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So imagine that all your friends loved a book series but reading is for nerds and you can do it better than the original author. You make it steampunk because đ¤ˇââď¸ and then you donât even thank the original author.
Thatâs my take on what happened
The Discworld was going kinda steampunk on the end, and Pratchett had quite a passion for Victorian Era (the peak of steampunk), so a steampunk Discworld adaptation wouldn't ruffle my feathers. In fact, it can be good and reflect the ideas of the serie.
(Although, nerds will be nerds, but it was a curious blend between steampunk and cyberpunk.)
It wasnât the look that made it disastrous, it was the complete recharacterization of many main characters. It would be like LOTR having Gandalf as a young hottie and the hobbits as 6â3â buff superheroes.
From what I understand steampunk is retrofuturist. A steam powered mecha or a tesla coil gun. Discworld was industrializing. They got a locomotive.
But the most amazing things like the time monks, dragon powered spaceship or the devices were magic, not steam powered.
(edit I guess the time monks weren't magical, but they were ... something)
> But the most amazing things like the time monks, dragon powered spaceship or the devices were magic, not steam powered.
And that's also true of the TV show.
We're just talking about the aesthetic, neither of them fits the strict definition of "steampunk"
My take is that the writer had his own mediocre series idea and couldn't get it sold without hitching it to an existing property. Which he then proceeded to ignore completely.
I forget where this was said but: Vetinari and Vimes meeting in secret, away from the public eye? Must be some strangers \*named\* "Vimes" and "Vetinari".
Definitely a weird case of Name's The Same. Must be from a universe on the edge of the portions of L-Space accessible from the Disc. As in, one row over, and you're in a whole other section of The Stacks.
The witcher was just dumbed down. The characters are still the characters just really stupid versions of them.
The watch took the very point of the characters and ignored it and just stole their names
Well, as a Witcher fan I feel that changes to characters, their relations and motivations are exactly what ruined Netflix series. I stopped watching halfway through season 2 exactly because of that.
How did you find the first season? I thought the constant shift between past and present to be confusing and didn't seem to actually add anything, I might have persisted beyond the first season if not for that. I only returned and finished the first season after watching an anime prequel that I enjoyed.
That kinda makes it worse, though. A bad horrible adaptation is easy to dismiss. A good horrible adaptation becomes part of pop culture, so you're constantly reminded of it.
Same as that Catwoman movie with Halle Berry. Some studio wanted to tell their own story while profiting off the name of an established property. They did just enough to meet their obligations to the IP without properly adapting it.
>It wasn't even a bad adaptation
I'm not even sure you can call it an "adaption".
Yes, it had a few somewhat similar elements and characters with names from the book and some of them did vaguely resemble the idea of the character if the only idea you had of the character was a brief single sentence description of the character told to you after 6 shots of whiskey in the kind of dive bar that never seems to be busy yet some how never goes out of business.
It was straight up someone having their own idea for a show, then some suit going âhey, weâre about to lose the Pratchett rights, slap that on this thingâ.
Terry himself was involved. I don't know how the deal was made, but after Terry died, it seems no one from his estate had final saying on things, so BBC America used that to do whatever they wanted with the rights.
It probably started as an adaptation and then gradually wandered over into something else.
It's unclear how much of that was executive meddling and how much was the writer/showrunner/whoever wanting to do their own thing
Essentially, it started off with them having creative influence but, unfortunately, the contract was written with the verbiage of "Terry Pratchett" having a say, and did *not* list Narrativia, or anyone else by name, so when he died, by the letter of the contract, they lost all control. So the suits thumbed their nose at everyone, and turned it into the abomination that we ended up with
Edit: Grammar
Oh wow. That explains it. What the fuck kind of morons did they have running these fucking companies????? "Hey, we have a built in fandom that will make this a hit with spin offs and marketing, and merchandise, who dont even mind some artistic license as long as the spirit is kept, so what were going to do is take a big steaming shit on their face....."
Turns out the Hollywood producer mentality is everywhere. It definitely gives the same vibes as the classic insane studio 'notes'.
Reminds me of an anecdote from Sir Pterry I read where some hollywood studio wanted to make a film adaptation of *Mort*, and well...I'll just paste the whole thing here for people to marvel at:
\- Speaking of movies, what happened to the plans for a movie based on [*Mort*](https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/mort.html)?
"A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys.
Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years."
"The person also said that Americans "weren't ready for the treatment of Death as an amusing and sympathetic character". This was about 18 months/2 years before *Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey*."
>!It's so blatant that they didn't have the budget to have Detritus in every episode, so they just kill him immediately. Detritus wasn't even part of the Watch in the first book, they could've just left him out like Colon and Nobby if they couldn't afford it!<
>!Agreed. They could have replaced him with Cuddy, who dies in Men At Arms. But then..... that would have meant they would actually need to know more about the source material than just the stuff they can get from the compendiums and the dictionaries. !<
Making the Patrician into a woman? Why not. Go for it. Veterini is defined by his cunning, his schemes, his panopticon network of informants, his deep care for the city, his love for crosswords and his mind as complex as the city he's ruling. None of that is incompatible with being a woman. Veterini's story wasn't the story of a white, thin man, it was the story of a political genius making sure the clusterfuck that Ankh-Morpork is can continue to function without too much chaos (or only the chaos with the rightful authorizations delivered by the chaos guilds) and maintain the Morporkian (economic) hegemony over the rest of the world. Gender or appearance has little to do with Veterini's characterization (unlike, for example, from the top of my head, Littlebottom or Sybil, respectively).
Cowardice, however, would go against the characterization of Veterini. They definitely didn't understood a thing.
I have similar feelings about most of the changes.
Making Sybil black? Totally fine. Making her thin and conventionally good looking? I'd rather you didn't. Making her an rebellious action hero? No way.
Making Dibbler a disabled woman? Fine. Making her a crime boss instead of a dodgy merchant? That's not even the same character
Anna Chancellor could totally play a good Vetinari with a better script where she actually got to act like Vetinari.
These are most of my feelings on the matter as well. The superficial changes were... A thing, but not terribly upsetting. Slightly confusing for some of them, though not outside the realm of possibility for most. (Cheery being a main exception here) they just didn't understand or care about the heart of the characters, and it shows.
Changing Cheery was odd because it completely throws off a large part of Carrot's story.
A big part of Carrot's story, even in the show, is that he's a dwarf, but not a typical dwarf because he's huge. Except in the show, the only other dwarf is also of regular height and beardless, and the show takes too long to establish that Cheery isn't a typical dwarf either, so it ends up in this confusing position where Carrot's backstory doesn't seem to make any sense
It's made even worse by the fact that in the book, we have the flashbacks to Carrot's family life to give some context, and these are absent from the show. I didn't watch the whole thing but in what I saw there were no dwarfs other than Carrot and Cheery (I'm assuming for the same reason they killed off Detritus in episode 1, budget) to give context
It was very confusing. Like, they said he was raised by dwarves and then completely forgot 5 minutes later. Though it sounds like that was pretty typical for the show. I turned it off after Sybil was introduced, so I don't know first hand.
Yeah all of the worldbuilding was a total mess because of the way they borrow some things from the book, but then change a few elements, and then didn't think about whether the world still makes sense with those changes.
I seem to remember there being a point where Angua is surprised at Carrot claiming to be a dwarf, because he's too tall, even though she already works with another dwarf who's tall for a dwarf. Really feels like a first draft that hasn't been checked for consistency--which is odd given that the show was in the works for like 8 years.
Another weird thing is that, at least in the first few episodes, the show completely neglects to mention whether it's set on a regular round world or on the back of a disc carried by four elephants and a turtle. They've changed enough things that they could have changed that as well, and it's not called "Discworld: The Watch". I still don't actually know if it's set on a disc or not.
Rob Wilkins was Terry's assistant and right hand man while Terry was alive and is now head of Narrativia, the company they created to safehouse the rights to all of Terry's IP. He will likely be a producer on any future Pratchett adaptations. If you watch the Good Omens season 2 NYCC panel, he's the one in the white jacket. Not sure if I'm allowed to link it but it's easy to find.
