In the run-up to Christmas I took a look through the TV listings, identified a number of things I was potentially interested in, and therefore recorded the new "Watership Down". We then didn't watch it, largely because we were never in the right mood. Eventually, LC stated that she really had no interest in it, whereupon I watched it last week across four days.
Sadly, it wasn't great. As is so often the case, the book was better.
The funny thing is, I don't really know why the adaptation just didn't impress me. The story was all present and correct, the cast was pretty stellar (far better than it really had any right to be), the animation was pretty solid.
(They even managed to not screw up in their handling of the female characters. One of the features of the book is that all the key characters are male, in a way that modern TV just doesn't do. So when they announced this adaptation, of course they talked about expanding female roles. The problem there is that the fact that so many of the characters are male is an absolutely key plot point. Change that, and you actually do ruin the story. As it turned out they didn't change that - they just vastly fleshed out the roles of those female characters who did appear when they did appear, and did so in an entirely appropriate way. So that was extremely satisfying - a win on every front.)
And yet... meh.
My big takeaway from this is that I'll just have to read the book again. Which is no bad thing.
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