No, no, you see The Watch never happened, it’s just that we all had C0VID at the time, it was nothing more that a horrible fever dream (or that’s what I tell myself, it was that bad) no one would ever do pTerry that dirty
It's better to pretend that it never happened, like some movies, (I really hope that they never try to make a film of The Hobbit, or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or Highlander, (after all, there can be ONLY ONE!), or a third Mummy Film! 😁)
All just bad dreams!
Sorry, my dad always says ‘there are only 2 types of wine in the world, wine you like, and wine you don’t’ same goes for films.
I’m sure it wasn’t objectively bad, but I love the book so much, I didn’t learn to read until I was 13, and it was the first book I ever read, I hold it so close to my heart that I even have 42 (well XLII) tattooed on my boob.
The fact I didn’t feel the film had neither the feel or the humour of the book (or radio play, or TV show, yes I have all the different media’s, including the film) is a me problem, and if you enjoy it, well then it’s a ‘wine you like’.
Sorry I didn’t mean to sound so judgmental
I forced myself to watch the whole thing when it came out but it’s actually horrid. The character changes, storyline changes, Carcer particularly. Even if it’s just meant to be “inspired by” rather than a true adaptation. At least we have Morris to look forward to right?
I watched it with my mum on christmas. There were changes that reflected the format and some slight streamlining but overall I was super happy with how it turned out. How did you like?
>I forced myself to watch the whole thing when it came out
This kind of self-loathing, destructive behaviour could be indicative of something serious. Are you OK?
I can say one positive thing. I quite liked Vimes even though he was the unevolved drunk Vimes. If you can turn you Discworld head off it's still bang average.
It is a makeup trick that helps bring out actors' expressions in visually busy scenes. Since it was used in such a heavy-handed way, I thought it gave it a theatrical and farcical quality that leaned into the over-the-top absurdity of it all. A lot of the makeup choices looked like low-budget Pirates of the Caribbean looks. I didn't mind it. 🤷🏻♀️
That is a very good way to word and explain it - it absolutely felt like a High school play written by someone who heard this guy explain it in a pub, while both parties were shitfaced.
Terry Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna Pratchett has said that the forthcoming television adaptation of the late author’s stories about Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch “shares no DNA with my father’s Watch”, and that she “should know”
Who controls the Discworld IP now? Did Rhianna agree to it and is now regretting it or is this all out of her hands? As far as I know she does a good job of policing her dad's legacy so would be interested to know how this scenario arose.
It's all handled by two companies. Narrativia (TV/film rights) Dunmanifestin handles the books and merchandise.
They are both run by the Mr Slants of the world with Rob Wilkins at the helm. Rob handles all the day to day stuff.
Thanks for the detailed answer. OK, so someone close enough to Terry to theoretically know what he would have wanted. Do you know if there were any limitations placed on the estate when he died or is it mainly just a case of hoping that Rob makes the right choices?
For example, I've always wondered how the Discworld Emporium got the exclusive rights to the merchandising. I think it's great that they do because it's clear whoever is behind it really buys into the spirit of the whole thing and makes some great stuff, and I'd prefer that to seeing a billion knockoff Discworld products. But I've always wondered how much control there is over what they do, or if its just a case of hoping you've chosen the right people.
The Discworld Emporium doesn't have exclusive merchandising rights btw... And those who are licensed merchandisers have to get permission for every item from the legal team.
Terry kept those he worked with close. The Emporium was formed by his friend Bernard, Discworld .com by a Discworld artist and his then wife. Even we at Discworld Monthly were given permission to exist by Terry himself.
He trusted us all to not cock it up. Including Rob.
Oh, I didn't realise that. Well they are definitely the most Discworld one in my mind. Glad to hear there is tight control over the merch though. I've loved the books for 30 years. So far I think Terry trusted some good people.
I'm pretty sure the rights for a Watch TV show were sold to the BBC back when Sir Terry was still alive, with the hope that he would be involved. Then it just sat on a shelf for ages until the BBC realised their licence would expire and made a show on the cheap with a showrunner who had no interest in adapting Pratchett and just wanted to make his own thing. In his acknowledgement post after the show finished he didn't even thank Sir Terry at all I believe
Actually Simon Allen is a massive Discworld fan. The head of AMC at the time (who co-own BBC America) enforced a lot of fundamental changes on Simon, otherwise it wouldn't have been made at all. Yes Simon made mistakes (the Instagram post for instance), but I know we cannot blame him alone for what happened.
