Watership Down is one of my favourite books of all time (possibly my MOST favourite book). I loved the film, even though it scared me first time round. I've watched it a great many times. And I never missed the cartoon when I was little. I was super excited for a more realistic remake but, when I watched it, I was a little disappointed.
My first gripe, as with most people, it seems, is with the animation. It's cheap-looking, clunky and there's no life in the rabbits' eyes at all. Plus, on a purely biological note, rabbits don't hold their bodies up like that all the time but, hey. That's a nitpick.
My main problem, though, is with odd things getting changed around for apparently no reason. Why get rid of Silver? Why make Strawberry female (when it was the death of his mate Nildro-Hain that prompted him to leave the warren of the shining wire with the others). Why change the rat scene to crows? Why kill Holly?? There are so many little bits that were changed but it added nothing much to the story.
Another problem I had was that, at a few points, there were several story threads overlapping and it was difficult for even me to follow them (and I've read the book about 5 times at this point!). You can argue that they were trying to fit it into the time but if the movie can do it in under 2 hours, the series can do it in 3.
The redeeming part of it all was the voice cast. I love them all, even if the liveliness of the voices wasn't met with the expressions (or lack thereof) of the rabbits.
All in all, kind of half baked. It's worth watching once if you want a slightly Hollywood-ified version of the book with extra bits thrown in for effect but, all in all, I won't be watching it again.
My first gripe, as with most people, it seems, is with the animation. It's cheap-looking, clunky and there's no life in the rabbits' eyes at all. Plus, on a purely biological note, rabbits don't hold their bodies up like that all the time but, hey. That's a nitpick.
My main problem, though, is with odd things getting changed around for apparently no reason. Why get rid of Silver? Why make Strawberry female (when it was the death of his mate Nildro-Hain that prompted him to leave the warren of the shining wire with the others). Why change the rat scene to crows? Why kill Holly?? There are so many little bits that were changed but it added nothing much to the story.
Another problem I had was that, at a few points, there were several story threads overlapping and it was difficult for even me to follow them (and I've read the book about 5 times at this point!). You can argue that they were trying to fit it into the time but if the movie can do it in under 2 hours, the series can do it in 3.
The redeeming part of it all was the voice cast. I love them all, even if the liveliness of the voices wasn't met with the expressions (or lack thereof) of the rabbits.
All in all, kind of half baked. It's worth watching once if you want a slightly Hollywood-ified version of the book with extra bits thrown in for effect but, all in all, I won't be watching it again.