Watership Down (Miniseries)
In between Yuletide readings, I marathoned the new miniseries version of Watership Down, since Netflix has put it up. And my reaction, alas, is mixed.
Which isn’t about the voice talent involved, who are all as great as is their wont. (Also, the James McAvoy and Nicolas Hoult combination for Hazel and Fiver respectively has neat echoes if you’re into Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy from the X-Men-Movieverse. Meanwhile, John Boyega’s Bigwig is utterly unlike Finn and a great showcase of his range.) Or the visualisation - in the previous movie animation, the sequence of the destruction of the Sandleford warren was famously nightmarish; the miniseries‘ version is still creepy and horrible in its implication, but not as psychedelically graphic. The rabbits themselves take some getting used to but become well distinguishable, and their movements are rabbit-like, not, as happens in all too many animated movies with animals that are supposed to be endearing, pseudo-dog like.
Despite the miniseries offering more time space than the movie, we still don’t hear any more of the rabbit mythology stories other than the initial origin myth, but the stories are being told within the screen story - we just cut from the beginning to the ending, and they’re using Richard Adams‘ text. Also, there is enough lapine lingo used on screen that Bigwig can say his famous sentence to Woundwort in rabbit language in the last episode and still be understood, just like in the book.
So what was my problem? Some of the storytelling choices and alterations, in a phrase. I’m not a „all must be like in the novel“ person when it comes to film, tv, or radio versions - different medium, different storytelling, etc. And some of the differences, I can get behind. For example: one of the few things that even a great many lovers of the novel have been complaining about is the lack of female characters - the does only show up in the last third of the novel, and then only Hyzanthlay is fleshed out. Since a big plot point of the novel IS the lack of does for our heroes‘ warren, and what this motivates them to do, I could not see how this could be easily altered without, well, changing the main plot, but the scriptwriters found a way around it.
Strawberry (voiced by Olivia Colman, who is adorable) is a female, not a male rabbit (which still means just one female in the initial group after their encounter with Cowslip’s warren, so they’re still in need of does), Clover, one of the does at the farm, takes far more of an initiative in the farm rabbits‘ breakout, later takes Pipkin’s role in retrieving Hazel with Fiver, and then has the bad luck of running into an Efrafra patrol which captures her, which means she is among the does of the Efrafra breakout. And speaking of the Efrafra does, we see far more of them among themselves being dissidents in a totalitarian society. Hyzenthlay gets the best of the new arcs - based on what was hinted at in the novel, but since we’re solidly in Bigwig’s pov there, who only gets to see the end result, not really told -, as the dissident beaten down again and again, mentally as well as physically, but still getting up as well; she is mind-messed with as well and reaches her breaking point, with the miniseries not pretending this doesn’t happen to hero(ine)s in a totalitarian society, but telling us, via Hyzenthlay’s subsequent actions, that past breaking you can still get up again if you’re getting a chance. Oh, and lastly, the Black Rabbit of Inlé is also voiced by a female actress, which immediately made her into Death of the Endless in my mind. Sandman crossovers would be easy.
So that’s all good. But here are the changes I was not so much on board with, some of unfortunately coming in tandem with the good changes:
More and more prominent female characters, alas, still signalled romance to the scriptwriters, it seems. So Hazel falls in love with Clover on sight and first encounter. He doesn’t go back to the farm out of a mixture of hubris and the need to show up the group sent to the other warren they don’t know yet as Efrafra upon their return, he goes because of love. I give you three guesses as to what his main motivation for organizing the big breakout from Efrafra is, since, as I mentioned above, Clover was captured. As in the novel, Bigwig’s first escape attempt with the does is foiled (though for different reasons as in the novel, I’ll get to that), but where in the book, Hazel decides to stick around with the other rabbits trusting in Bigwig’s capacity to pull off the escape the next evening instead, here again it’s for love. Giving Hawkbit and Dandelion a rivalry for female!Strawberry has a plot point in that it makes it clear why they need more does, and satisfyingly she chooses neither, but it fits with this general change of Adams‘ „rabbits don’t do romance in the human sense“ rule of the novel to something far more conventional and anthromorphising. Hyzenthlay doesn’t escape the need for romance on the scriptwriters‘ parts, either; in her case, it’s Holly. (They fall for each other during Holly’s original visit to Efrafra.) It’s not as prominently played as her dissident arc, but it’s there, and maybe I’m unfair, but it did come across to me as if the scriptwriters thought „well, if it’s a female character and not the Black Rabbit, said character must either fall in love, human style, or at least be the cause of other characters falling in love.