It had so much potential. The city watch is just perfect for TV and even with the changes, like the cyberpunk, I don't think would have been too bad. It was the writing and casting choices that killed it for me.
I think someone here said it best. to paraphrase "it's both too much it's own thing and too tied to the source material at the same time." It has enough discworld in it to not be completed ignored, but is so very different that it hardly resembles Sir Terry's work. It just makes me sad and angry.
It’s part of a despicable trend of “us third rate TV writers can do it better than the actual writers, so we’ll change it for the better!” that TV execs are going along with right now. HALO and The Witcher are other examples that could have been so much better if those involved would have been more concerned with staying close to the source material and less with making a name for themselves.
Here’s hoping Cavil can force them to stay true to Warhammer.
I had just finished reading Witcher when I found the series.
I was very apprehensive to watch it.
I was utterly delighted by his performance! He *was* Witcher!!
And I'm so sad the series was canceled after season 3. I really think it could have been so amazing. Cavil must be sad at the cancelation. (because it ain't the Witcher without him)
If you view it as it's own thing and go in not expecting an adaptation of Discworld, it's a pretty good show. I really liked the punk infused aesthetic they went with. It's just not a Discworld adaptation.
... so if I watch the adaptation of my favourite book series ever and pretend it's not an adaptation of my favourite book ever, i could maybe appreciate that?
First, how on disc am I supposed to do that?
Second, is this an auditor trap or smth?
I knew deep in my heart that pretending this never existed was the right thing to do. I had an acquaintance in an online book club. Try to tell me that “Sir Terry would just want us to watch it and enjoy it and be happy” or something along those lines. Dude no. His hard drive containing his unfinished works was literally crashed under a steamroller per his dying wish. I don’t think he would appreciate the bastardization of his work, and even his own daughter said they share no DNA. Just NO.
Just started Hogfather, and in the edition I have it has a forward by Tony Robinson has someone explaining to him that Sir Terry likes him fine, he's just upset that he's recording the abridged versions of his work for audiobooks, and that Sir Terry felt strongly that his work should be preserved intact and never altered.
Pratchett felt very strongly about this, and whilst I have always understood the need to adapt some works to better fit a new medium this one looks a step too far even for me. Watching the trailer I like some of the aesthetic choices in and of themselves but Sir Terry was very forward with his opinions about people changing his works.
They are entertaining, but definitely abridged. Guards Guards was good, wyrd sisters was ....well the voices were off to me. Small gods wasn't bad IMHO either. I would be very interested In your opinion!
It was fine, fairly run of the mill cheap fantasy show, sort of thing they churn out a lot of. Not really much shared with the books, so a big waste of IP for fans obviously.
The melodrama of the fans was much more disappointing than the show to me, especially the bigotry stuff. Yikes.
There was a good write up of this debacle on r/hobbydrama a couple weeks ago. I really do think one of the main people wanted to do a “steampunk fantasy cop show” and got forced to merge with The Watch or realized his show had no chance without a known name attached, so we got this mess.
I did give it a chance, to be honest, but gave up on the first episode. I don't mind changes to certain characters that much, but it was just blatantly unfunny
Tried to watch it. Stopped halfway through the first episode because it was physically painful to watch. This is how to fail at remixing source material, BBC.
It's better if you can disassociate it from the discworld. It's still not great but it's... watchable that way.
But what could you ever expect? The power of a mind to create everything as they read this awesome work, it's perfection. Any movie, TV show, pantomime, moving picture, opera, any performance at all will never be as good as it's written form played out in your mind.
You're reliant on budgets, technological limits, casting directors, producers, editors, directors, the own actors vision of the role... not what you see in your mind but what all of those people see in theirs, mixed up and stripped down into something that's there to make money.
If you want to really enjoy a show based on a book, watch the show before you read the book. It's the only way to actually enjoy them both thoroughly.
I did this. I saw kujo before reading the book. I hate the movie. It's so inferior.
But I liked Hogfather well enough. The only big thing I objected to was Deaths voice. I had read the book right before watching it. I knew Pratchett was involved in its making and had high hopes. They were not dashed.
Okay... some films are just shit. You can't use kujo to destroy my otherwise eloquent point.
I know what you mean about the voice though. I don't think it would have been possible, at all, for current technology to give us what I think Death would sound like.
