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High Warlord Zog posted:Pratchett adaptations need to stop lifting dialog directly from the page. Exchanges that flow beautifully as prose always come across as overlong and overwrought when spoken by actors. God help me I wanted to like it I really did. But the dialog between the kids was... holy poo poo I may have pulled a muscle from wincing so much. No children in the history of humanity have spoken like that, I'm certain of it.
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Jun 4, 2019 04:35
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I'll fourth or whatever the preference of the kids pulling out imaginary versions of said tools and banishing back the Horsemen. They CG'd that Flaming Sword so they're gonna use it as much as possible, I guess. Pollution's motorcycle could've been a smoking wreck and that probably would've been clearer than an oil trail, but I forget the original in the book. The 39 flavors bit is also super outdated in my opinion. They try to write around other scenes regarding Adam's isolation in regards to the paranormal magazines stuff, it sorta doesn't work, especially as some of those conspiracies are fairly outdated at this point (as far as I'm aware). Anathema going full Green is also a little outdated, but less so since that extreme belief is still at least a little out there compared to small town UK. I did love the expansion on Azraphael and Crowley though. Seeing them through history slowly growing closer was really nice. 
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Jun 4, 2019 04:46
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Xelkelvos posted:I did love the expansion on Azraphael and Crowley though. Seeing them through history slowly growing closer was really nice. Yeah that was easily my favorite bit. "You're going too fast for me, Crowley!" The thing they kept in that I wish they hadn't was the whole thing where Newt and Anathema just gently caress for no coherent reason and then they're boyfriend girlfriend. it's the one part of the novel that I feel certain was written by Gaiman
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Jun 4, 2019 04:58
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Disconnecticus posted:God help me I wanted to like it I really did. But the dialog between the kids was... holy poo poo I may have pulled a muscle from wincing so much. No children in the history of humanity have spoken like that, I'm certain of it. God I remember the last time I read the book and thought, jeez you'd have to update just about every reference to environmental issues, general pop culture, Newt's tech gimmick, Anathema's hippie leanings and so on, but it would still make a good movie or show. Never really would have guessed they'd just slap the mid-90s book on the screen as is and call it a day.
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Jun 4, 2019 07:09
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Data Graham posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin In the book it's a Japanese car called a Wasabi, which was much funnier before sushi became mainstream. One thing that bugged me: I'm pretty sure that when the prophecies are sprayed all over the screen, they used the original book text of the one about Newt's car flipping. That text doesn't match with it being a Reliant Robin.
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Jun 4, 2019 08:44
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I just saw that jack whitehall is newton as well.  I just can't see it, and that he can act so against type.
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Jun 4, 2019 08:58
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precision posted:Is Newt's car a real thing that exists? Not only is it real, it's Mr Bean's nemesis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMR70aZoJyw
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Jun 4, 2019 12:27
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I don't know if anyone noticed, but Crowley's license plate is CURTAIN spelled backwards and Adam's father's plate is TARDIS spelled backwards.
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Jun 4, 2019 12:27
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Jedit posted:I don't know if anyone noticed, but Crowley's license plate is CURTAIN spelled backwards and Adam's father's plate is TARDIS spelled backwards. I did, but I missed the significance of CURTAIN. (And what TARDIS has to do with Adam’s father for that matter)
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Jun 4, 2019 12:32
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MisterBibs posted:I normally don't like excess narration, but with this I feel it works here because the book is filled with stuff that is basically mentioned by the narrator to nobody in particular, and I think I'd miss most of that if it wasn't thrown in. God help me, I agree with Bibs on this one. I thought the storybook narrator (did you guys realize this was supposed to be God's voice? Not sure how I feel about that, only noticed it now that I'm doing a rewatch) was a pretty good compromise for getting some of the more tonguetwisting bits of Pratchett's wordplay onto the screen without making the actors shoe it in somehow.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:02
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I feel like the narration works because of the modern fairy tale vibe it's going for. It moves at a pretty refreshingly quick pace too which it helps move along.