Then there’s the lack of confidence in some of their characters. By which I mean: as mentioned, Olivia Coman is adorable as Strawberry, and the initial scenes - Strawberry befriending Hazel, and being the only rabbit from Cowslip’s warren who in shame chooses to leave Omelas and go with the Sandleford rabbits - are all wonderfully executed. But whereas male!Strawberry later in Watership Down is put in charge of building the Honeycomb (since it’s inspired by the big hall in Cowslip’s warren) and thereby both regains confidence and impresses the other rabbits, female!Strawberry digs the entire new warren with some small assistance from Hawkbit and Dandelion on her lonesome while everyone else is away either at the farm or in Efrafra.
When Clover ends up in Efrafra, I thought, oh, good, she can befriend Hyzenthlay & Co. And she tries, but her two main scenes are with General Woundwort so she can bravely defy him when he tells her a king needs a queen. Watch my head hitting my desk. Firstly, Woundwort isn’t a Disney villain, he’s a fascist dictator with better personal fighting skills than human fascist dictators tended to have. Secondly, even within the miniseries universe, this makes no sense, because when Bigwig arrives later, he’s told, as in the novel, that the Owsla can just order any does they want and uses this to make contact with Hyzenthlay. Thirdly, there is no plot point to these scenes other than „leading girl must be captured by villain and tell him no when he gives her the „be mine“ speech, and good lord, I don’t like this trope most of the time, and we certainly don’t need it in Watership Down. Especially with WOUNDWORT as the villain. Seriously.
And now for a male example in the miniseries‘ odd lack of confidence in their characters. To wit, Hazel. Among many other things, Watership Down the novel shows us Hazel growing into his leadership role. He’s not leader because he’s the strongest, the best fighter (that’s Bigwig), the fastest (that’s Dandelion), or has extraordinary gifts (Fiver is the one with the psychic powers). The novel gives us various examples of what does make Hazel a good chief rabbit (not a flawless one, see stint to farm for the novel’s reasons), and not just in contrast to a dictator like Woundwort, but in contrast to the Sandleford chief rabbit, Threarah, who isn’t evil. Hazel has an eye on the smallest, most vulnerable members of the group (not just Fiver but also Pipkin - during their initial departure from Sandleford, for example Bigwig would have left Pipkin behind), whereas Threarah evidently was fine with a state of a affairs in Sandleford where the Owsla were bullies to the weak members, paying attention only to the strong, „useful“ members of the warren. Hazel listens (again, not just to Fiver, but also to Blackberry and others making suggestions) and isn’t afraid of learning something he just doesn’t know about instead of pretending he knows everything. He has unconventional ideas like helping and befriending none-rabbit animals (not just Kehaar, but also the occasional mouse escaping from a hawk), not out of pure altruism but because he’s aware this could create useful alliances, and it pays off (again, not just with Kehaar; it’s the mouse he saved who warns Hazel that the Efrafras are coming, long before the rabbits would have noticed, which gives them time to prepare the siege). And what he takes away from his ill-advised farm trip is that he doesn’t have to be the central hero of the story but that the point is for the plan to benefit the majority. So of course Bigwig is the logical choice when it comes to infiltrating Efrafra, and when Hazel comes up with the finale plan to draw the dog from the farm to the warren as a weapon against Woundwort, he’s not one of the rabbits who runs so that the dog pursues him. Of course he isn’t - he’s got a lame leg since his earlier farm trip. He’s the one to gnaw and bite at the rope holding the dog. And Richard Adams, as a novelist, is confident enough as a storyteller to trust in the readers liking and appreciating Hazel enough at this late point in the novel so that the fact he’s not present in the final showdown (Bigwig is the one to fight Woundwort, Hazel cats captured by the farm cat after the dog leaves and doesn’t return until all is over) does not matter.
