This past week, I took an extended break from my Doctor Who rewatch. I decided to revisit two very popular film series: the Peter Jackson adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as well as the adaptation of the Harry Potter book series.
One of the problems with adapting books is the fact that a film is, by its nature, going to need to condense and cut things out of the book in order for the film version to fit into a typical runtime. Three hours is generally considered about the longest one can make a film nowadays, with two to two and a half hours being the most common for action-adventure films.
Obviously, I have my own prejudices regarding the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter film adaptations. There are things I certainly would have done differently in both film series, but I will endeavor to try and keep my prejudices somewhat at bay while reviewing the film adaptations.
Unlike my regular reviews, I won't include a credit lists simply because full cast credits would take a long time to list. Instead, as I mention characters during the reviews, I'll list the actor name in parenthesis after the character name. I hope this doesn't throw everyone off, but there are plenty of places online like IMDB where one can get full cast and crew credits for these films.
For tonight, I'll be including my Lord of the Rings reviews, while I'll be posting my Harry Potter movie reviews on Saturday evening. Doctor Who reviews will resume next week, as I return to my Doctor Who marathon viewing. There might also be a few other reviews scattered over this weekend, as I've got a great deal of non-Doctor Who material that I've written up for the blog this past week.
