It's been a pretty busy week for Death what with George Michael passing away on Sunday and Carrie Fisher on Tuesday but in all that it was easy to miss that Watership Down and Shardik author Richard Adams passed away last Saturday, the 24th, at the age of 96.


I want to say I was introduced to Watership Down at the age of 11 and I completely fell in love with the book. It's probably the book I've reread the most over the years and I really loved it the Christmas my mom found a copy of the 1978 movie on VHS. I still have that VHS copy (and the soundtrack to the movie is the most expensive CD I've ever bought) though the sound is worn out in some areas so I would really like to find a DVD version of it (I recall seeing one about 7 or 8 years ago). I still listen to the soundtrack now and then and can name every section of the movie each piece of music is from. The 1996 sequel Tales from Watership Down is still enjoyable even if it suffers from the same thing many book series or sequels have when there is a significant period of time between them- the tone and some of the characters feel different. There was a TV series that ran from 1999-2001 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down_(TV_series) ) but I'd never seen it, though apparently the DVD movie I have is a two part episode from season 2.


I do have to admit that I never read the Redwall books until a few years ago and each time I'd read one I found myself comparing them to Watership Down in a negative way as the characters and world in Watership Down felt more fleshed out and realistic; less black and white and instead full of the grays that we deal with irl. Watership Down was also a book willing to include death, and the 1978 movie would probably be flirting with an R rating as it shows some of that brutality and themes. That and I still cry at the end of the movie. Shardik I read in high school, and while pleasant to read, it didn't captivate me as much as Watership Down.


The BBC and Netflix are doing a four hour miniseries next year based on Watership Down (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watership_Down_(miniseries) ) and while I'm quite interested in seeing it, especially as it voices such talent as James McAvoy, John Boyega, and Ben Kingsley, I admit it's going to be weird as the animation and voices of the original are what I think of when I reread the book.


I think most older members (25yrs+) of the fandom would say that Watership Down played an important part to them growing up, if nothing else it showed you could have a mature, anthropomorphic story that appealed to a wide audience regardless whether it was adult or a child. It also apparently inspired the first rpg to feature non-humanoid players (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnies_%26_Burrows ) and was considered superior to Dungeons and Dragons when it released in 1976. It's amazing that this story was rejected 7 times before Adams found a publisher willing to publish it. Adams' impact may not have been huge but the stories he told have had wide ripples.