With it being Easter weekend, hopefully you’re not planning on getting cute fluffy bunnies for your kids. Rabbits take a lot of effort to take care of, just like other pets.
And while the Easter Bunny a symbol for the holiday, it really doesn’t make a lot of sense especially when you consider neither rabbits nor hares lay eggs unless you count their feces pellets as eggs.
But if there’s one movie that bunny lovers have avoided it’s the 1978 adaptation of Richard Adams’ Watership Down. During the 1970s, Ralph Bakshi helped lead the change in how moviegoers saw animation and cartoons. Bakshi made movies like Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Wizards and The Lord of the Rings during this decade. They were controversial and have divided audiences but they were moving away from the concept animation was for kids only that Disney had implied.
Fritz the Cat was the first animated movie to receive the X rating. Bakshi’s Heavy Traffic and Coonskin were both rated R. Then there was the vulgar movie Down and Dirty Duck and even Once Upon a Girl which no parent could mistake as suitable for children. The only problem was in the U.K. in 1978 when the movie was release, movies were only rated U for universal or 15 for those 15 and older.
So, a lot of children probably were inspecting cute fluffy bunnies and instead saw rabbits fighting with themselves, ripping their throats out, being caught in snares near death and during the movie’s climax ripped to shred by big dogs. Oh, also here is a sequence in which Captain Holly (voiced by John Bennett) recalls how the warren was destroyed by building developers as the rabbits were trapped inside to die.
In other words, nature is a rough place, which was the intention of filmmaker Martin Rosen, who produced, directed and wrote the screenplay. He has said the movie was never intended for children. Yet, even in America were it received a PG rating, some parents just assumed it might be suitable for children. Even Disney hadn’t released a PG rating movie in 1978. It would be the next year with The Black Hole.
The movie focuses on two rabbit brothers, Fiver (voiced by Robert Briers) and his older brother, Hazel (voiced by John Hurt). Fiver has an apocalyptic vision of the destruction that later happens to a warren in the Sandleford area of England. They and other rabbits set out for a different place to establish a new warren after they escape. They end up enduring a lot of hardships as they travel to their new place at Watership Down.
But even in a new spot, they face harms as they try to survive. In one scene, they discover a rodent that has been killed on the road. One of the rabbits, Bigwig (voiced by Michael Graham Cox) becomes trapped in a snare around his neck and nearly dies. And the rabbits face danger from hunters and other predators.
It’s not Bug Bunny getting the best of Elmer Fudd. Animals just like humans form their own societies. Wolves travel in packs as well as lions fighting over dominance of a pride. Elephants will form herds of up to 100 or more. And in their instincts, they behave a certain way.
Having owned cats half my life, I’ve noticed they behave a certain way. They can get along or they can fight. How does it happen? I don’t know. Maybe the animals give off a scent or maybe it’s just a bad look.
I’ve never read the book, but I have read the graphic novel which along with the movie condensed about 400 pages into something you can be over and done with in about an hour and a half. I feel Adams was going for an expansion of what George Orwell did with Animal Farm. Whereas that book was a satirical allegory of the Russian Revolution and the aftermath, this book is more of a generic allegory about human civilization in general.
Fiver, Hazel, Bigwig, Captain Holly and the antagonistic General Woundwort (voiced by Harry Andrews) all seem to have the same behaviors as humans. Fiver is more anxious and worrisome. Hazel is more grounded and level-headed most likely due to be older than Fiver even though in rabbit years that may not be too much older. Bigwig seems more wishy-washy willing to go along with whatever idea he can find beneficial to himself. And Woundwort is controlling and fearless. In the end when the nearby farm dog attacks the warren, he stands up to the creature even though it’s more than likely certain death.
I remember seeing this movie for the first time when I was in elementary school which is probably when it came out on home video back in the mid-1980s. I’m not sure the faculty understood the movie wasn’t intended for a bunch of young kids. But my great granddaughter saw Gremlins and thought it was a funny and one of my friend’s daughter, whose about the same age, loves Killer Klowns from Outer Space.
Then you had Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal and Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH, both of which had darker material than what was common from the House of Mouse. Rosen would also make another animated feature adaptation of Adams’ novel The Plague Dogs. So, not everything is cute and cuddly. Both Plague and NIMH have subject matters regarding animal testing so sometimes young children must be made aware of the horrors that exist.
Young animals are usually the targets of predators both because of their size and vulnerability. We tell people horrible stories to keep them from getting into vans or cars with strangers. So, what difference is a movie like this?
It’s not a bad movie. I’ve just never been able to get too much into it as others have. I think the animation is impressive for the time frame. The voice cast is very wonderful as it’s mostly a who’s who of actors from the U.K. at the time. Denholm Elliott and Nigel Hawthorne both lend their voices to characters of Cowslip and Campion, respectively. And fans of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory will recognize Roy Kinnear (the father of Veruca Salt) as the character Pipkin.
For comic relief, Zero Mostel voices a black-headed seagull. This would be his last film role as he passed away in early September 1977, a whole year before the movie was released.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 