The new Watership Down adaptation, a four-part version of the classic animation about a warren of anthropomorphised rabbits, won’t be as harrowingly violent as the original. So says the executive producer of the collaboration between the BBC and Netflix which stars Olivia Colman and James McAvoy.
My first thought is, why won’t it be as violent? Any child who saw that 1978 tone poem to the brutality of nature will be forever haunted by the almost expressionistic images of blood splattered across limp fur, eyes clouded with disease and departing life. Even though some of those stricken bunnies were voiced by the gently reassuring tones of John Hurt and Richard Briers, for many of us Watership Down was the first insinuation of the fragility of existence into our young minds.
Every child should have at least one traumatic memory of formative TV viewing; the thing that sets them thinking about death or the suffering of others when all they’d thought about before was fish fingers and Swap Shop. Why this refusal to jar their world view? Isn’t that how we grow up and adjust our understanding of the world around us? If you insist on remaking it, shouldn’t a folktale about the cycle of life and death at least include the reality of death, foaming snouts and all?
The indiscriminate suffering of Fiver and his friends at the claws of hawks, human developers, snare traps, dogs and myxomatosis is a parable for life and a preparation for its precariousness. It’s probably why I have gone on to enjoy Game of Thrones so much, to relive that sickening thrill of death’s anticipation in a safe environment. Who will be next?
To add insult to injury, the reboot boasts “computer animation” which will make the unfortunate cottontails more realistic than ever. More realistic? The point of the original drawings was their ability to slightly remove the viewer from the horror, rendering the action in smudged watercolour backgrounds and line-drawn characters. A three-dimensional rabbit with realistic fur, writhing in a snare or being gored by a hound won’t have any of the poetry of the original and will surely be more upsetting. Presumably a lot of it will happen off-camera while the Foley artists demure some sanitised squelching/rending noises. They’re simultaneously removing the core of what made Martin Rosen’s film so disturbingly beautiful, and adding in unnecessary realism where the opposite is needed.
But this is what rankles about the endless slew of remakes that seem to be announced on an almost weekly basis now. The modern-day broadcasters hell-bent on recycling the past don’t hold the same values as the programme-makers of yore. Watership Down had a huge impact precisely because it didn’t water down the violence in Richard Adams’s novel. I’m sure those adapting it this time loved the original and have the best of intentions, but why make a de-clawed version of something that’s already so upsettingly perfect?
What is this need to constantly retell old stories when so many writers are waiting to tell new ones? We’re not in the midst of a national story shortage. Are the commissioners all hitting midlife around the same time and seeking comfort in nostalgia? Or is there a genuine, industry-wide fear of risking budgets on untried newness when an increasing number of channels fight over viewers? Is it a case of giving us what we’ve already said in the past we definitely want?
It is when the remakers misunderstand the lure of the original that things go badly wrong. In the case of 2009’s Reggie Perrin (BBC1), a list of the finest ingredients was scraped into the creative pot. Writer Simon Nye partnered with Perrin’s creator David Nobbs, Martin Clunes depped for Leonard Rossiter in the lead role. But it didn’t taste right. The words lay limply on the page and, despite two series, it will not be remembered as anything other than a foolhardy attempt to recapture old magic. I’d rather remember Nobbs for the genius he was.
When the cast of BBC2’s This Life agreed to reform for their 10-year anniversary in 2007, I donned my hard hat for a feature-length canter through disappointment, ennui and regret. I wish so much they hadn’t bothered because it still casts a lasting shadow over my twentysomething memories of that perfect show. Remakes can be great when the original spirit remains intact. You only have to hear the chirrup of Kevin Eldon’s Penfold and the swagger of Alexander Armstrong’s Danger Mouse on CBBC to know it’s been recreated with love and reverence for its forebear. The Clangers on CBeebies is produced by some of the same team as the original early 70s version and watched over closely by original co-creator Peter Firmin, and it shows. It isn’t a remake, merely “series three of The Clangers” as was announced at its press launch.
But the weight of recycled material being produced is starting to tip the scales against the original ideas and it smacks of fear. They’re not even willing to give us our remakes in their organic state with the muck still on, instead scrubbing them clean and removing their charm. Sometimes an enigmatic treasure should be left where it lies, in the collective memory, and broadcasters should show a little less fear. They’re only dead rabbits.
