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Good Omens, Mort and The City Watch


HexMachina

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1 hour ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

Bugger. Oh well by the time they do the first few books the city watch series may have been put out of our misery, and the rights revert.

Hope they do a fairhful Colour if magic adaptation. They cut so much out of the previos veesion. Felt like paint by nunbers

Having just reread Colour of Magic, I’m not sure I actually want a faithful adaptation - there’s too much parody of other works and it doesn’t properly feel like Discworld.

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On 4/28/2020 at 10:17 PM, Maltaran said:

Having just reread Colour of Magic, I’m not sure I actually want a faithful adaptation - there’s too much parody of other works and it doesn’t properly feel like Discworld.

 

 

Colour of Magic and Light Fantastic were a very clear attempt to do a fantasy equivalent of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and while fun Pratchett just doesn't operate on that level in that style.


He started getting more to his own thing after that but Discworld doesn't hit its peak for me till Reaper Man (which is the 11th book).

After that it's at its best all the way through to Going Postal (33).

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I would rather see some kind of anthology series titled Discworld and using elements from the novels than I would adaptations. Apart from the Watch books, the only one that I’d like to see is Going Postal and I thought the Sky  1 version was fine. Maybe Raising Steam would be good but that kind of depends on the preceding books in the city. My next favourite sequence is the witches, I suppose, but it strikes me that would be kind of boring without the Ankh Morpork milieu.

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  • 3 months later...

Rhianna Pratchett continuing to show her firm displeasure with The Watch.

Some scuttlebutt that BBC America may have exploited some contractual loophole to manoeuvre Narrativia off the project when they inherited it from the BBC (note that, despite the name, BBC America and the BBC itself are completely separate entities). Given that Narrativia is Sir Terry's own production company, founded in 2012 specifically to make sure future adaptations of his work were handled with respect and integrity, I can see why that has infuriated the Pratchett Estate. Yikes.

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  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Werthead said:

An understatement. The built-in fanbase hate The Watch and they’ve yet to see an episode.

The producer might as well have pissed on Pratchett’s grave.

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How beloved is Pratchett in the States? I wonder if Americans are generally less fussed about him, and this Simon Allen thinks he can get away with it, being produced for BBC America. I know for instance I had no interest in the American Dirk Gently series, so maybe they're expecting the reverse.

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19 hours ago, The BlackBear said:

How beloved is Pratchett in the States? I wonder if Americans are generally less fussed about him, and this Simon Allen thinks he can get away with it, being produced for BBC America. I know for instance I had no interest in the American Dirk Gently series, so maybe they're expecting the reverse.

Much, much less well-known as in the UK, where he's a household name, national treasure etc. In the States he's popular and more than he used to be, but still relatively low-key.

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On 9/14/2020 at 6:09 PM, The BlackBear said:

How beloved is Pratchett in the States? I wonder if Americans are generally less fussed about him, and this Simon Allen thinks he can get away with it, being produced for BBC America. I know for instance I had no interest in the American Dirk Gently series, so maybe they're expecting the reverse.

You're missing out, I actually really enjoyed that series and was sad it didn't get to continue!

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1 hour ago, Starkess said:

You're missing out, I actually really enjoyed that series and was sad it didn't get to continue!

In terms of plot it was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the books but I thought it did capture some of Adams' anarchic sense of fun. I enjoyed it a lot.

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1 hour ago, Starkess said:

You're missing out, I actually really enjoyed that series and was sad it didn't get to continue!

6 minutes ago, williamjm said:

In terms of plot it was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the books but I thought it did capture some of Adams' anarchic sense of fun. I enjoyed it a lot.

Hmmm, maybe I shall put my skepticism aside and give it a go

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22 hours ago, williamjm said:

In terms of plot it was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the books but I thought it did capture some of Adams' anarchic sense of fun. I enjoyed it a lot.

Oh yes, it was certainly its own thing, but enjoyable nonetheless. Which I found to be very in the right spirit of things. :) 

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I enjoyed the American Dirk Gently show - it was pleasantly weird and different - though haven't read the books so didn't have that prior attachment. And it was nice to see Sam Barnett in a lead role; he's very watchable. Hope he will appear in something else good soon since DG was cancelled. 

I feel sicker and crosser the more I read about the City Watch TV show. It could have been so good in other hands. 

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I haven't particularly cared for any of the televised adapations of Discworld that I've seen to date (and I'm not really convinced that the books translate to the screen at all) but this does seem to be on track to be spectacularly awful.

(I have vague memories of quite liking the Cosgrove Hall animations when they originally aired, actually.  But I suspect they don't hold up particularly well.)

On 9/15/2020 at 12:09 AM, The BlackBear said:

 I know for instance I had no interest in the American Dirk Gently series, so maybe they're expecting the reverse.

I'm a big fan of the first Dirk Gently book (the second one I'm not so keen on), and I couldn't stand the American series.  I think you made the right choice to ignore it, personally. 

I made it about two and a half episodes in because people kept recommending it to me, but ... yeah, not for me.  I'm still not really sure why it exists (it doesn't seem to be especially targetted at people who liked the books, who aren't a large enough audience to matter anyway, and apart from a couple of names there's nothing to connect it to them: surely it would have made more sense to market it as an original work?).

On 9/17/2020 at 11:45 PM, john said:

There is a British Dirk Gently show, with Stephen Mangan. It feels a bit more like the books.

The British series borrows a lot more of its plot elements from the books and is low budget enough to occasionally feel like the lost episode of Dr Who that the first book began life as.  But it didn't really work for me either.  It just feels very slight and disposable (though I vaguely recall thinking that Mangan was a passable Dirk).

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12 hours ago, Plessiez said:

I'm a big fan of the first Dirk Gently book (the second one I'm not so keen on), and I couldn't stand the American series.  I think you made the right choice to ignore it, personally. 

I made it about two and a half episodes in because people kept recommending it to me, but ... yeah, not for me.  I'm still not really sure why it exists (it doesn't seem to be especially targetted at people who liked the books, who aren't a large enough audience to matter anyway, and apart from a couple of names there's nothing to connect it to them: surely it would have made more sense to market it as an original work?).

While I really enjoyed the show, I think it is a fair question and it wouldn't have lost anything if it had lost the Dirk Gently connection completely. It's not really even trying to do the same thing, it's more of a comedy drama rather than an outright comedy like the book.

I would agree the first book in particular is better, but I do think it's a masterpiece of comic SF so it would be difficult to live up to that. The second book doesn't work as well overall but still has some great scenes.

The British series borrows a lot more of its plot elements from the books and is low budget enough to occasionally feel like the lost episode of Dr Who that the first book began life as.  But it didn't really work for me either.  It just feels very slight and disposable (though I vaguely recall thinking that Mangan was a passable Dirk).

I watched the pilot episode of that. It wasn't terrible and Mangan was a reasonable Dirk but it felt a bit uninspired, it might have been closer to the book but it seemed to have lost most of the humour.

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