# New Watership Down Film To Be Made **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 28, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176 "2015-03-28T02:22:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/41 "2015-04-17T18:48:33Z")
Here’s a page showing the variety of posters/Video/DVD covers used to promote the movie: > **[Watership Down](https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/11837-watership-down/images/posters)** > > When the warren belonging to a community of rabbits is threatened, a brave group led by Fiver, Bigwig, Blackberry and Hazel leave their homeland in a search of a safe new haven. Ranging from this: [https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/6ncDKxfghWnaRPgnBLym4Cr2nwY.jpg](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/6ncDKxfghWnaRPgnBLym4Cr2nwY.jpg) To this: [https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/je9Jpw4HQaDqHsTAPkM9wNw3pXz.jpg](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/je9Jpw4HQaDqHsTAPkM9wNw3pXz.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/42 "2015-04-17T20:10:24Z")
I wanted them to do this movie with real rabbits like the Babe movies. I think Russel Crow could be an awesome Bigwig. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/43 "2015-04-17T20:16:27Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Ranging from this: > > [https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/6ncDKxfghWnaRPgnBLym4Cr2nwY.jpg](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/6ncDKxfghWnaRPgnBLym4Cr2nwY.jpg) Awwww…cute widdle bunnies. > [@](#): > > To this: > > [https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/je9Jpw4HQaDqHsTAPkM9wNw3pXz.jpg](https://image.tmdb.org/t/p/original/je9Jpw4HQaDqHsTAPkM9wNw3pXz.jpg) :eek: Yep, pretty schizophrenic :). Can’t blame some parents for getting caught by surprise based on the first one. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/44 "2015-04-17T20:33:11Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > I wanted them to do this movie with real rabbits like the Babe movies. > I think Russel Crow could be an awesome Bigwig. Russell Crowe is a rabbit? :eek: I had no idea. Sorry. Anyway… I can see how the poster thing would happen. If I had to pick one word to describe the movie (or my impression of it, anyway), then “schizophrenic” wouldn’t be a bad choice (as in the “split personality” sense, not the “hearing voices” sense). I haven’t read the book, but I’ll be checking it out. ---
**Author:** ![racepug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@racepug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racepug)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/45 "2015-04-17T21:33:05Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > It’s one of my favorite books, and I own the movie on DVD. I, too, fear they will omit or tone down some of the more intense situations in the new movie, to be able to sell tickets to families. The animation in the original movie is beautiful, and I love the stylized **El-Ahrairah** sequences. My wife LOVES this story (as do I) but she wants to know why the rabbit prince goes by an Arabic-sounding name! ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/46 "2015-04-17T21:45:52Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > Russell Crowe is a rabbit? :eek: I had no idea. > > Sorry. Anyway… > > I can see how the poster thing would happen. If I had to pick one word to describe the movie (or my impression of it, anyway), then “schizophrenic” wouldn’t be a bad choice (as in the “split personality” sense, not the “hearing voices” sense). > > I haven’t read the book, but I’ll be checking it out. Hey, the “hearing voices” sense would work, too - think of the character Fiver. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/47 "2015-04-17T22:12:58Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Sure, the main characters don’t die - but they hardly escape unharmed; each of them comes very close to death, often very traumatically (think Bigwig in the snare). This isn’t surprising, since aparently the author was drawing on his WW2 experiences when he wrote the story. WW2 themes abound in the story - from the gassing of the warren (how many kids movies expressly depict mass murder by poision gas, I wonder? 😃 ), the collaborationist Vichy rabbits of Cowslip’s “warren of complicity”, through to the Nazi-like General Woundwort and his Efrafan SS (compete with organized rape, which is actually depicted! Albeit more by implication than graphically). That’s interesting! I had never thought about Cowsli’s warren at collaborationist–though I guess that shifts the Hitler/fascist symbols to being man, not Woundwort and his warren. I remember reading that Adams said that even though many people have various interpretations of the book that he never intended any of it–that all he had in mind was an epic adventure. But it is cool to see what people have come up with. