With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.
SPECIAL FEATURES
New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New interview with director Martin Rosen
New interview with filmmaker Guillermo del Toro about the film’s importance in animation history
Picture-in-picture storyboards for the entire film (Blu-ray); four film-to-storyboard scene comparisons (DVD)
Defining a Style, a 2005 featurette about the film’s aesthetic
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by comic book writer Gerard Jones