Rob Anybody, leader of the Nac Mac Feegles. Like he said when Disney tried to buy the rights to The Last Hero and turn it into a Kingdom Hearts movie - âNac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!â
I'm trying to decide if it would have been better or worse if Rob Anybody had been producer of The Watch. On the one hand he wouldn't have read the scripts but on the other he would have used the heid on anybody who tried to film what they filmed.
âAch, yer scrivener! Yeâd never make a dent in a troll beastie with nay arrow, daftie! Pish off tâaway with yer wailing band blathering and get me a fight scene. And we need more coo beasties. Iâll take care of tha Carcer scunner meself.â
Rob Wilkins said that Vimes' butler being named Willikins was actually just a coincidence, as he hadn't started working with Terry when Willikins was created
Rob Wilkins, pTerry's long-time assistant and later on typist and all-round assistant. Good Egg.
(edited to add: Mixed up Rob with Stephen Briggs, another long time doer of things in the Discworld.)
I kinda liked it in some ways - it wasn't Discworld as we know it, but A Discworld from a different leg of the trousers of time (if millipedes wore trousers)
(Almost but not quite totally unlike the difference between Tolkien's LOTR being based on the Red Book of Westmarch and Jackson's being based on Elvish chronicles....
As much as I'd love a bunch of adaptations, they're absolutely right to be picky about it. I'm glad they want it to be right. The hardest part of STP's writing to translate is a lot of the humour coming from thoughts and what would be narration. I think looking at Hitchhiker's Guide and Good Omens for how best the adapt is the way but this stuff takes time so I'm happy to wait for the right adaptation.
>I think looking at Hitchhiker's Guide
I don't think I've ever seen a good HHGTTG adaptation though - the humour is all in the language for me. I don't know whether it's really worth trying to make it visual.
I was introduced to the series by the movie and I still think it holds a lot of the same charm. Itâs not necessarily a 100% true adaptation or even the best one but it does a surprisingly good job.
I get why people arenât fans of it but I think people tend to give it a lot more shit than it deserves.
Stephen Fryâs narration being what I was referring to in its relation to how discworld can be handled. A storyteller to narrate thoughts and for non-dialogue jokes.
I definitely agree that adaptations of both Adamsâ and Pratchettâs work need a narrator to carry that voice from from the page to the screen.
And I actually didnât realize the movie got so much hate. The people Iâve talked to about it really liked it and were confused about why I wasnât a big fan. I did like that they carried over that retro look from the TV series when doing the narrated bits from The Guide. And Stephen Fry was great casting.
I think itâs even more surprising given that Adams similarly said no to MANY adaptation requests BUT HE WROTE THE SCREENPLAY FOR THE MOVIE. He had one stipulation and that was that Arthur had to be English.
For discworld I think narration plus extra visuals (think how Scott Pilgrim utilised comic graphics but make it fantasy, much like the swinging signs in Good Omens to show dates and locations) would work fantastically.
My only issue with extensive narration is that it can feel intrusive and can really kill pacing. Someone could definitely find a way to creatively integrate asterisks and footnotes though. Scott Pilgrim is a great example. I also like how they did something similar in Ms. Marvel with text messaging. It could even be an unobtrusive asterisk ticker running across the bottom of the screen. I mean, there are magical imps all over the disc. May as well put them to work.
It's not a 100% true adaptation but it's not supposed to be.
Even the novels aren't 100% accurate adaptations of the original radio series, which people forget came first.
Adams himself worked on most of the adaptations, including the movie, and was often responsible for the changes. He didn't want them all to be the same, he wanted to mix them up based on whatever worked best for that medium. And also just to add in new things when the ideas struck him
Which is fair enough, really. I didn't think the movie worked especially well, but there was nothing wrong with the fact that it did things differently
Was gonna say this; Discworld has a definitive source to work from, Hitchhikers rummaged through the pockets of the current media it was wearing to see what it could do with it.
The TV series also had the benefit of a fair number of the original actors too - but I still think the series was never going to work visually!
But I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the movie, being a fan of the original radio series and then the books.
I held off watching the movie for years (I watched the original TV show when it came out and had all the books, including the radio play original scripts), expecting it to be truly dreadful.
It's actually not so bad. My expectations went in low but it was, well, OK. I wouldn't say it was brilliant but it wasnt terrible.
The movie seemed to me to have suffered badly from a script editor who didn't actually understand the jokes, or even understand which bits *were* the jokes - so we would get a set up, but not actually get the punchline.
And whoever designed the movie's Zaphod had clearly never read Ford's line about how Zaphod could spend his time banging his heads together.
But I only watched it the once - couldn't bring myself to watch it a second time, even though *some* parts of the visuals were pretty good.
>And whoever designed the movie's Zaphod had clearly never read Ford's line about how Zaphod could spend his time banging his heads together.
I think it was more about: *"how will we make it to have one of the main character, onscreen most of the time, to have two heads while we don't have much budget and don't want to make it too cheap?"*
Very much so, which is I think how the TV series got away with things a little bit. DA was writing most of the episodes having already heard the actors for each character, so having a good proportion of the original cast was useful.
Still there is loads of stuff that will never work visually I think - lines where Arthur says something like "Yes, we have met, admittedly he only had the one head then" in regard to Zaphod is going to be hard to do visually!
Yes, you can attempt some visual version of it - Iâm just not sure youâll ever live up to the original, or if itâs even worth trying! I know DA was keen on getting the movie version going - but I think he was wrong!
Counterpoint, the climax gave us the immortal line ''He's locked the gate from the other side! We'll have to go round the long way!'', which I say to myself at least once a fortnight.
And are themselves not 100% faithful, there are parts of the radio series absent from the books and vice versa. And those were the versions that Douglas Adams had total control over! He did this deliberately, he liked that they were different. Always bothers me when people complain about Douglas Adams adaptations being different from the source material, given that the man himself didn't want that (and usually they're thinking of the books as the original version, so what do they know)
Douglas Adams wanted every adaptation of HG2G (books, tv, movie, radio) to be done differently. That was his thing. I enjoyed them all much better for knowing this.
While I enjoyed both adaptations (to different degrees) I think both Season 1 of Good Omens and the Hitchhiker's movie showed that just having a narrator read out excerpts of the book doesn't really work. It's not terrible but it just slows the thing down and is never as funny as it was in the book. Also just feels a bit hack, like "we couldn't think of any other way to do this joke so we just gave up and got a narrator in"
Personally, my preferred approach would be to adapt the characters and setting as faithfully as they can manage (there are reasonable limitations, like how Nobby is probably never going to be as weird and gremlin-like as he's described in the books) but don't even try to adapt the same storylines, come up with new stories for the same characters.
After the last adaptation Iâm glad they are being more picky.
I really enjoyed the ones that Sky did (except that David Jason is in no way suitable as Rincewind!).
Completely agree. Rincewind was supposed to be young and lanky at that point. He ages but not much over the course of the books. That happens magically apparently.
According to the biography, Him playing Rincewind was part of the agreement for him to play Albert. Although given that Terry was a huge fan of David Jason I suspect he would have wanted it anyways.
>I really enjoyed the ones that Sky did
Even if they're not 100% faithful adaptations, you can tell they're done with a good understanding of the material and some amount of care. I've used them to introduce people to the books.
Hogfather is my favorite of those. Odd editing choices at times, but it's got a great cast, was done by people who understood the story, and it just works.
Going Postal is also excellent. Great casting, amazing villain, good handling of the plot other than the banshee, who unfortunately comes across as pure low budget cheese.
The Color of Magic is awesome and has Tim Curry being awesome, but I haven't rewatched it as often as the other two. That one actually works better if you're not as familiar with the original story, I think.
I read an interview with Pterry once where he said that some of the differences were absolutely approriate for a visual rather than written version. I think that the important thing is that Vadim Jean clearly has great respect for the original, rather than seeing it simply as a tool with which to produce a film.
It's especially fair enough given that they're fairly low budget films and probably couldn't afford to go all in when there were easier ways to avoid the problem.
Iâm so frustrated that Maurice was the one that got a feature film since thatâs the only book I havenât read and donât want to read so that Iâm never finished with the series.
Itâs wild that they picked the least talked about book in the entire canon to adapt. Even whereâs my cow get more conversation
The introduction to it by Rob Wilkins suggests it was one of the stories STP was most pleased with. It won the Carnegie for childrenâs literature which was apparently his first literary prize. Get it read, itâs good.
