New Arrival Watership Down (#748)

With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adamss 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 films 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 films aesthetic

Trailer

English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

PLUS: An essay by comic book writer Gerard Jones