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/48 "2015-04-17T22:23:31Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > That’s interesting! I had never thought about Cowsli’s warren at collaborationist–though I guess that shifts the Hitler/fascist symbols to being man, not Woundwort and his warren. I remember reading that Adams said that even though many people have various interpretations of the book that he never intended any of it–that all he had in mind was an epic adventure. But it is cool to see what people have come up with. I think the only part that is “word of god” from the author is that he based the personality of his characters on his officers in the Army during WW2. > **[10 Facts You Might Not Know about Watership Down](https://www.neatorama.com/2012/05/18/10-facts-you-might-not-know-about-watership-down/)** > > The reviewer for The Times could barely contain himself: "I announce with trembling pleasure the appearance of a great story." Forty years ago, a hitherto unknown British civil servant named Richard Adams released Watership Down and captivated two... The rest is all extrapolation on the part of the viewer … but it is pretty reasonable, given the WW2-era experiences that inspired the story, to think of the gassing of the warren as inspired by the Holocaust, and Woundwort and his warren as inspired by the Nazis - both would have been familiar issues to a soldier who survived WW2. I admit, the Cowslip’s warren = Vichy is something I just made up. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/49 "2015-04-17T22:26:39Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I admit, the Cowslip’s warren = Vichy is something I just made up. 😉 Keep doing that. It shows that you’re thinking. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I remember reading that Adams said that even though many people have various interpretations of the book that he never intended any of it–that all he had in mind was an epic adventure. I always want to slap authors who say things like that, because it seems to make some people think “Oh, I’ll just turn my brain off, then, and stop talking about this, since none of my perfectly valid analysis was _intented_”. If it’s in the book, it’s in the book. Who cares if it was intended? (Um. Sorry. Personal berserk button. I’ll take my rabbit and go now.) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2015, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/50 "2015-04-17T23:51:14Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > Remakes aren’t dangerous. Oh, hey - I just got this. Clever :). ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/51 "2015-04-18T00:23:51Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > For some reason a movie about vivisection didn’t become a cultural touchstone. I often see it on lists of underrated movies/animations, so it’s not forgotten. We showed Plague Dogs as a double feature with Watership Down advertised as “Warm Fuzzy Animal Night” for the SciFi/Fantasy group I ran in college. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2015, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/52 "2015-04-18T00:24:16Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I remember reading that Adams said that even though many people have various interpretations of the book that he never intended any of it–that all he had in mind was an epic adventure. I’m willing to take Adams at his word that he never **intended** any of it as allegory; as evidence, I’ll note that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a proposed single allegorical interpretation that self-consistently addresses all of the various plot threads without more or less stretching. (For example, the horror of the gas at Sandleford seems to be far more reminiscent of the experiences of Western Front troops in the Great War; gas wasn’t a feature of the Second World War, militarily. Perhaps this is only because we have first hand accounts of trench gassing survivors; I don’t believe anyone survived to give us a first hand account of the showers.) That said, Richard Adams was spinning a yarn from his own imagination and his own experiences. It’d be far more remarkable if you couldn’t draw parallels between the adventures of the Watership Down rabbits and human events. So far as it goes, I think the most obvious theme gets overlooked in the rush to find parallels to Fascism or world wars: Empathy for our fellow creatures. I don’t know exactly where Richard Adams stood on “animal rights” in the PETA sense; generally, he strikes me as a practical chap, who understands that sometimes we’re going to rub up against other living things in ways that aren’t entirely pleasant, and in those cases, our needs, ultimately, come first. But he clearly cared for animals, and thought them worthy of our respect and understanding; Watership Down does nothing if not give you some idea of what a rabbit’s eye perspective of the world, and humans’ role in it, might be. Anyway, ramble done. ---
**Author:** ![Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/77aa72/32.png) [@Fluffy\_PickleSniffer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fluffy_PickleSniffer)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/53 "2015-04-19T00:12:53Z")
I have an audio book version of Watership Down as well as the book. In the audio version, there’s an intro where Richard Adams explains how he used to tell stories to the kids when they were going on drives in the car, to entertain them. And every time they’d get in the car, he’d pick up the story where he left off, or add another part to it. He said that’s where Watership Down was “born” - in the car. And the kids pushed and pushed over the years to have him write it down and make a book out of it, so he finally did, enlarging the story as he went. Been a while since I’ve listened, so I don’t remember all the details. It was told in the middle of a rambling intro that I kind of half-tuned out. But I thought that was kind of neat so it’s stuck with me. