Viking Duck

When I look out of my window, the visual display that meets me could easily have been a subject for an Edgar Hunt oil painting. Various breeds of chickens, some Emden geese and even white and blue peafowl colour the green field as they mill about eating the scattered seeds that make up their breakfast. Added to this animated canvas of farmyard beauty are the ducks. Like the chickens, there is more than one breed on show. They include the brown Khaki Campbell and the white Aylesbury. They also include the Indian Runners. These ducks are distinctly different to the rest. Despite a single member who is almost completely black, they are white, like the Aylesbury. However, unlike the other breeds of duck, this bird stands very erect and often with its beak in the air. Like a diminutive goose they march forward with purpose – and nothing stands in their way. For, although many would look upon this scene as the perfect backdrop to countryside tranquillity, I see chaos and carnage.

The Hazeid - Watership Down Review

Image via Wikipedia

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.”- Richard Adam, "Watership Down"

Below are my reviews and reflections on the great book and film, "Watership Down". When it comes to literature and movie adaptations very few of the latter measure up to the former. There is no rule to how this turns out. Just because a film remains as loyal as possible to its source material, such as the graphic novel "The Watchmen" and especially "300", which was a frame-by-frame adaptation, it doesn't mean that the end result is going to be any good. Slavishly adhering to the original material almost makes the whole point of creating a film pointless. A film is a different animal to a book or even a play. In the latter case one has only to look at many of the early "talkies" and then compare them to the way cinema developed in the 1940s to see the important distinction.