History YMMV / WatershipDown

** Though he outlived Zero Mostel by about a decade, Creator/DenholmElliot would pass away in 1992 due to a mix of AIDS and tuberculosis. This makes the scene where Cowslip recites the poem about death and the Black Rabbit and the character's overall sickly, thin appearance very hard to watch.

* FanPreferredCouple: Bigwig and Hyzenthlay. Though the book states that the rabbits have no concept of romantic feelings. [[spoiler:Hyzenthlay likely became Hazel's mate because they were the male and female alphas.]]

!! The 2018 series:
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Music/SamSmith's "Fire on Fire", a hauntingly gorgeous song that beautifully taps into the story's themes of fear, hope, love, and friendship.
* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Efrafan does [[spoiler:busting out in an Irish lament to distract their captors just as Bigwig is outed as a mole.]] Being almost like a musical number, it is never brought up again and seems to only be in the film so that Music/EmeliSande can contribute to the soundtrack.
* CriticalResearchFailure:
** The animators appear to have based the characters on hares, not rabbits. Rabbits have shorter legs and differently-shaped bodies than the characters who appear in the series. Possibly justified; the longer legs made the rabbits easier to differentiate and their longer faces easier to animate.
** The rabbits have pawpads. As anyone who has ever held a real rabbit can tell you, they don't. The bottoms of their feet are covered in coarse, fluffy fur instead. It's very jarring compared to the otherwise realistic-looking (besides the proportions) models.
* HarsherInHindsight: The miniseries deviates from the novel by having Hyzenthlay become Holly's love interest instead of Hazel's mate. As Hazel and Hyzenthlay are voiced by Creator/JamesMcAvoy and Anne Marie-Duff, respectively, one cannot help but wonder if this change was made due to their real-life divorce not long before production on the miniseries began.
* HilariousInHindsight:
** Creator/PeterCapaldi plays one of the few non-rabbit characters, just months after voicing Rabbit in ''Film/ChristopherRobin''.
** Creator/OliviaColman voicing a rabbit becomes this in light of ''Film/TheFavourite'', where she plays a character who owns an obscene amount of rabbits for pets.
* SoOkayItsAverage: The general consensus is that the series' talented voice cast and good script are let down by questionable directional decisions and the awkward animation.
* SpecialEffectsFailure: The crows in episode 1 don't really 'fly' as much as they awkwardly 'float'.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks:
** Many fans felt that the series' attempts to tone down the [[NightmareFuel infamously traumatising violence]] of the original film made the action scenes feel weightless and [[{{Narm}} unintentionally silly]].
** The franchise's SignatureSong "Bright Eyes" is completely absent from the film.
* UncannyValley: The backgrounds are photo-realistic and fluid, which makes the jerky character animation all the more jarring. So does the fact that the rabbits all have human eyes (to give them eye color and help differentiate them).
* WTHCastingAgency:
** Most of the voice actors are spot-on, but seriously, ''Creator/PeterCapaldi'' as ''Kehaar''? Not helped by Capaldi using his natural Scottish accent instead of putting on a Norwegian one.
** Since it was announced, many fans of the book questioned the decision to cast Creator/JohnBoyega as Bigwig, due to him being deemed [[VocalDissonance too young and high-pitched]] for a character commonly portrayed as grizzled and experienced. In the miniseries itself, Boyega does manage to do a deeper voice for the character, but can sound as if he is trying to sound older and tougher than he actually is, [[{{Narm}} which sounds unintentionally hilarious at times]].
** Zig-zagged with Sir Creator/BenKingsley as Woundwort. As talented and respected he is as an actor, and despite how well he did in playing the callous and cruel side to the character's nature, Kingsley does not bring to the voice the nasty level of viciousness and bloodlust that Harry Andrews and Creator/JohnHurt famously did for their incarnations.