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Jun 4, 2019 14:39
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Wordplay is like half the reason to read a Pratchett novel but I do feel like it's the one aspect of a book you can't reasonably expect to survive the TV transition. TV and film have to bring themes, stories and characters to life in their own way. If you're in it for the language, the book's not going anywhere.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:08
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Yeah, I think I would have liked to see more original material written directly for the show. I'm not sure whether or not I liked all the Pratchetty wordplay because it was good for the screen or because I have so many wonderful memories of that book. I don't think I would have traded any of it away, though, I really think they could have done with another few episodes just to flesh out the world, spend more time in Adam's perfect little childhood, seeing Crowley and Aziraphale having adventures through time and brushing up against historical figures.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:30
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Phenotype posted:God help me, I agree with Bibs on this one. I thought the storybook narrator (did you guys realize this was supposed to be God's voice? Not sure how I feel about that, only noticed it now that I'm doing a rewatch) was a pretty good compromise for getting some of the more tonguetwisting bits of Pratchett's wordplay onto the screen without making the actors shoe it in somehow. She does make proper clear that she's god at the start. Also it's in the credits which on Amazon come up on the screen every time you pause it. I totally agree with Bibs too, which feels wrong. Without the narration you miss way too much. I was really dissatisfied with Michael McKean. They need to make clear Shadwell is meant to sound bad and not that he's just doing a really loving poo poo Scottish accent. It took me out of it every time I saw him. And the end felt ultra rushed, I just had no time to get what the horsemen were about or what was going on with them. And that's from someone who has read the book although I'll admit it's at least 20 years ago now.
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Jun 4, 2019 15:46
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books and television are different media and what works excellently in a book can fall incredibly flat on tv, you should work to the strength of the medium. i cannot even think of anything that would have been confusing in this show if you took out the narration, the prolonged card trick explanation during the baby swap was loving excruciating and sucked anything dynamic or funny or surprising out of the scene. the show was constant examples of this though
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Jun 4, 2019 16:19
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I thought the "overexplanation of the baby swap in completely unnecessary detail" thing was a style choice, like just something you're supposed to immerse yourself in and luxuriate in the weird texture. I figured the book must have done something similar, like it must have been a self-indulgent gag that "event that might take three seconds to wordlessly show happening on-screen in a traditionally shot movie is going to be described in a fifty-page chapter full of digressions and flowery metaphors, just go with it".
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Jun 4, 2019 16:24
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Data Graham posted:I figured the book must have done something similar, like it must have been a self-indulgent gag that "event that might take three seconds to wordlessly show happening on-screen in a traditionally shot movie is going to be described in a fifty-page chapter full of digressions and flowery metaphors, just go with it". The book's take on that wasn't hideously long, but it does constantly refer to the antichrist using his excessively long title
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Jun 4, 2019 16:29
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ulex minor posted:books and television are different media and what works excellently in a book can fall incredibly flat on tv, you should work to the strength of the medium. i cannot even think of anything that would have been confusing in this show if you took out the narration, the prolonged card trick explanation during the baby swap was loving excruciating and sucked anything dynamic or funny or surprising out of the scene. the show was constant examples of this though It's not that it'd be confusing - it's just that nearly all the jokes come from the background stuff, rather than what characters say. I'd rather have a slightly weird but more accurate version of the book than take out narration and ruin what made it good.
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Jun 4, 2019 16:31
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I think they definitely could've spent more time with the Horsemen. At least five or so more minutes worth of them actually bantering with each other or something. Pollution particularly feels like they didn't do a thing in comparison to with War and Famine's intro scenes. More could've been done with the characters besides Aziraphale and Crowley, but all of the characters were more or less 1:1 other than those two so it net feels a little disproportionate as a result. Adam's scene with his friends when he was coming into his power was definitely a lot darker than I remember and going from there to all of them 100% backing him up to stop the end of the world felt a bit rushed in that regard. But it may have been that way in the book. I don't recall. Anathema was also odd in how she was depicted since I always pictured her as looking more New Agey, in line with her magazines and stuff. Instead, she's dressed like a school marm and is fairly well off, likely a 1%er or up. Maybe if she talked about chem trails or vaccines or something more contemporarily fringe rather than stuff that's become fairly mainstream, her occultness would've come off stronger. There's actually a little bit cut form her too since we don't really get a mention of her cards until the scene with the tornado, if I recall. In the books, they're referenced earlier, I believe, so the significance of the book when she loses it is more a personal one rather than an existential one. The dig at Japanese whalers was a funny touch though. I am extremely surprised in how well the ansaphone bit held up as it only needed a slight retooling for the 21st Century and that Crowley still having an ansaphone with a cassette was 100% in line with his character despite it not being 1990 any more.