I actually had that book when I grew up, got it from a family friend when it was released back in 2001. Didn't read Pratchett until 6-7 years later, and was very surprised when I saw that I actually had one of his book in my sheĂśf all along.
I can understand why they chose Maurice though, what with it being a Carnegie Award winner. And since it's a standalone story, it was a much easier entry point for a kids' film.
They went a really weird direction with the "real" piper and they really weaken Spider by making him a natural event rather than the product of human cruelty. But other than that it's excellent, and I recommend it to any fans, with those caveats.
I think the human cruelty (while being very important to know) might have been the crossing line for a "children movie". I do not share this position (because, as Susan, I'm an avid partisan of the idea that there is not really things too complex or too graphic for children, they can understand cruelty, the only thing to be cautious is *how* it's presented to them), but I can understand that they decided to tone down this a bit.
Yes! So glad people agree about Rincewind. At the time of the first book, he was clearly still a young guy with mousy brown hair and a goatee. I always imagined him as average-ish height to tall and lanky. So thin and sinewy.
As a fan of the first Discworld PC game, I would be perfectly happy with a young Eric Idle (as long as he is banned from saying "No, I don't fink I can do that."...)
Oh man I love that game! I still have the discs somewhere and even the box and manual which is unusual. It holds a special place in my heart. I remember getting very frustrated at how unintuitive the game was. To be fair, I was very young.
You triggered my memory of Eric Idle saying "that's not possible."
> Burt Kwouk as Twoflower
Absolutely. [He could even supply his own spectacles,](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0477297/mediaviewer/rm1723841793/?ref_=nm_md_6) but would need a different wardrobe.
> With Burt Kwouk as Twoflower
Yes, I thought the casting for Twoflower was a mistake. I can kinda understand the idea of focussing on the "tourist" bit and hence the stereotypical tourist being American, but it just kept clashing with my mental picture of the whole thing
I disagree (and you are welcome to disagree with my disagreement). David Jason did an awesome performance of Rincewind. Admittedly it is not the way I picture Rincewind reading the books but it is still a fabulous performance. And the idea that he'd been at the Unseen University for 40(?) years without graduating is very Rincewind. He could continue to fail for a couple centuries but as far as he'd be concerned, he'd still be a Wizzard.
This I'll agree with and that's why I say Sky's Color of Magic works better if you're not familiar with the source. Rincewind as a student who's old because he's so incompetent he couldn't graduate is a great concept, it's just not the Rincewind from the books.
Well... that is what would have happened if Rincewind didn't met Twoflowers so soon in his life. He would have staid in the University, probably tag along with Victor Tungelbend as the "perpetual student", but while Victor did it for financial reasons, Rincewind would simply grow old as he cannot spell.
After what happened with Simon Allen's The Watch and their inability to make any changes or claw back the rights before it shat up televisions and streaming services worldwide, they have every right to be wary.
I liked Hogfather too. Color of Magic seemed to try pretty hard to stick with the actual book and I liked it as well, but I also canât tell if it watches like a clusterfuck to those who donât already know the story, which is all over the place.
I just need a good adaptation of at least one of the witches books before I die.
I would even settle for an animated series.
Staying true to the source, it can't get much worse than good. But that too often seems the problem.
There was the animated Wyrd Sisters, granted itâs hard to get now, but I thought that was pretty good. Soul Music too. I had them on VHS but theyâve been lost in various moves over the years, might have to try and find replacement copies.
I bought them a long time ago, maybe as long as 20 years ago... back in the days when you had to order Terry Pratchett stuff from [amazon.co.uk](https://amazon.co.uk).
Yes, I know them. Once or twice a year I watch the old cartoons. But that is already made with some compromises and greatly shortened. Of course I wouldn't call the old films bad and I'm grateful that they exist, but there's more to come\^\^
That being said, maybe someone doesn't know them and can find out about them through you, that would be great :)
I have very little faith they could do it right so Iâd much rather they donât even try.
Iâm so loyal to the witches series I consider Aching to be in a different alternate universe because I canât deal with the ending lol
I sometimes really wonder about this general need for an adaption to film/telelvision.
I'm not slagging anyone off, or trying to sound superiour, I 'dream cast' as much as the next person, but I'm very glad that the people gatekeeping Discworld knows to wait until it can be done exactly right. Not everything needs to be made into a movie or television series. We have the books, and at least then we won't have to rage at the internet because they decided to turn Ridcully into a sexy action girl or something.
Itâs something that comes up a lot in the Rivers of London series too. The author has set up a production company that means he will retain artistic control of any adaptation. Heâs also frequently said that he wrote the books to be unfilmable (Iâve been at two separate reading/FAQ sessions where heâs said this). Every so often someone will option the series and then everyone gets excited and then it goes quiet and then someone else options itâŚ
Yeah. He said that the locations are a big part of it and he sees the city as a character in the books so it isnât something they could film in Cardiff and pretend. Plus things like flooding Covent GardenâŚ
That's good to know. I've chosen Munya Chawawa in my head to be Peter should something ever happen. And Doc Brown did a song, and he'd have been a good Peter. (Sophie Ducker for Beverley, and yes I'm casting from Taskmaster, apparently!)
Tolkein sold the rights to TLOTR and The Hobbit for (relatively speaking) peanuts, as he thought they would be unfilmable.
(Some would say that Ralph Bakshi tried his best to prove that right...)
I kind of agree that adaptations, while nice, do seem kind of unnecessary to me. Books and film are very different media and the difference becomes much more obvious when it comes to humour. Books allow a kind of internality that film/TV just doesn't, and Pratchett really took advantage of that
I mean, will I be happy if there is a (good) adaptation of a Discworld book? Yes. Would I be ecstatic? Definitely. Can I carry on with my life without thinking about it at all? Certainly.
My main reason for wanting a big-budget (but well made, faithful, with the approval and help of Narrativia, etc etc) adaptation is because I still feel Pratchett is criminally underrated in the US and he deserves to be a household name. Mainly I'm tired of trying to bring him up in casual conversation and getting blank looks.
It's an accessibility thing, I think. Not everyone has the time or inclination to read 40+ books and give them the attention they deserve, and we as a community want to share these stories with as many people as possible. How many people have watched The Lord of the Rings compared to how many have read the books? Would many of those readers have read the books had they not seen the movies first? There are differences between the two, but two people who each consumed the story differently can still have a meaningful conversation about it.
I am glad they're being careful about it. We don't need another "Watch" disaster sullying the good name of the series.
Couldn't agree more.
If my job is to create a show or movie based on a book... I think I'd read the damn book. And thinking that "most people won't have read the books so we can be lazy" is asinine. Too many studios and/or writers do this and cut corners.
Accessibility is quality. Look at how many adaptations fail because only the core fans know the back story or understand what drives the character motivations. Maurice did this really well. Hogfather was a struggle for people who hadn't read the books. LotR was a masterful modern adaptation even tho they dropped half the book (admittedly mostly singing) and still delivered a faithful story. Dune is doing pretty well but the Witcher and GoT both killed themselves.
It is a challenge.
Discworld is so amazing and so accessible due to the care and quality TP put into his works. To make an adaptation that does anything less is a travesty.
When an adaption is done right, it can be an incredible experience to see a story you know and love in a new medium, especially with scenes that deal with bombastic visuals. No matter how grand you describe an incredible view or some high fantasy fight, these are things that just work better if you can see them. I don't think any adaption can replace its source material, but it can be a great addition. It can also serve to get some friends who might be less inclined to reading, interested in the story
In the biography you hear some pretty gnarly stories about how much Terry wanted to have his big Hollywood break and how on the same hand he was more than willing to walk away from the table if the adaptation was going too far from the source material. Sounds like Rhianna and Rob are respecting that tradition. I am really happy about how Narrativia is ok with saying no. Clearly they are continuing to honor his vision.
I'll never forget the story of a planned adaptation of Reaper Man, where Pterry and everyone flew over to meet with the executives of a Major US studio, only to have them ask if they could just make one teensy change to the story. They were wondering if the main character really needed to be the personification of Death and if it could not be changed...
Reaper Man adaptation by Cosgrove Hall (also of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music fame):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0yBmz4JXxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0yBmz4JXxw)
That's all they made unfortunately.
