The Americans took Pocahontos and turned it into a marketable love story.
They took Beauty and the Beast - a story about imprisonment, confinement, and Stockholm Syndrome - and turned it into one of the highest grossing animated films of all time.
The Brits took a bunch of cute cuddly rabbits and turned them into bloody killers with the bad guys sounding like Germans.
Yup. No wonder the British Olympic mascots look like ugly one eyed boogers.
Pocahontas a love story? They didn't care about each other at all in the end of the Disney version, the movie was harldy marketable.
Watershipdown full of "bloody killer rabits"? All animals fight, and the movie was really "aww" most of the time
My favorite Final Destination is the 4th – DEAL with it!
Rabbits can be very violent and fight similarly to how they are shown to in the movie
shareI think J_Charles is absolutely spot on, and I'm British.
That's what it's like - America has Disney and Hollywood, and there's a huge global market for fun animated films with happy endings. And not just for children either, but adults as well.
But in all honesty, as much as I like Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Toy Story, I absolutely love Watership Down. It's more of an animated thriller than anything else in my view.
Let's face it, USA is a country of optimism and dreams (some of which gets a bit cheesy and unbearable for me), whereas Great Britain is a country of disappointment and realism.
Great post J_Charles.
Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoilers!Spoile
Let's face it, USA is a country of optimism and dreams (some of which gets a bit cheesy and unbearable for me), whereas Great Britain is a country of disappointment and realism.
Let's face it, USA is a country of optimism and dreams (some of which gets a bit cheesy and unbearable for me), whereas Great Britain is a country of disappointment and realism.
I am a Yank, and I love this film. It is one of my favorite films. I think that is true in general about American culture but there is still some capacity for serious darkness and cynicism as far as our artists are concerned -- Faulkner, Fitzgerald (Gatsby is a devastating critique of the "American dream" and the "optimism" associated with that fairy tale), Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Cormac McCarthy, Salinger, Hemingway, Easton Ellis, Oates, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker...and many other American writers explore the "dark" quite brilliantly.
"It's too bad she won't live. But then again, who does?" Blade Runner (1982)
"Let's face it, USA is a country of optimism and dreams (some of which gets a bit cheesy and unbearable for me), whereas Great Britain is a country of disappointment and realism."
In a way it makes sense. In thinking about the impacts on populations by the First and Second World Wars, America was impacted very differently. Our (America's) optimism has incredibly deep roots; going back to the beginning of the Nation. We've not suffered the horror of War like the Brits did; and with optimism we hope maybe we never will.
I suspect there's a special kind of dread for Brits when those events are dredged up (maybe more distant now). We see it in Dr Who; Zeppelins overhead, and children in gasmasks, below. In Pink Floyd's "The Wall" and the Who's "Tommy" we see the loss of parents to Fascism in Europe, and in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" we are fleeing the Blitz; even though as children we don't really understand it. In the end, even in "winning" those conflicts, the result was devastation for entire generations of people.
One more aspect popped into my mind...
For Brits, the simple loss of "Empire" over the last century. That's got to put a damper on "hope." Going from "the sun never sets on the British Empire," to 'one of many nation-states.'
Totally disagree. I think this movie does show a huge difference, but not between UK and US cartoons/movies, but between 70's and 90's/2000's cinema in general.
I guarantee you that this movie, if made today by the Brits, would suck.
Movies were much more artistic and thoughtful back in the day.
Hellfire! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggaWA51OrhI
Not bad for a Disney film.
And surely you're familiar with the Secret of NIMH? The Black Cauldron?
Or even the dark/traumatic animated moment that started it all: Bambi's mother?
(I should also add that I used to wince at Mufasa's pre-death scene in the Lion King where Scar digs his claws into Mufasa's arms.)
Secret of NIMH, The Black Cauldron, Bambi and The Lion King all have happy endings. That's the point.
Watership Down, The Plague Dogs, When The Wind Blows, The Snowman etc do not.
Actually I disagree that Watership Down doesn't have a happy ending. Hazel may die at the end, but he is very old by then.
Let Zygons Be Zygons.
Still not overly convinced why a rabbit dying of old age, would be considered a happy ending.
To me, a happy ending would have been the rabbits settling in their new home, with no more deaths. They could easily have done this, although it would have detracted from the ending massively.
?? I guess I kinda know what you mean, but it was generally a happy ending.
Everyone / everything dies, and everyone should know that. Hazel has lived a full and worthy life, he meets the black rabbit of Inle ready and with happiness.
Watership Down does have a happy ending. The warren is thriving and Hazel dies at a ripe old age (unusual for a species that usually dies by getting eaten), and is invited to join El-ahrairah's Owsla, a high honour. To put it in a human context, it's a bit like going to Heaven and being asked to join God's council.
"If something's hard to do, it's not worth doing." - Homer Simpson.
No not El-Ahrairah -- I have no idea why some people make this mistake, but in the film and in the book (and according to Adams' intention) -- Hazel meets the Black Rabbit at the end when he dies, as is entirely appropriate given rabbit mythology (and this is much more powerful). The film shows the "stranger" morphing into the Black Rabbit as we have seen him portrayed throughout the film. This is when Hazel says "Yes my lord I know you." Also, the Black Rabbit calls Hazel by his name -- we hear the rabbits discuss earlier in the film that when the Black Rabbit calls one's name, it is time to go.
"I love those redheads!" (Wooderson, Dazed and Confused, 1993)
For me, this difference b/w Brit & Yank kiddie fare was especially glaring during the 70's/80's. While we Yanks were watching such toy-selling fluff as 'The Super Friends','He-Man,''Strawberry Shortcake,' & the 'Care Bears,' you Brits were toughening your kids on 'Escape Into Night,''The Moon Stallion,' & 'Children of the Stones.'
Lol... no wonder the UK is the home of both 'Animal Farm' & 'Watership Down.' Though I still don't get how WD got away with a U rating in the UK while it was slapped with an understandable PG in the US. Heck, had WD come out just after 'Temple of Doom' it most likely would have been honored as the first animated film to get a PG-13 rating. The '80's were exceptionally hyper-sensitive about cartoon violence.
...and no wonder that after so much commercial-based cartoon garbage we American kids jumped at the more mature themes found in anime like Starblazers & Robotech.
This is no better than those "LOL FAT AMERICAN WOMAN EATING BURGER CONTRASTED WITH HOT THIN BRITISH GIRL" pictures.
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