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I quite liked them. Admittedly, I hadn't read many of the books at the time, but they were very enjoyable and they got the tone bang on... CoM had fantastic casting as well, David Jason, Tim Curry and Christopher Lee, what's not to like?
I liked the bloke who played Mr Teatime in Hogfather.
I think that any time you have a book adapted for TV you are almost destined for disappointment as it will not match the mental images that you have created, hell even Josh Kirby seemed to get some characters a bit off from how they were described. I always enjoyed the Pratchett cameos in the shows, and Mr Pump looked pretty cool.
Never saw them (well, fragments). Can't live up to the pictures in my brain. And in my brain, Ridcully IS Brian Blessed, which didn't happen in the shows, therefore they're rubbish.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And if there's parents of young ladies out there, you could do a lot worse than give them the Tiffany Aching books to read
If there's parents of young anythings then the Tiffany Aching books are a good bet. Boys should learn that a girl who knows how to use a frying pan is both someone to fear and someone to keep close.
I find that a lot of people get into Discworld and kind of pass over The Bromeliad Trilogy, which is a huge shame as the Nomes books are, in my opinion, every bit as funny and insightful of human nature as the best Discworld books. It may technically be aimed at children but they're written so well and feature such great characters that they're enjoyable for adults, too.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/01/18 23:23:38
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
Weirdly I could literally picture Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap as Crowley and Aziraphael (?) which is why I though it was on TV. I suppose that means they they did a good job with the radio series
That radio adaptation actually was good. Featuring Terry and Neil as Police watching cars failing to cross Odegra (Hail the great beast, destroyer of worlds!) if I recall.
I was confused by the announced tv adaptation as well, as I thought it was due soon. I was being thick as it is Gaiman's American God's which should be premiering some time in the spring.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And if there's parents of young ladies out there, you could do a lot worse than give them the Tiffany Aching books to read
If there's parents of young anythings then the Tiffany Aching books are a good bet. Boys should learn that a girl who knows how to use a frying pan is both someone to fear and someone to keep close.
True enough
Plus, I'm yet to find anyone who doesn't love the Nac Mac Feegle. Every Big Jobs seems to see the amusement (for the uninitiated, Feegles are Pictsies. According to their own history, the Nac Mac Feegle rebelled against the wicked rule of the (or possibly "a") Queen of the Fairies, and were therefore exiled from Fairyland. According to everyone else (including the Nac Mac Feegle themselves if they forget this story), they were kicked out for causing fights and being drunk at two in the afternoon.
The Ramtops have many legends about the Nac Mac Feegle. One, similar to the legend of Wayland's Smithy, says that if you leave sixpence and an unshod horse at a certain Feegle cairn overnight, then in the morning the coin will be gone, and you will never see your horse again either. Another says that if you leave a saucer of milk out for the pictsies, they will break into your house and take everything in the drinks cabinet.
Fed up of Scalpers? But still want your Exclusives? Why not join us?
I noticed a problem with the TV movies.
When Hogfather first came out [about ten years ago....wow], I kept having to pause it to explain to my family who was watching it with me what was going on. The same thing happened with the other two movies. But I guess the TV movies were made for people who had read the books. Then there are all the inherit problems of trying to adapt a novel for TV. I'm not bashing the TV movies or anything. Its just had to turn a book into a film or TV show without making too many changes.
I think that any time you have a book adapted for TV you are almost destined for disappointment as it will not match the mental images that you have created, hell even Josh Kirby seemed to get some characters a bit off from how they were described. I always enjoyed the Pratchett cameos in the shows, and Mr Pump looked pretty cool.
Josh Kirby taking "four-eyed" literally when painting Twoflower on the cover of The Colour of Magic is probably the wor4st offender there.
I think Discworld began to be a thing in its own right a lot earlier than Guards! Guards!. Arguably as early as [The Light Fantastic, but certainly by Equal Rites and Mort it had a good sense of being its own world.
As well as the Bromeliad trilogy, I always had a soft spot for The Carpet People. Strata and The Dark Side of the Sun aren't his best work, but there's some interesting ideas that you could pinch for a GURPS or Traveller campaign.
At first, I wasn't so keen on Night Watch; it was significantly darker than the previous novels. On re-reading, the jokes are still there. They just weren't quite so blatant.
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: @Insaniak: Excellent call on Nation, it is a great book. I was lucky enough to see it performed at the National Theatre in 2009.
