Watership Down Miniseries - "Just a book about rabbits! :^)"

[SpessCaptain]

So the new Watership Down miniseries premiered and it's got a somewhat positive reaction but more importantly parents are reporting that their children are getting traumatized by the 2nd Episodes themes going south pretty quickly and the jarring visions Fiver gets which is good enough for me!

I kind of enjoy the environments but everything looks very flat and fieldy, though I suppose that's going with accurate landscapes around the down. The animation is a little bit too minimal and the fighting scenes are just bland and too down-to-earth to enjoy. There are these small moments where the animation is very well done with subtle movements and expressions but otherwise larger movements just look really rushed and bland. Voice acting is good, but its very obvious that sometimes the lines weren't recorded with the accompanying people in the discussion.

Oh yeah there are a lot of times the miniseries seems to be paying homage to the original film, some of the scenes are direct recreations and a lot of the dialogue is lifted from the books/film and spoken nearly exactly.


Anyway, what are your guys thoughts? I personally believed it was going to be a huge sack of shit but I'm thinking it looks alright. The trailer is pretty eh and it doesn't really show off the best bits.

I was surprised they didn't completely omit the whole plot of lack of females because it wouldn't run well in our contemporary audience, but I suppose it's a very important fact that the Warren couldn't survive without does, it never offended me that the book/film didn't have any female lead roles and besides Hyzenthlay in the book is very important because she rallied the Efrafa rabbits and people need to goddamn acknowledge that. They had Strawberry gender-swapped from the book/original, but she's very motherly and doting, which works very well as a substitute rather then her being some sort of super bitch "just one of the boys" characters directors hamfist in to appeal to the woke crowd.

Also why did they make Keehar fucking Irish now? I want my Slavic bird back.

 

[Judge Holden]

My only question is this...

 

[Muttnik]

I love both the book and the original film so I'm skeptical about how good this one will be. I might check it out but wait a bit first to hear what others have to say. For me, there's no other Hazel but John Hurt so they'll have big shoes to fill.

 

[Red Hood]

I love both the book and the original film so I'm skeptical about how good this one will be. I might check it out but wait a bit first to hear what others have to say. For me, there's no other Hazel but John Hurt so they'll have big shoes to fill.

Anytime John Hurt voiced an animated character it turned out awesome.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

Anytime John Hurt voiced an animated character it turned out awesome.

The animation is a little bit too minimal and the fighting scenes are just bland and too down-to-earth to enjoy.

Are there any good beam struggles?

 

[Edgeworth]

As another fan of the book and original movie, I saw the voice cast and got mostly excited (mostly) but when the trailer came out and I saw the animation I was like "...oh."

I too was mixed up about why subsequent adaptations need to gender-swap characters that have a purposeful gender. I know the... exceptional part of the public think that gender doesn't matter and "muh representation" but as you said, Hyzenthlay is the badass female character of the book, not to mention that the whole "we need chicks" thing drove the conflict for the second act. Turning male characters female (Strawberry in the Netflix series, Blackberry in that... other weird show I don't like acknowledging) undermines the conflict.

 

[omori]

Just watched it. Or at least part one. Wasn’t too bad but I fucking hate that every bit of violence gets cut away from. If you’re gonna remake an infamous movie like Watership have the dignity to show everything.

 

[Muttnik]

I saw it. It gets better over time but the beginning is very rushed and HOLY FUCK did they screw over Hyzenthlay in the end. Overall, the animated film is still better and more emotionally resonant.

 

[SpessCaptain]

I'm sad, the copy I was watching was deleted mid stream, I never got to know if Hyzenthlay gets done in

 

[omori]

From my understanding BBC got part 2 the following night but I guess it’s not on Netflix just yet.

 

[IdaRita]

Watched it and liked it! It's a good series, especially plot-wise (even when escape from Efrafa episode made action a bit too complicated and relying on luck) and because of that lackluster animation hurts. It's not that bad, it's watchable, but could be so much better given how long it was made. "Realistic" graphics made most rabbits quite hard to recognize too.
It's very different animated production from what we usually see nowadays and it's also great thing.

 

[LN 910]

I think the shock value of Watership Down is kind of diminished thanks to "animals getting brutally murdered" is go to for shitty newgrounds animators so I don't know why this is being made.

 

[Roast Chicken]

I hope they do the Animals of Farthing Wood next.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

So I decided to treat myself to some time off and try out the miniseries since I liked the 1978 movie and after a few seconds I already don't like the way they delivered the Frith legend. The original opening narration was bombastic & stylish, not shying away from a bright color scheme & good use of contrast to offset the rest of the movie. The opening in the mini series is a lazy-man's interpretation & it takes on the exact delivery and tone of the Deathly Hallows scene from Harry Potter, only it's on the cheap so all the animation is done with a brown, washed out color pallet & all the 'objects' on screen are being puppeteered with popsicle sticks, but it's not being done that way for budget reasons, but because that's the style they want to affect, a roadside puppet show. I get the feeling this is how the whole series would be if it weren't for the miracles of CGI.

