probably never get good enough at herding rabbits that we’re able to make them act out an all-rabbit production of Watership Down, so this CGI reboot is the best chance we ever have to bring this needlessly horrifying and deeply strange story to life.
Let’s not screw it up.
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!