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Jun 4, 2019 18:02
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precision posted:Yeah that was easily my favorite bit. "You're going too fast for me, Crowley!" Aziraphel just wants to hold hands for the first few decades or so. Then maybe work their way up through the centuries to kissing.
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Jun 4, 2019 18:44
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I loved the vignettes. It was a lovely unexpected bonus and let the actors show off a bit. Aziraphael is an absolute darling throughout! The rest of it was just ok, though. Shame, really. Sloth Life fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Jun 4, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 19:01
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Wanted much more of Sheen the craven angel and Tennant the loyal demon. All the other plots were varying degrees of okay. What kind of impression is Shadwell supposed to leave on us? I couldn't decide if he was supposed to be likable or not, with him constantly berating the prostitute/fortuneteller and scamming Crowley (though he is obviously penniless)
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Jun 4, 2019 20:43
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Mameluke posted:Wanted much more of Sheen the craven angel and Tennant the loyal demon. All the other plots were varying degrees of okay. In the book I get the kind of...."nice but racist grandparent who can't help themselves" vibe. Didn't really come across here.
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Jun 4, 2019 20:47
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Mameluke posted:Wanted much more of Sheen the craven angel and Tennant the loyal demon. All the other plots were varying degrees of okay. His impression from the books was mostly “harmless idiot who is occasionally a useful idiot” (on both sides’ payroll), which I think did show through a bit when his reaction to Newt’s uncertain “We use the scissors for... stabbing?” was a vehement “No! We use them for cutting out newspaper articles!” He’s supposed to be likable but not right or good at things and him berating Madam Tracy (and her not minding one bit and even finding it entertaining) is definitely supposed to be funny. I’m not all the way through the miniseries yet but I think his physical appearance / build just isn’t doing him any favors on the “even if he found a witch, he wouldn’t know what to do next and nothing bad would happen” front.
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Jun 4, 2019 21:20
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In the books he's five feet tall, a chain smoker and dishevelled. He's obsessed with witches and his racism is directed at literally everybody so it's diffuse enough that people aren't bothered by it ("Shadwell hated all southerners and, by inference, was standing at the North Pole.")
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Jun 4, 2019 21:25
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Madame Tracy was very good casting. Exactly what I thought she should be like
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Jun 4, 2019 22:33
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The only characters that felt off to me were Shadwell and Anathema, both because they seemed too normal.
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Jun 4, 2019 22:52
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precision posted:Madame Tracy was very good casting. Exactly what I thought she should be like
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Jun 5, 2019 04:25
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Mameluke posted:What kind of impression is Shadwell supposed to leave on us? I couldn't decide if he was supposed to be likable or not, with him constantly berating the prostitute/fortuneteller and scamming Crowley (though he is obviously penniless) He's not supposed to be likable, exactly. Remember, we were introduced to him as the possibly-homeless crazy person on the streets of London ranting about the end of the world. I always got the sense of him as that sort of half-senile disheveled old man, with a crazy passion for hunting witches that was at least partially based in reality. I just realized they left out one of my favorite parts about Agnes Nutter, they didn't go much into how she didn't really understand what she was seeing or what was important. There were a couple good bits there, apparently her prediction for November 22nd, 1963 was for a house collapsing in London. She didn't know anything about America and it was a long way off, so Kennedy's assassination wasn't worth predicting, but she might have had descendants in London who could have been hit with a falling brick.
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Jun 5, 2019 14:15
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Did anyone else get a serious 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide movie vibe from this? Eg: pretty bad overall but with a few glimmers of brilliance (especially “Crowley’s Adventures Through History”) and an inspired casting job or two (Rockwell/Rickman vs Tennant/Sheen). Also British humor that clearly hasn’t aged well since the source material was released.
