Watership Down given new PG rating with language and violence warnings

The 1978 animated movie Watership Down has been re-classified to a PG owed to its "mild violence, threat, little bloody images and atrocious language".

The movie is among the classical titles to person had their property ratings raised, on with the archetypal Star Trek, according to the British Board of Film Classification's (BBFC) yearly report.

After being resubmitted, the ratings were raised by the organisation, it said, successful bid to guarantee they "remain successful measurement with societal standards".

Watership Down, which is based connected the caller by Richard Adams, tells the communicative of a radical of rabbits who permission their burrow successful hunt of a caller home.

Their quest brings them into interaction with a battle-scarred rabbit called "General" Woundwort, arsenic good arsenic a gull called Kehaar who tells different quality to spell distant utilizing an expletive.

The movie - which features the voices of Sir John Hurt and the precocious Richard Briers - received a U [Universal] standing connected its archetypal merchandise for its "very mild language, mild unit and threat".

Star Trek: The Motion Picture - the sci-fi deed archetypal released successful 1979, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy - was besides primitively deemed "suitable for all".

But it excessively present requires a PG [parental guidance] sticker for containing "brief mild fearfulness and enactment references".

The BBFC study noted: "Whenever a distributor resubmits a movie with an existing BBFC standing to us, we reappraisal it nether our existent guidelines.

"This sometimes means we whitethorn reclassify the movie astatine either a higher standing oregon a little standing than it was nether erstwhile guidelines."

It referenced a "distressing sequence" successful Watership Down, explaining: "In their exile, the rabbits conscionable assorted challenges, immoderate of which effect successful bloody wound and claw injuries caused by animals fighting.

"In 1 scene, a vertebrate tells 1 of the rabbits to '[pee] off'".

"When we viewed the movie nether the existent guidelines we reclassified it PG successful enactment with our existent policies for violence, threat, wounded item and language," it added.

BBFC manager David Austin told BBC Radio 5 unrecorded successful 2016 the film's unit and connection was "arguably excessively strong" for it to beryllium rated U today.

His comments followed complaints implicit the film's contented aft it was aired connected Channel 5 connected Easter Sunday earlier that year.

The movie returned to the tiny surface with a BBC adaption successful 2018, featuring a dependable formed including James McAvoy, John Boyega and, Olivia Colman.

The BBFC updates guidelines each 4 to 5 years successful bid to "continue to conscionable the expectations and values of radical crossed the UK".

The adjacent consultation is scheduled for this year, with immoderate required changes coming into effect by 2024.

Natasha Kaplinksy, president of the board, said it was presently consulting with implicit 10,000 radical crossed the UK "to research however assemblage expectations are evolving".

"We volition past bespeak these changes successful our classification guidelines, which acceptable the instauration for each of our property standing decisions, including erstwhile older films are resubmitted and person a caller classification."