Meanwhile, the miniseries: draws out Bigwig’s reluctance to accept Hazel’s leadership far longer than the novel does, lets Hazel have a big crisis of self doubt a la Aragorn in the LotR movies (not the novel) so that Fiver can tell him why he’s a good leader (what did we learn about show versus tell in film school, scriptwriters?). Paradoxically at the same time takes away his actual moment of weakness (going to the farm for ego reasons more than because of the need for does - at that point, novel!Hazel has no reason to believe the yet-unknown-Efrafra warren won’t send them all the does they need) by making it about romantic love. Instead of making the decision to get the does from Efrafra for the good of the warren (which desperately needs does) thereafter, makes it about mainly about romantic love for one doe, while the trust that Bigwig will get the job done despite the initial plan having been foiled isn’t based on knowing Bigwig very well by now but on love for Clover (complete with „I know her!“ protest, which, no, he doesn’t, he’s only met her twice at this point). Instead of Hazel’s befriending other animals strategy successfully paying off as a strategy, his initial attempt is directed at a raven attacking them in their first night, and thus painted as foolish, Kehaar (voiced by Peter Capaldi, btw) is characterised as far more unreliable than in the novel in order to heighten the suspense whether or not he’ll show up to help them against Woundwort, which means Hazel risks their collective lives on no good plan, and the mouse doesn’t exist. (Forgive me if in this current climate, my inner paranoia wonders whether the scriptwriters want to make a point about alliances with other people being risky at best and mostly foolish or pointless.)
Then, in order to beef Hazel up as a strategist, I presume, the miniseries actually has him tell Bigwig that if Bigwig knows he can’t fight anymore, he’s supposed to say „my chief rabbit has told me to defend etc.“ , since miniseries! Hazel has deduced the psychological implications this will have on the Efrafras who can’t imagine a chief rabbit being someone other than the fiercest fighter. Which imo takes away from Bigwig’s epic moment, one of the novel’s most iconic scenes, where this line is spontanous and from the heart, and also says it all about how Bigwig’s initial scepticism about Hazel as leader - which in the book ends far earlier than in the miniseries anyway - has changed by now. So instead, Hazel - who has been shot in the miniseries as he was in the novel, and thus the same leg problem - is the final rabbit drawing the dog to the warren, in order for an awe-struck Bigwig to say „Hazel-rah!“ (thus fulfillling his prophecy he’ll call Hazel this only on the day he stops fighting). (Fiver instead ha staken Hazel’s book role of gnawing the rope through, getting captured and being brought back by a human dea x machina to the Downs.) Because otherwise, we may have lost sight of the fact Hazel is the central character, I presume.
Lastly, changes I'm uncertain about: Pipkin doesn't exist, instead, his narrative role goes to, at different times, Bluebell and Clover. Bluebell also gets Dandelion's role as storyteller, which leaves Dandelion with no other qualities than his speed and being in competition with Hawkbit for Strawberry. We actually see doubt and dissent among Woundwort's captains during the siege of the warren caused by more than odd noises and the fact Woundwort can't finish Bigwig, partly because Campion has bonded with Holly a bit and was impressed by the difference the later makes between being a good soldier and being a good rabbit. When Holly is killed (another alteration from the novel), Campion starts to disobey orders and at last squares off against the most evil of Efrafra's captains, who isn't Vervain but a new character called Orchis, voiced by Jason Watkins in echoes of his role as Herrick in Being Human - Orchis is also the one in charge of breaking Hyzenthlay through a combination of bullying and mindmessing earlier, thus establishing his particular evilness). Oh, and Hazel reacts to Fiver being returned to them by human dea ex machina (as I said, a switch from this happening to himself in the novel) by concluding that maybe not all humans are evil, which I took as a reassurance to the watchers on behalf of our species which, well...
