Another oddity from my childhood I scored at Waterloo Records. My immediate memory of Watership Down was it being the movie my parents ditched Brian and me to see while they went to Animal House. Who saw the better flick? I would call it a draw, they’re both good in their own ways.
For those not familiar with the story, it’s a peek into the fictional workings of rabbit civilization and mythos through some rebels who travel through Hampshire in search of a new warren safe from man. Led by Hazel (voiced by the late John Hurt), they flee at the advice of his younger brother Fiver, a rabbit psychic; and avoid numerous hazards/predators: a fox, a cat, a dog, cars, snares and a hawk. They also gain the friendship of a seagull (one of Zero Mostel’s last performances) which gives them some advantage by having an ally scouting from above.
Shortly after the new warren is established, the seagull points out the flaw in the this rabbitopia, no females. This leads them to hatch a scheme to get a few female rabbits to defect from a nearby rabbit dictatorship called Efrafan. You have to see the movie to learn how the rest goes.
On the surface, Watership Down sounds silly, weird and a couple notches dumber than all the My Little Pony crap. The technical stuff is mainly details on how the rabbit tribes are organized, they may be herbivores/rodents yet they have a pecking order too. Maybe it’s allegorical to human society but I wouldn’t too much into it. To me this is just something on par with mythology or Aesop’s Fables. I also wouldn’t show it to small kids due to the animal violence, maybe wait until they’re closer to eight or higher.