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/54 "2015-04-20T14:10:40Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > I’m willing to take Adams at his word that he never **intended** any of it as allegory; as evidence, I’ll note that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a proposed single allegorical interpretation that self-consistently addresses all of the various plot threads without more or less stretching. (For example, the horror of the gas at Sandleford seems to be far more reminiscent of the experiences of Western Front troops in the Great War; gas wasn’t a feature of the Second World War, militarily. Perhaps this is only because we have first hand accounts of trench gassing survivors; I don’t believe anyone survived to give us a first hand account of the showers.) > > That said, Richard Adams was spinning a yarn from his own imagination and his own experiences. It’d be far more remarkable if you couldn’t draw parallels between the adventures of the Watership Down rabbits and human events. > > So far as it goes, I think the most obvious theme gets overlooked in the rush to find parallels to Fascism or world wars: Empathy for our fellow creatures. I don’t know exactly where Richard Adams stood on “animal rights” in the PETA sense; generally, he strikes me as a practical chap, who understands that sometimes we’re going to rub up against other living things in ways that aren’t entirely pleasant, and in those cases, our needs, ultimately, come first. But he clearly cared for animals, and thought them worthy of our respect and understanding; Watership Down does nothing if not give you some idea of what a rabbit’s eye perspective of the world, and humans’ role in it, might be. > > Anyway, ramble done. I don’t think it is so much an “allegory” as it is that he drew from his own experiences and the times he lived through - it is, for example, “word of god” that he patterned the personality of his characters on the officers he served with in the army. It is not too much of a stretch to see themes from WW2 era in the story - the gas killing not so much Western Front in WW1, as Nazi extermination of “undesireables” in WW2. That said, there is no need for it to be a deliberate “allegory”. If anything, the book was patterned - in part - on the idea of “hero’s quest” he took from Campbell’s study of mythology - this isn’t a very significant speculation, because in the book at least he started chapters with quotations, many from his book, and the author has allegedly acknowledged that the book was inspired in part by it. > **[The Hero with a Thousand Faces](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces)** > > The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by Joseph Campbell, in which the author discusses his theory of the mythological structure of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world myths. > Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. Filmmaker George Lucas acknowledged Campbell's theory in mythology, and its influence on the Star War... Of course, this would make Fiver the “hero” … 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/55 "2015-04-20T22:20:19Z")
One of the things that made the film adaptation so near-perfect was because they didn’t hit you over the head hard with allegories. I saw the film first when I was around 15 or 16, and read the novel after. I remember that in the book after they free Bigwig from the snare at Cowslip’s warren Fiver (or Hazel) gives a soliloquy explaining it. How the rabbits there are allowed to live in safety & comfort in exchange for accepting that some of them will die every so often (kind of an Eloi & Morlock dystopian society). But in the film this isn’t stated outright, they just realize they must leave. But the book’s reason _ **is** _ the same conclusion I came to when I first watched the film, and it was satisfying to see both that I was right, and that they didn’t have to spoon-feed it to you. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/56 "2015-04-21T14:45:35Z")
> [@G0sp3l](#): > > Remakes aren’t dangerous. > [@Tamerlane](#): > > Oh, hey - I just got this. Clever :). I didn’t notice there was anything to ‘get’ until you mentioned that. Then instant :smack:, of course. Woundwort! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/57 "2015-04-21T14:54:19Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > This depends entirely on the audience. > > What got Watership Down its rep is that, to many unfamiliar with the story, it appeared to be a buccolic tale about cute rabbits in the sleepy English countryside. The animation style fits with this - very pretty hand-painted watercolour backdrops. > > So a lot of people took very young children to see it. > > It is this disconnect between the outward appearance and plot that made it a legend. > > Sure, set it beside Game of Thrones it isn’t so harsh. But the audience for Game of Thrones is _expecting_ harsh. > > Sure, the main characters don’t die - but they hardly escape unharmed; each of them comes very close to death, often very traumatically (think Bigwig in the snare). And in fact Bigwig nearly dies twice - he’s in an awful state after Woundwort has finished with him and he says he is done fighting for good. Hazel gets hit by a shotgun and is always slightly lame afterwards, while Fiver is a little odder for the rest of his life after the war (Bigwig states that in his opinion Fiver has paid more dearly for their victory than he did). As for the extermination of Sandleford Warren, red-shirts they may all be but the description of the gassing of the warren certainly isn’t all sunshine and roses (very traumatic in the film as I remember when the rabbits are getting jam-packed into the blocked exit tunnels). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176/58 "2015-04-21T16:18:04Z")
ISTM the only way to improve on the 1987 version is to make the rabbits nine feet long and carnivorous. With poison-barbed tentacles. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-watership-down-film-to-be-made/716176.md?page=2)