!! TV Series

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Mike Batt, who wrote "Bright Eyes" in the film, returned to make some [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuLP50rHQ8I awesome]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Iws6jaxtU&feature=related tracks]].
* CreepyCute: Silverweed. Creepy mystic, invades Fiver's mind yet somehow he's adorable at the same time.
* JerkassWoobie:
** Hawkbit usually complains and makes sarcastic remarks and at one point even calls Fiver a curse on the warren but considering Bigwig works him to near exhaustion and he's reduced to panicked sobbing in one episode, it's hard not to feel sorry for him.
** Vervain of all characters could be seen as this. He's a lying, rude and paranoid scumbag throughout the series but by the third season, he's completely terrified most of the time and is pretty much the ButtMonkey of Woundwort's army.
* TheScrappy: A lot of fans hate Primrose for being manipulative, self-centered, and good at nothing else. Particularly jarring if you realize that she's supposed to be Hyzenthlay, who in the book was intelligent, had a great deal of common sense and was a seer on top of it. Primose, in contrast, has few of those HiddenDepths, though she has her moments.
* StrangledByTheRedString: Campion and Blackberry. In the season 2 finale, they [[LoveAtFirstSight meet very briefly]] and barely have time to speak to each other before [[spoiler:Campion's [[DisneyDeath apparent death]]]] and their consequential separation. Of course, they pine for each other, and all the other characters, who are strangely aware the two's feelings for each other, try to comfort them for their losses.
* TheWoobie:
** In addition to the examples above, there's Bark the rather ''needy'' badger - the SoleSurvivor of her clan, living in a sett and terribly lonely.[[note]]Makes more sense when you realize Bark is a European Badger, which are highly social, versus an American Badger, which are the famously grumpy, solitary ones.[[/note]]
-->'''Fiver''': Get it over with! Stop tormenting me! Just go ahead and kill me!
-->'''Bark''': Bark...''not'' kill. Bark ''help''.
-->'''Fiver''' ''(startled)'': ...''Why?''
-->'''Bark''': You...hurt. Bark, knows hurt. [[TearJerker No-one help Bark when she hurt]]. Sad to hurt. Sad, to be ''lonely''. Let Bark ''help''. *offers paw*
** [[GentleGiant Corporal]] [[MauveShirt Aspen]] from the 3rd season is introduced as an adorable KindheartedSimpleton. He's only there for one episode and the only character he interacts with is [[{{Jerkass}} Vervain]] before [[spoiler: he gets killed off by a weasel.]]
** Campion also fits the bill. [[{{Wangst}} Sometimes.]]

** Most of the voice actors are spot-on, but seriously, ''Creator/PeterCapaldi'' as ''Kehaar''? Not helped by Cpaldi using his natural Scottish accent instead of putting on a Norwegian one.

** [[GentleGiant Corporal]] [[MauveShirt Aspen]] from the 3rd season is introduced as an adorable KindheartedSimpleton. He's only there for one episode and the only character he interacts with is [[{{Jerkass}} Vervain]] before [[spoiler: He gets killed off by a weasel.]]

* ValuesDissonance: The treatment of gender roles in the book sadly hasn't aged well. Although Hyzenthlay is a reasonably developed character, the story is entirely male-centred. The crisis in the second part is driven by the fact that the rabbits need females to mate with. Naturally the TV series tries to remedy this by [[GenderFlip making Blackberry female]], expanding the role of Primrose (Hyzenthlay's {{Expy}}) and introducing a female mouse character called Hannah; the Netflix series does its own take by gender flipping Strawberry instead and making Clover more prominent, albeit at the expense of Hyzenthlay's actions and screetime, and actually uses even more sexist language and gender roles. Likewise the book's sequel features considerably more female presence in an attempt to avoid this.

* LampshadeHanging: Hazel has set the dog loose but been pounced on by Tab the cat. He can't fight it - half-lame as he is it's by no means clear he could have run from it - and there is no rabbit there to help him. He is at Nuthanger Farm where the humans' only prior interaction with him has been to shoot him, and humans throughout the story have been a dangerous enemy to be avoided at all costs. So let's have the farmer's little girl step in and take pity on Hazel. The only reason why the chapter isn't called "DeusExMachina" is that it carefully uses the correct gender for her.

