# Discworld Reading Club #10: Moving Pictures \[Spoilers\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2006, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063 "2006-03-12T19:15:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/21 "2006-03-14T14:18:08Z")
I don’t have a lot to say about this book. Someone else said it’s a good time-waster and that’s true. Not very deep or anything but quite entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/22 "2006-03-14T14:29:24Z")
I actually thought this was the worst Discworld book. The satire was labored and not particularly sharp. And there was little more than satire: whereas in the Shakespeare and other parodies, he concentrated on the story, in this, he concentrated on the parallels. When I first read it, I thought Pratchett had finally run out of steam. Luckily, the next few books were progressively better as he began to throw in more serious themes into the mix. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/23 "2006-04-12T23:14:56Z")
O.K. This is a bump but I would rather not start a new thread just to ask a simple question: What do the “1000 Elephants” refer to? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/24 "2006-04-12T23:39:21Z")
> [@Threadkiller](#): > > O.K. This is a bump but I would rather not start a new thread just to ask a simple question: > > What do the “1000 Elephants” refer to? Thousand Elephants is from Moving Pictures. Spoiler, since we’re mot discussing that book. CMOT wants to make the biggest film ever. So he decides to include 1000 elephants…which don’t arrive until after his company’s gone defunct and he’s back to selling sausages on the street. And they arrive at Ankh Morpork. ---
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/25 "2006-04-12T23:47:06Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Thousand Elephants is from Moving Pictures. > Spoiler, since we’re mot discussing that book. > > CMOT wants to make the biggest film ever. So he decides to include 1000 elephants…which don’t arrive until after his company’s gone defunct and he’s back to selling sausages on the street. And they arrive at Ankh Morpork. Um… this **is** the _Moving Pictures_ thread. I know what Dibbler was up to. What I want to know is where “1000 Elephants” comes from IRL. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/26 "2006-04-13T02:59:57Z")
> [@Threadkiller](#): > > Um… this **is** the _Moving Pictures_ thread. > > I know what Dibbler was up to. What I want to know is where “1000 Elephants” comes from IRL. I want to know what happens to the elephants. Do they all just spontaneously vanish or what? Maybe Dibbler has an extra-large batch of new sausages now… ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/27 "2006-04-14T00:02:04Z")
> [@Threadkiller](#): > > I know what Dibbler was up to. What I want to know is where “1000 Elephants” comes from IRL. I think it was a generic “big movie spectacular” finale, not a particular RL reference. THrowing a thousand elephants into a movie certainly sounds like something Cecil B. DeMille would do, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063/28 "2006-04-14T13:01:19Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > I think it was a generic “big movie spectacular” finale, not a particular RL reference. THrowing a thousand elephants into a movie certainly sounds like something Cecil B. DeMille would do, at any rate. Yeah, that’s all it was. You have to remember that CMOT was bitten by the Moving Pictures bug, and was getting ideas that were not his…channeled, as it was, by the Spirit of Moving Pictures or some such. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/discworld-reading-club-10-moving-pictures-spoilers/348063.md?page=1)