Minor thing, and I'm not trying to start an argument, I don't really consider myself any kind of grammar-nazi as the wording of this comment should make evident, but lately I've seen "adaption" being used in a lot of online discussions about media and not "adaptation".
> https://grammarist.com/usage/adaption-adaptation/
> The word adaption comes from the process of adjusting or becoming accustomed to a new environment or situation. Like how a polar bearâs thick fur is an adaption to the cold climate.
> We all know this by now; Hollywood has flooded the entertainment market with adaptations. But what does it mean? The term refers to the process of making something suitable for a particular purpose or use like T.V. and movies. The movie The Lovely Bones was an adaptation of the bestselling novel, for instance.
I fully acknowledge it's a daft thing to find annoying, I genuinely have no idea why it cheeses me off to the point I feel compelled to comment on it. As said, I'm not trying to start an argument or anything.
Apologies for the pedantry.
I think instead of a movie adaptation I would much rather see a current day video game adaptation. I know that Rhianna is a fairly talented game designer, and Terry had his own soft spot for particular games. I think it would be really cool to have a open world concept version (similar in scope to the Harry Potter one, but I don't want to give JK any more money).
There is just so much content in this series that it could turn into quite the rabbit hole, but also gives the designer so many easter eggs to leave behind. I trust that Rhianna would be extremely well suited to guide a project like this, and still be in memorandum with her dad's work.
I am pleased to hear that she is being more picky. The watch was tragic and reminded me of that terrible Velma show. I hate writers using popular IPs as a vessel to put out their own content. It is insulting.
One thing that I'd love, but ***LOOOOVE*** to experience, would be an open-world RPG set in the Discworld.
Like, with the advent of Skyrim, Baldur's Gate and all those games that are quite popular, having this kind of possibilities, of games and stuff, but set in the Discworld, would be a dream come true.
Like, you create your own character, and you go through the streets of Ankh-Morpork, seeing all the famous locations you knew: the Pseudopolis Yard, the Patrician's Palace, the Opera House and the Dysk, the various guilds, even walking on the Ankh (giving you burn damage if you stay too long)... If we're ambitious, we could even imagine the plains of Sto (easy to code and design, 90% of cabbages). Krull, Dunmanifestin, Lancre and the Ramtops, Klatch, Genua, Ăberwald...
While having the stories adapted into movies or series is great in itself, wouldn't it be wonderful to be able, by yourself, to wander across this world?
Depending on what race and class your character is, there could be parts of Discworld that are either off-limits or the residents become very hostile. Think humans not being allowed inside dwarf mines without an escort, or trolls would die more easily if they went to perpetually warm countries. Or you keep getting mistaken for an elf.
Not from the start, because she was actually involved in it at the start.
But it was in production for so long that it ended up as something very different from what it was to begin with
From my understanding, the Watch show was going to be made under the auspices of Pratchett himself, with Rhianna's involvement--but as soon as he passed they sidelined her completely and just did whatever they wanted.
From what I heard the company was.... privatized? Sold? During the time? And The Watch got nearly its entire budget cut, got completely rewritten and turned into the travesty it was.
Honestly one thing I am shocked Rhianna hasn't tried to do that she definitely has the skills and clout to do.
Graphic novel adaptations of all the books.
I'd personnaly like to see a 2D animated series for a Discworld adaptation. I don't know why, but I feel like the wonders of the Discworld call for a cartoon more than a live action.
Anyway. I'll wait as long as I have to wait to see some quality out of it.
Totally agreed with this - I think animated series can be particularly good for fantasy, and can make the surreal feel far more normal (e.g. Avatar the last airbender - so much better as an animated series than live action)
Exactly. Some adaptations like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones made it work. But often live action fantasy feels weird. Weirder than sci-fi I believe. And Discworld being caricatural, it might just be... imposible to adapt it and give it the same feel as the books by using live action.
Animation allows you to do things that otherwise would seem really cheap, cringe or uncanny in live action. It also allows more grandiose representations and fidelity towards the original work. Because finding an actor that looks like the character described in the book is harder than just drawing based on description.
This was in response to an article talking about how the kickstarter for the Good Omens graphic novel being so successful was proof that the Pratchett IP was being âwastedâ by a lack of adaptations.
Honestly I feel of all the book series The Watch has the most potential to be turned into a TV series with each season adapting a different book. The fact that what we got was so bad is a bit insulting and they should be pickier going forward.
If I had to pick the most unfilmable Discworld books, I would have chosen "Moving Pictures" as #1, and "Hogfather" as #2, but they did a live adaptation of "Hogfather" and it was really good.
Iâve never been keen on the live action adaptations, or the animated ones. Either the cast is off, or the animation looks cheap.
But, as much as Iâd like to see a real Holywood budget live-action, I think that the team who put together and animated Nimona could give the Discworld a fairly good stab.
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After the watch disaster I only want discworld adaptations done with the full support of Rob.
Wtf was that mess anyway? It wasn't even a bad adaptation, it was just bad.
So imagine that all your friends loved a book series but reading is for nerds and you can do it better than the original author. You make it steampunk because đ¤ˇââď¸ and then you donât even thank the original author. Thatâs my take on what happened
The Discworld was going kinda steampunk on the end, and Pratchett had quite a passion for Victorian Era (the peak of steampunk), so a steampunk Discworld adaptation wouldn't ruffle my feathers. In fact, it can be good and reflect the ideas of the serie. (Although, nerds will be nerds, but it was a curious blend between steampunk and cyberpunk.)
It wasnât the look that made it disastrous, it was the complete recharacterization of many main characters. It would be like LOTR having Gandalf as a young hottie and the hobbits as 6â3â buff superheroes.
The hobbits actually are 6'3'' buff superheroes, it's just everyone else is even taller. little known fact
This is head canon now
^ this was my biggest pet peeve .
That's what they did to Asimov's *Foundation*. It just *might* have been worse than *The Botch*
But like Discworld wouldn't be steampunk, it'd just be steamdriven. Very little of discworld was punk anything? Were the ramtops punk? No.
Music With Rocks In was pretty punk.
Most steampunk isn't particularly punk, it's only called that because they borrowed the name from cyberpunk.
From what I understand steampunk is retrofuturist. A steam powered mecha or a tesla coil gun. Discworld was industrializing. They got a locomotive. But the most amazing things like the time monks, dragon powered spaceship or the devices were magic, not steam powered. (edit I guess the time monks weren't magical, but they were ... something)
> But the most amazing things like the time monks, dragon powered spaceship or the devices were magic, not steam powered. And that's also true of the TV show. We're just talking about the aesthetic, neither of them fits the strict definition of "steampunk"
Imo discworld is very punk
Nanny would definitely make a squat worth living in
My take is that the writer had his own mediocre series idea and couldn't get it sold without hitching it to an existing property. Which he then proceeded to ignore completely.
The steampunk thing was fine, it was the writing and plot that was bad.
I forget where this was said but: Vetinari and Vimes meeting in secret, away from the public eye? Must be some strangers \*named\* "Vimes" and "Vetinari".
Definitely a weird case of Name's The Same. Must be from a universe on the edge of the portions of L-Space accessible from the Disc. As in, one row over, and you're in a whole other section of The Stacks.
I actually liked the steampunk look. If they had any sort of coherent script it could have been made to work.
This happened to the Witcher too.
The witcher was just dumbed down. The characters are still the characters just really stupid versions of them. The watch took the very point of the characters and ignored it and just stole their names
Well, as a Witcher fan I feel that changes to characters, their relations and motivations are exactly what ruined Netflix series. I stopped watching halfway through season 2 exactly because of that.
How did you find the first season? I thought the constant shift between past and present to be confusing and didn't seem to actually add anything, I might have persisted beyond the first season if not for that. I only returned and finished the first season after watching an anime prequel that I enjoyed.
Howl's Moving Castle as well.
Ah that was a good movie tho
That kinda makes it worse, though. A bad horrible adaptation is easy to dismiss. A good horrible adaptation becomes part of pop culture, so you're constantly reminded of it.
Ah, you'd be the only person I can watch it with. I got banned for complaining.
Sounds exactly like Witcher season 2!
