Watership Down

Continuity mistake: The rabbits have a close encounter with some rats in a shed on the cemetery. A spade falls over. In the next shot the spade lays in a wheelbarrow.

Plot hole: Perhaps the biggest plot hole in the movie is centered about the reappearance of the Owsla officer Holly. Even if the warren was destroyed right after Hazel's band had departed, Holly would not have caught up with them right before the new warren at Watership Down - even with the delay at Cowslip's warren - with the additional detour in Efrafa, considering that acquiring the amount of information he got from its organization would take more than just one or two days. In addition, Richard Adam's novel, on which this movie is based, features the location of Efrafa some distance away from the down, nowhere between it and the Sandlefort warren (Hazel's and Fiver's home). In fact, Holly went to Efrafa (along with a missionary group of Hazel's band) some time after they had settled down in the new warren.

Trivia: The term "Prince with a Thousand Enemies" used in the prelude is a direct translation of the rabbit folk hero El-Ahrairah's name.

Trivia: Occasionally the rabbits use terms which are not explained in the movie, but which are featured in Richard Adam's novel, along with their meanings. For interest, some of these are: "owsla"=a term for a selected band of rabbits responsible for both security and raiding parties (for vegetables, mostly; organization varies with the warren); "hraka"=rabbit droppings or something similarly offensive; "tharn"=mad or paralyzed with fear; "elil"=any rabbit-killing/-eating enemy; "hrududu"=generic term for motorized vehicles; "zorn" (which Holly cries out right before he joins the others near the new warren)=catastrophe; "Frith"=the sun; "Inle"=the moon, or death; "hlessi"=a wandering rabbit.

Blackberry: Men have always hated us.
Holly: No. They just destroyed the warren because we were in their way.
Fiver: They'll never rest until they've spoiled the earth.

Hazel: Lord Frith, I know you've looked after us well, and it's wrong to ask even more of you. But my people are in terrible danger, and so I would like to make a bargain with you. My life in return for theirs.
Frith: There is not a day or night that a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla, his life for his chief. But there is no bargain: what is, is what must be.

Hazel: We'll fill in the holes good and deep. They'll have to dig us out, and they can't stay out in the open for long without attracting elil.
Blackavar: You don't know the Efrafans. They'll never give up.

More quotes from Watership Down

Question: I'm trying to remember the song that was made famous by this film. Can anyone help me?

Answer: "Bright Eyes" written by Mike Batt and performed by Art Garfunkel.

Tailkinker

Question: I am struggling to figure out what the title of the movie, Watership Down, has to do with the movie itself at all. Can someone please explain what the title refers to?

Quantom X

Chosen answer: Watership Down is the name of a real hill in Hampshire. In the context of the film and the book, it is the location where Fiver and the other rabbits set up their new warren after leaving Sandleford.

Sierra1

Question: Is it really true that a character swears in this children's rated film?

Hamster

Chosen answer: Kehaar says "P*ss off!" to one of the rabbits.

rabid anarchist

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.