The Terry Pratchett Thread: For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Terry Pratchett Thread: For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds

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Sleep of Bronze: Feb 9, 2013; If I could only somewhere find Aias, master of the warcry, then we could go forth and again ignite our battle-lust, even in the face of the gods themselves.

Character name correction: Inigo, not Indigo. Like a particularly out-of-his-skull friend of mine. Or the architect. :eng101:

# ? Aug 8, 2014 19:20

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# ? May 20, 2024 02:51

Zephyrine: Jun 10, 2014; This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

Sleep of Bronze posted:

Character name correction: Inigo, not Indigo. Like a particularly out-of-his-skull friend of mine. Or the architect.

yes I figured I got the name wrong but I assumed people knew who I meant.

FactsAreUseless posted:

Too bad. He's dead.

Wait. Are you implying that he returns in a future book!? Spoiler!

Zephyrine fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Aug 8, 2014

# ? Aug 8, 2014 19:46

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

VagueRant posted:

So this was definitely Pratchett talking about his Alzheimer's, right?

No, it's Vimes talking about the long dark nights of the soul that keep him from becoming an evil bastard like the criminals he arrests.

Oh, and the next Pterry novel is called The Shepherd's Crown and it's the fifth Tiffany Aching novel.

# ? Aug 8, 2014 22:04

Pesky Splinter: Feb 16, 2011; A worried pug.

Jedit posted:

Oh, and the next Pterry novel is called The Shepherd's Crown and it's the fifth Tiffany Aching novel.

Ah, its the name of a fossil type. Thought it sounded familiar.

# ? Aug 8, 2014 22:14

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Pesky Splinter posted:

Ah, its the name of a fossil type. Thought it sounded familiar.

And not to give anything away, but the title does refer to the fossil.

# ? Aug 8, 2014 22:23

Pidmon: Mar 18, 2009; NO ONE risks painful injury on your GREEN SLIME GHOST POGO RIDE.

No one but YOU.

Jedit posted:

And not to give anything away, but the title does refer to the fossil.

Oooh, I hope it has something more to do with the Chalk itself. Tiff owns.

i'm sick of the het bullshit

Pidmon fucked around with this message at 12:25 on Aug 9, 2014

# ? Aug 9, 2014 05:09

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Pidmon posted:

Oooh, I hope it has something more to do with the Chalk itself. Tiff owns.

Spoiler that, please.

Also I'd hardly call it shoehorned into the plot. The Chalk doesn't really have witches apart from Tiffany, and a girl of a certain age is expected to get married. Tiffany herself feels shoehorned into romance.

I just picked up my Con Folio with two excised scenes from Raising Steam and a little essay from Pterry. You won't find one knocking about, either - it was strongly hinted that we're not supposed to sell them, and each one is marked with our Con membership number so it's known who every one belonged to.

# ? Aug 9, 2014 11:26

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

The latest news on forthcoming projects.

The Shepherd's Crown is with the editors.

Death is in it.

Terry began writing the next book yesterday.

The Bromeliad movies have been scrapped by Dreamworks.

The Watch is mainly being held up by script revisions. BBC Worldwide still want it to be a top brand on the level of Doctor Who.

Good Omens has been greenlit for TV and has network backing. It should air before the end of 2015.

Dodger is in early development for TV. There are also plans for a sequel to the book set thirty years later.

Rhianna has completed the first draft script for The Wee Free Men movie. She has also stated that she will not be writing Discworld novels or stories, though she didn't specifically rule out making original content in other media.

Mort has independent finance for a movie, with long term plans to make a trilogy of Death movies.

The Amazing Maurice is in negotiations to be made into an animated movie, and Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, Aladdin) is on board leading the charge.

Lastly, Pterry himself. His PCA has proceeded somewhat. He has lost some motor control and mentally his "vague moments" are slightly more frequent (though he's still pretty much all there). The main effect is that he is now partially blind. There is nothing wrong with his eyes, it's his visual cortex that has been damaged. The effect has been likened unto a smashed mirror, except while some pieces still show a perfect image others are blurred, inverted or blank.

# ? Aug 9, 2014 15:17

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

Goddammit that last bit about Terry ugh :smith:

# ? Aug 9, 2014 15:43

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

Jedit posted:

The Shepherd's Crown is with the editors.

Death is in it.

That final paragraph is real heavy, but these two got me the hardest in a way.