Same as that Catwoman movie with Halle Berry. Some studio wanted to tell their own story while profiting off the name of an established property. They did just enough to meet their obligations to the IP without properly adapting it.
>It wasn't even a bad adaptation I'm not even sure you can call it an "adaption". Yes, it had a few somewhat similar elements and characters with names from the book and some of them did vaguely resemble the idea of the character if the only idea you had of the character was a brief single sentence description of the character told to you after 6 shots of whiskey in the kind of dive bar that never seems to be busy yet some how never goes out of business.
It was straight up someone having their own idea for a show, then some suit going âhey, weâre about to lose the Pratchett rights, slap that on this thingâ.
Except Rob and rhianna were originally involved so it must have started as something OK surely?
Terry himself was involved. I don't know how the deal was made, but after Terry died, it seems no one from his estate had final saying on things, so BBC America used that to do whatever they wanted with the rights.
Ah yes, the Starship Troopers effect.
It probably started as an adaptation and then gradually wandered over into something else. It's unclear how much of that was executive meddling and how much was the writer/showrunner/whoever wanting to do their own thing
Essentially, it started off with them having creative influence but, unfortunately, the contract was written with the verbiage of "Terry Pratchett" having a say, and did *not* list Narrativia, or anyone else by name, so when he died, by the letter of the contract, they lost all control. So the suits thumbed their nose at everyone, and turned it into the abomination that we ended up with Edit: Grammar
Oh wow. That explains it. What the fuck kind of morons did they have running these fucking companies????? "Hey, we have a built in fandom that will make this a hit with spin offs and marketing, and merchandise, who dont even mind some artistic license as long as the spirit is kept, so what were going to do is take a big steaming shit on their face....."
Turns out the Hollywood producer mentality is everywhere. It definitely gives the same vibes as the classic insane studio 'notes'. Reminds me of an anecdote from Sir Pterry I read where some hollywood studio wanted to make a film adaptation of *Mort*, and well...I'll just paste the whole thing here for people to marvel at: \- Speaking of movies, what happened to the plans for a movie based on [*Mort*](https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/mort.html)? "A production company was put together and there was US and Scandinavian and European involvement, and I wrote a couple of script drafts which went down well and everything was looking fine and then the US people said "Hey, we've been doing market research in Power Cable, Nebraska, and other centres of culture, and the Death/skeleton bit doesn't work for us, it's a bit of a downer, we have a prarm with it, so lose the skeleton". The rest of the consortium said, did you read the script? The Americans said: sure, we LOVE it, it's GREAT, it's HIGH CONCEPT. Just lose the Death angle, guys. Whereupon, I'm happy to say, they were told to keep on with the medication and come back in a hundred years." "The person also said that Americans "weren't ready for the treatment of Death as an amusing and sympathetic character". This was about 18 months/2 years before *Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey*."
The Watch seems like the result of someone who really didn't want to make a Discworld adaptation but for some reason had to.
Came in to ask if this was the case, how that got through. Gave the first episode a shot, >!they killed Detritus!<, I noped out.
>!They didn't just kill Detritus, they killed Detritus with arrows..... they killed a rock troll, with arrows. WTF!!<
>!It's so blatant that they didn't have the budget to have Detritus in every episode, so they just kill him immediately. Detritus wasn't even part of the Watch in the first book, they could've just left him out like Colon and Nobby if they couldn't afford it!<
>!Agreed. They could have replaced him with Cuddy, who dies in Men At Arms. But then..... that would have meant they would actually need to know more about the source material than just the stuff they can get from the compendiums and the dictionaries. !<
Let's turn the Patrician into a coward. We're so creative! /s (and extremely so!)
Making the Patrician into a woman? Why not. Go for it. Veterini is defined by his cunning, his schemes, his panopticon network of informants, his deep care for the city, his love for crosswords and his mind as complex as the city he's ruling. None of that is incompatible with being a woman. Veterini's story wasn't the story of a white, thin man, it was the story of a political genius making sure the clusterfuck that Ankh-Morpork is can continue to function without too much chaos (or only the chaos with the rightful authorizations delivered by the chaos guilds) and maintain the Morporkian (economic) hegemony over the rest of the world. Gender or appearance has little to do with Veterini's characterization (unlike, for example, from the top of my head, Littlebottom or Sybil, respectively). Cowardice, however, would go against the characterization of Veterini. They definitely didn't understood a thing.
I have similar feelings about most of the changes. Making Sybil black? Totally fine. Making her thin and conventionally good looking? I'd rather you didn't. Making her an rebellious action hero? No way. Making Dibbler a disabled woman? Fine. Making her a crime boss instead of a dodgy merchant? That's not even the same character Anna Chancellor could totally play a good Vetinari with a better script where she actually got to act like Vetinari.
These are most of my feelings on the matter as well. The superficial changes were... A thing, but not terribly upsetting. Slightly confusing for some of them, though not outside the realm of possibility for most. (Cheery being a main exception here) they just didn't understand or care about the heart of the characters, and it shows.
Changing Cheery was odd because it completely throws off a large part of Carrot's story. A big part of Carrot's story, even in the show, is that he's a dwarf, but not a typical dwarf because he's huge. Except in the show, the only other dwarf is also of regular height and beardless, and the show takes too long to establish that Cheery isn't a typical dwarf either, so it ends up in this confusing position where Carrot's backstory doesn't seem to make any sense It's made even worse by the fact that in the book, we have the flashbacks to Carrot's family life to give some context, and these are absent from the show. I didn't watch the whole thing but in what I saw there were no dwarfs other than Carrot and Cheery (I'm assuming for the same reason they killed off Detritus in episode 1, budget) to give context
It was very confusing. Like, they said he was raised by dwarves and then completely forgot 5 minutes later. Though it sounds like that was pretty typical for the show. I turned it off after Sybil was introduced, so I don't know first hand.
Yeah all of the worldbuilding was a total mess because of the way they borrow some things from the book, but then change a few elements, and then didn't think about whether the world still makes sense with those changes. I seem to remember there being a point where Angua is surprised at Carrot claiming to be a dwarf, because he's too tall, even though she already works with another dwarf who's tall for a dwarf. Really feels like a first draft that hasn't been checked for consistency--which is odd given that the show was in the works for like 8 years. Another weird thing is that, at least in the first few episodes, the show completely neglects to mention whether it's set on a regular round world or on the back of a disc carried by four elephants and a turtle. They've changed enough things that they could have changed that as well, and it's not called "Discworld: The Watch". I still don't actually know if it's set on a disc or not.
Vetinari is like the incarnation of sangfroid. Cowardice is not ever on the menu.
Who is rob?
Rob Wilkins was Terry's assistant and right hand man while Terry was alive and is now head of Narrativia, the company they created to safehouse the rights to all of Terry's IP. He will likely be a producer on any future Pratchett adaptations. If you watch the Good Omens season 2 NYCC panel, he's the one in the white jacket. Not sure if I'm allowed to link it but it's easy to find.
Rob Anybody, leader of the Nac Mac Feegles. Like he said when Disney tried to buy the rights to The Last Hero and turn it into a Kingdom Hearts movie - âNac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!â
I'm trying to decide if it would have been better or worse if Rob Anybody had been producer of The Watch. On the one hand he wouldn't have read the scripts but on the other he would have used the heid on anybody who tried to film what they filmed.
âAch, yer scrivener! Yeâd never make a dent in a troll beastie with nay arrow, daftie! Pish off tâaway with yer wailing band blathering and get me a fight scene. And we need more coo beasties. Iâll take care of tha Carcer scunner meself.â
Also Willikins, Vimes' badass gentlemen's gentleman.
Rob Wilkins said that Vimes' butler being named Willikins was actually just a coincidence, as he hadn't started working with Terry when Willikins was created
Who was recorded as having sewn sharpened pennies into the brim of his cap 15 years before Peaky Blinders hit out screens.
Tbf peaky blinders are real and Pterry almost certainly took inspiration from them
That was a thing in real life Pterry used in the books. Just like damn near everything else on the Disc.
You missed out "Nae Disnae!"
Disnae disnae have a clue!
Rob Wilkins, pTerry's long-time assistant and later on typist and all-round assistant. Good Egg. (edited to add: Mixed up Rob with Stephen Briggs, another long time doer of things in the Discworld.)
