Watership Down

[ChrisTheLovableJerk]

The novel is my favorite book of all time, and I read if after seeing the film during my high school years. Funny thing is, my course in english never covered this book (the other course did), I sought it out myself. One of my english teachers really appreciated my own love for a book that other students dismissed.

The film itself is a good movie and a decent adaptation, it does it's job of compressing a near 500 page novel into 90 minutes (despite the odd plot hole of Holly managing to catch up with them, be captured by and escape from Efrafa, and meet up with the group before they reach Watership Down) and while it does lose some things like Woundwort's backstory and motivations, Bluebell, the other stories of Elilherah, the whole Warren of the Snares story with Strawberry and such, the happier ending with Campion taking over Efrafa and establishing a friendly alliance with Watership Down, and the minor characters who prove just as memorable in some aspects as the main.

Like in the book and the film, there's a moment during Woundwort's siege on the down where the rabbits reminisce about the incident with the rats in the barn. In the movie it comes off as a bit random and pointless, but in the book it's somewhat profound and quite sad, as it's Buckthorn, a rabbit who wasn't included in the movie, bringing it up and saying that it's sad that after everything they've endured, it will end here. Buckthorn suffered a lot in the book; injured by the rats and was with Captain Holly when they initially approached Efrafa to ask for some Does and when they escaped Buckthorn was injured via a slash across the face and was blinded by his own blood, and despite that he never complained and whined, and now it seems he's given up hope, which makes Hazel determined to win the battle.

I found Blackavar's death pretty needlessly grim after reading the book, seeing as how he survived in the novel. Maybe they decided the stakes needed to be higher and someone had to die? Might as well be the black rabbit, huh?

Also, the 'Bright Eyes' song sequence is done in this dreamy, surreal yet peaceful tone while in the book its even more surreal and nightmarish.

[cdrood]

I remember this being on HBO a lot when I was a kid. I'm not sure of the year it was on, but I'm thinking it was the 80's, not 1978 when it came out. I would have been a bit older, 11-13 maybe, and I really liked it. A friend who was, and still is, heavily into animals really loved it. He actually rescues rabbits. The violence didn't really affect me, probably because I grew up in the last group before they really started clamping down on things like guns and death in kids shows.

Anyway, it's a great movie and learning how much trouble getting it made was and the inexperience of the producer/director is really impressive.

[Trinary]

I found Blackavar's death pretty needlessly grim after reading the book, seeing as how he survived in the novel. Maybe they decided the stakes needed to be higher and someone had to die? Might as well be the black rabbit, huh?

It is weird that most movies play down the rougher scenes in the source material while this one amped it up. In addition to poor Blackavar's pointlessly cruel death, they also introduced and killed off Violet, even though Hazel's band didn't have any does in it when they left Sandleford Warren and they didn't lose anyone in the core group.

They also introduced the idea that a whole bunch of rabbits were preparing to leave with Hazel but that the Owsla caught most of them, dooming them to die when Sandleford was destroyed. That seems somehow worse and far more tragic than having the rest of the Sandleford rabbits be ignorant or dismissive of Fiver's vision.

[Becca]

Really enjoyed this one- Watership Down was a childhood TV staple growing up in the UK- particularly around Easter. As well as John Hurt as Hazel, we’ve also got Richard Briers as Fiver who was an extremely prolific and much loved actor- probably most famous for the 70s BBC sitcom The Good Life, but did tons of tv and voice work- including narrator for cult kids cartoon Roobarb.

I’d agree that the film Chuck was remembering was Plague Dogs- same author and a similar tone.

[Winter]

Personally I didn't much care for this film when I was a kid. I watched it when I was 8 or 9 and at the time I found it to be boring. Please note that I loved films like The Secret of NIMH, The Never Ending Story and I regulary watched R rated movies like Terminator 2 and Total Recall so violence was pretty old hat to me by then. Rewatching it now I do like it a bit better but I still find it to be a bit boring in places and a lot of that has to do with how some scenes are filmed.

For example when Big Wig is choking to death it cuts to the characters trying to free him and then back to him choking and ever time it's always the same angle only now Big Wig has a bit more blood coming out of his mouth. I know that some of this is due to the times this was made and the limitation of the films budget compared to a Disney or WB animated film but it still bugs me.

