Chuggington: Chug Patrol

image for Chuggington: Chug Patrol

Short takes

Parental guidance recommended under 4 due to scenes that might scare some children

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Chuggington: Chug Patrol
  • a review of Chuggington: Chug Patrol completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 22 October 2013.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 4 Parental guidance recommended due to scenes that may scare this age group
Children 4 to 8 Recommended for this age group
Children 8 and over OK for this age group but may lack interest

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Chuggington: Chug Patrol
Classification: G
Consumer advice lines: None
Length: 57 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Chuggington:Chug Patrol is a special children’s movie feature and is a collation of short episodes based on the Chuggington television series about trains.  It includes all of the well-known Chuggington characters: Wilson (voiced by Morgan Overton), Brewster (voiced by Charlie George) and Koko (voiced by Imogen Bailey). 

The four episodes each have different but related story lines which include the trains getting into difficult situations and being helped and rescued by each other.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Trains lost and in danger

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is no violence in this film

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

There are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of four, including the following:

  • A broken signal almost causes the trains to crash.
  • Hodge is given a Chug booster which is faulty and erratic.  It almost causes an accident.
  • Hoot and Toot are lost in a tunnel, and Olwyn breaks down trying to rescue them
  • Harrison comes off the tracks in a remote area and is all alone in the forest.  He is eventually found and recued but not until it is dark.
  • There is an explosion in Rocky Ridge and Coco is pushed off the tracks.  She is precariously balanced at the edge of a mine shaft which is deemed as ‘high risk’.  She is saved by the other trains just before the tunnel collapses.
  • One of the trains' brakes fail and he comes off the tracks.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

Children in this age group are unlikely to be scared by anything in this film

Product placement

Nothing of concern in the movie but plenty of associated merchandise being marketed to children

In a nutshell

Chuggington: Chug Patrol is a collation of animated stories about the Chuggington trains, based on the television series.  The trains find themselves in a series of different situations where they require help from one another to find their way home. It is likely to be of most interest to under 8s, with some scenes of trains in danger that may scare under 4s

The main message from this movie is about supporting and looking out for your friends.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • believing in yourself
  • being brave