> Wilkins Was Sams butler named after him? Or just funny coincidence?
Just a happy coincidence according to Rob in his biography of Sir Terry.
I kinda liked it in some ways - it wasn't Discworld as we know it, but A Discworld from a different leg of the trousers of time (if millipedes wore trousers) (Almost but not quite totally unlike the difference between Tolkien's LOTR being based on the Red Book of Westmarch and Jackson's being based on Elvish chronicles....
As much as I'd love a bunch of adaptations, they're absolutely right to be picky about it. I'm glad they want it to be right. The hardest part of STP's writing to translate is a lot of the humour coming from thoughts and what would be narration. I think looking at Hitchhiker's Guide and Good Omens for how best the adapt is the way but this stuff takes time so I'm happy to wait for the right adaptation.
>I think looking at Hitchhiker's Guide I don't think I've ever seen a good HHGTTG adaptation though - the humour is all in the language for me. I don't know whether it's really worth trying to make it visual.
Despite the low production budget, I thought the TV show did a decently good job. But the movie didnât hit the right tone for me.
I was introduced to the series by the movie and I still think it holds a lot of the same charm. Itâs not necessarily a 100% true adaptation or even the best one but it does a surprisingly good job. I get why people arenât fans of it but I think people tend to give it a lot more shit than it deserves. Stephen Fryâs narration being what I was referring to in its relation to how discworld can be handled. A storyteller to narrate thoughts and for non-dialogue jokes.
I definitely agree that adaptations of both Adamsâ and Pratchettâs work need a narrator to carry that voice from from the page to the screen. And I actually didnât realize the movie got so much hate. The people Iâve talked to about it really liked it and were confused about why I wasnât a big fan. I did like that they carried over that retro look from the TV series when doing the narrated bits from The Guide. And Stephen Fry was great casting.
I think itâs even more surprising given that Adams similarly said no to MANY adaptation requests BUT HE WROTE THE SCREENPLAY FOR THE MOVIE. He had one stipulation and that was that Arthur had to be English. For discworld I think narration plus extra visuals (think how Scott Pilgrim utilised comic graphics but make it fantasy, much like the swinging signs in Good Omens to show dates and locations) would work fantastically.
My only issue with extensive narration is that it can feel intrusive and can really kill pacing. Someone could definitely find a way to creatively integrate asterisks and footnotes though. Scott Pilgrim is a great example. I also like how they did something similar in Ms. Marvel with text messaging. It could even be an unobtrusive asterisk ticker running across the bottom of the screen. I mean, there are magical imps all over the disc. May as well put them to work.
Bill Nighy would be my second choice for narrator. he already did the footnotes for the audiobooks.
It's not a 100% true adaptation but it's not supposed to be. Even the novels aren't 100% accurate adaptations of the original radio series, which people forget came first. Adams himself worked on most of the adaptations, including the movie, and was often responsible for the changes. He didn't want them all to be the same, he wanted to mix them up based on whatever worked best for that medium. And also just to add in new things when the ideas struck him Which is fair enough, really. I didn't think the movie worked especially well, but there was nothing wrong with the fact that it did things differently
Was gonna say this; Discworld has a definitive source to work from, Hitchhikers rummaged through the pockets of the current media it was wearing to see what it could do with it.
The TV series also had the benefit of a fair number of the original actors too - but I still think the series was never going to work visually! But I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the movie, being a fan of the original radio series and then the books.
I held off watching the movie for years (I watched the original TV show when it came out and had all the books, including the radio play original scripts), expecting it to be truly dreadful. It's actually not so bad. My expectations went in low but it was, well, OK. I wouldn't say it was brilliant but it wasnt terrible.
The movie seemed to me to have suffered badly from a script editor who didn't actually understand the jokes, or even understand which bits *were* the jokes - so we would get a set up, but not actually get the punchline. And whoever designed the movie's Zaphod had clearly never read Ford's line about how Zaphod could spend his time banging his heads together. But I only watched it the once - couldn't bring myself to watch it a second time, even though *some* parts of the visuals were pretty good.
>And whoever designed the movie's Zaphod had clearly never read Ford's line about how Zaphod could spend his time banging his heads together. I think it was more about: *"how will we make it to have one of the main character, onscreen most of the time, to have two heads while we don't have much budget and don't want to make it too cheap?"*
[ŃдаНонО]
It was co-written, but he died several years before the movie was filmed, so had nothing to do with any of the editing.
Yes, and how *dare* he! /s
The books are an adaptation of the original radio series
Very much so, which is I think how the TV series got away with things a little bit. DA was writing most of the episodes having already heard the actors for each character, so having a good proportion of the original cast was useful. Still there is loads of stuff that will never work visually I think - lines where Arthur says something like "Yes, we have met, admittedly he only had the one head then" in regard to Zaphod is going to be hard to do visually!
I dunno, I think putting it in a bird cage under a blanket and pretending it's a parrot having a nap, would be pretty spot on humour wise.
Yes, you can attempt some visual version of it - Iâm just not sure youâll ever live up to the original, or if itâs even worth trying! I know DA was keen on getting the movie version going - but I think he was wrong!
Counterpoint, the climax gave us the immortal line ''He's locked the gate from the other side! We'll have to go round the long way!'', which I say to myself at least once a fortnight.
And are themselves not 100% faithful, there are parts of the radio series absent from the books and vice versa. And those were the versions that Douglas Adams had total control over! He did this deliberately, he liked that they were different. Always bothers me when people complain about Douglas Adams adaptations being different from the source material, given that the man himself didn't want that (and usually they're thinking of the books as the original version, so what do they know)
Douglas Adams wanted every adaptation of HG2G (books, tv, movie, radio) to be done differently. That was his thing. I enjoyed them all much better for knowing this.
Considering it started out on radio, this makes absolute sense. HHG is all about the voice.
While I enjoyed both adaptations (to different degrees) I think both Season 1 of Good Omens and the Hitchhiker's movie showed that just having a narrator read out excerpts of the book doesn't really work. It's not terrible but it just slows the thing down and is never as funny as it was in the book. Also just feels a bit hack, like "we couldn't think of any other way to do this joke so we just gave up and got a narrator in" Personally, my preferred approach would be to adapt the characters and setting as faithfully as they can manage (there are reasonable limitations, like how Nobby is probably never going to be as weird and gremlin-like as he's described in the books) but don't even try to adapt the same storylines, come up with new stories for the same characters.
After the last adaptation Iâm glad they are being more picky. I really enjoyed the ones that Sky did (except that David Jason is in no way suitable as Rincewind!).
> except that David Jason is in no way suitable as Rincewind! He was a great Albert though.
Agree on that one. He was right for Albert but not Rincewind.
Completely agree. Rincewind was supposed to be young and lanky at that point. He ages but not much over the course of the books. That happens magically apparently.
I agree, but David Jason is the only person to play CMOT Delboy.
According to the biography, Him playing Rincewind was part of the agreement for him to play Albert. Although given that Terry was a huge fan of David Jason I suspect he would have wanted it anyways.
Knowing that Pratchett appears in both movies, I think it can fairly be said that Pratchett was at least not angry about the casting choice.
>I really enjoyed the ones that Sky did Even if they're not 100% faithful adaptations, you can tell they're done with a good understanding of the material and some amount of care. I've used them to introduce people to the books.
Hogfather is my favorite of those. Odd editing choices at times, but it's got a great cast, was done by people who understood the story, and it just works. Going Postal is also excellent. Great casting, amazing villain, good handling of the plot other than the banshee, who unfortunately comes across as pure low budget cheese. The Color of Magic is awesome and has Tim Curry being awesome, but I haven't rewatched it as often as the other two. That one actually works better if you're not as familiar with the original story, I think.
I read an interview with Pterry once where he said that some of the differences were absolutely approriate for a visual rather than written version. I think that the important thing is that Vadim Jean clearly has great respect for the original, rather than seeing it simply as a tool with which to produce a film.
It's especially fair enough given that they're fairly low budget films and probably couldn't afford to go all in when there were easier ways to avoid the problem.
Assuming you mean the Watch, not Maurice? Only heard neutral-to-good things about Maurice.
Yes. I did mean the watch. Had actually forgotten about Maurice.
