Watership Down (1978 film)
| ♥ | This article is dedicated to John Hurt (1940-2017), the voice actor of the Hazel; Zero Mostel (1915-1977), the voice actor of Kehaar; and John Hubley (1914-1977), the co-director of the film. May they rest in peace. |
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 "Bright Eyes, burning like fire..."
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Watership Down (in the film: Richard Adams's Watership Down) is a 1978 British animated adventure-drama thriller film written, produced, and directed by Martin Rosen and based on the novel of the same name by Richard Adams. It was financed by a consortium of British financial institutions. Originally released on October 19th, 1978, the film was an immediate success and it became the sixth most popular film of 1979 at the British box office. It was the first animated feature film to be presented in Dolby surround sound.
It features the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Harry Andrews, Simon Cadell, Nigel Hawthorne, and Roy Kinnear, among others, and was the last film work of Zero Mostel, as the voice of Kehaar the Gull. The musical score was by Angela Morley and Malcolm Williamson. Art Garfunkel's hit single "Bright Eyes", which was written by songwriter Mike Batt, briefly features.
In 2015, BBC aired an animated miniseries based on the novel of the same name. The miniseries will be co-production between the BBC and Netflix, the episodes will be a total of four with a one-hour runtime and was released on December 25th, 2018.
Plot
In the Sandleford warren, Fiver, a young runt rabbit who is a seer, receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. When he and his loving brother, Hazel, fail to convince their chief of the need to evacuate; they set out on their own with a small band of others who heeded the warning and barely manage to elude Warren's military caste. What follows is a perilous journey in which the band faces dangers of all varieties like predators, humans, and even their kind. While they eventually find a peaceful new home at Watership Down, they have new problems that will lead to a deadly conflict with the neighboring Warren called Efrafa, which is a police state by the powerful and insane General Woundwort.
Why It Has Bright Eyes
- High-quality animation as the rabbit's design is slightly realistic look.
- It faithfully follows the source material with differences.
- Powerful characters like Hazel, Fiver, General Woundwort, and many more.
- Excellent soundtrack including the most popular was "Bright Eyes", written by Mike Batt and sung by Art Garfunkel.
- Beautiful art of the background.
- The movie is dedicated to Zero Mostel and John Hubley for their greatest work.
- Very intense scenes where many rabbits were been killed on-screen for a thriller.
- It even has an animated television series based on the adaption which was aired on YTV in Canada and CITV in the UK back in 1999 until 2001, It has a lighter tone, that somewhat toned down some of the disturbing moments and has milder violence that changed in the third season when the series became to have darker moments with more violence ahead, but still milder than the film.
The Only Bad Quality
- The movie was released on VHS or DVD with a U rating (G-rating in other nations). That tricked many children to watch it and see many rabbits getting killed and get scared or even terrified because of it, with some disturbing scenes and mild swearing (with one scene in which Kehaar yells "Piss off!"). This resulted in a lawsuit from angry parents for the false rating. It was PG-rated when it was first brought to the United States.