Watership Down is known to many children of the ’70s and ’80s as a harrowing, shockingly violent cartoon about rabbits fighting to the death, but the original Richard Adams novel doesn’t focus on those aspects. It depicts them as part of the regular lives of countryside herbivores on a journey to find and establish a new warren when one of them gets an accurate premonition that the old one is about to be destroyed. The BBC and Netflix are releasing a new CG-animated version this Christmas, and in order to more accurately portray the book, it’s going to come in two feature-length installments.
I love that book, and the animated version is certainly...a thing. But there is some fierce fighting in the story, not to mention goth level death obsessions. I hope this new version doesn't water it down too much.
The trailer is out. The only two nitpicks I have are visual, the voice work sounds great. One, it looks like a game. Seriously, I want to play this more than watch it. The other thing is the rabbits are kind of indistinguishable from each other, except the one rabbit with the strange ears. I'm sure after watching it for awhile I'll be able to tell them apart but I would have preferred more immediately distinctive looking rabbits.
I've vaguely heard of it, but know nothing about it other than not to let my kids see it. And yeah, having watched the trailer it really does look like a game.
My memory of the 1978 original film is pretty distinct.
I was nine when we saw it in the theater. There's a scene where rabbits are buried alive in their burrow as a farmer's tractor fills in the holes above them. For years I recalled how that scene terrified me, and I've was sure for most of my life that it lasted an interminable full minute, never ending, terrible to endure, making it impossible to look away.
Just a few years ago I watched the movie with my kids. The burial scene is a single shot that lasts 1.5 seconds at most.
The original movie was truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Sure, objectively I can say that the movie is competently made and I'm sure that there are some folks somewhere who could enjoy such a thing. But I still get the chills thinking about this pointlessly depressing film. One of those movies, like Eraserhead or Anomalisa, that I honestly wish I had never seen.
I saw it on TV (maybe HBO?) when I was about 7 and it seriously messed me up. I remember sobbing hysterically at some point and I can't even tell you at this point exactly what it was over. I have flashes of dead, bleeding rabbits in my memory but nothing specific. I don't think I've watched it since then either but I did read the book.
Smoove_B wrote: ↑Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:57 pm
I saw it on TV (maybe HBO?) when I was about 7 and it seriously messed me up. I remember sobbing hysterically at some point and I can't even tell you at this point exactly what it was over. I have flashes of dead, bleeding rabbits in my memory but nothing specific. I don't think I've watched it since then either but I did read the book.
Dead Bleeding Rabbits would be an awesome bluegrass metal band name.
Holman wrote: ↑Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:40 pm
My memory of the 1978 original film is pretty distinct.
I was nine when we saw it in the theater. There's a scene where rabbits are buried alive in their burrow as a farmer's tractor fills in the holes above them. For years I recalled how that scene terrified me, and I've was sure for most of my life that it lasted an interminable full minute, never ending, terrible to endure, making it impossible to look away.
+1. I had the same memory.
Black Lives Matter
Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
Apollo wrote: ↑Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:56 pm
The original movie was truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Sure, objectively I can say that the movie is competently made and I'm sure that there are some folks somewhere who could enjoy such a thing. But I still get the chills thinking about this pointlessly depressing film. One of those movies, like Eraserhead or Anomalisa, that I honestly wish I had never seen.
i can't wait for the remake of another animated version of one of Richard Adams' books, _The Plague Dogs_ (1982, from the same animation studio) about two dogs that escape from an animal testing facility, but may have been infected with the bubonic plague, so the laboratory and the government are now hunting them down. one of the dogs is nearly drowned by the scientists at the beginning of the story and the other has had some sort of electrical device implanted in his brain that gives him hallucinations throughout the film. it's a right cheery story that will fill you with love and admiration for your fellow man.
from an imdb review: "The story of two infected dogs who escape from a containment facility is the most heart wrenching story I think I have read, and the film recreates that world perfectly. It is not that there is a bleeding heart liberal inside of me and I would stress that I am not a member of PETA. but this film hurts."
Apollo wrote: ↑Tue Dec 04, 2018 11:56 pm
The original movie was truly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Sure, objectively I can say that the movie is competently made and I'm sure that there are some folks somewhere who could enjoy such a thing. But I still get the chills thinking about this pointlessly depressing film. One of those movies, like Eraserhead or Anomalisa, that I honestly wish I had never seen.
Wow, I'll have to disagree. I've seen it as an adult, and I think it's strong as a fantasy treatment of war, politics, and danger. (The book is good that way too.)
The real problem is that it was marketed atrociously in America: many parents thought it was just a kids' rabbit cartoon.
It's a good movie, it's just a little rough for certain people, I guess.
I saw it when I was like 12 (not sure exactly, perhaps a couple years younger even), having already read the book. Loved them both.
I've read the book to my wife, like 15 years ago (something we do), and am about to read the book to my two kids (If they'll take it).
Totally looking forward to this movie.
In the trailer - the animation looks, at times, to be a little stilted... like things moving in lurches... bad frame-rate type stuff. Anyone else see that?