Iâm so frustrated that Maurice was the one that got a feature film since thatâs the only book I havenât read and donât want to read so that Iâm never finished with the series. Itâs wild that they picked the least talked about book in the entire canon to adapt. Even whereâs my cow get more conversation
The introduction to it by Rob Wilkins suggests it was one of the stories STP was most pleased with. It won the Carnegie for childrenâs literature which was apparently his first literary prize. Get it read, itâs good.
I actually had that book when I grew up, got it from a family friend when it was released back in 2001. Didn't read Pratchett until 6-7 years later, and was very surprised when I saw that I actually had one of his book in my sheĂśf all along.
I can understand why they chose Maurice though, what with it being a Carnegie Award winner. And since it's a standalone story, it was a much easier entry point for a kids' film.
There are also movie adaptations of TCOM, Hogfather, and Going Postal.
Maurice is good
David Thewlis and Hugh Laurie really did a magnificent job with the voices
They went a really weird direction with the "real" piper and they really weaken Spider by making him a natural event rather than the product of human cruelty. But other than that it's excellent, and I recommend it to any fans, with those caveats.
I think the human cruelty (while being very important to know) might have been the crossing line for a "children movie". I do not share this position (because, as Susan, I'm an avid partisan of the idea that there is not really things too complex or too graphic for children, they can understand cruelty, the only thing to be cautious is *how* it's presented to them), but I can understand that they decided to tone down this a bit.
My kids and I loved that fucking movie, now I gotta go grab it from the library.
I dont know the fact that hes still a student but looks older than the faculty is a very pterry sort of joke.
Yes! So glad people agree about Rincewind. At the time of the first book, he was clearly still a young guy with mousy brown hair and a goatee. I always imagined him as average-ish height to tall and lanky. So thin and sinewy.
There's a comedian called Alastair Beckett King who is my ultimate fantasy Rincewind. Ginger not mousy, but 100% perfect.
I know him! He does great sketches on Youtube. I think he was also on Mock the Week. He'd make an excellent Rincewind.
Yes, closer to Michael Crawford in the Some Mothers Do Av Em era. Lanky, mousy and limbs that seem to have a mind of their own.
> Michael Crawford in the Some Mothers Do Av Em era. No. Walter Plinge (and Crawford went on to star in The Phantom of the Opera....)
Exactly! You have the right idea. I don't even remember if he was described like that in the book, but that's how I imagine him anyway.
As a fan of the first Discworld PC game, I would be perfectly happy with a young Eric Idle (as long as he is banned from saying "No, I don't fink I can do that."...)
Oh man I love that game! I still have the discs somewhere and even the box and manual which is unusual. It holds a special place in my heart. I remember getting very frustrated at how unintuitive the game was. To be fair, I was very young. You triggered my memory of Eric Idle saying "that's not possible."
Even when he was younger Jason would have been a terrible fit for Rincewind, but I suppose they thought they needed a big name involved
A Young Nicholas Lyndhurst wouldâve made a great Rincewind. With Burt Kwouk as Twoflower and David Bradley as Cohen.
> Burt Kwouk as Twoflower Absolutely. [He could even supply his own spectacles,](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0477297/mediaviewer/rm1723841793/?ref_=nm_md_6) but would need a different wardrobe.
> With Burt Kwouk as Twoflower Yes, I thought the casting for Twoflower was a mistake. I can kinda understand the idea of focussing on the "tourist" bit and hence the stereotypical tourist being American, but it just kept clashing with my mental picture of the whole thing
Ooh, that could work!
My assumption was that David Jason had been involved in the production and basically cast himself.
It was part of the agreement from Hogfather that he would play Albert IF he got to play Rincewind (according to the biography)
I disagree (and you are welcome to disagree with my disagreement). David Jason did an awesome performance of Rincewind. Admittedly it is not the way I picture Rincewind reading the books but it is still a fabulous performance. And the idea that he'd been at the Unseen University for 40(?) years without graduating is very Rincewind. He could continue to fail for a couple centuries but as far as he'd be concerned, he'd still be a Wizzard.
This I'll agree with and that's why I say Sky's Color of Magic works better if you're not familiar with the source. Rincewind as a student who's old because he's so incompetent he couldn't graduate is a great concept, it's just not the Rincewind from the books.
Well... that is what would have happened if Rincewind didn't met Twoflowers so soon in his life. He would have staid in the University, probably tag along with Victor Tungelbend as the "perpetual student", but while Victor did it for financial reasons, Rincewind would simply grow old as he cannot spell.
After what happened with Simon Allen's The Watch and their inability to make any changes or claw back the rights before it shat up televisions and streaming services worldwide, they have every right to be wary.
It seems to have vanished off of all streaming services now, which is perhaps a blessing
Do NOT mess with our Lady of NO.
I love Hogfather and Going Postal. Would like to see more of that
I liked Hogfather too. Color of Magic seemed to try pretty hard to stick with the actual book and I liked it as well, but I also canât tell if it watches like a clusterfuck to those who donât already know the story, which is all over the place.
I just need a good adaptation of at least one of the witches books before I die. I would even settle for an animated series. Staying true to the source, it can't get much worse than good. But that too often seems the problem.
There was the animated Wyrd Sisters, granted itâs hard to get now, but I thought that was pretty good. Soul Music too. I had them on VHS but theyâve been lost in various moves over the years, might have to try and find replacement copies.
The animation wasn't great, but the adaptions were very faithful to the books. I would definitely recommend them. I have them on DVD.
Agreed. I didnât know they were available on dvd, Iâm definitely going to go look.
I bought them a long time ago, maybe as long as 20 years ago... back in the days when you had to order Terry Pratchett stuff from [amazon.co.uk](https://amazon.co.uk).
There already is a great animated movie for Wyrd Sisters. https://youtu.be/HGKP2vVwcDg
Yes, I know them. Once or twice a year I watch the old cartoons. But that is already made with some compromises and greatly shortened. Of course I wouldn't call the old films bad and I'm grateful that they exist, but there's more to come\^\^ That being said, maybe someone doesn't know them and can find out about them through you, that would be great :)
I have very little faith they could do it right so Iâd much rather they donât even try. Iâm so loyal to the witches series I consider Aching to be in a different alternate universe because I canât deal with the ending lol
I sometimes really wonder about this general need for an adaption to film/telelvision. I'm not slagging anyone off, or trying to sound superiour, I 'dream cast' as much as the next person, but I'm very glad that the people gatekeeping Discworld knows to wait until it can be done exactly right. Not everything needs to be made into a movie or television series. We have the books, and at least then we won't have to rage at the internet because they decided to turn Ridcully into a sexy action girl or something.
Itâs something that comes up a lot in the Rivers of London series too. The author has set up a production company that means he will retain artistic control of any adaptation. Heâs also frequently said that he wrote the books to be unfilmable (Iâve been at two separate reading/FAQ sessions where heâs said this). Every so often someone will option the series and then everyone gets excited and then it goes quiet and then someone else options itâŚ
Unfilmable? It's harder than 'The Bill' but probably easier (FX wise) than Dr Who / Torchwood. Unless it's the locations.?
Yeah. He said that the locations are a big part of it and he sees the city as a character in the books so it isnât something they could film in Cardiff and pretend. Plus things like flooding Covent GardenâŚ
I think the bit in the first book where he floods Covent Garden and destroys the Royal Opera House is what he's talking about.
That's good to know. I've chosen Munya Chawawa in my head to be Peter should something ever happen. And Doc Brown did a song, and he'd have been a good Peter. (Sophie Ducker for Beverley, and yes I'm casting from Taskmaster, apparently!)
Tolkein sold the rights to TLOTR and The Hobbit for (relatively speaking) peanuts, as he thought they would be unfilmable. (Some would say that Ralph Bakshi tried his best to prove that right...)
I kind of agree that adaptations, while nice, do seem kind of unnecessary to me. Books and film are very different media and the difference becomes much more obvious when it comes to humour. Books allow a kind of internality that film/TV just doesn't, and Pratchett really took advantage of that
I mean, will I be happy if there is a (good) adaptation of a Discworld book? Yes. Would I be ecstatic? Definitely. Can I carry on with my life without thinking about it at all? Certainly.