Like I said earlier: I’m not a „all changes in film or tv versions are of the evil“ person. But I am a „changes must give me something interesting and layered comparable to what the novel has given me, just in a differently told way“ person, and all the stuff I just listed didn’t, and to me seems more falling into „flatlining into standard tropes“. And I really regret that, because it prevents me from loving this version as much as I thought I would, given everyone involved.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1320068.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Which isn’t about the voice talent involved, who are all as great as is their wont. (Also, the James McAvoy and Nicolas Hoult combination for Hazel and Fiver respectively has neat echoes if you’re into Charles Xavier and Hank McCoy from the X-Men-Movieverse. Meanwhile, John Boyega’s Bigwig is utterly unlike Finn and a great showcase of his range.) Or the visualisation - in the previous movie animation, the sequence of the destruction of the Sandleford warren was famously nightmarish; the miniseries‘ version is still creepy and horrible in its implication, but not as psychedelically graphic. The rabbits themselves take some getting used to but become well distinguishable, and their movements are rabbit-like, not, as happens in all too many animated movies with animals that are supposed to be endearing, pseudo-dog like.
Despite the miniseries offering more time space than the movie, we still don’t hear any more of the rabbit mythology stories other than the initial origin myth, but the stories are being told within the screen story - we just cut from the beginning to the ending, and they’re using Richard Adams‘ text. Also, there is enough lapine lingo used on screen that Bigwig can say his famous sentence to Woundwort in rabbit language in the last episode and still be understood, just like in the book.
So what was my problem? Some of the storytelling choices and alterations, in a phrase. I’m not a „all must be like in the novel“ person when it comes to film, tv, or radio versions - different medium, different storytelling, etc. And some of the differences, I can get behind. For example: one of the few things that even a great many lovers of the novel have been complaining about is the lack of female characters - the does only show up in the last third of the novel, and then only Hyzanthlay is fleshed out. Since a big plot point of the novel IS the lack of does for our heroes‘ warren, and what this motivates them to do, I could not see how this could be easily altered without, well, changing the main plot, but the scriptwriters found a way around it.
Strawberry (voiced by Olivia Colman, who is adorable) is a female, not a male rabbit (which still means just one female in the initial group after their encounter with Cowslip’s warren, so they’re still in need of does), Clover, one of the does at the farm, takes far more of an initiative in the farm rabbits‘ breakout, later takes Pipkin’s role in retrieving Hazel with Fiver, and then has the bad luck of running into an Efrafra patrol which captures her, which means she is among the does of the Efrafra breakout. And speaking of the Efrafra does, we see far more of them among themselves being dissidents in a totalitarian society. Hyzenthlay gets the best of the new arcs - based on what was hinted at in the novel, but since we’re solidly in Bigwig’s pov there, who only gets to see the end result, not really told -, as the dissident beaten down again and again, mentally as well as physically, but still getting up as well; she is mind-messed with as well and reaches her breaking point, with the miniseries not pretending this doesn’t happen to hero(ine)s in a totalitarian society, but telling us, via Hyzenthlay’s subsequent actions, that past breaking you can still get up again if you’re getting a chance. Oh, and lastly, the Black Rabbit of Inlé is also voiced by a female actress, which immediately made her into Death of the Endless in my mind. Sandman crossovers would be easy.
So that’s all good. But here are the changes I was not so much on board with, some of unfortunately coming in tandem with the good changes:
More and more prominent female characters, alas, still signalled romance to the scriptwriters, it seems. So Hazel falls in love with Clover on sight and first encounter. He doesn’t go back to the farm out of a mixture of hubris and the need to show up the group sent to the other warren they don’t know yet as Efrafra upon their return, he goes because of love. I give you three guesses as to what his main motivation for organizing the big breakout from Efrafra is, since, as I mentioned above, Clover was captured. As in the novel, Bigwig’s first escape attempt with the does is foiled (though for different reasons as in the novel, I’ll get to that), but where in the book, Hazel decides to stick around with the other rabbits trusting in Bigwig’s capacity to pull off the escape the next evening instead, here again it’s for love. Giving Hawkbit and Dandelion a rivalry for female!Strawberry has a plot point in that it makes it clear why they need more does, and satisfyingly she chooses neither, but it fits with this general change of Adams‘ „rabbits don’t do romance in the human sense“ rule of the novel to something far more conventional and anthromorphising. Hyzenthlay doesn’t escape the need for romance on the scriptwriters‘ parts, either; in her case, it’s Holly. (They fall for each other during Holly’s original visit to Efrafra.) It’s not as prominently played as her dissident arc, but it’s there, and maybe I’m unfair, but it did come across to me as if the scriptwriters thought „well, if it’s a female character and not the Black Rabbit, said character must either fall in love, human style, or at least be the cause of other characters falling in love.