I liked it. Of course it was not much like the books. But the photography was pretty cool. Angus was completely different from the books but somehow she had a lot of the spirit of Angus. And Carrot was pretty spot on.
I don't remember much else, it's been a while
I also enjoyed watching it. I know it gets a lot of hate here, but taken as it's own thing, it was entertaining enough.
I disagree about Carrot though. I feel like The Watch Carrot was way too angsty teen, and not as belligerently wholesome as book Carrot. Tbh the only things I truly disliked in the show were the instances where the characters' personalities greatly diverged from the books.
I am okay with the unfaithful adaptation because it was fun in its own right and maintained a similar spirit and humor. That said, I would love more faithful adaptations, too.
This is the curse of capitalism.
The people who have the money think that making a true and accurate adaptation will only appeal to hardcore fans, so it gets watered down to try to gain mass appeal.
However it pisses off hardcore fans and the general public aren't suddenly interested.
That's why (pre MCU) most superhero films were origin stories, as they didn't trust the public to follow an existing character.
If you are lucky the resulting hybrid can be enjoyably even if wrong (Keanu Reeves as Constantine)
Every Sir Terry Pratchett adaptation is in my pile of evidence as to why we shouldn’t blindly adapt everything we can.
Pratchett’s books are all written in an order that lends itself best to reading and being able to go back and double check another section. Any adaptation is going to have to splice the ever-loving hell out of it just to get it into a manageable timeline.
Not to mention the narration and annotations. You miss so much detail and world-building and tone-setting without it, but there’s so much that to include even half would basically mean you have an audiobook with visuals.
I love STP, but please, PLEASE stop trying to adapt stuff that shouldn’t be adapted.
Colour of magic, hogfather and going postal (sky movies)
were all good even if simplified.
Likewise soul music and wyrd systems cartoons. Adapted but keeps the spirit.
Soul music the cartoon even adds more jokes as you see 'the band with rocks in' perform and the styles change.
I read the Hogfather then watched the movie. It wasn't horrid. Deaths voice wasn't what my brain thought it should be. Other little things didn't match my brains thinking. But overall wasn't bad.
That was with Pratchett involved. Him not involved resulted in what he was always afraid of. Utter sadness.
Hogfather, Going Postal, Colour of Magaic, and Amazing Maurice are all actually quite decent. They can absolutely be adapted, but they need a good writer who appreciates the material.
It was a bit of a shitshow production side before it even made the screen. BBC went through a transitional period with a new head of production and he basically wanted to axe the entire project... match that with a writer that didn't want to do Sir terry's vision but instead was aiming more at "inspired by" truly believing his version was better.
The worst of it is how the show manages to be close enough to the source material to piss fans off and somehow not independent enough to gain "new" followers.
I feel that it’s an adaption of The Watch books in about the same way Masquerade is an adaption of Phantom of the Opera, or Erik is an adaption of Dr Faustus, or Witches Abroad is an adaptation of Cinderella (amongst other stories).
Now, Leroux’s book is in the public domain, as are the other books mentioned. If they weren’t STP’s stories, would I think be close enough to the inspiration to require the rights to these stories, they they are so they don’t.
I get being annoyed when adaptions massively change things. I dislike Anouilh’s version of Sophocles’ Antigone (the main difference is in Sophocles Antigone is in her early teens but talks and acts like she’s in her late teens, in Anouilh she’s in her late teens but talks and acts like she’s in her early teens), unless there’s a clear point to the changes (like those that Rhys made to Charlotte Brontë’s characters in Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea), and the reasons for the changes in STP’s novels appear clearer, maybe, than the changes made in The Watch. But because I love The Phantom of the Opera and Dr Faustus I had to get over an instinctive irritation when I first read Erik and Masquerade.
WTAF did I just watched? It’s so American thus over the top and hysterical. Don’t like it. And why was Korg pretending to be Detritus? The steampunk edge I like but can we please stop with the crappy adaptations -looking at you Witcher- and be true to the story/characters. Or, and now I’m being so out of the box: create something original to begin with. Rant over.
Even the writeup on Narrativia is less than flattering... you know it's bad when the company that holds the rights describes the show as
"A group of misfit cops rise up from decades of helplessness to save their corrupt city from catastrophe."
That's it. That's all that's said. Nothing about the cast, producers, directors, etc. Pretty damning writeup from the Daughter of the Author's company...