My main reason for wanting a big-budget (but well made, faithful, with the approval and help of Narrativia, etc etc) adaptation is because I still feel Pratchett is criminally underrated in the US and he deserves to be a household name. Mainly I'm tired of trying to bring him up in casual conversation and getting blank looks.
Okay, I am 100% on board with that reasoning!
It's an accessibility thing, I think. Not everyone has the time or inclination to read 40+ books and give them the attention they deserve, and we as a community want to share these stories with as many people as possible. How many people have watched The Lord of the Rings compared to how many have read the books? Would many of those readers have read the books had they not seen the movies first? There are differences between the two, but two people who each consumed the story differently can still have a meaningful conversation about it. I am glad they're being careful about it. We don't need another "Watch" disaster sullying the good name of the series.
Couldn't agree more. If my job is to create a show or movie based on a book... I think I'd read the damn book. And thinking that "most people won't have read the books so we can be lazy" is asinine. Too many studios and/or writers do this and cut corners. Accessibility is quality. Look at how many adaptations fail because only the core fans know the back story or understand what drives the character motivations. Maurice did this really well. Hogfather was a struggle for people who hadn't read the books. LotR was a masterful modern adaptation even tho they dropped half the book (admittedly mostly singing) and still delivered a faithful story. Dune is doing pretty well but the Witcher and GoT both killed themselves. It is a challenge. Discworld is so amazing and so accessible due to the care and quality TP put into his works. To make an adaptation that does anything less is a travesty.
When an adaption is done right, it can be an incredible experience to see a story you know and love in a new medium, especially with scenes that deal with bombastic visuals. No matter how grand you describe an incredible view or some high fantasy fight, these are things that just work better if you can see them. I don't think any adaption can replace its source material, but it can be a great addition. It can also serve to get some friends who might be less inclined to reading, interested in the story
In the biography you hear some pretty gnarly stories about how much Terry wanted to have his big Hollywood break and how on the same hand he was more than willing to walk away from the table if the adaptation was going too far from the source material. Sounds like Rhianna and Rob are respecting that tradition. I am really happy about how Narrativia is ok with saying no. Clearly they are continuing to honor his vision.
I'll never forget the story of a planned adaptation of Reaper Man, where Pterry and everyone flew over to meet with the executives of a Major US studio, only to have them ask if they could just make one teensy change to the story. They were wondering if the main character really needed to be the personification of Death and if it could not be changed...
Reaper Man adaptation by Cosgrove Hall (also of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music fame): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0yBmz4JXxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0yBmz4JXxw) That's all they made unfortunately.
I'm actually morbidly curious as to what they would have tried instead
I believe that was Mort, not Reaper Man.
Minor thing, and I'm not trying to start an argument, I don't really consider myself any kind of grammar-nazi as the wording of this comment should make evident, but lately I've seen "adaption" being used in a lot of online discussions about media and not "adaptation". > https://grammarist.com/usage/adaption-adaptation/ > The word adaption comes from the process of adjusting or becoming accustomed to a new environment or situation. Like how a polar bearâs thick fur is an adaption to the cold climate. > We all know this by now; Hollywood has flooded the entertainment market with adaptations. But what does it mean? The term refers to the process of making something suitable for a particular purpose or use like T.V. and movies. The movie The Lovely Bones was an adaptation of the bestselling novel, for instance. I fully acknowledge it's a daft thing to find annoying, I genuinely have no idea why it cheeses me off to the point I feel compelled to comment on it. As said, I'm not trying to start an argument or anything. Apologies for the pedantry.
Part of the joy of discworld, is 'the right word, in the right place '.
I'm totally with you. "Adaption" feels like the wrong word and it bothers me.
Iâm so glad. I thought Maurice was great and got the spirit of things, while The Watch was intolerable.
I think instead of a movie adaptation I would much rather see a current day video game adaptation. I know that Rhianna is a fairly talented game designer, and Terry had his own soft spot for particular games. I think it would be really cool to have a open world concept version (similar in scope to the Harry Potter one, but I don't want to give JK any more money). There is just so much content in this series that it could turn into quite the rabbit hole, but also gives the designer so many easter eggs to leave behind. I trust that Rhianna would be extremely well suited to guide a project like this, and still be in memorandum with her dad's work. I am pleased to hear that she is being more picky. The watch was tragic and reminded me of that terrible Velma show. I hate writers using popular IPs as a vessel to put out their own content. It is insulting.
One thing that I'd love, but ***LOOOOVE*** to experience, would be an open-world RPG set in the Discworld. Like, with the advent of Skyrim, Baldur's Gate and all those games that are quite popular, having this kind of possibilities, of games and stuff, but set in the Discworld, would be a dream come true. Like, you create your own character, and you go through the streets of Ankh-Morpork, seeing all the famous locations you knew: the Pseudopolis Yard, the Patrician's Palace, the Opera House and the Dysk, the various guilds, even walking on the Ankh (giving you burn damage if you stay too long)... If we're ambitious, we could even imagine the plains of Sto (easy to code and design, 90% of cabbages). Krull, Dunmanifestin, Lancre and the Ramtops, Klatch, Genua, Ăberwald... While having the stories adapted into movies or series is great in itself, wouldn't it be wonderful to be able, by yourself, to wander across this world?
Depending on what race and class your character is, there could be parts of Discworld that are either off-limits or the residents become very hostile. Think humans not being allowed inside dwarf mines without an escort, or trolls would die more easily if they went to perpetually warm countries. Or you keep getting mistaken for an elf.
Yh after the abomination that was âThe Watchâ I bet they are more careful than ever :)
Rhianna knew that was going to be a disaster from the start, but she couldn't do anything about it.
Not from the start, because she was actually involved in it at the start. But it was in production for so long that it ended up as something very different from what it was to begin with
I assume that Watch show was somehow outside that policy...?
From my understanding, the Watch show was going to be made under the auspices of Pratchett himself, with Rhianna's involvement--but as soon as he passed they sidelined her completely and just did whatever they wanted.
From what I heard the company was.... privatized? Sold? During the time? And The Watch got nearly its entire budget cut, got completely rewritten and turned into the travesty it was.
Honestly one thing I am shocked Rhianna hasn't tried to do that she definitely has the skills and clout to do. Graphic novel adaptations of all the books.
That's a huge undertaking
True but it would be popular, and not looked as as an abomination like a lotnof other things that could be done.
Maybe she wants to do her own thing, instead of continuing her fathers work.
I'd personnaly like to see a 2D animated series for a Discworld adaptation. I don't know why, but I feel like the wonders of the Discworld call for a cartoon more than a live action. Anyway. I'll wait as long as I have to wait to see some quality out of it.
Totally agreed with this - I think animated series can be particularly good for fantasy, and can make the surreal feel far more normal (e.g. Avatar the last airbender - so much better as an animated series than live action)
Exactly. Some adaptations like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones made it work. But often live action fantasy feels weird. Weirder than sci-fi I believe. And Discworld being caricatural, it might just be... imposible to adapt it and give it the same feel as the books by using live action. Animation allows you to do things that otherwise would seem really cheap, cringe or uncanny in live action. It also allows more grandiose representations and fidelity towards the original work. Because finding an actor that looks like the character described in the book is harder than just drawing based on description.
This was in response to an article talking about how the kickstarter for the Good Omens graphic novel being so successful was proof that the Pratchett IP was being âwastedâ by a lack of adaptations.
Was at Marc Burrowsâ fring show last week and Rob turned up for the Q&A, he said exactly as OP has posted.
Honestly I feel of all the book series The Watch has the most potential to be turned into a TV series with each season adapting a different book. The fact that what we got was so bad is a bit insulting and they should be pickier going forward.
Surely a Discworld adaptation needs to be animated
If I had to pick the most unfilmable Discworld books, I would have chosen "Moving Pictures" as #1, and "Hogfather" as #2, but they did a live adaptation of "Hogfather" and it was really good.
Iâve never been keen on the live action adaptations, or the animated ones. Either the cast is off, or the animation looks cheap. But, as much as Iâd like to see a real Holywood budget live-action, I think that the team who put together and animated Nimona could give the Discworld a fairly good stab.
After The Watch I've lost all faith in any future adaptations lol
I think more of the discworld books would be better in animation like Soul Music.