Richard Adams and Watership Down

crjr9833

crjr9833

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+JMJ

Greetings everyone,

I wanted to open up this thread for any Watership Down or Richard Adams fans (or for the curious). I finished reading Watership Down last year and was blown away. Although I had seen the old animated film growing up, reading the book was an entirely different experience.

A suggested topic: One interesting area of discussion of a comparison between Lewis and Adams would be in their different uses of anthropomorphic beasts. The former humanizes (at least many of) his anthro-animals to the point of their facilitating human-like habits of dress, manner and customs, whereas the latter retains in his anthro-animals as much as possible of the natural state of their real-world non-anthro counterparts.

While both authors have different purposes for the way they employ their anthro-animals - which I think deserves attention - it would nonetheless be interesting to discuss the believability of each author's attempt to humanize their animal characters. A common theme that I see portrayed in both authors' anthro-animal characters is in those characters' partaking of myth or religious narrative and their faith in God or a god (in the instance of Lewis's talking beasts usually Aslan; in the instance of Adam's cultured rabbits Lord Frith).
 
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Great topic crjr! It's been years since I read Watership Down, but the scope and drama and courage and strength of the story still stays with me. Unfortunately I don't remember enough specifics to be able to discuss Adam's work intelligently.
 
I have always loved the book and and the first animated movie of 1978. The latter cartoon series is not good and the Netflix version served no purpose. As you have stated the rabbit mythology was a key part of the book that I enjoyed that was never covered much in the movie and TV versions. Was important in helping me understand what faith was as a young Christian. :)
 
I haven't seen the tv series, but I have read the book and seen the movie. Both are excellent, in my humble opinion. Wonderful hero rabbits, Fiver, Hazel, Bigwig and their friends, and a fearsome villain in the fearsome General Woundwort!
 
I love "Watership Down," as did my deceased first wife Mary Scudellari Ravitts. The animated movie version was fairly good, but its choice to make the story darker and grimmer than Richard Adams wrote it was not an improvement.
 
As for the approach to portraying sentient animals: unlike Mister Lewis, Mister Adams never shows animals as being able to converse WITH HUMANS.
 
TimmyofOz said:
I have always loved the book and and the first animated movie of 1978. The latter cartoon series is not good and the Netflix version served no purpose. As you have stated the rabbit mythology was a key part of the book that I enjoyed that was never covered much in the movie and TV versions. Was important in helping me understand what faith was as a young Christian. :)
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+JMJ

I would tend to agree with you, TimmyofOz, that the Netflix version was disappointing. I believe that the original animated film was decent (its tone was appropriate), but, like the Netflix version, it overlooked most of the rabbit mythology, and it also portrayed the rabbit that visits Hazel at the end of the story as the Black Rabbit of Inlé (or of Death). The rabbit that visits him, I would argue, is El-ahrairah. But I would like to elaborate on this later.

I've found that what you've said about the story helping your faith interesting. Good for you! Can you explain?
 
Copperfox said:
I love "Watership Down," as did my deceased first wife Mary Scudellari Ravitts. The animated movie version was fairly good, but its choice to make the story darker and grimmer than Richard Adams wrote it was not an improvement.
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+JMJ

In fact, Copperfox, the book is even darker and grimmer than the original animated film. Yet, the thread of hope that runs through the often grim narrative is more pervasive because of the interwoven mythologies and the Christ-type of El-ahrairah. But when I find more time, I would like to post more elaborately on this.
 
I have read Watership Down repeatedly. The reasons why I consider the movie darker and grimmer are these:

1) In the book, Blackavar didn't get killed by Woundwort; this death was added for the movie.

2) At the end of the movie, the dying Hazel was met only by the rabbit version of the Grim Reaper, instead of by El-a-Hrair-rah.
 
crjr9833,

The movie came out at the same time I became a Christian. I saw the movie before I read the book. So when I read the book in College, I saw that the rabbit's religious life matched the Christians life. Understanding how I fit in in the world, use of prayer, trusting in the gifts that God gives you, and listening to the voice if the Holy Spirit.

I have either read the book or listen to the audio reading a dozen times and still find it enlightening. Watership Downs ranks up with The Wind in the Willow.
 
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Copperfox said:
I have read Watership Down repeatedly. The reasons why I consider the movie darker and grimmer are these:

1) In the book, Blackavar didn't get killed by Woundwort; this death was added for the movie.

2) At the end of the movie, the dying Hazel was met only by the rabbit version of the Grim Reaper, instead of by El-a-Hrair-rah.
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Hmm. Is Blackavar the rabbit in Woundwort's warren that gets tortured but is then rescued? I forgot about this.

Yeah, I wasn't keen on the Dark Rabbit of Inlé being the rabbit to visit Hazel. It's not in keeping with the Christian spirit of the novel.

Does this make the old animated movie darker? Perhaps. It is at least more secular. I also do not find it, nor the more recent adaption, to be as dramatic . . . the characters somehow lack the depth with which they are written. I think that any future adaptions should be much more character-driven. They should also focus a lot more on the rabbit mythology and the tales of El-a-Hrair-rah. These are some of the best moments of the novel!

All the anthropomorphized rabbits in the novel are deeply human characters whose stories unfold a poetic myth as timeless as any classical myth. The movies seems to favor action (in the case of both of them) and the creation of eerie atmosphere (in the case of the old version) over character development. Thus, when an artist emphasizes certain elements of a story without accompanying them with one of the story's additional crucial elements, consumers can be left with feeling an odd sense of incompleteness. In the case of Watership Down, these films then seem to come off as dark in a weird way for the reason that they lack fully developed characters (indeed they are almost lifeless) against a violent and/or grim backdrop.
 
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