# ? Aug 9, 2014 16:03

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

toasterwarrior posted:

That final paragraph is real heavy, but these two got me the hardest in a way.

The one that followed should have made you happier, though. He's still creative and enthusiastic and capable of writing, even if it isn't so easy any more.

# ? Aug 9, 2014 18:11

Alliterate Addict: Jul 10, 2012; dreaming of that face again

it's bright and blue and shimmering

grinning wide and comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes

toasterwarrior posted:

That final paragraph is real heavy, but these two got me the hardest in a way.

Strictly speaking, isn't Death in at least one of the other four books, possibly more? I know that Tiffany showed the Hiver how to die, and I could have sworn that she at least sees Death when Roland's dad dies as well.

It is (presumably) a witch book, they tend to meet Death more frequently than most other people.

# ? Aug 10, 2014 03:16

VagueRant: May 24, 2012

I was skimming the Discworld Noir LP and just got up to Vimes' appearance in it (spoilers I guess) and that was terrible. Vimes is the one with the yellow subtitles. The high pitched, snippy, un-Vimesy one. (While Nobby is the oddly withdrawn, laid back Northern Irish one.)

And this massively bummed me out because despite the news Jedit posted, I don't have my hopes up for The Watch TV series. Anything that spends that long in development limbo seems a dim prospect. And it seems like it would be a real tough thing to adapt that idea to such a format.

But this got me wistfully googling characters and I found some random dude's three year old blog post on dream casting for the Watch, which is something I hadn't even thought about. And it got me crazy excited. One of his suggestions for actors to play Vimes was Jack Dee and the more I think about it, the more perfect I think that could be. I don't know if he can play tough, but goddamn it the face and that frown and that voice would work so well. (And it would combine two things I really like.) :unsmith:

His suggestion of Liza Tarbuck for Lady Sybil is sort of perfect too. And Nobby pretty much remains an impossibility for human casting.

# ? Aug 10, 2014 18:54

Camrath: Mar 19, 2004; The UKMT Fudge Baron

VagueRant posted:

And Nobby pretty much remains an impossibility for human casting.

Tony Robinson, 25 years ago.

# ? Aug 10, 2014 19:03

bondetamp: Aug 8, 2011; Could you have been born, Richardson? And not egg-hatched as I've always assumed? Did your mother hover over you, snaggle-toothed and doting as you now hover over me?

I've always seen Ewen Bremner in that role.

# ? Aug 10, 2014 19:08

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

VagueRant posted:

I was skimming the Discworld Noir LP and just got up to Vimes' appearance in it (spoilers I guess) and that was terrible. Vimes is the one with the yellow subtitles. The high pitched, snippy, un-Vimesy one. (While Nobby is the oddly withdrawn, laid back Northern Irish one.)

And this massively bummed me out because despite the news Jedit posted, I don't have my hopes up for The Watch TV series. Anything that spends that long in development limbo seems a dim prospect. And it seems like it would be a real tough thing to adapt that idea to such a format.

But this got me wistfully googling characters and I found some random dude's three year old blog post on dream casting for the Watch, which is something I hadn't even thought about. And it got me crazy excited. One of his suggestions for actors to play Vimes was Jack Dee and the more I think about it, the more perfect I think that could be. I don't know if he can play tough, but goddamn it the face and that frown and that voice would work so well. (And it would combine two things I really like.)

His suggestion of Liza Tarbuck for Lady Sybil is sort of perfect too. And Nobby pretty much remains an impossibility for human casting.

None of those Vimes really look right to me. There are some good choices though, I could see Hopper as Carrot. Don't think I've seen anything with him in it, though.

# ? Aug 10, 2014 19:11

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Saw the current tester version of the Troll Bridge movie. Lots of unfinished effects, but it's looking pretty good for a fan production and they've got a great Cohen. It's scheduled to be shown at festivals from October, though it may not be ready for the first one.

We also got to see a battle scene from Cohen's younger days that was cut for length but may appear in an extended cut, with humorous guard dialogue from Sir T. Pratchett and a look at what happens when both commanders in a battle try to give a rousing speech at the same time. It's more Monty Python than Discworld, but still very funny.

# ? Aug 10, 2014 20:25

Gnome de plume: Sep 5, 2006; Hell.
Fucking.
Yes.

VagueRant posted:

And Nobby pretty much remains an impossibility for human casting.

