Oh, people forgot to mention Traveller, which is the story of the Civil War seen through the eyes of General Lee’s horse and The Outlandish Knight, a multi-generational tale set in the time of Anne Bolyan (or however its spelled). Enjoyed the first, never finished the second. Girl in the Swing was also made into one of the most God awful, wretched movies I’ve ever had the misfortune of seeing. I watched it because it was based off of the Richard Adams novel, but man did it suck rocks. There’s also an animated version of The Plague Dogs which was wonderfully done, lushly animated and stayed very true to the novel (truer than the animated version of WD did, anyway). Sadly, it’s out of print and Charter Entertainment Ltd failed to renew their license on it so it will never been re-released.
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*Originally posted by yabob *
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First, you gotta date someone as odd as the female character in “Girl In A Swing”…to really appreciate it!
Although, I don’t think Richard Adams knew there IS such a personality-type.
- Jinx
Oh, yeah! How could I forget? “Traveller” is awesome - and appealing to a wide adult audience. If “Watership Down” didn’t introduce the unwashed masses to Richard Adams unique style, “Traveller” will win them all over! With a Civil War theme, the Civil War buffs will enjoy this one!
- Jinx
Of course, I know of some English teachers who’d take a religious look at Watership Down with Fiver as sort of a Christ figure, right? (Although, I think it was BigWig who dies, right?) Eh, that doesn’t spoil the ending…you gotta read it all!
Eh, what’s up, doc?
- Jinx
Like Fiver, I feel somewhat obligated to post to this thread.
I did a paper on Watership Down in High School. To the best of my recollection, no one was claiming it was based on any other particular story. As others have already pointed out, it simply looked at a very familiar world in a new way…which is what I think is the real strength of the book. The movie version is a little different from the book, but really not bad, you should give it a chance if you haven’t already seen it. No, Bigwig doesn’t die. And according to all the sources I have seen, rabbits (or the European Wild Rabbit, which is what we are talking about here) originated in Spain, not the Middle East. Interestingly, their colonization of Britain came after they were (semi?)domesticated on the European mainland, so all the rabbits in Britain, including the ones in W.D., would be descended from escapees from captivity.