Here's a screenshot comparison of the 1978 opening and the new one.

Just look at it, they were so fuck-off lazy and lame that they copied and pasted the same artwork of the same animal side by side.

That last one is of two foxes layered on top of each other. That blows way past mere laziness and steers drunkenly into full blown incompetence. Who got paid for this? Whoever you are, you had one job, the easiest job in the world and still managed to fuck it up.

Here's the trailer that includes the opening narration compared to the Deathly Hallows segment from Harry Potter.

Even just by looking at the thumbnails you can tell they're identical, because everything is in silhouette.

Although I understand the logic behind adopting the story book style they used, it still has the drawback of feeling underwhelming and the posh & hushed narration paired with the somber piano music strikes me as more of tryharding at being mature than it does a theatrical experience. It's low energy, it has zero steam & it is so dull.

Having sat through about half of the first episode, I feel like I'm watching an extended cutscene from Dead Rising Warcraft 3. They should've made this into a video game instead of a series. The CG is really out of date, the rabbits move like robots on a treadmill, jaggies everywhere, and the background art is dreadful. The environment is less like an environment and more like a stage at a play, nothing in the background is ever animated, even in settings where it's called for like rain storms. The forest floor is barren with exposed dirt and patches of grass but no dead leaves to speak of, like you'd find in a real forest. Overall, it suffers a lot from a lack of attention to detail. I'm not impressed, but at least now Chicken Little has some fierce competition.

I'm on the second episode now and they decided to start animating the environment, but it feels very selective because it's on and off. I still can't shake the robotic movements though, the scene where Bigwig fights the cat is pretty bad, I felt like I was watching an episode of ReBoot.

 

[Muttnik]

I'll say this much about it, the ending feels moving. Maybe it's because of the music or because of my feelings for the source material, but watching Hazel peacefully pass away with his silhouette in the clouds while the first paragraph of the novel is uttered outloud by a character is very effective. It saddens me that it ultimately amounts to nothing because everything that preceded it was a cookie-cutter version of the 1978 film's motions.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

It saddens me that it ultimately amounts to nothing because everything that preceded it was a cookie-cutter version of the 1978 film's motions.

This mini-series really sucked the venom out of Watership Down as a story. On the one hand it tries way too hard to prove itself as a mature take, on the other hand it censors all the violence even when characters are being cut to ribbons. You can see their exposed muscles, like Hazel's infected buckshot wound, but no blood. It downplays everything entirely way too hard.

 

[Muttnik]

his mini-series really sucked the venom out of Watership Down as a story. On the one hand it tries way too hard to prove itself as a mature take, on the other hand it censors all the violence even when characters are being cut to ribbons. You can see their exposed muscles, like Hazel's infected buckshot wound, but no blood. It downplays everything entirely way too hard.

I think the biggest punch of the story is always the aspect of fear and danger and the open honesty of death. This miniseries barely ever features the Black Rabbit, save for a short scene in the middle and the ending. It's way more powerful to SEE the violence and hardship and watch the characters overcome it in spite of it. The tameness of this miniseries really did suck a lot of the drama out. I think there were good moments in it from time to time and kernels of potential. But it just doesn't have much impact at the end of the day.

Anyone ever listened to Guillermo del Toro talk about the 1978 film? He has some interesting things to say about it.

 

[MarvinTheParanoidAndroid]

This miniseries barely ever features the Black Rabbit, save for a short scene in the middle and the ending.

They also made the black rabbit a generic rabbit who happens to have a black coat. Was that the way it was in the book or was it more like an entity the way it was in the movie? The movie version was much more haunting and eldritch, it even stood out during the more cartoony introduction.

I think there were good moments in it from time to time and kernels of potential. But it just doesn't have much impact at the end of the day.

I was expecting to learn more about the Major's motivation for having his prison camp but all we got was a flashback of how he got his blind eye in the form of a silent (& in color) film, but no cigar. Why was he keeping a prison camp?

Anyone ever listened to Guillermo del Toro talk about the 1978 film? He has some interesting things to say about it.

I agree with him. Watership Down is an excellent example of world building, it also helps that it happens to be about a pedestrian concept like animals rather than a far-flung one like science fiction or fantasy where it begs multiple questions & you can easily poke holes through someone's writing if you happen to have a higher degree of scientific knowledge than they do or bring up in-world things like "why didn't they take the eagles to Mount Doom?"