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Right, "The Watch" TV show is finally over, and my wife and I have been slogging through all eight episodes, so here are some collected ramblings. Spoilers abound. - I hated the modernized look at first, but slowly came round to it. At least they put in the explanation that the wizards stole most of the technology from Roundworld, so I guess I can accept that. I'm sure the budget had something to do with that decision as well. - However, if you modernize a well-known world so radically, the core of the characters has to stay the same for people to recognize and accept it as what it is. And this is where "The Watch" falls apart in my opinion: - Vetinari's gender swap makes zero sense. Sure, make her "Lady Vetinari", I don't care, but then don't talk about him as "him", and don't have "One Man one Vote" posters that portray him with a pointy beard. If (and that's a big If) the writers' intention was that on this version of the Discworld, people are more gender-fluid and that it doesn't matter so much if you identify as a man or a woman or something else, that's fine by me. But then Cheery's whole character arc is rendered invalid. - Speaking of Cheery, she's a cool character to root for: Clever, kind, caring. All good. Coding her as trans instead of as female is also perfectly legitimate in a 21st-century modern interpretation. But she's simply too tall, as are all the other dwarves we see. Suddenly it's no longer remarkable that Carrot is much taller than the average dwarf, and the point becomes very muddled. - I quite liked the casting of Angua. In the books I recall she was tall and athletic. Turning her into this tiny person that aggressively over-projects toughness to protect herself from emotions was a nice touch. - Vimes is decent, more or less, but the "Popeye meets Jack Sparrow" gurning and stumbling schtick gets old fast. - Death: Nope. Not at all. I can live without his voice sounding like capital letters, but the blue LEDs make his face look like a knockoff Jawa, and he has none of the gravitas and wisdom he has in the books. Instead it feels like someone read Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music and only remembered Death being easily star-struck and into music. - The "subtitled Goblin revolution" subplot seemed more at home in a Monty Python skit than in Pratchett. Also it went exactly nowhere. Spike at the end still calls Cheery "mistress" and fawns over her. - EVERY main character has a sad grimdark backstory. EVERY ONE. By the time we got to Angua's childhood flashback it didn't seem so much tragic as silly, which is a shame because on its own it was pretty harrowing. - I know music was apparently very important to the makers of the show. Fine. So we get the Watch auditioning for the Musician's Guild. Also fine, and, since it was the "Gold" song, also very funny. And playing the Dragon mating song at the end. Also fine. What I didn't like at all though was the inclusion of modern pop songs as incidental music for no good reason. What does "Walk Like an Egyptian" have to do with the City Watch apart from one line about cops hanging out in the donut shop? For me, it ruins the feeling that this is another world. It's even worse in the rest home or when they face off against Dr. Cruces in the "Summoning Dark" episode. - Speaking of music: Vetinari locking himself in his red plush dungeon during a time of crisis and grooving along to jazz music is a prime example of how the writers took elements from the books without understanding them. This is not the Patrician who locks himself in to get some peace and quiet to formulate a plan (and who enjoys music only in abstract form by reading the score sheets), this is a ruler who doesn't seem to give a poo poo about anything but personal safety and comfort. If there was a larger plan at work in Vetinari's mind, we sure didn't get to see it. - Carcer was an extemely bland villian. I felt neither menaced by him nor pity for him. Also, for some reason he grew a full head of hair for the last episode out of nowhere. - Making Wonse into a sort of Eskarina character was interesting at first, but then in the final episode her motivations changed far too quickly to be believable. And maybe I'm overinterpreting here, but how clever is it to make both your villains dark-skinned? Yes, we got a black Sybil on the side of the heroes, but it still struck me as a strange choice. - Detritus dies from a crossbow bolt? Seriously? I can only see this as motivated by budget concerns. "We can only have him in two episodes, so what do we do with him?" - The writing at the end with regards to guild policies was also all over the place. Vetinari is reducing the Thieves Guild's rates. The Watch seems happy about this. The next sentence is that now the Watch needs more recruits. Because of... reasons? (I guess you could explain it with "Less official crime -> more unofficial crime -> more work for the Watch") but it would have been nice to have this spelled out by someone. Modernization is a legitimate form of adaptation (Lovecraft Country, anyone?), but I fear this adaption will do Terry Pratchett's reputation no favors. Who was this for? - People who don't know the Discworld will have a huge hurdle to clear getting into it, as many things are not explained. Why are there imps in the cameras? What's thaumic energy? Or octiron? They will most likely walk away with "Well, I guess this Terry Pratchett stuff isn't for me". - People who never heard of Discworld and, for whatever reason, like this show, will likely be very disappointed when they read the books afterwards, since they are so different in style. - "Old fans" will likely be constantly bewildered by completely unnecessary and illogical changes to the source material. I hope the next adaptation will be better, but I almost fear that this one may have poisoned the well for quite some time. I'd love to hear what other people thought of it, now that it's complete.
