The Watch (Terry Pratchett) [BBC America]

I like the idea of them making a series of The Watch. it is probably the best angle to come at for a Discworld series. I have no real problems with the cast. No problem with them aging some of them down. But they are all awful pretty

No, my biggest concern is the production values/cost. If done right, it could look amazing but be very expensive. If the budget isn't invested then it can look cheap and nasty.

Chrysoprase the troll, gang-master. Superb. Can't wait!

Some of the stuff coming from the people behind it would suggest it's going to be one of those shows "based on characters created by ..." It may start with an episode based on one of the books to attract fans then go off on its own as happened with the Dresden Files adaptation.

AMC Network’s Entertainment Group & AMC Studios President Sarah Barnett says: “The Watch will be a very BBC America show. As with Killing Eve, we don’t go straight at an adaptation – we blur genres, undercut with humor, and hire the most genius writers and actors to create stories and characters that are both entertaining and very contemporary...”

Lead writer and executive producer, Simon Allen says: “...It’s been such a privilege to work with our world-class director, producers and writers on building a television show that honors his legacy while striking out on its own in his name and spirit."... 

Full article on BBC America

Most of what I've heard about this is bad news and little more than piggybacking off a fantasy series good name, and pissing all over it in the process.

Oh well. Given the number of fantasy series in production I shouldn't be too greedy.

Sir Pterry can wait a little longer to get something worthy of being associated with him. He is not, after all, in much of a hurry these days.

Not quite sure how they are trying to sell this "gender neutral" casting but I've got to admit, I'm a little concerned as I don't know the cast well at all and how I've always had it in my head that each of the male characters was decisively male (probably a little less convinced with Wonse).

I do think they nailed Vimes though

Reading the scuttlebug around this it puts me in mind of when Stallone was cast as Judge Dredd. And absolute car crash of a film where it was obvious that no-one involved had the slightest idea about the characters or the storyline.
And I think the issues come from the same place - like Dredd, Pratchett's work was 'British' -by which I mean it was informed by his life, education, culture growing up in the UK. Not just the jokes about Morris Dancing or references to potent alcohol made (mostly) from apples, it drew it's humour from the same well as the Pythons. The Well of Absurdity in Everyday Life and that 'life' was British.

They might speak the same language in the US (mostly), but the nuances of everyday life, the humour, the cultural references etc are completely different. They just don't get it. Not really.

Sybil is a character that could be found in Agatha Christie. The dowdy, eccentric, aristocratic, hunter welly/wax jacket wearing middle aged spinster, awfully jolly hockey sticks who is utterly passionate about dogs horses dragons to the exclusion of all else. She probably went to St Trinians as a young gal. It it wasn't for the fact that she has blue blood and is stinking rich she'd have been locked up due to being 'a bit bonkers'.

CMOT is Del Boy/Arfur Daly/Flash Harry.

Sam Vimes is like a million Sean Bean roles - working class lad grew up in poverty, bit of a chip on his shoulder when it comes to his 'betters'. Prides himself on his street smarts. Handy with his fists but also sentimental.

Vetinari is that public school boy. The odd clever one. He's one of those is he gay or British types. Terribly well educated, terribly well connected, posh enough to put the aristocrats in their place, wily enough to get one over the guilds, ruthless enough to terrify everyone.

On this side of the Pond we 'know' these characters. We grew up with them. We read them in Christie and Blyton. We have watched them in countless TV shows. We were immersed in the same source material Pratchett drew on.

pixelburp wrote: »

Yup, I think Bannasidhe you've summed it up: Pratchett was the evolution & deconstruction of a distinctly British set of cultural markers, both from fiction & reality. So far this adaptation feels like it has intentionally torn out those British'isms, because of a misguided feeling they're irrelevant or alien to what will presumably be an international audience.

I'm actively hoping this will die on the production table but it does sound like it's all systems go; and thanks to the arbitrary casting choices, it'll ensure any sober discussion about it being a faithful adaptation gets drowned out by those either ranting about SJWs, or those emotionally investing their slacktivism for this cause.

There's more than enough substance in Pratchett's work that the references are irrelevant. I started reading them when I was 9, and you can be sure almost every reference flew straight over my head, but I still loved them, because they're brilliantly written. The characters are deep, but more than that, they're human and relatable. They're not superheroes, mostly. And even when they stray into that, it's done knowingly and in a limited fashion. Indeed, Carrot would be a superhero in any other series, but in Discworld, he just wants to be a bog-standard public servant.

It comes across as someone not understanding the source material, or a profound degree of meddling from the higher-ups.

Also, I'm all for inclusivity in media, and quite often there's little harm in switching the ethnicity of a character. In a place like Ankh-Morpork, there's no reason why you can't have a racially diverse set of characters.

Switching genders does more than that though. The context of a character is important, and while switching the ethnicity of a character might have no impact on that context, especially in certain fantasy settings, the gender virtually always will.

As with the aforementioned racial-swap for a production of Othello, you're making a statement by making Othello white and the rest of the cast black.

And that's, of course, not to say it's even necessarily bad. It's just a quite profound change to the source material, and you better have a bloody good reason for doing it.

This really should not be the hill to die on for the cause of representation in media.

It's arrogant to try, but if I attempt to put myself in the shoes of Pratchett and imagine what sort of changes he would be ok with, having Sybill be black is not one I think would bother him in the sligthest. Or even making Vimes (and Keel) black. But the gender-switching, the role-switching, totally changing the setting, stripping out the fantasy elements. That would surely not be ok with him.
He'd have stuffed that in a box and thrown it under the steam-roller along with his unfinished works.

Sonics2k wrote: »

I'd actually be inclined to disagree, partially. Changing the race of a character isn't really a big deal or problem, unless it's an intrinsic part of the actual character.

For example, changing Carcer to a black guy, not an issue at all. His race is nothing to do with his actual character or the plot.

Changing Sergeant Keel to a black guy, well that is a problem as Vimes is supposed to be him during the events of Night Watch, and as we know, Ned Coates knows the real Keel so from the get go that's a problem.

Sybil can absolutely be played by a black woman, there's no reason she can't be. Even Pratchett noted that the concept of racism doesn't exist on the Disc, so white and black people live together without issue. Why bother with racism when Trolls and Dwarves exist.
The problem they've caused with Sybil is that they have changed the entire identity of the character, which was a direct reflection of Vimes. Changing her to a young vigilante is the real problem here, not the actresses race.

Most of the reason I dislike the changing of Vetinari to a woman is
a) Charles Dance was amazing and should have been recast.
b) It kinda messes up his backstory. He's supposed to have been a young boy, inducted to the Assassins Guild and his real love was the vampire Lady Margolotta.

I agree with this.

Skin colour is a complete non-issue for me (Keel being the exception for the reasons given here - if Keel is Vimes and Vimes is white then how does that work?).

Sybil is a Margaret Rutherford type character - her skin colour is immaterial but her age is vital to who she is when Vimes meets her. She isn't a young gal. She's a middle aged woman who had long given up on finding love and was going through life like a galleon in full sail using her aristocratic privilege to get away with ignoring conventions. Sybil is a particular kind of eccentric rebel against social convention - she is not a social justice warrior... unless poor helpless little dragonkins are involved.

As fr Vetinari - unless they envisage he being played by a woman would impart a certain (unnecessary) androgyny to the role then no.

Stop moaning ffs wrote: »

Isn’t it one of the watch books where someone says ‘dwarves are like the Irish, they become more Irish the further away from home they get’

Am I misremembering that?

Not ringing any bells for me.