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Diaryland

I Start Fires!

Lexiroth
Her Rainess
Lizsama
'Cedez
Moonie
Pipey
Timofsky
Motro
Squeeky
Lady Maverick
DM
Shoisies
Chokie

2002-10-31

Piggy's specs were nicked at: 7:11 p.m.

You would think that, being the huge fan of Watership Down that I am, I would have seen the movie sometime more recently than two days ago. Not so. I only just picked up and watched everyone's favourite movie starring happy little bunnies that KILL.

Yes yes, I have the Watership Down DVD. Go ahead and touch me. In the spirit of Hallow's Eve and the warm fuzzy things that come with it, I'll write a review of the movie.

As far as cramming a medium-large story into an hour and a half animated movie goes, it's a good adaptation. The animation is gorgeous and lovingly done. The music is fine (even though I've got Bright Eyes stuck in my head for all eternity), the voice acting is solid, and thank you Martin Rosen for keeping one important thing accurate to the book: Hazel's search for does is strictly business. No wabbit womance crap.

The animation envelopes the characters. Hazel is drawn quick, calm and steady, Bigwig is a brickhouse (and properly reduced to a bundle of terror when he thinks he hears the Black Rabbit calling his name), and Fiver is a quivering, nervous thing with rolling eyes that show the whites. And then, of course, there's General Woundwort with all his fearsome lolling. You get the distinct impression, as you do with the book, that this is one rabbit you don't want to scroo with.

On the other hand, that brings me to a few major problems I had with the film.

I understand that a movie has to be condensed, and Rosen went about it in a few clever ways; for example, having Captain Holly being captured by Efrafa and escaping while on his way from Sandleford Warren to Hazel. But the movie never really gives us the reason behind Efrafa. It's been a while since I read the book, but as I recall, General Woundwort has a mortal fear of two things: Man, and the white blindness. Efrafa specifically captured nearby rabbits, forced them to stay in the warren and issued orderly ranks (near hind mark, etc.) so that the warren would always properly be out of man's sight. In the movie, we just see a big, crowded warren with a crazy dictator in charge. Cool, but not very meaningful.

For that matter, Captain Campion, one of my favourite characters, is downplayed as a sniveling toady in the movie. In the book, he's anything but. In the UK / Canadian cartoon, he's even less so (more on that further down). Vervain, another one of my Efrafin favourites, didn't even make the cut. Sniff.

I was hoping, wishing and hoping, that somehow the movie would be able to include the story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit. To be honest, I didn't care about most of the El-ahrairah stories in the novel, but the meeting with the Black Rabbit was just full of great stuff. To be fair, when Watership Down is under attack and Hazel runs to the farm to carry out his master plan while saying a quick prayer to Frith, my favourite line from the Black Rabbit sequence is spoken: "Bargains, bargains. Never a day goes by where a doe bargains for the life of her kittens, or some faithful Captain of Owsla for the life of his Chief Rabbit's. But there is no bargain, for what is, is what must be."

I'd just rather hear it from the Black Rabbit I guess. Besides that, El-ahrirah isn't mentioned all that much in the movie, which surprised me. In the book, you hardly see a page without his name on it.

I did not, did not, did not like the movie's interpretation of Cowslip's Warren. I would've preferred if they'd taken out the sequence altogether. I pictured Cowslip's Warren as a place with aristocratic, well fed rabbits and a heavy sense of forboding. It is, after all, the Warren of the Shining Wires and its residents have exchanged freedom and Frith for security, food, and a sure end in a snare. And they've accepted this, which is what freaks Fiver out. Nonetheless, you see almost none of this in the movie. The warren was dank, dark, and full of scared rabbits. I was looking very forward to hearing from Silverweed, but he never even shows up. Hint: Cowslip is a lousy poet.

At the end of the movie, Hazel is still saved from the claws of Tab by a human; more specifically, Lucy. Unfortunately, we don't see Hazel being healed and returned to Watership Down by the little deus ex machina. I was dissapointed. Through the whole book -- and even parts of the movie -- we hear about how mysterious and ultimately evil Man is. Yet, Hazel is saved and healed by one in the end of the book. Just seems like a shame to assasinate such a lovely plot twist and compromise humanity's role in the world of bunnies.

And, at last, one final gripe, and my biggest one yet. The ending. Beautifully animated, but why was Hazel taken away by the Black Rabbit? The book's resolution had him taken away by El-ahrairah himself, to join his Owsla. The Black Rabbit is merely the Grim Reaper. All rabbits are taken away by the Black Rabbit. But El-arairah is the hero of rabbitdom. You've got to be pretty special for the hero of countless myths and legends to personally appear and take you away when you die. When it's my time to go, I don't think Shigeru Miyamoto is going to get off his can to collect me.

But in all, it was a great movie and I'm glad I bought it. The funny thing is, now I have to give more credit to the cartoon.

Canada and the UK have a Watership Down cartoon. As a "Tales from Watership Down" sort of thing, it's pretty decent. As an adaptation of the book, it stinks. The rabbits are cute and cartoony (Pipkin is disgustingly sweet), the violence is toned down, and Blackberry is a girl. Yes, that totally annihilates the entire point of the story, but there's a few good things going for the cartoon. John Hurt as General Woundwort, for one thing. Second, tons of Captain Campion and Captain Vervain and Efrafa in general. Third, Woundwort actually explains why Efrafa was made, and why it's controlled the way it is.

In short, it's just a strange cartoon. I think it's still on CBC at six on Sundays.

Yay for bunnies.