If reading is not your thing there is always the Sky TV versions of The Colour of Magic, Hogfather and Going Postal.
There were also two TV adaptations in the UK ages ago (Wyrd Sisters & Soul Music) by Cosgrove Hall. They seemed good to me at the time, had great casting, but they came out and....just vanished, with nobody talking about them ever again, even to say they hated them. Including here, it seems.
I pretty much grew up with the books, and the last three or so are the only ones I haven't read. I loved the world-gone-mad humour and wordplay, and always appreciated how Pratchett could weave surprisingly serious and thoughtful points into the humour. I'll always have fond memories of discovering them and how the world was subtly built and the characters in the multiple arcs grew and changed.
Though I think the thing that eventually made me drift away from the series was Vetinari. I just couldn't shake the feeling that he'd started off as a satire of the strong-man tyrant, but because everyone else who might want the job was either evil or comically incompetent and corrupt, it seemed to be becoming an unironic argument in favour of that sort of leader.
"The 75mm gun is firing. The 37mm gun is firing, but is traversed round the wrong way. The Browning is jammed. I am saying "Driver, advance." and the driver, who can't hear me, is reversing. And as I look over the top of the turret and see twelve enemy tanks fifty yards away, someone hands me a cheese sandwich."
AndrewGPaul wrote: At first, I wasn't so keen on Night Watch; it was significantly darker than the previous novels. On re-reading, the jokes are still there. They just weren't quite so blatant.
Night Watch is a great book, in my opinion and up there as one of my favourite Sam Vimes books (with Jingo and Thud). It was never going to be possible to be as light as previous discworlds when you are basically writing the ankh-morpork version of Les Miserables, after all
Thraxas Of Turai wrote: @Insaniak: Excellent call on Nation, it is a great book. I was lucky enough to see it performed at the National Theatre in 2009.
If reading is not your thing there is always the Sky TV versions of The Colour of Magic, Hogfather and Going Postal.
There were also two TV adaptations in the UK ages ago (Wyrd Sisters & Soul Music) by Cosgrove Hall. They seemed good to me at the time, had great casting, but they came out and....just vanished, with nobody talking about them ever again, even to say they hated them. Including here, it seems.
I think you can still find them on youtube
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/01/21 23:32:21
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
The TV shows were OK if taken on their own merits, but the limits of the format(chiefly, the length) makes them pretty poor in comparison to the books.
With a 3-part miniseries format they might have been able to stand up to the novels, but sadly that wasn't to be. And there doesn't appear to be any sign of the rumoured BBC production of the Watch novels either(iirc Pratchett's daughter was going to be involved and was pitching it as essentially "Pratchett does The Bill", which I was enthused by).
Thanks for the thread though, you've reminded me I need to rebuy a copy of Pyramids - that was my first Discworld novel and I've read it so often it's falling to pieces.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
-----
"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
My copy of Good Omens is like that; it's so dog-eared that Neil Gaiman flinched when I asked him to sign it.
Looking back, it's almost embarrassing how many Pratchettisms ended up in my and my friends' speech during the 90s; "got 'im right in the funes" was a favourite when someone's Necromunda Ganger went out of action.
The only disappointment I had with the Sky TV adaptations was the odd rubber-suit golems. They didn't look ceramic at all.
Did anyone else play the PC games? I played through the Discworld game from Psygnosis (voiced by Eric Idle, Jon Pertwee, Tony Robinson and ... Rob Brydon? ). I had to resort to the hint book at one point, though;
Spoiler:
When you needed to acquire a snake, some starch and some fertiliser; use the fertiliser to make the snake grow, and the starch to make it stiff. Use the stiffened snake to swap for Windle Poons' staff while he's asleep. Attach a butterfly net to the staff and use that to catch a pancake in mid-air. This distracts the cook, so you can steal the frying pan, which you need to make a dragon detector.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/01/30 19:34:07
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Not gonna lie, when I watched that and heard his voice (or someone with a spot on impression), a small part of me sincerely and desperately wanted it to be true.
Just watched it on iPlayer. Man, it really got me when Neil Gaiman was talking about his last conversation with Terry.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/02/12 19:09:18
The Laws of Thermodynamics:
1) You cannot win. 2) You cannot break even. 3) You cannot stop playing the game.
Colonel Flagg wrote:You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me.