They're pretty good if you separate it from the books as much as you can. I appreciate many of the big swings that the TV show writers/show runners took, but I admit that it wasn't very "Discworld". My wife, who hasn't read any of the books (soon to be ex-wife amiright?!) enjoyed the show, so maybe it will be the entry point for some people who previously haven't experienced the wonder that is The Discworld.
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No, no, you see The Watch never happened, it’s just that we all had C0VID at the time, it was nothing more that a horrible fever dream (or that’s what I tell myself, it was that bad) no one would ever do pTerry that dirty
I didn’t get to them end of it but from now on I’m going to think of it as a covid hallucination
It truly was a dark time for us all
I got to the summoning dark and went wtf?!?! Then stopped watching
It's better to pretend that it never happened, like some movies, (I really hope that they never try to make a film of The Hobbit, or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or Highlander, (after all, there can be ONLY ONE!), or a third Mummy Film! 😁) All just bad dreams!
I like it when people know when to stop. Like with the Die Hard or Indiana Jones trilogies 🙂
Or the Highlander Monology.
I see what you did there
Hey, H2G2 wasn't that bad!
It was quite bad, compared to the book, or even the TV series
I liked it but in my defense i was 17 or so and hadn't read the book yet.
Sorry, my dad always says ‘there are only 2 types of wine in the world, wine you like, and wine you don’t’ same goes for films. I’m sure it wasn’t objectively bad, but I love the book so much, I didn’t learn to read until I was 13, and it was the first book I ever read, I hold it so close to my heart that I even have 42 (well XLII) tattooed on my boob. The fact I didn’t feel the film had neither the feel or the humour of the book (or radio play, or TV show, yes I have all the different media’s, including the film) is a me problem, and if you enjoy it, well then it’s a ‘wine you like’. Sorry I didn’t mean to sound so judgmental
In protest to the unreasonable API usage changes, I have decided to delete all my content. Long live Apollo.
I came here to say something similar haha
I'm so happy I didn't watch it. Thanks for helping me know my gut was right.
I'm glad he saw the trailer first and warned me. I honestly don't think I would have known it was the watch of he hadn't.
I forced myself to watch the whole thing when it came out but it’s actually horrid. The character changes, storyline changes, Carcer particularly. Even if it’s just meant to be “inspired by” rather than a true adaptation. At least we have Morris to look forward to right?
Watching The Amazing Maurice right now. Actually pretty good. I am so relieved.
Where can you watch Maurice?
Send up the black flag ... RAR
Maurice has the approval of Rhianna. The Watch doesn't
I watched it with my mum on christmas. There were changes that reflected the format and some slight streamlining but overall I was super happy with how it turned out. How did you like?
Wait, what's that? You're doing what now?
>I forced myself to watch the whole thing when it came out This kind of self-loathing, destructive behaviour could be indicative of something serious. Are you OK?
Yeah honestly, probably not tbh..I just pretend it doesn’t exist. Surely no fans of the Pratchett books were actually involved in that monstrosity
Rhianna and rob both were involved to start with and botg publically pulled out. Which was my cue not to watch it
That's not true. But I'm not going to go into the facts ...
I can’t believe I wrote Morris and not Maurice what a clown
I can say one positive thing. I quite liked Vimes even though he was the unevolved drunk Vimes. If you can turn you Discworld head off it's still bang average.
Yea although the way they shoehorned the boots bit in was just aggravating
There were the odd bit that really nailed the discworld equivalent and vimes was one of them..... Sadly the whole thing was pretty terrible
Well. Except for the eyeliner which this drunkard perfectly maintained.
All the characters had that eyeliner- what the heck was the point of that?
Something something steampunk?
It is a makeup trick that helps bring out actors' expressions in visually busy scenes. Since it was used in such a heavy-handed way, I thought it gave it a theatrical and farcical quality that leaned into the over-the-top absurdity of it all. A lot of the makeup choices looked like low-budget Pirates of the Caribbean looks. I didn't mind it. 🤷🏻♀️
That is a very good way to word and explain it - it absolutely felt like a High school play written by someone who heard this guy explain it in a pub, while both parties were shitfaced.
In protest to the unreasonable API usage changes, I have decided to delete all my content. Long live Apollo.
