WATCH ALONG: Watership Down
Added 2026-01-20 00:25:31 +0000 UTC
Comments
This is a film that regularly brings me to tears. your lack of emotion throughout has been uninvested and disappointing. i dont regret paying the $10 to watch this with you but i will be ending my sub now
M
2026-02-15 02:10:27 +0000 UTCAlong with most of the locations in the story, Watership Down is a real place. It is in the south of England, in Hampshire. A down is basically a hill that is steep on one side and then slopes very gradually downhill on the other, almost seeming like level ground. The warren they came from was called Sandleford and was near Newbury in Berkshire. The little river they crossed is the Enborne. The farm with the hutch rabbits (in the book only 4) is a place called Nuthanger (nut-hanger) Farm. The movie shows just one beech tree on top of Watership Down but the book relates that the warren is at one end of a small narrow beech woods and Kehaar's hole was the only hole very far into the woods. Silflay is to feed outside. Flayrah is food more glamorous than grass and such, like lettuce or carrots that you might raid a garden for. Elil are all the enemies of rabbits (and of other gentle creatures like mice, moles, guinea pigs, etc) (had to include the li'l piggie bc we just got a pair lol) Homba is a fox. Embleer is the reek of a fox or any bad smell. Lendri is a badger. Owsla is the rabbits' 'police'. Some are more militant than others. Hlessi is a wandering rabbit (rogue, vagabond, etc). Inle (pronounce: inlay) is both the moon and death. Frith is the sun and God. Hrududu is a car or any motorized vehicle (like farm tractors). Thlayli is Bigwig's rabbit-name, meaning 'fur-head'. Hyzenthlay, the doe's name means 'fur shining like dew'. Hrairoo is Fiver's rabbit name meaning 'little thousand'. He was the runt of his litter, Hazel was probably eldest. Hlao-roo is Pipkin's rabbit name; 'little depression in the grass'. El-ahrairah (pronounce EL-a-ray-RAH) means 'Prince with a thousand enemies'. Elil (enemies), hrair (thousand - or just 'a lot'), rah (prince, chief, leader). Hraka is... yep it's poop. Used by Bigwig as an expletive in the movie; in the book he actually says to Woundwort: "Silflay hraka u embleer rah," before saying that "my chief" told him to defend the run (tunnel). There's more but that's more than enough for what is in the movie. The book is just as deep and 10x better (imho). I found Blackavar's death, attacking Woundwort, to be unnecessary and stupid, for in the book he survives. I first saw this movie on HBO way back in 81 or 82 and read the book almost immediately after. My mind was blown 🤯 by a lot of stuff they left out of the film (mostly all the stories about El-ahrairah) or changed around for it, but the film still holds up today (even though some find it depressing (I don't)) and I recommend reading it if you have the time and patience. It was kind of like when I learned the Wizard of Oz was a book and when I read that: 🤯x 10,000 (they left even more out of that movie!).
MertzRocks
2026-01-26 22:57:50 +0000 UTCWatership Down is the name of the hill they built their new burrow on.
Yurvic
2026-01-21 16:12:07 +0000 UTCIt's not a sequel; it's another novel by the same author.
Charity Konusser (the chonus)
2026-01-20 00:38:40 +0000 UTCYes asheligh, but imagine being shown this film as a kids movie before you knew what was going on 🤯😵💫
Adam Doyle
2026-01-20 00:28:55 +0000 UTCI don't know what you thought about this movie (and frankly, I haven't even seen it myself yet, although I will be watching it for the first time with your reaction), but I am excited to tell you that there is a sequel to this that is reportedly *even more emotionally devastating*, called The Plague Dogs (1982).
Tyler Foster
2026-01-20 00:28:06 +0000 UTC
