"The Watership Down crew went beyond Disney in trying to ground their film in reality. The down Adams wrote about is a real place in England, and he used its real geography. Rosen took a helicopter and an away team of animators there to film it from above, to lock down the realism of their fantastically detailed layouts. Rosen's script sticks tightly to Adams' novel, departing only in small details, and thoroughly embracing its violence: The images of fighting rabbits foaming at the mouth and dripping garish red blood from open gashes are still shockingly graphic, even in a more indulgent age." - Tasha Robinson, The Dissolve