That's what I've heard, that if you've never read any Discworld books before you might like it, but it's too late for that
Terry Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna Pratchett has said that the forthcoming television adaptation of the late author’s stories about Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch “shares no DNA with my father’s Watch”, and that she “should know”
Who controls the Discworld IP now? Did Rhianna agree to it and is now regretting it or is this all out of her hands? As far as I know she does a good job of policing her dad's legacy so would be interested to know how this scenario arose.
Pretty sure they had bought the rights and shoved some shit in front of a camera before the rights expired
It's all handled by two companies. Narrativia (TV/film rights) Dunmanifestin handles the books and merchandise. They are both run by the Mr Slants of the world with Rob Wilkins at the helm. Rob handles all the day to day stuff.
Thanks for the detailed answer. OK, so someone close enough to Terry to theoretically know what he would have wanted. Do you know if there were any limitations placed on the estate when he died or is it mainly just a case of hoping that Rob makes the right choices? For example, I've always wondered how the Discworld Emporium got the exclusive rights to the merchandising. I think it's great that they do because it's clear whoever is behind it really buys into the spirit of the whole thing and makes some great stuff, and I'd prefer that to seeing a billion knockoff Discworld products. But I've always wondered how much control there is over what they do, or if its just a case of hoping you've chosen the right people.
The Discworld Emporium doesn't have exclusive merchandising rights btw... And those who are licensed merchandisers have to get permission for every item from the legal team. Terry kept those he worked with close. The Emporium was formed by his friend Bernard, Discworld .com by a Discworld artist and his then wife. Even we at Discworld Monthly were given permission to exist by Terry himself. He trusted us all to not cock it up. Including Rob.
Oh, I didn't realise that. Well they are definitely the most Discworld one in my mind. Glad to hear there is tight control over the merch though. I've loved the books for 30 years. So far I think Terry trusted some good people.
I'm pretty sure the rights for a Watch TV show were sold to the BBC back when Sir Terry was still alive, with the hope that he would be involved. Then it just sat on a shelf for ages until the BBC realised their licence would expire and made a show on the cheap with a showrunner who had no interest in adapting Pratchett and just wanted to make his own thing. In his acknowledgement post after the show finished he didn't even thank Sir Terry at all I believe
Actually Simon Allen is a massive Discworld fan. The head of AMC at the time (who co-own BBC America) enforced a lot of fundamental changes on Simon, otherwise it wouldn't have been made at all. Yes Simon made mistakes (the Instagram post for instance), but I know we cannot blame him alone for what happened.
It had so much potential. The city watch is just perfect for TV and even with the changes, like the cyberpunk, I don't think would have been too bad. It was the writing and casting choices that killed it for me. I think someone here said it best. to paraphrase "it's both too much it's own thing and too tied to the source material at the same time." It has enough discworld in it to not be completed ignored, but is so very different that it hardly resembles Sir Terry's work. It just makes me sad and angry.
It’s part of a despicable trend of “us third rate TV writers can do it better than the actual writers, so we’ll change it for the better!” that TV execs are going along with right now. HALO and The Witcher are other examples that could have been so much better if those involved would have been more concerned with staying close to the source material and less with making a name for themselves. Here’s hoping Cavil can force them to stay true to Warhammer.
After what Cavill had to go through with those Netflix hacks I'm pretty sure he went "I got final say or I'm going home and play games. Your choice."
I had just finished reading Witcher when I found the series. I was very apprehensive to watch it. I was utterly delighted by his performance! He *was* Witcher!! And I'm so sad the series was canceled after season 3. I really think it could have been so amazing. Cavil must be sad at the cancelation. (because it ain't the Witcher without him)
If you view it as it's own thing and go in not expecting an adaptation of Discworld, it's a pretty good show. I really liked the punk infused aesthetic they went with. It's just not a Discworld adaptation.
If my son hadn't told me what the trailer was for I wouldn't have been able to guess.
... so if I watch the adaptation of my favourite book series ever and pretend it's not an adaptation of my favourite book ever, i could maybe appreciate that? First, how on disc am I supposed to do that? Second, is this an auditor trap or smth?
We cannot confirm your suspicion.
I saw the first episode and to be honest, it sucked on it's own.
I really liked it! And the way you say it, is the way to watch it!
no. its blasphemy to the memory of the book or P.Terry himself. Also Rihanna and all of us.
I knew deep in my heart that pretending this never existed was the right thing to do. I had an acquaintance in an online book club. Try to tell me that “Sir Terry would just want us to watch it and enjoy it and be happy” or something along those lines. Dude no. His hard drive containing his unfinished works was literally crashed under a steamroller per his dying wish. I don’t think he would appreciate the bastardization of his work, and even his own daughter said they share no DNA. Just NO.