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Feb 21, 2021 14:18
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Jedit posted:Gaiman just announced Good Omens season 2. I am not stoked. Yeah, there's a story about how he allegedly plotted a sequel with PTerry and they never got around to doing it, but... eeeh... Look, I certainly don't want to call the man a liar. I love most of the stuff Neil has done, I'm a huge Sandman fan, but right now some part of me can't help thinking about Neil's quote that an author is someone who tells lies for a living. Also, I wasn't a huge fan of the Good Omens TV adaption. EDIT: Here's the story: https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2021/06/really-bloody-excellent-omens.html
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Jun 29, 2021 16:26
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For some unfathomable reason, the German publisher released an omnibus edition simply called "The Discworld" that claimed to be an introduction to the world for new readers and allegedly featured the first two novels in the series. It consisted of The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites. Imagine 14-year-old-me's confusion at starting the book that begins with Rincewind and Twoflower falling off the edge off the world, the conclusion to a cliffhanger I didn't even know existed.
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Jul 10, 2021 15:34
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YggiDee posted:Is this a different German publisher than the one that was secretly adding Maggi Soup advertisements in the middle of the text? Yep, Heyne, aka the soup guys.
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Jul 10, 2021 17:36
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KellHound posted:While interesting times is more political then others, it's still based on western depictions of east asian countries. Doesn't the book have an warlord who is more or less a reverse weeaboo?
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Aug 20, 2021 16:01
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Former Everything posted:Did anyone ever play the Discworld MUD? I'm certainly dating myself, but back in 1995 through about 2002, I absolutely loved it. Played it around 1999, killed the LAG more times than I could count, even got married there at one point. Lost interest after a few months though 
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Sep 2, 2021 12:28
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Alhazred posted:I keep watching the Watch because the show actually have some good ideas and funny bits. But I also can't stop wondering this is for. It won't work for people that isn't familiar with Pratchett because a lot of the stuff in the show kinda requires knowledge of the setting, but at the same time so much is changed that I guess a lot of Discworld fans will feel alienated. For a scary second there I thought your phrasing "keep watching" meant that the show was actually renewed for a second season. My wife and I hate-watched our way through it, but I couldn't recommend that hot mess to anyone.
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Nov 29, 2021 16:49
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Andoman posted:In my case it was a mix of morbid fascination and a misplaced hope that it would get better. That's probably a much more appropriate way to describe what happened to us as well. Also, we're both huge Pratchett fans (we fell in love during a stage production of Wyrd Sisters, with me playing Death and my wife playing Nanny Ogg) and have watched every adaptation of his works so far, so it felt wrong to leave one out.
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Nov 29, 2021 20:28
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MockingQuantum posted:Yeah some of the individual jokes or references are pretty funny, I think that's just not what I like about Discworld so books like it, Moving Pictures, and actually Pyramids really wore on me. They're still good, and the general feeling I have about all the Discworld books I've read so far is that even the weakest of them is above-average by both fantasy and comedy novel standards. Likewise, having never been to Australia, never having watched (back when I read it) any of the Mad Max or Crocodile Dundee movies or Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Lost Continent was a real slog to get through. EDIT: The Last Continent. See? Can't even get the name of that bloody book right. Dave Syndrome fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Dec 1, 2021 |
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Dec 1, 2021 18:33
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Xarn posted:Kirby's covers are the best I know I'm in a minority here, but Josh Kirby's covers prevented me from reading the books for literally years when I saw them in stores. To me, the covers always suggested madness, chaos and mayhem, with people and objects being flung around left and right, suggesting incoherent slapstick comedy. It took a two-in-one-edition of The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites with a more or less generic fantasy cover that had nothing to do with either books' plot to get me hooked.  Even later as an avid fan, I always felt slightly embarrassed to read the books with the Kirby covers in public (and let's not even go into literally-four-eyed Twoflower). It's a shame Paul Kidby got into the game so late. In many ways, his portraits of the characters are the definitive versions for me.
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Dec 5, 2021 18:16
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Jedit posted:Kidby (1996-2016) was an official Discworld artist for longer than Kirby (1983-2001) and did more illustrations overall. Huh. I stand corrected then.
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Dec 6, 2021 08:02
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I learnt a really sweet fact about Night Watch the other day. That's incredibly sweet. I never bothered to research why they did the switch from Kirby to Kidby (in my teenage stupidity I just always assumed that the people in charge were, like me, unhappy with Kirby's art style). Turns out Kirby died in 2001.
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Dec 7, 2021 12:54
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Total Meatlove posted:Deathless Mort is finally getting the go ahead? The universally acclaimed The Watch is getting a second season?
