September 03, 2004

Watership Down

I think Watership Down would make a rad CG movie now that we have the tech under our belts. It would probably be done by 20th century fox/Blue Sky Studios since they've apparently perfected fur like nobody's business. (How come blue sky's not credited in imdb for their work on Garfield? Weren't they involved with that?)

I know there's already an animated movie and a tv series, but I think that more could be done than this for the story. I've only seen the movie myself, and it was awhile back, but I remember it as being underwhelming at best. Almost like something done by Ralph Bakshi.

So what say the lot of ye? Has anyone read the book? I think I tackled it in like 4th grade as part of a literature project or something. I like how the rabbits perceive the ordinary world in such extraordinary ways. They have their own language (oddly enough apparently named after town in Oregon.) and customs, miltary heirarchies, municiple provisions, yet they believe that cars ("hrududil") are a strange form of predator. One rabbit notices that a car will not leave it's roadway in order to "hunt down" a rabbit, and liked to taunt the car by sitting nearby the road. But at night, the dreaded creatures eyes will glow brighter than the sun and put a spell on you to murder you. (eg, the rabbit gets blinded and can't tell where the road is any more, and dashes out into it)

Despite all of this ancestral wisdom and culture, concepts like floating aboard a raft or counting to numbers higher than five totally blow them away, and rabbits capable of such acts of either genius or faith (or both) become unstoppable amongst their kindred. I find this a suitable analog to our own culture, where we believe that we know so much but we are probably misinterpreting more than we realize. Thus those among us with enough genius or faith may be able to walk the pathways of the impossible and do things others may only be able to dream of doing. This, among many reasons, leads me to believe we have CG movie material on our hands.

Posted by jesse at September 3, 2004 06:41 PM
Comments

I have not read the book, so I cannot comment. That doesn't stop me, however, from commenting, now does it?

Yes, a movie would be great.

Posted by: DeAnn at September 3, 2004 07:56 PM

Are you saying you'll "wait for the movie to come out", in essense? ;)

Posted by: Jesse Thompson at September 3, 2004 09:45 PM

I had to read the book in HS. Can't wait to see the movie 'cause I never finished the book :)!

(love them Cliff Notes)

lamin7@sify.com

Posted by: lamin at September 12, 2004 01:23 PM

I am a major WD freak and if they came out with a new movie, i would be the first one in line to see it. Its too bad that so many kids are too wrapped up in Harry Potter to read any other good books like Watership Down.

Posted by: chelsea at October 12, 2004 01:04 PM