** In the TV series, Campion also fits the bill. [[{{Wangst}} Sometimes.]]

* TheWoobie: In addition to the examples above, there's Bark the rather ''needy'' badger - the SoleSurvivor of her clan, living in a sett and terribly lonely.[[note]]Makes more sense when you realize Bark is a European Badger, which are highly social, versus an American Badger, which are the famously grumpy, solitary ones.[[/note]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Sam Smith's "Fire on Fire", a hauntingly gorgeous song that beautifully taps into the story's themes of fear, hope, love, and friendship.

** Most of the voice actors are spot-on, but seriously, ''Peter Capaldi'' as ''Kehaar''? Not helped by Cpaldi using his natural Scottish accent instead of putting on a Norwegian one.

* TearJerker: The "Bright Eyes" sequence where everyone but Fiver thinks that [[spoiler: Hazel is dead]]. Then there's [[spoiler: Hazel's actual death]] at the end.

** Though he outlived Mostel by about a decade, Denholm Elliot would pass away in 1992 due to a mix of AIDS and tuberculosis. This makes the scene where Cowslip recites the poem about death and the Black Rabbit and the character's overall sickly, thin appearance very hard to watch.
** [[spoiler:Hazel’s death, one of Creator/JohnHurt’s most realistic ones [[ChronicallyKilledActor in his career]], besides the fact that the character died ''at old age'', becomes even harder to sit through after Hurt’s own death in 2017.]]

* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/WatershipDown Oh boy, where to begin...]]

* JerkassWoobie: Hawkbit usually complains and makes sarcastic remarks and at one point even calls Fiver a curse on the warren but considering Bigwig works him to near exhaustion and he's reduced to panicked sobbing in one episode, it's hard not to feel sorry for him.

** [[GentleGiant Corporal]] [[MauveShirt Aspen]] from the 3rd season is introduced as an adorable KindheartedSimpleton. He's only there for one episode and the only character he interacts with is [[JerkAss Vervain]] before [[spoiler: He gets killed off by a weasel.]]

* CriticalResearchFailure: The animators appear to have based the characters on hares, not rabbits. Rabbits have shorter legs and differently-shaped bodies than the characters who appear in the series. Possibly justified; the longer legs made the rabbits easier to differentiate and their longer faces easier to animate.

** Zig-zagged with Sir Ben Kingsley as Woundwort. As talented and respected he is as an actor, and despite how well he did in playing the callous and cruel side to the character's nature, Kingsley does not bring to the voice the nasty level of viciousness and bloodlust that Harry Andrews and John Hurt famously did for their incarnations.

** The “Bright Eyes” scene becomes even sadder to watch in Latin America when you realize that Fiver was voiced in said region by Creator/RicardoMendoza, whose brother and voice actor Creator/LuisAlfonsoMendoza [[spoiler:was shot in February 2020. Sadly, unlike Hazel in said scene, he didn’t survive]].

* {{Narm}}: You shouldn't name the savage and fierce dog "Bob" if you want to be taken seriously.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The score - and it's impossible to find.

** The “Bright Eyes” scene becomes even sadder to watch in Latin America when you realize that Fiver was voiced in said region by Creator/RicardoMendoza, whose brother and voice actor Creator/LuisAlfonsoMendoza [[spoiler:was shot in February 2020. Unlike Hazel in said scene, he didn’t survive]].
* HilariousInHindsight: In Latin America, Luis Alfonso Mendoza, brother of Fiver’s voice actor Ricardo Mendoza, would go on to voice [[WesternAnimation/BugsBunny a more famous rabbit character]].
* NeverLiveItDown / OvershadowedByControversy: Usually most people nowadays (especially from the Internet) first hear and talk about the film due to how violent it is rather than any plot details. As a result, despite receiving good critical reception and being considered as one of the best British animated films, this has been overridden for its reputation as being among the absolute most violent and horrifying children’s animation works ''of all time'' and has permanently affected the source material’s reputation as well as everything spun from it, though at least it somewhat falls into BrokenBase these days.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: The addition of colour, sound, and movement makes several parts of the experience even more uncomfortable to sit through than the original novel, but the target demographic remains unchanged. The big thing that brings down criticism is that characters actually bleed when injured or killed rather than using BloodlessCarnage.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Since these are prey animals, a bit of ValuesDissonance may be present.
** Which is sometimes Lampshaded by the narration, as when it's pointed out that rabbits feel no guilt or shame about using physical force to push weaker rabbits around.
** And the two nightmare warrens are both, in different ways, attempts to beat a rabbit's harsh life as a prey animal. In one, the rabbits are protected from predators and have all the food they need--and are constantly culled by the silver wires. In the other, the rabbits successfully hide from predators ''and'' humans alike, at the cost of a horrible fascism. The lesson seems to be that death by one of the Thousand is a day-to-day possibility when you are a rabbit. You'd better keep your wits sharp and your legs strong, because those are the only advantages you have.