Just stick Andy Serkis in a mocap suit.

# ? Aug 11, 2014 04:44

Jedit: Dec 10, 2011; Proudly supporting vanilla legends 1994-2014

Gnome de plume posted:

Just stick Andy Serkis in a mocap suit.

Save money, don't use mocap. Serkis is a weird looking type.

# ? Aug 11, 2014 09:38

Hedrigall: Mar 27, 2008; by vyelkin

Now I'm picturing an entirely mocap/CGI Discworld movie (done right, like Tintin, not like Polar Express)

# ? Aug 11, 2014 10:26

VagueRant: May 24, 2012

Furthering the live action talk, I finally managed to watch the first part of Sky's Going Postal TV adaptation.

Aaaand I hate it. It rushes through good parts (the prison and hanging was SUCH a great intro in the book and they kind of bungled every part of it), while spending far too much time on lengthy dream sequences. For the most part, Moist comes off less as an affable, ambitious conman and more as a bumbling everyman. Had I not read the book, it would have been massively inaccessible - would I have known who Charles Dance even was?

Then there's the way it exemplifies everything wrong with British TV. Almost everything looks and feels fifteen or twenty years old, and it's not just due to budgetary constraints. From the cinematography, the lighting, even the sound mixing. There's lots of strange moments that seem dubbed, or parts where someone should be shouting but is talking at a normal volume. It's ridiculous that our programming can't even match up to the quality of amateur filmmakers on YouTube.

Part of it looking so behind-the-times is that it comes off like a kids show. You've got the overbearing score, the exaggerated wackiness and why has Reacher Gilt gone from a honey-voiced Moist-a-like to a Saturday morning cartoon villain replete with maniacally evil laughter and a cane?

I mean, this is a story that began with a man falling to his death and followed it up with a man seriously facing his own execution. There might be light silly jokes about pins and absurd fantasy turtle worlds - but otherwise, particularly in the middle-recent books, this is not Doctor loving Who. In the books, the reason a man in a berserker rage swinging an axe at people while yelling "WHERE IS MY COW?! IS THIS MY COW?!" is hilarious, is because the rest of that story is grounded in some semblance of reality. It wouldn't be funny if everything else was so extreme and dumb.

Other comments:

The clacks towers look good - I've always had trouble picturing them - and so did some of the CG city vistas.
The Watch uniforms look right. I suppose their ridged helmets are the one constant in all their drawn depictions too.
Angua's brief appearance was silly and breaks her character, but the casting seemed right somehow. She had that mildly annoyed manner down.
Charles Dance is great casting and has the perfect voice for Vetinari, but in his brief appearance he seemed more angry/concerned and less sure of himself than I would've liked.
Adora Belle smiles a lot more than I expected, but otherwise she seems a reasonable portrayal. (Except that she always has a lit cigarette and never ever smokes one. Really adds to the "kids show" feel.)
Not sure what to make of the depiction of Ankh Morpork as a city and it's populace. The budget shows and that can't be helped. What did you guys think? Is that how you pictured it?
Groat seems perfect. Stanley is a little different than I pictured but was ultimately charming.
The silly Golems actually have a real nice texture to their costumes where it does usually look like rock/clay and not rubber, but they still look like they stepped out of a '90s Power Rangers episode.
I liked that Otto the photographer was just there in the background without being commented on.

Gosh, for someone who has only read about a quarter of the Discworld books, I sure sound like a picky little bitch.

VagueRant fucked around with this message at 11:10 on Aug 12, 2014

# ? Aug 12, 2014 11:06

Total Meatlove: Jan 28, 2007; Rangers died, shoujo Hitler cried ;_;

VagueRant posted:

Furthering the live action talk, I finally managed to watch the first part of Sky's Going Postal TV adaptation.

Aaaand I hate it. It rushes through good parts (the prison and hanging was SUCH a great intro in the book and they kind of bungled every part of it), while spending far too much time on lengthy dream sequences. For the most part, Moist comes off less as an affable, ambitious conman and more as a bumbling everyman. Had I not read the book, it would have been massively inaccessible - would I have known who Charles Dance even was?

Then there's the way it exemplifies everything wrong with British TV. Almost everything looks and feels fifteen or twenty years old, and it's not just due to budgetary constraints. From the cinematography, the lighting, even the sound mixing. There's lots of strange moments that seem dubbed, or parts where someone should be shouting but is talking at a normal volume. It's ridiculous that our programming can't even match up to the quality of amateur filmmakers on YouTube.

