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Who can forget The Prince With A Thousand Enemies?
The new miniseries almost did. El ahrairah is mentioned here and there, but in a very offhand way. You don't get the sense of wonder and majesty of the rabbit mythology that comes through in the novel. Even the 1978 movie managed to capture that element far better.
The 1978 movie also REALLY captured the terrifying menace of Woundwort. The new miniseries fails utterly in this. He's just a rather grumpy thug of a rabbit, not the maniacal Churchill that he was in the book and old movie.
Even though I certainly had issues with the 1978 movie, it is a far, far, FAR better adaptation of the novel than the recent miniseries.
The new miniseries almost did. El ahrairah is mentioned here and there, but in a very offhand way. You don't get the sense of wonder and majesty of the rabbit mythology that comes through in the novel. Even the 1978 movie managed to capture that element far better.
The 1978 movie also REALLY captured the terrifying menace of Woundwort. The new miniseries fails utterly in this. He's just a rather grumpy thug of a rabbit, not the maniacal Churchill that he was in the book and old movie.
Even though I certainly had issues with the 1978 movie, it is a far, far, FAR better adaptation of the novel than the recent miniseries.[/quote]
Totally true in all aspects.
And even if they didn't want to show as much blood, they should still have shown as much death.
They neglected, for instance, to show the instantaneousness of the rabbit snatched by the hawk (or was that an owl?). That was a very important marker in demonstrating how precarious their existence was, and that indicated how dangerous and truly desperate their migration was. It was no lark, and this movie failed to show that.
When one rabbit killed another, it was just a couple of thumps (or even just one) and the rabbit laid down...dead we presume, but, dang, rabbits sure died easily.
In the 78 movie, a rabbit murder took a hard, bloody, terrible beating. They could have removed the blood, but it should have still taken a hard, terrible beating.
Watership Down was the first big novel I read. I read it six times as a kid. I loved it.
I do not remember the 1978 movie very well other than I found it disappointing. It did make me go abck and read the novel again.
I just watched the new miniseries yesterday and I loved it as did my wife (A librarian and a big fan of W.D. as a kid as well). It brought the book back to me as if I had read it yesterday. I was disappointed in some of the things that were left out, but it still made me happy to watch it. Maybe I will go re-read the novel once again.
No movie or TV show can rival a novel, but this was a decent adaptation of the story. It was a bit short and left out a lot of detail, but then if it had all the detail, no one would watch it all the way through.
I did not like Plague dogs or Shardick quite as much as Watership Down. In fact I have completely forgotten about Shardick until this thread and I do not remember the plague dogs story. I will look for the movie or miniseries.
Iwas just realizing that do not read much anymore. I read all day for work. I have to wear reading glasses and it is still a strain for me. It makes me tired. When I am not working, I want to rest or do chores or do active things. I do nto want to read and nto get paid for it anymroe.
So far I've watched three episodes of Watership Down on Netflix. And while I agree that it could have been done better in many aspects, I am thoroughly enjoying it so far. I did notice right away that they toned down graphic images/deaths quite a bit, which I sort of expected for a tv version (even if it is Netflix, and not mainstream television). Visually, I find the scenery very well done; the movements of the rabbits as they hop and run, not very good at all...jointed, stilted...weird.
It's been a great many years since I saw the original Watership Down movie, and even longer since I read the novel. So if I were more up-to-date on both, perhaps I'd be more disappointed...but for now, I do like the Netflix version, although that could possibly change once I've watched all of the episodes. And when the movie was released in 1978, I had a very special rabbit way back then (who I'd actually named after Fiver, one of the main characters) and I lost him just before the movie was released. So, when 'Bright Eyes' played during the original movie after Hazel's death, I was completely devastated.
[A bit biased as well....I'm a tried-and-true rabbit lover, raised, showed, and had rabbits as indoor pets for many, many years...so whenever something does come along that involves the ever-fascinating lagomorph, I'm all in.]
The new miniseries almost did. El ahrairah is mentioned here and there, but in a very offhand way. You don't get the sense of wonder and majesty of the rabbit mythology that comes through in the novel. Even the 1978 movie managed to capture that element far better.
The 1978 movie also REALLY captured the terrifying menace of Woundwort. The new miniseries fails utterly in this. He's just a rather grumpy thug of a rabbit, not the maniacal Churchill that he was in the book and old movie.
Even though I certainly had issues with the 1978 movie, it is a far, far, FAR better adaptation of the novel than the recent miniseries.
The animation was consistently brown, unclear, and uninteresting. I know computer animation is all the rage these days, but when it looks this bad, why bother?
I will say this in its favor: They didn't cutesy it up or strive for a G-rating. But they didn't make it very interesting either. Whereas the novel is perfectly paced, by trying to cram multiple chapters into a single episode, the pacing of the mini-series is ... off. Long stretches are actually kinda boring, and if you haven't read the novel, you might have a hard time understanding what's going on. My wife, who has read it, was lost in a few places because she hasn't read the novel in a long, long time.
I'm actually not a big fan of the 1978 animated movie. Still, it was far better than the new one. Neither capture the grandeur and pathos of the novel.
This BBC/Netflix version was watered down, perhaps it should have been called watered ship downed.
Some of the violence was cut, although I question whether it was right for the BBC to screen it just before Christmas, as it's hardly jolly festive stuff. I am also fairly sure the BBC received a fair few complaints.
I have no problems with Adam's books which I liked, it was just the timing of the tv series release that I think was wrong.
The series was okay, just as the film was, but then again doing justice to the book is very difficult.
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