What was Rat looking for in Fantastic Mr. Fox? Cider?

In my opinion this scene was part drama and part parody of overly dramatic evil character death scenes in movies.

The scene implies that everything that Rat does was motivated by his love of cider, so we can safely assume that he was being paid in cider for guarding the cellar. It's not that the cider was something he couldn't get a hold of, it was something that he couldn't get enough of. As he lay dying, all Rat could think of was getting one last sip of cider. A saddened Mr. Fox gives him a sip of muddy water instead since no cider was handy, and the dying Rat was in no position to notice and his imagination took over.

I think that the fact that the Rat was always seeking pleasure with Cider (because he really loved it and could never get enough) secretly exposed a much darker and tragic theme, the theme being addiction... In this case, it was more about drinking problems or alcoholism. As Mr. Fox asks him, ''All these wasted years, what were you looking for, Rat?'', the Rat replies ''Cider''. Taking into consideration that cider contains alcohol, we suppose that the Rat had been wasting his life drinking this sweet syrup that he could never get enough of; probably suggesting that he was addicted to it and it blinded him for all these years.

So yea, when I watched this scene I felt very sad because for me the Rat was blind (figuratively) and died with his only purpose and desires being to get more of this alcoholic apple cider.

BTW, I'm not sure if it has anything to do with it but the Rat always had very red eyes maybe suggesting alcohol problems.

This entire death scene may have been the death of an alcoholic. Rat was always fighting blindly to protect this cause and right at the end mr.Fox asked what was his motivation, and he says the cider. Rat was an alcoholic doing whatever he could for more alcohol. Probably why mr.fox mentioned something about redeeming himself and not being like the rest dying behind a chinese restaurant.