Part of it looking so behind-the-times is that it comes off like a kids show. You've got the overbearing score, the exaggerated wackiness and why has Reacher Gilt gone from a honey-voiced Moist-a-like to a Saturday morning cartoon villain replete with maniacally evil laughter and a cane?

I mean, this is a story that began with a man falling to his death and followed it up with a man seriously facing his own execution. There might be light silly jokes about pins and absurd fantasy turtle worlds - but otherwise, particularly in the middle-recent books, this is not Doctor loving Who. In the books, the reason a man in a berserker rage swinging an axe at people while yelling "WHERE IS MY COW?! IS THIS MY COW?!" is hilarious, is because the rest of that story is grounded in some semblance of reality. It wouldn't be funny if everything else was so extreme and dumb.

Other comments:

The clacks towers look good - I've always had trouble picturing them - and so did some of the CG city vistas.

The Watch uniforms look right. I suppose their ridged helmets are the one constant in all their drawn depictions too.

Angua's brief appearance was silly and breaks her character, but the casting seemed right somehow. She had that mildly annoyed manner down.

Charles Dance is great casting and has the perfect voice for Vetinari, but in his brief appearance he seemed more angry/concerned and less sure of himself than I would've liked.

Adora Belle smiles a lot more than I expected, but otherwise she seems a reasonable portrayal. (Except that she always has a lit cigarette and never ever smokes one. Really adds to the "kids show" feel.)

Not sure what to make of the depiction of Ankh Morpork as a city and it's populace. The budget shows and that can't be helped. What did you guys think? Is that how you pictured it?

Groat seems perfect. Stanley is a little different than I pictured but was ultimately charming.

The silly Golems actually have a real nice texture to their costumes where it does usually look like rock/clay and not rubber, but they still look like they stepped out of a '90s Power Rangers episode.

I liked that Otto the photographer was just there in the background without being commented on.

Gosh, for someone who has only read about a quarter of the Discworld books, I sure sound like a picky little bitch.

Don't worry, everyone liked the idea but nobody liked the execution of those or hogfather (which did a little better)

# ? Aug 12, 2014 16:04

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

Total Meatlove posted:

Don't worry, everyone liked the idea but nobody liked the execution of those or hogfather (which did a little better)

I loved Hogfather, but that may be due to the fact that I haven't read the book.

# ? Aug 12, 2014 16:16

Total Meatlove: Jan 28, 2007; Rangers died, shoujo Hitler cried ;_;

Nihilarian posted:

I loved Hogfather, but that may be due to the fact that I haven't read the book.

The TV show was a quite light alternative christmas story type thing, the book's a lot darker and the bits about belief, especially those playing on Small Gods, are some of his best I think.

# ? Aug 12, 2014 16:30

Zephyrine: Jun 10, 2014; This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

Just finished "The truth" which was great. Working my way through "Thief of Time" which is starting out pretty frustrating. I hope it starts going somewhere soon.

Zephyrine fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Aug 13, 2014

# ? Aug 13, 2014 14:36

Living Image: Apr 24, 2010; HORSE'S ASS

Thief of Time is a good one, but yeah, it takes its time to build up.

# ? Aug 13, 2014 14:44

FactsAreUseless: Feb 16, 2011

Zephyrine posted:

Just finished "The truth" which was great. Working my way through "Thief of Time" which is starting out pretty frustrating. I hope it starts going somewhere soon.

Lu-Tze dies*.

*Briefly

# ? Aug 13, 2014 22:32

rejutka: May 28, 2004; by zen death robot

Ronnie Soak. :allears:

# ? Aug 13, 2014 22:46

Tunicate: May 15, 2012

rejutka posted:

Ronnie Soak.

Terry normally writes everything from an outline.

In that case, though, it was all serendipity.

# ? Aug 13, 2014 22:58

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Total Meatlove posted:

Don't worry, everyone liked the idea but nobody liked the execution of those or hogfather (which did a little better)

I would need to be convinced you could ever do justice to Discworld books on a screen, I think they're kind of intrinsically a written work.

# ? Aug 13, 2014 23:32

Zephyrine: Jun 10, 2014; This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

sebmojo posted:

I would need to be convinced you could ever do justice to Discworld books on a screen, I think they're kind of intrinsically a written work.