* {{Bowdlerize}}: The author tells us many [[{{Conlang}} Lapidian]] words...but not one for what rabbits...do like rabbits.

* {{Narm}}: You shouldn't name the savage, fierce and evil dog "Bob" if you want to be taken seriously.

* {{Anvilicious}}: After hearing about the gassing of the warren: "Humans won't stop until they destroy the whole world!"

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The absolutely random part of the trip to Efrafa where Bigwig abruptly runs off from the group, we see a few pigeons getting scattered and he then rejoins them. He gives them a big story about his reasons for doing so and takes longer to explain the events than the scenario did to actually play out. It contributes nothing to the overall plot of the film and serves literally no purpose.
** Bigwig was leading a fox away from the main group and unintentionally led it onto an Efrafan patrol and the fox killed one of them. It's explained better in the novel, but with this casualty plus the patrol run down by the train in their attempt to recapture Holly, Efrafa is running low on top quality Owsla. Hence it's easier for Bigwig as a newcomer to talk his way into a position.

* HesJustHiding: [[spoiler: Rabbits from Efrafa, even after joining Hazel's company, thought that about Woundwort]].

* TearJerker: The "Bright Eyes" sequence where everyone but Fiver thinks that [[spoiler: Hazel is dead.]] Then there's [[spoiler: Hazel's actual death]] at the end.

* OvershadowedByControversy / NeverLiveItDown: Usually most people nowadays (especially from the Internet) first hear and talk about the film due to how violent it is rather than any plot details. As a result, despite receiving good critical reception and being considered as one of the best British animated films, this has been overridden for its reputation as being among the absolute most violent and horrifying children’s animation works ''of all time'' and has permanently affected the source material’s reputation as well as everything spun from it, though at least it somewhat falls into BrokenBase these days.

* NightmareFuel: Oh boy, where to begin...

* OvershadowedByControversy / NeverLiveItDown: Usually most people nowadays (especially from the Internet) first hear and/or talk about the film due to how violent it is rather than any plot details. As a result, despite receiving good critical reception and being considered as one of the best British animated films, this has been overridden for its reputation as being among the absolute most violent and horrifying children’s animation works ''of all time'' and has therefore tarnished the source material’s contemporary reputation as well as everything spun from it.

* OvershadowedByControversy/NeverLiveItDown: Usually most people nowadays (especially from the Internet) first hear and/or talk about the film due to how violent it is rather than any plot details. As a result, despite receiving good critical reception and being considered as one of the best British animated films, this has been overridden for its reputation as being among the absolute most violent and horrifying children’s animation works ''of all time'' and has therefore tarnished the source material’s contemporary reputation as well as everything spun from it.

** [[spoiler:Hazel’s death, one of Creator/JohnHurt’s most realistic ones in his career, besides the fact that the character died ''at old age'', becomes even harder to sit through after Hurt’s own death in 2017.]]

* OvershadowedByControversy: Usually most people nowadays (especially from the Internet) first hear and/or talk about the film due to how violent it is rather than any plot details. As a result, despite receiving good critical reception and being considered as one of the best British animated films, this has been overridden for its reputation as being among the absolute most violent and horrifying children’s animation works ''of all time'' and has therefore tarnished the source material’s contemporary reputation as well as everything spun from it.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Sam Smith's "Fire on Fire", a hauntingly gorgeous love song.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Sam Smith's "Fire on Fire", which is a hauntingly beautiful song.