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Jan 24, 2022 10:37
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The_Doctor posted:I adore the cartoon’s version of Sioni bod da. It's great. Back in 2000 I was involved in a stage show of Wyrd Sisters, and it was used as the love theme for Magrat and Verence. YggiDee posted:"this would be hilarious if I got any of these jokes" The Last Continent for me, who at the time had never seen Mad Max, Priscilla Queen of the Desert or Crocodile Dundee, nor knew anything about the Todd River Race, Australian Aboriginal dreamtime mythology or... well, pretty much anything Australian really.
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Jun 20, 2022 05:51
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BigglesSWE posted:Almost finished with Lords and Ladies. I really appreciate how Pratchett subverts the common fantasy trope of elvish grace and beauty and making them into bad guys. And honestly, rather intimidating I must say. Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
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Sep 16, 2022 05:46
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bewilderment posted:As a longtime Discworld lover was there ever an explanation for why characters would occasionally Talk All Folksy Like either to hammer in the message of "people are dumb and full or prejudice" or, conversely, to deliver the moral of the story to the more intellectual characters? Do you have any examples?
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Jan 7, 2023 20:03
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Testekill posted:https://twitter.com/RobocopFacts/status/1627565666935922688 This is so incredibly 
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Feb 22, 2023 06:22
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The_Doctor posted:I want to get a copy of Rob's book at some point, but I know it will just wreck me. The first page contains Terry's letter to Rob (to be opened in the event of the former's death), and it broke me. Off to a good start.
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Feb 28, 2023 06:19
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The first two books have a lot more in common with the Hitchhiker's Guide books inasmuch as one episodic adventure happens after another without much of an overarching plot, and little to no character development occurs. (I later learned that there's a word for this style of story: Picaresque) Which is perfectly fine: As a rabid Adams fan (and due to the fact that the books were first marketed in Germany with a back blurb of "the Douglas Adams of Fantasy"), I devoured them, and didn't really notice that they got more mature until around Reaper Man or Small Gods. (And much later, I learned that there's also a phrase for that now: Cerebus Syndrome)
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Mar 11, 2023 10:14
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 https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=800526171429616&set=a.204311594384413 Not sure what to make of this. After all, https://twitter.com/rhipratchett/status/606868542412193792 I truly hope this turns out to be a tangentially related spin-off in the vein of "Nanny Ogg's Cookbook", and not a case of "welp, we've run out of money, time to dig up the corpse and milk it"
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May 13, 2023 14:59
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Beefeater1980 posted:Just thinking again how much I love Djel-I-Bey-Bi (lit: Child of the Djel) as a pun. Speaking of pseudo-arabic puns, I've always loved the simple elegance of Terry turning the real-world honorific "effendi" into the Klatchian "offendi". It so beautifully condenses the notion of "I outwardly pretend to honor you, but really I despise you" into one golden verbal nugget.
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May 27, 2023 08:12
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Alhazred posted:Shepherd's Crown is the only book I've ever burst into tears about. Not because it's his best book, but because I realized that this was the last time I would ever read a new Discworld book. Same here, but also "A Life with Footnotes". That's why the new Tiffany Aching book worries me a little bit. Has anyone already read it?
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Dec 4, 2023 10:03
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Jedit posted:It's not a novel. It's more akin to the diaries or Nanny Ogg's Cookbook. Yeah, I know, sorry, I should've mentioned it. I also know that by all accounts it's a labor of love from Rhianna Pratchett and Paul Kidby and doesn't seem to be a cash grab, but I'm still worried. The spectacular desaster that was "...And Another Thing" by Eoin Colfer still haunts me.