The really tricky part is all the lost commentary.

In the movie you can do a scene like

"Rincewind falling into the river"

In the book the same scene would be something like

"Rincewind dropped head first into the waters of the ankh. An impressive feat in itself considering the ankhs crust is thick enough to support the growth of trees. Meanwhile Omnian ships have taken to docking by means of wheels and using tug-elephants"

Some of the commentary can be transferred to characters but not enough.

# ? Aug 14, 2014 06:01

Zephyrine: Jun 10, 2014; This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

Does anyone know what time line "Small gods" take place in?

I get the impression that it takes place 100 years before the other books.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 15:42

SixFigureSandwich: Oct 30, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Yeah, that sounds about right. Some of the other books sometimes refer to the reformation of Omnianism as a thing from the past, if I remember correctly.

# ? Aug 19, 2014 15:55

Zephyrine: Jun 10, 2014; This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

John Dough posted:

Yeah, that sounds about right. Some of the other books sometimes refer to the reformation of Omnianism as a thing from the past, if I remember correctly.

Not to mention "The prophet Brutha 100 years ago" comes up every now and then. "The Thief of Time" being one of them.

"brother" being the prophet of Ohm who asked for 100 years of peace and prosperity (or some such) and then died exactly 100 years after making the request

# ? Aug 19, 2014 17:44

DrNewton: Feb 27, 2011; Monsieur Murdoch Fan Club

I have a 8 hour flight on Thursday. I bought Guards! Guards! I can't wait for that 8 hour flight!

Then again, that means I am leaving Amsterdam and I love Amsterdam. :/

# ? Aug 19, 2014 18:42

precision: May 7, 2006; by VideoGames

Zephyrine posted:

Does anyone know what time line "Small gods" take place in?

I get the impression that it takes place 100 years before the other books.

quote:

The prevailing wisdom has it that it occurred some time before the events of the main chronicles.

Two sets of character links falsify this hypothesis.

The philosophers from Pyramids appear in Small Gods. The final clincher is the fact that both Reaper Man and Small Gods occur, according to the texts, in the Year of the Notional Serpent.
Dr Cruces appears in Pyramids and Men At Arms.

Hence Small Gods is tied to the same era as Men At Arms. This allows the Death of Rats (created in Reaper Man) to exist during Small Gods. This also means that the Librarian didn't need an lspace time portal, just a space portal, to rescue books from the library.

I think that Small Gods comes after Pyramids, in part due to the appearance of a Djelibeybian contingent in the fleet that attacked Omnia at the end of the book. Would a pre-Pyramids Djelibeybi have taken part in such a war? (granted an extremely pre-period one would but not the one we see at the opening of Pyramids). The century is also confirmed as being the Century of the Fruitbat.

Then again, something about how timelines and canon aren't things that Discworld readers should concern themselves with.

# ? Aug 21, 2014 18:38

Zephyrine: Jun 10, 2014; This is what meat is supposed to be like, dingus

precision posted:

Then again, something about how timelines and canon aren't things that Discworld readers should concern themselves with.

I'm blaming Pratchet for not rereading the whole series before writing a new book.

# ? Aug 21, 2014 18:49

Ika: Dec 30, 2004; Pure insanity

Zephyrine posted:

I'm blaming Pratchet for not rereading the whole series before writing a new book.

He did. Then he wrote thief of time.

# ? Aug 21, 2014 19:08

Alliterate Addict: Jul 10, 2012; dreaming of that face again

it's bright and blue and shimmering

grinning wide and comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes

Zephyrine posted:

I'm blaming Pratchet for not rereading the whole series before writing a new book.

Ika posted:

He did. Then he wrote thief of time.

Yeah Thief of Time handwaves literally every single retcon/timeline issue in the space of like 3 paragraphs.

A ~~wizard~~ clock did it.

# ? Aug 21, 2014 19:55

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# ? May 20, 2024 02:51

YggiDee: Sep 12, 2007; WASP CREW

Both answers are correct. While Small Gods happens between Witches Abroad and Lords and Ladies, it also takes place 100 years ago. It's like that shop from Soul Music. It's always been there, but it hasn't always been there yesterday. Also I figure this is why we had a whole book about History Monks.

# ? Aug 21, 2014 19:59

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Terry Pratchett Thread: For the sake of prisoners and the flight of birds

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