Still it has good characters, some great atmosphere and I can see why this scared the living $#!t out of kids and why it's still held as a classic today. I just found it to be rather dull by what I was use to seeing when I was young.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

Without having watched the review yet-

I loved the movie as a kid and as an adult. The melancholy tone, sense of cultural depth and identity for a bunch of rabbits, the "realistic" brutality of it, Bright Eyes; it's all very effective and affecting for me personally.

Later on I read the book, which was a really delightful read and better than I expected (and I did expect it to be good). The movie is certainly a good adaptation, but it many ways it doesn't feel like the same thing. The book does have a bit of a feel like "The Lord of the Rings with rabbits" with the mythology that's built, the care that's taken with language, and overall it fits into a fantasy mode. The movie doesn't quite fit that mold, but it does its own thing.

I'm not sure I'd classify either one as "for children", at least not specifically. Although as violent as the movie is, the adaptation of Plague Dogs is actually a lot more grim imo.

[Durandal_1707]

Regarding Chuck's comment near the end about the trippy cartoons Nickelodeon used to play back in the 80s—I remember those! And now I want to see Chuck review them. Especially those weird-as-hell Japanese ones with koalas in them. I wonder if the video for those still exists anywhere?

[Beastro]

I'm not sure I'd classify either one as "for children", at least not specifically. Although as violent as the movie is, the adaptation of Plague Dogs is actually a lot more grim imo.

I would. The scarring and scaring aspects of children's fiction are something that are in need in a return.

Part of childhood is experience all ranges of experiences. I bawled my eyes out over The Land Before Time and how nasty The Brave Little Toaster could be to anthropomorphic machines, but look back, I appreciate that such films could bring that out in me and help me develop.

I've never watched Watership Down given my moms dislike of sad animal movies (My brother took me to Land Before Time), but I have a feeling it had the same effect on those that did watch it, and is why people still speak of it today with such interest.

[SuccubusYuri]

I've always seen a pretty clear delineation with the "talking animals" genre between the American and British versions. Americans tend to be more on the cuddly side, Chuck's observations basically, but for some reason the British stories of the same vein always feel....really British xD

Perhaps that's my age group showing but, Watership Down and the Redwall series both share this rather bleak look at the life of critters, even if the latter is, people in animal suits (or at least it grows to be more-so as the books go on). I can't really put my finger on that quality, though. Perhaps it's that they both share those very limited supernatural powers, which in Jacques books manifests directly as medieval monk life of miracles and faith, of which you could sort-of ascribe to the Watership warren. Or perhaps it's that cynical Britishness taken to animal form, that present awareness of an oppressive class system that makes them focus on prey animals as viewpoint characters. I guess that makes the closest American equivalent, Vulpes the Red Fox? Which focuses on predators as all red-blooded Americans would under the theory. xD

That said my memories of the book are very spotty. Like I remember the snare traps warren well but very little about the final act, it's in clumps. I laughed my ass off at the "Burn, baby, burn," comment though xD

[Beastro]

I've always seen a pretty clear delineation with the "talking animals" genre between the American and British versions. Americans tend to be more on the cuddly side, Chuck's observations basically, but for some reason the British stories of the same vein always feel....really British xD

Perhaps that's my age group showing but, Watership Down and the Redwall series both share this rather bleak look at the life of critters, even if the latter is, people in animal suits (or at least it grows to be more-so as the books go on). I can't really put my finger on that quality, though. Perhaps it's that they both share those very limited supernatural powers, which in Jacques books manifests directly as medieval monk life of miracles and faith, of which you could sort-of ascribe to the Watership warren. Or perhaps it's that cynical Britishness taken to animal form, that present awareness of an oppressive class system that makes them focus on prey animals as viewpoint characters. I guess that makes the closest American equivalent, Vulpes the Red Fox? Which focuses on predators as all red-blooded Americans would under the theory. xD

That said my memories of the book are very spotty. Like I remember the snare traps warren well but very little about the final act, it's in clumps. I laughed my ass off at the "Burn, baby, burn," comment though xD

I wouldn't say that. More British willingness not to sugar-coat stuff like the Americans do, of which Disney and such are the most extreme versions. That especially to me comes up with the more keen awareness of how much it sucks to be a prey animal due to hunting past of the British compared to Americans that includes things like fox hunting and ferreting.

The latter is a bit of a shock to me being a ferret lover and given how much my guys were repelled by meat (still is a bit of shock whenever I see a video of ferts munching on meat, especially kits).