Then there’s the lack of confidence in some of their characters. By which I mean: as mentioned, Olivia Coman is adorable as Strawberry, and the initial scenes - Strawberry befriending Hazel, and being the only rabbit from Cowslip’s warren who in shame chooses to leave Omelas and go with the Sandleford rabbits - are all wonderfully executed. But whereas male!Strawberry later in Watership Down is put in charge of building the Honeycomb (since it’s inspired by the big hall in Cowslip’s warren) and thereby both regains confidence and impresses the other rabbits, female!Strawberry digs the entire new warren with some small assistance from Hawkbit and Dandelion on her lonesome while everyone else is away either at the farm or in Efrafra.
When Clover ends up in Efrafra, I thought, oh, good, she can befriend Hyzenthlay & Co. And she tries, but her two main scenes are with General Woundwort so she can bravely defy him when he tells her a king needs a queen. Watch my head hitting my desk. Firstly, Woundwort isn’t a Disney villain, he’s a fascist dictator with better personal fighting skills than human fascist dictators tended to have. Secondly, even within the miniseries universe, this makes no sense, because when Bigwig arrives later, he’s told, as in the novel, that the Owsla can just order any does they want and uses this to make contact with Hyzenthlay. Thirdly, there is no plot point to these scenes other than „leading girl must be captured by villain and tell him no when he gives her the „be mine“ speech, and good lord, I don’t like this trope most of the time, and we certainly don’t need it in Watership Down. Especially with WOUNDWORT as the villain. Seriously.
And now for a male example in the miniseries‘ odd lack of confidence in their characters. To wit, Hazel. Among many other things, Watership Down the novel shows us Hazel growing into his leadership role. He’s not leader because he’s the strongest, the best fighter (that’s Bigwig), the fastest (that’s Dandelion), or has extraordinary gifts (Fiver is the one with the psychic powers). The novel gives us various examples of what does make Hazel a good chief rabbit (not a flawless one, see stint to farm for the novel’s reasons), and not just in contrast to a dictator like Woundwort, but in contrast to the Sandleford chief rabbit, Threarah, who isn’t evil. Hazel has an eye on the smallest, most vulnerable members of the group (not just Fiver but also Pipkin - during their initial departure from Sandleford, for example Bigwig would have left Pipkin behind), whereas Threarah evidently was fine with a state of a affairs in Sandleford where the Owsla were bullies to the weak members, paying attention only to the strong, „useful“ members of the warren. Hazel listens (again, not just to Fiver, but also to Blackberry and others making suggestions) and isn’t afraid of learning something he just doesn’t know about instead of pretending he knows everything. He has unconventional ideas like helping and befriending none-rabbit animals (not just Kehaar, but also the occasional mouse escaping from a hawk), not out of pure altruism but because he’s aware this could create useful alliances, and it pays off (again, not just with Kehaar; it’s the mouse he saved who warns Hazel that the Efrafras are coming, long before the rabbits would have noticed, which gives them time to prepare the siege). And what he takes away from his ill-advised farm trip is that he doesn’t have to be the central hero of the story but that the point is for the plan to benefit the majority. So of course Bigwig is the logical choice when it comes to infiltrating Efrafra, and when Hazel comes up with the finale plan to draw the dog from the farm to the warren as a weapon against Woundwort, he’s not one of the rabbits who runs so that the dog pursues him. Of course he isn’t - he’s got a lame leg since his earlier farm trip. He’s the one to gnaw and bite at the rope holding the dog. And Richard Adams, as a novelist, is confident enough as a storyteller to trust in the readers liking and appreciating Hazel enough at this late point in the novel so that the fact he’s not present in the final showdown (Bigwig is the one to fight Woundwort, Hazel cats captured by the farm cat after the dog leaves and doesn’t return until all is over) does not matter.
