Watership Down (Deluxe Edition) [DVD] [1978]

Faithful from the book, beautifully done, and that wonderful Bright Eyes song. Caution because of the blood.

We all know what Watership Down is by now, I'd assume. It was out in 1978. If you need spoiler warnings for something released in 1978, I can only assume I've gone backwards through time and am somehow using Amazon in its initial 1979 incarnation, where you had to carve your review into a block of stone round the back of a bus shelter while wearing a pair of flares.So I shan't talk about the film. What I want to talk about is the DVD cover.The original video (VHS, I mean) cover has an uncompromising image of a rabbit in a snare. Not just any rabbit, but the one from the thing, you know. The big one. Him. It has that bit from the film where he's stuck in the snare and he raises his head to draw breath, and there's blood, and he's dying. It has that image on the front. So you're pretty on board with what sort of experience you're going to get with the film.Now this DVD cover - it's the opposite. Some nice bunnies and a gull perch merrily together on a scenic hilltop, with a beautiful sunlit vista behind them. Sure, a big, malevolent Woundwort looms large over the scene, but the general effect is gentle, kind, warm and inviting. Surely this film is a child-friendly film! you mistakenly smile, popping a copy in your cart for little Mildreth and Jimothy. It has bunnies and it's a cartoon, all filled with sunlight and joy.It is not filled with sunlight and joy. It is filled with holocaust imagery and animal death for days. "PG" says the rating optimistically, in its misguided green triangle. "Parental guidance!" it says, "something something 12-year-olds, something!"Well, let me remind you something, mr DVD case. The main parental guidance that parents need to be guided by for this product is the fact that the original VHS cover featured the bit where one of the main characters vomits up blood while being choked in a snare, and that was lifted directly from the film with no editing. The scene on the front of the DVD edition, however, IS NOT PRESENT.Edit: I have just realised that the rating on this bunnydeathfest hole of a film is in fact aU - Universal, Suitable For All - not even a PG. Suitable for all, yeah, sure, if they don't mind watching rabbits getting gassed to death.

As you probably know, this is based off a novel of the same name, which was a bestseller and crossed age boundaries, being enjoyable by children and adults alike.As a book to film translation it is reasonable, but if you put the novel comparisons to the film aside the film has a lot of magic and life of its own. The voice acting is great, with John Hurt at the helm how could it go wrong?The storyline is cut down but pretty much unchanged from the novel, it's a very simple story but it's the atmosphere throughut the film that carries it. The comic relief from the gull Kehaar could have been a lot worse, and it's needed for the younger audience, and hell some of it still raises a smile from me.However, as people have said this deserves a PG rating, if you want to get this for a child under 10 I'd advise you watch it yourself first. It's very different in style and tone to say, a Disney film, even if the DVD cover doesn't suggest this.Story - ****Soundtrack - *****Animation - ***** (look at the detail put into those backgrounds)Rewatchable value - ***** (I'll watch this every year or so, and I'm 20! When I was younger I wore the tape down)And it's barely £4 on here new, if you want your kid to have something different and, without wanting to sound pretentious, meaningful than another hollow CGI farting animal/car/surfing penguin extravaganza, then get this.

It's just a classic one, finally got ith in original condition. Stand in selling info for sound, should be 5,1 surround. But came in 2,0 surround! Otherwise movie title in sweden, translate to english The long escape.

Brilliant animations and great cast doing the voices also the great Bright Eyes tune.It's not gory as some have said, so good for children to watch with supervision so the full aspect of life can be learnt from life and death along with the trials of conflict and friendship.

Got the yellow cover shown with the u rating! Very happy :) dvd works great no skips or freezing issues

Good film for the family.

Watership Down is a classic adventure novel, written by English author Richard Adams, published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in south-central England, the story features a small group of rabbits. Although they live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language (Lapine), proverbs, poetry, and mythology. Evoking epic themes, the novel follows the rabbits as they escape the destruction of their warren and seek a place to establish a new home, encountering perils and temptations along the way.Watership Down was Richard Adams' first novel and it is by far his most successful to date. Although it was rejected by several publishers before Collings accepted it,[4] it won the annual Carnegie Medal, annual Guardian Prize, and other book awards. It has been adapted as a 1978 animated film that is now a classic and as a 1999 to 2001 television series.[5][6]Adams completed a sequel almost 25 years later, Tales from Watership Down (Random House, 1996; Hutchinson and Alfred A. Knopf imprints). It is a collection of 19 short stories about El-ahrairah and the rabbits of the Watership Down warren, with "Notes on Pronunciation" and "Lapine Glossary".[7][8][9]