Hogfather on sky this christmas

BlitzKrieg

only saw the first part so far.

Enjoyed it enough simply because its discworld.

but a few things bugged me and they all tie into one large fault.

- I found the acting very theatre like, how the actors moved and more importantly how they talked, apart from a few characters, it all comes across as very artificial and chugs up the pace a bit.

-I found the music to be very intrusive it pretty much screams to be the centre of attention in every scene and it shouldnt be in a lot of cases.

-The editing is very poor, most clearly in that the show has a very sagged pacing, it doesnt help the narrative and its made worse when the narrative is trying to tell up to 4 storylines at once and its timing to jump back and forth from them makes most of them feel impotent, most clear is the wizards storyline which is in the book the humour relief for most of the first half and most of the humour is lost because the show cuts away from them without letting the humour of the characters shine.


All these points tie directly into what I find wrong with the show, the directing, discworld has always thrived because despite its far fetched fantasy setting, its characters have always been quite realistic, casual and above all believable. None of that is coming across in this, everything feels very formal and *dare I say* like some Fantasy epic, which it shouldnt be, there should be a much more relaxed tone to the characters, the narration at the opening sums up the fault, if you read discworld it reads like someone at a bar telling you about something they clearly know very well, but are talking about it casually. But here its all GRAND and proper with the shining bells of how magically this is.

But thats my opinion, and its what I always cherished most about the discworld novels and I thought it was something that was possible to bring to the screen, but alas it appears it isnt.

GuanYin

BlitzKrieg wrote:

But thats my opinion, and its what I always cherished most about the discworld novels and I thought it was something that was possible to bring to the screen, but alas it appears it isnt.

Honestly I think you're forgetting this was a Sky production.

Fair play to them for doing it, but I've never seen a sky production that didn't seem cheap and crappy. This was about the best effort they've made. Do you remember their Blackadder NY special? They took something with very limited production costs in its BBC incarnation and made THAT seem cheaper and tackier.

Its a pity HBO/BBC wouldn't offer Pratchett a similar deal on a production. My understanding is that the main reason he ok'd the Sky attempt was because they promised to be faithful to the books and he had script approval - apparently Hollywood haven't been so generous (they wanted to omit Death from a production of Mort!!! *boggle*)

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

(they wanted to omit Death from a production of Mort!!! *boggle*)

I'd like to see that...

BlitzKrieg

wikipedia has it up that Sam Raimi will be directing a version of Wee free men after he's finished with spider-men 3.

Tar.Aldarion

Hmm, I haven't read Hogfather yet, would it spoil it if I watch this first?

Doctor DooM

I'd read the book first, some of it is almost word for word...

I think it was deifintely the best adaption of discworld so far. I always find my enjoyment of the jokes are seriously stunted though because I can always see them coming, having read the books.

It didnt look cheap at all to me, I thought it was a bit slow, but I watched it with 3 non Terry fans and they all thought it was great, so I guess it was all good.

I thought Susan and Death were GREAT.

Wasn't a huge fan of TeaTimes voice, it was more off putting than disconcerting, but there you go.

Otherwise I thought this was great, and hope to see more!

Fysh

Have to admit I really enjoyed this, Teatime's voice was annoying because he sounded exactly like a complete muppet I know but he worked very well as the disconcerting and demented character he's meant to be.

Overall my only disappointments were a couple of the excisions made to the book (but that's just nitpicking) and the slight feeling of Darby O'Gill-ness I got with some of the funny bits. The wizards weren't quite up to scratch, although Ridcully & Ponder Stibbons were brilliantly cast. Really enjoyed it as an adaptation and want to buy a DVD of it now.

Plus, it's better than at least 99% of normal christmas tv programming...

kittex

I loved it when the Lecturer in Recent Runes turned around and he was wearing the "Born to Rune" jacket from 'Soul Music'.

KdjaCL

Loved it, gonna watch it again with kids over xmas. Thought everything was perfect for a tv show.

Best bit when Nobby came out with the crossbow



Shame Sky didnt have the sense to release a HD version on the web for a tenner or somfin the day after, save me downloading it from torrent and watching it ad free.


kdjac

r3nu4l

I only saw some of it but I thought I saw something in the top corner of the screen about it being available in HD?...not that I'd have been able to avail of it anyway.

I loved what I saw, thought it was great but would have liked to see it all before offering an opinion. Ah well, at least Discworld has made a screen appearence, perhaps now Hollywood will pick it up and go with it