Meanwhile, the miniseries: draws out Bigwig’s reluctance to accept Hazel’s leadership far longer than the novel does, lets Hazel have a big crisis of self doubt a la Aragorn in the LotR movies (not the novel) so that Fiver can tell him why he’s a good leader (what did we learn about show versus tell in film school, scriptwriters?). Paradoxically at the same time takes away his actual moment of weakness (going to the farm for ego reasons more than because of the need for does - at that point, novel!Hazel has no reason to believe the yet-unknown-Efrafra warren won’t send them all the does they need) by making it about romantic love. Instead of making the decision to get the does from Efrafra for the good of the warren (which desperately needs does) thereafter, makes it about mainly about romantic love for one doe, while the trust that Bigwig will get the job done despite the initial plan having been foiled isn’t based on knowing Bigwig very well by now but on love for Clover (complete with „I know her!“ protest, which, no, he doesn’t, he’s only met her twice at this point). Instead of Hazel’s befriending other animals strategy successfully paying off as a strategy, his initial attempt is directed at a raven attacking them in their first night, and thus painted as foolish, Kehaar (voiced by Peter Capaldi, btw) is characterised as far more unreliable than in the novel in order to heighten the suspense whether or not he’ll show up to help them against Woundwort, which means Hazel risks their collective lives on no good plan, and the mouse doesn’t exist. (Forgive me if in this current climate, my inner paranoia wonders whether the scriptwriters want to make a point about alliances with other people being risky at best and mostly foolish or pointless.)
Then, in order to beef Hazel up as a strategist, I presume, the miniseries actually has him tell Bigwig that if Bigwig knows he can’t fight anymore, he’s supposed to say „my chief rabbit has told me to defend etc.“ , since miniseries! Hazel has deduced the psychological implications this will have on the Efrafras who can’t imagine a chief rabbit being someone other than the fiercest fighter. Which imo takes away from Bigwig’s epic moment, one of the novel’s most iconic scenes, where this line is spontanous and from the heart, and also says it all about how Bigwig’s initial scepticism about Hazel as leader - which in the book ends far earlier than in the miniseries anyway - has changed by now. So instead, Hazel - who has been shot in the miniseries as he was in the novel, and thus the same leg problem - is the final rabbit drawing the dog to the warren, in order for an awe-struck Bigwig to say „Hazel-rah!“ (thus fulfillling his prophecy he’ll call Hazel this only on the day he stops fighting). (Fiver instead ha staken Hazel’s book role of gnawing the rope through, getting captured and being brought back by a human dea x machina to the Downs.) Because otherwise, we may have lost sight of the fact Hazel is the central character, I presume.
Lastly, changes I'm uncertain about: Pipkin doesn't exist, instead, his narrative role goes to, at different times, Bluebell and Clover. Bluebell also gets Dandelion's role as storyteller, which leaves Dandelion with no other qualities than his speed and being in competition with Hawkbit for Strawberry. We actually see doubt and dissent among Woundwort's captains during the siege of the warren caused by more than odd noises and the fact Woundwort can't finish Bigwig, partly because Campion has bonded with Holly a bit and was impressed by the difference the later makes between being a good soldier and being a good rabbit. When Holly is killed (another alteration from the novel), Campion starts to disobey orders and at last squares off against the most evil of Efrafra's captains, who isn't Vervain but a new character called Orchis, voiced by Jason Watkins in echoes of his role as Herrick in Being Human - Orchis is also the one in charge of breaking Hyzenthlay through a combination of bullying and mindmessing earlier, thus establishing his particular evilness). Oh, and Hazel reacts to Fiver being returned to them by human dea ex machina (as I said, a switch from this happening to himself in the novel) by concluding that maybe not all humans are evil, which I took as a reassurance to the watchers on behalf of our species which, well...
Like I said earlier: I’m not a „all changes in film or tv versions are of the evil“ person. But I am a „changes must give me something interesting and layered comparable to what the novel has given me, just in a differently told way“ person, and all the stuff I just listed didn’t, and to me seems more falling into „flatlining into standard tropes“. And I really regret that, because it prevents me from loving this version as much as I thought I would, given everyone involved.
This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1320068.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.