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Dec 4, 2023 10:22
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Report time: I'm halfway through Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch, and it's ...fine. If you know your Pratchett lore, there's not much new in there. 95% of the text seems to be everything Terry has ever written about witches, all the way back from Esk in Equal Rites up to Geoffrey The Shepherd's Crown, compiled into neat little categories like "types of witches", "equipment", "headology" and so forth. A lot of the times phrases are used from the novels verbatim. The illustrations by Paul Kidby are gorgeous as always, and it seems to be mostly new art, with a few of his previous paintings thrown in (there's an image I remember from The Pratchett Portfolio with Rincewind running from creatures from the Dungeon Dimensions, which has been repurposed here with another character in the foreground; and I also remember having seen the group shot of the Feegles somewhere else before). The whole presentation is absolutely top-notch: The pages are sturdy with gold edging, and the hardcover book even comes in a slipcase. Clearly this has been a labor of love from all parties involved, and not a quick cash grab. Tiffany herself is an extremely sensible person in the books (most of the time, anyway), so the writing in the main text isn't particularly funny except when she adds her little extra thoughts in subscript sometimes. Most of the humor comes from comments scribbled along the margins by such luminaries as Nanny Ogg, Miss Tick, Rob Anybody, and the late Granny Weatherwax - the conceit being that Granny managed to see the unpublished manuscript of the book before her death and managed to get a few comments in, and, indeed, bicker with Nanny in those comments. Frankly, those comments were the only times the book made me laugh, while the rest of the read was just "oh, I remember this" for me.When I first heard about the book (and knowing Nanny Ogg's Cookbook, which contains real recipes), I feared that the co-writer, Gabrielle Kent, may have been brought on board to turn this book into basically a Wicca primer with a Discworld background. I'm happy to say that this is not the case. In fact, a lot of time is spent on poking fun at "magiK" as practiced by Lettice Earwig, who keeps interrupting the text with meticulously-penned little cards protesting some of the more down-to-earth concepts and advertising her own star-and-moon-magic-type books. All in all, I'm a bit torn on this book. I get the feeling that Rhianna Pratchett can't win. She may have erred on the side of caution here, almost disappearing behind the text and introducing hardly any new material to Discworld canon (BIG SPOILER ALERT: I can't remember if it's implied in the book that the white cat "You" still holds Granny Weatherwax's spirit from a final act of Borrowing before her death, but the implication is definitely made here). On the other hand, had she started putting too much new stuff in, I'm sure people would have accused her of "usurping her father's heritage" or some such nonsense. As I said, it's ...fine. Sadly, nothing more, and happily, very happily, nothing less. Nevertheless, if this is how she's going to handle the Discworld franchise from now on, it could be in much, much worse hands - yes, I'm looking at you, The Watch TV show. I actually wouldn't mind seeing another book like this in a few years. A history of the Ankh-Morpork city watch might be fun, compiled by Carrot Ironfoundersson and written with his boundless optimism, while a cynical Vimes, a sleazy Nobby and a pragmatic Angua chime in in the margins. Dave Syndrome fucked around with this message at 08:08 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 05:52
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Snowmankilla posted:Nice! That’s as good as can be expected! Thanks for the write up! I’m trying to decide if I have to buy it to continue to be a Pratchett completionist or not. Even though it may come across as if I'm a bit down on the book, I definitely heartily recommend it. ESPECIALLY if you're a completist - it's not like there's going to be a ton more of those in the future 
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Dec 19, 2023 05:11
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Rand Brittain posted:I didn't really thing that Unseen Academicals is particularly bad, except that it assumes the reader is intimately familiar with British football history (particularly jokes like "You think it's all over?" which make absolutely no sense in the novel without that context). Absolutely - a lot of the jokes were completely lost on me. The Last Continent felt marginally less so, but still pretty "I know that's supposed to be a reference, but I don't get it". I guess British and American readers will inevitably have picked up a lot more about Australia due to cultural osmosis than a German like me Also, I'm almost through Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch (not a slow reader, but I'm stretching it out and reading it in tiny installments whenever I'm on the privy), and my former assessment still holds - it's completely and utterly fine, almost offensively so. I think I'll start a complete reread of the series in 2024. Dave Syndrome fucked around with this message at 10:00 on Dec 24, 2023 |
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Dec 24, 2023 09:57
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sebmojo posted:Rhianna Pratchett, bless her, but I've never seen anything she's written that is better than blandly competent. Not that she has to or should be expected to be her dad obv I don't think I've ever read anything else written by her, except having played Mirror's Edge and enjoyed it a lot as a game, but it's hard to glean a particular writing style from an action game.
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Dec 24, 2023 13:29
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Beachcomber posted:bananana I respect people who know when to quit.
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Dec 25, 2023 07:53
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Alhazred posted:It's heart breaking reading about how Rob realizes that Pratchett's stories doesn't make sense but at the same time It's the only thing that gives him purpose. Reading the book it definitely made me wonder just how much of the last ten Discworld novels or so was actually Rob providing the cement for Terry's bricks. I don't have my books here with me right now, but is he ever credited in some way? I don't remember any "Thanks to" notes in the beginning of the books ever, but that also may be my bad memory. He's definitely flown under the radar for most casual readers. "Tiffany Aching's Guide to Being a Witch" definitely doesn't mention him anywhere, to the extent where I wondered/feared if it was a deliberate snub and whether there had been some bad blood between him and Rhianna in the aftermath. But maybe my brain has just been poisoned by exposure to American showbusiness news - I do hope they're all doing fine. Since neither of them seem to be very active on social media, it can be hard to tell sometimes.
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Feb 7, 2024 08:45
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Alhazred posted:There also isn't any need to try and invent a story about bad blood between Rob and Rhianna. Apologies if it came across that way - that was not my intention in the least. (EDIT: Rambling explanation snipped. I'm going through some personal crap right now that leads to me posting inside thoughts, worries and fears outside. I'm going to take a break from posting for a while. If some friendly mod could hit me with a one month probation or so, I'd appreciate it. Sorry again.) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) Dave Syndrome fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Feb 7, 2024 |
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Feb 7, 2024 16:06
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