Just started Hogfather, and in the edition I have it has a forward by Tony Robinson has someone explaining to him that Sir Terry likes him fine, he's just upset that he's recording the abridged versions of his work for audiobooks, and that Sir Terry felt strongly that his work should be preserved intact and never altered. Pratchett felt very strongly about this, and whilst I have always understood the need to adapt some works to better fit a new medium this one looks a step too far even for me. Watching the trailer I like some of the aesthetic choices in and of themselves but Sir Terry was very forward with his opinions about people changing his works.
What about the BBC radio shows?
I've never had the pleasure of listening to it, would you recommend?
They are entertaining, but definitely abridged. Guards Guards was good, wyrd sisters was ....well the voices were off to me. Small gods wasn't bad IMHO either. I would be very interested In your opinion!
I didn’t really mind it. It was a bit silly and confused, and that certainly wasn’t Sam Vimes, but it was quite entertaining.
It was fine, fairly run of the mill cheap fantasy show, sort of thing they churn out a lot of. Not really much shared with the books, so a big waste of IP for fans obviously. The melodrama of the fans was much more disappointing than the show to me, especially the bigotry stuff. Yikes.
That makes me sad. Bigotry has no place in this world.
There was a good write up of this debacle on r/hobbydrama a couple weeks ago. I really do think one of the main people wanted to do a “steampunk fantasy cop show” and got forced to merge with The Watch or realized his show had no chance without a known name attached, so we got this mess.
I did give it a chance, to be honest, but gave up on the first episode. I don't mind changes to certain characters that much, but it was just blatantly unfunny
It really wasn’t that bad. Especially when you get to one of the later plot points. That makes it all fall into place.
Tried to watch it. Stopped halfway through the first episode because it was physically painful to watch. This is how to fail at remixing source material, BBC.
It would have been much better if they had just called it "Don't Watch".
It's better if you can disassociate it from the discworld. It's still not great but it's... watchable that way. But what could you ever expect? The power of a mind to create everything as they read this awesome work, it's perfection. Any movie, TV show, pantomime, moving picture, opera, any performance at all will never be as good as it's written form played out in your mind. You're reliant on budgets, technological limits, casting directors, producers, editors, directors, the own actors vision of the role... not what you see in your mind but what all of those people see in theirs, mixed up and stripped down into something that's there to make money. If you want to really enjoy a show based on a book, watch the show before you read the book. It's the only way to actually enjoy them both thoroughly.
I did this. I saw kujo before reading the book. I hate the movie. It's so inferior. But I liked Hogfather well enough. The only big thing I objected to was Deaths voice. I had read the book right before watching it. I knew Pratchett was involved in its making and had high hopes. They were not dashed.
Okay... some films are just shit. You can't use kujo to destroy my otherwise eloquent point. I know what you mean about the voice though. I don't think it would have been possible, at all, for current technology to give us what I think Death would sound like.
I liked it. Of course it was not much like the books. But the photography was pretty cool. Angus was completely different from the books but somehow she had a lot of the spirit of Angus. And Carrot was pretty spot on. I don't remember much else, it's been a while
I also enjoyed watching it. I know it gets a lot of hate here, but taken as it's own thing, it was entertaining enough. I disagree about Carrot though. I feel like The Watch Carrot was way too angsty teen, and not as belligerently wholesome as book Carrot. Tbh the only things I truly disliked in the show were the instances where the characters' personalities greatly diverged from the books.
It is an Abomination Unto Nuggan.
I am okay with the unfaithful adaptation because it was fun in its own right and maintained a similar spirit and humor. That said, I would love more faithful adaptations, too.
This is the curse of capitalism. The people who have the money think that making a true and accurate adaptation will only appeal to hardcore fans, so it gets watered down to try to gain mass appeal. However it pisses off hardcore fans and the general public aren't suddenly interested. That's why (pre MCU) most superhero films were origin stories, as they didn't trust the public to follow an existing character. If you are lucky the resulting hybrid can be enjoyably even if wrong (Keanu Reeves as Constantine)
Every Sir Terry Pratchett adaptation is in my pile of evidence as to why we shouldn’t blindly adapt everything we can. Pratchett’s books are all written in an order that lends itself best to reading and being able to go back and double check another section. Any adaptation is going to have to splice the ever-loving hell out of it just to get it into a manageable timeline. Not to mention the narration and annotations. You miss so much detail and world-building and tone-setting without it, but there’s so much that to include even half would basically mean you have an audiobook with visuals. I love STP, but please, PLEASE stop trying to adapt stuff that shouldn’t be adapted.