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Jun 5, 2019 14:48
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Leathal posted:Did anyone else get a serious 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide movie vibe from this? I've been restraining myself from making too many HHGttG references because I'm so ignorant of the Pratchett source material by comparison, but I did recall this: https://www.cracked.com/article_15631_the-10-best-sci-fi-films-never-made.html (scroll down to #9) It's been mentioned already that the charm of the work is in the prose, in this as in Adams (and notwithstanding HHG starting out as a radio play). A few of the genuinely "in the spirit of" moments from the HHG movie, like the yarn people, were what I was thinking of when I saw stuff like the protracted baby-swap scene and all its over-the-top visual-metaphor overexplanation. Whether that's what they were going for or whether it's just a sort of natural consequence of trying to make an adaptation like this happen, I guess, is the question...
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Jun 5, 2019 14:59
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Leathal posted:Did anyone else get a serious 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide movie vibe from this? It’s absolutely how I’ve been thinking of it, even down to the pitch perfect casting of both. There were flashes enough of the thing that I loved, but as a whole, it just kinda left me feeling sad. Like I saw a cover band or something. Trevor Hale fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jun 7, 2019 |
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Jun 7, 2019 05:55
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Honestly I came away with it thinking it was about as loyal a Good Omens as you can ever expect. The characters and plot largely seemed dead on to me. The Four Horsemen are absurdly bland in the book as well. They're mostly defined by what they do rather than who they are. Pollution is hurt because they cut their big scene out which is why I think they feel kind of bland, but I can also see why since that is probably significantly higher on budget and longer on running time than the others but honestly at the end of the day they weren't really much of anything in the book either. I don't really think the kids were particularly bad. Adam was probably the weakest but also had the weirdest bits to work with. Pepper was genuinely funny and seemed dead on for her book version. Shadwell felt like one of the best casting choices to me. (Outside of Sheen being the absolute best choice anyone could make for that role.) He managed to nail the weird unpleasant and yet somehow likable old man bit a lot more than I expected. If I had to say a weak point I wouldn't point to the kids but Anathema and Newt. That isn't because either actor did poorly (they didn't) but because those two are probably the weakest part of the story overall and there's kinda a limit to how much you can get out of it when the plot is "We meet, we gently caress, we go to the air base and deus ex machina a shutdown, the end."
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Jun 7, 2019 06:31
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ImpAtom posted:Honestly I came away with it thinking it was about as loyal a Good Omens as you can ever expect. The characters and plot largely seemed dead on to me.
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Jun 7, 2019 06:42
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Yeah the Pepper kid nailed it, though I thought she had like flaming red hair in the book
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Jun 7, 2019 08:20
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precision posted:Yeah the Pepper kid nailed it, though I thought she had like flaming red hair in the book She's not black in the book. It's good to have one of the Them be black so you don't get the idea that a "perfect english village" is white as gently caress. I don't think they ever mention her full name which is a shame, I quite liked that joke.
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Jun 7, 2019 10:10
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Wouldn't quite have worked though, the commune-LotR-hippie bit has an inescapable white people vibe. Plus anyway naming your kids after LotR has taken on a whole different context since the mid-90s.
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Jun 7, 2019 10:17
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My Lovely Horse posted:Wouldn't quite have worked though, the commune-LotR-hippie bit has an inescapable white people vibe. Plus anyway naming your kids after LotR has taken on a whole different context since the mid-90s. True. I also think that the idea your parents are hippies works if you were born in 1979 (and are 11 in 1990) whereas it's a bit off if you were born in 2008. I think the one thing I wish they'd done is make it period and not make it now.
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Jun 7, 2019 10:51
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Data Graham posted:I've been restraining myself from making too many HHGttG references because I'm so ignorant of the Pratchett source material by comparison, but I did recall this: Hitch-hiker's has the advantage that a good chunk of the prose in the first two books was written for the radio, so Adams had to at least make sure it worked well spoken, so translating it to film wholesale still largely works. And the conceit of the book in that series gives an excuse for narration more easily than Good Omens (actually, having Josie Lawrence narate the whole thing as Agnes might've been funnier than McDormand, sadly)
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Jun 7, 2019 12:08
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I really enjoyed this, though I admit to being disappointed that they nixed my favorite joke (Death's introduction with the trivia game).
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Jun 7, 2019 12:34
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