Watership Down film is now a PG for ‘mild violence' and 'bad language’
Watership Down is among the classic films to have had their age ratings raised from U to PG, according to the British Board of Film Classification’s (BBFC) annual report.
The 1978 animated adventure film was originally rated universal (U), which means it should be “suitable for all.”
After being resubmitted to BBFC, which decides on the certification of movies and episodic content, its ratings was raised to parental guidance (PG).
The rating is needed for “mild violence, threat, brief bloody images and bad language.”
The BBFC report later added: “Whenever a distributor resubmits a film with an existing BBFC rating to us, we review it under our current guidelines.
“This sometimes means we may reclassify the film at either a higher rating or a lower rating than it was under previous guidelines.”
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, directed by Robert Wise and starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, has also been bumped to PG for having “brief mild horror and sex references.”
It was the first instalment of the film series spin-off based on the original TV show, which followed the adventures of the starship USS Enterprise and its crew.
In relation to Watership Down, which depicts a colony of rabbits seeking a safe place after human developers threaten their community, the report referenced a “distressing sequence.”
“In their exile, the rabbits meet various challenges, some of which result in bloody bite and claw injuries caused by animals fighting,” the report adds.
“In one scene, a bird tells one of the rabbits to ‘piss off’.
“When we viewed the film under the current guidelines we reclassified it PG in line with our current policies for violence, threat, injury detail and language.”
The bestselling novel by Richard Adams was famously adapted into the film in 1978 and returned to the small screen with a BBC adaption in 2018.
It featured a star-studded voice cast including James McAvoy, John Boyega, Nicholas Hoult, Rosamund Pike, Olivia Colman and Gemma Arterton.
PG is described as acceptable for “general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children”, to bring them in line with the current classification guidelines.
Why are ratings changed?
After a film is resubmitted for classification, compliance officers for the BBFC will consider it against the current guidelines “to ensure BBFC classification decisions remain in step with societal standards”, the organisation said.
Its guidelines are created through wide-scale consultations with thousands of people from across the UK, extensive research, and using the organisations’ experience.
Every four to five years, it updates the BBFC guidelines to “continue to meet the expectations and values of people across the UK”.
The next consultation is scheduled for this year, with any changes required by the research coming into force in early 2024.
In 2022, the BBFC classified 1,057 cinema films, 5,527 video submissions and 3,649 online submissions, the report states.
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