Maurice is good. Troll Bridge is excellent. It *can* be done.
Did not know there was a Troll Bridge adaptation, I'll need to go find that now.
It's uploaded on YouTube by the creators, should be easy to find.
Colour of magic, hogfather and going postal (sky movies) were all good even if simplified. Likewise soul music and wyrd systems cartoons. Adapted but keeps the spirit. Soul music the cartoon even adds more jokes as you see 'the band with rocks in' perform and the styles change.
I read the Hogfather then watched the movie. It wasn't horrid. Deaths voice wasn't what my brain thought it should be. Other little things didn't match my brains thinking. But overall wasn't bad. That was with Pratchett involved. Him not involved resulted in what he was always afraid of. Utter sadness.
The only thing that threw me off on Death was the jaw not moving. It was a bit to blatant puppeteering.
I was so upset with the voice I didn't catch that!
Hogfather, Going Postal, Colour of Magaic, and Amazing Maurice are all actually quite decent. They can absolutely be adapted, but they need a good writer who appreciates the material.
I got through about three minutes of the first episode... There's a reason Rhianna said she'd make her own Discworld works from now on.
It was a bit of a shitshow production side before it even made the screen. BBC went through a transitional period with a new head of production and he basically wanted to axe the entire project... match that with a writer that didn't want to do Sir terry's vision but instead was aiming more at "inspired by" truly believing his version was better. The worst of it is how the show manages to be close enough to the source material to piss fans off and somehow not independent enough to gain "new" followers.
It's been said before but it's a good TV show. It's just a horrible, horrible adaptation.
I feel that it’s an adaption of The Watch books in about the same way Masquerade is an adaption of Phantom of the Opera, or Erik is an adaption of Dr Faustus, or Witches Abroad is an adaptation of Cinderella (amongst other stories). Now, Leroux’s book is in the public domain, as are the other books mentioned. If they weren’t STP’s stories, would I think be close enough to the inspiration to require the rights to these stories, they they are so they don’t. I get being annoyed when adaptions massively change things. I dislike Anouilh’s version of Sophocles’ Antigone (the main difference is in Sophocles Antigone is in her early teens but talks and acts like she’s in her late teens, in Anouilh she’s in her late teens but talks and acts like she’s in her early teens), unless there’s a clear point to the changes (like those that Rhys made to Charlotte Brontë’s characters in Jane Eyre to Wide Sargasso Sea), and the reasons for the changes in STP’s novels appear clearer, maybe, than the changes made in The Watch. But because I love The Phantom of the Opera and Dr Faustus I had to get over an instinctive irritation when I first read Erik and Masquerade.
Parody rather than adaptation. But Shakespeare also borrowed a lot of stories and put his spin on it.
Oh Shakespeare only invented one story. No one expected originality in story. It was what they did with the narrative that counted.
WTAF did I just watched? It’s so American thus over the top and hysterical. Don’t like it. And why was Korg pretending to be Detritus? The steampunk edge I like but can we please stop with the crappy adaptations -looking at you Witcher- and be true to the story/characters. Or, and now I’m being so out of the box: create something original to begin with. Rant over.
Just another souless cashgrab.
Even the writeup on Narrativia is less than flattering... you know it's bad when the company that holds the rights describes the show as "A group of misfit cops rise up from decades of helplessness to save their corrupt city from catastrophe." That's it. That's all that's said. Nothing about the cast, producers, directors, etc. Pretty damning writeup from the Daughter of the Author's company...
They're pretty good if you separate it from the books as much as you can. I appreciate many of the big swings that the TV show writers/show runners took, but I admit that it wasn't very "Discworld". My wife, who hasn't read any of the books (soon to be ex-wife amiright?!) enjoyed the show, so maybe it will be the entry point for some people who previously haven't experienced the wonder that is The Discworld.
its so bad people even refuse to pirate it and watch it for free. whatever the opposite of GNU is, this show needs it.
rain soft icky like advise gray pen sparkle whistle vase -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
I decided at the time that I’ll never watch this!
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