Watership Down science fiction writer and conservative social commentator writing in the "National Review", declared that the novel was "pleasant enough, but it has about the same intellectual firepower as Dumbo." He pilloried it further: ""Watership Down" is an adventure story, no more than that: rather a swashbuckling crude one to boot. There are virtuous rabbits and bad rabbits: if that’s allegory, "Bonanza" is an allegory." John Rowe Townsend notes that the book quickly achieved such a high popularity despite the fact that it "came out at a high price and in an unattractive jacket from a publisher who had hardly been
Watership Down (film) visited by El-ahrairah, who invites him to join his own Owsla, assuring him of Watership Down's perpetual safety and its future. Reassured, Hazel accepts and dies peacefully. His spirit then follows El-ahrairah through the woodland and trees towards the Sun, which metamorphoses into Frith, and the afterlife. Production of the film began in 1975 and was originally to be directed by John Hubley, who died in 1977. His work can still be found in the film, most notably in the "fable" scene. He was replaced by the film's producer Martin Rosen, his directorial debut. After the genesis story, which was