My feeling is it’s Discworld Elseworlds. And I’m fine with that.
I don’t think they need to make any effort to distinguish old from new - the multiple incarnations of HHGTTG never did, and that was fine.
Terry and Rob Wilkins’s Twitter account posted this link to an article (about Ursula Le Guin’s reaction to the adaptation of her Earthsea books) just hours before the release of these images. I think that says a lot.
That looks bad. Electricity? A Dwarf without a beard? I don’t care what the sex of the actor is that plays Cheery, but put a beard on them. It doesn’t bode well.
Apparently Cheery is no longer a dwarf but is now a human raised by dwarves. I guess Carrot will now be a carrot that angered a wizard and was turned into a human.
Yuck. Pass.
Look closely at the photo of Angua and Cheery Bigbottom and you’ll see two electric fans. (I say electric–it would be too much hope to expect imps turning tiny cranks.)
“The sort of hope that was crushed by the horrific adaptation of Susan Cooper’s glorious The Dark Is Rising…”
So very true. Possible the very best YA/tween/mature grade school reader series ever, ruined by a horrible adaptation.
The Dark is Rising, Wrinkle in Time or the Hobbit would be the 3 candidates for best YA books ruined as movies.
City of Ember should at least get an honorable mention.
Fair, I never read or heard of that book though. Probably too new for me. If we’re including newer books, Percy Jackson was butchered pretty good also. Enough for a dishonorable mention.
City of Ember takes place in an isolated city surrounded by darkness, with all knowledge of the outside world deliberately lost. But their original large supply of preserved food and technological items (such as light bulbs) is running out, and people need to venture into the dark to try to rediscover the rest of humanity. They are held back by fear of the unknown. The movie–admittedly, does touch on a lot of those points–but in that adaptation what holds back exploration is carnivorous mutant moles the size of houses and beetles the size of Volkswagon Beetles.
As a huge fan of Terry Pratchett I’ve come to the conclusion that any adaptation is going to fall short of the ambition and vision of the discworld books and ultimately I’m not sure that any good can come it.
As such I wasn’t holding out too much hope for this one either. Based on the look of it and the casting choices it feels just too far away from my imagined discworld and associated characters for me to want to watch. Dissappointment is pretty much guaranteed I reckon
They may pull it off as an “inspired by” for those not as close to the source material but unless it gets glowing reviews I’ll probably not bother, I’ve avoided all the other adpatations for that reason as well.
Colour of Magic was better than the book. *Hogfather *was a solid adaptation. Good Omens is awesome.
No, parts of the Hobbit are very good, like the first film, and the White Council vs the Necromancer. But other parts… *not so much. *
Wrinkle in Time was a* beautiful*… disaster.
The first* Percy Jackson film also gets top billing as ruined. I think it edged out the Hobbit for Top 3.
But *The Dark is Rising *is the hands down winner.
- I never even saw the 2nd, the 1st was that bad.
Lesseeee, female Cruces, Vetinari and Wonse?! Um, they were male in the books. No issue with Cheri or Angua or Carrot. Vimes is OK, though I will hold off judgement as I haven’t seen him act.
Cheri as a female Dwarf is fine with an actor of either gender, it is all in the beard, costume and such anyways. However, if a person in the book is male, or female, short and stocky, tall and slender [Vetinari is slender to the point of emaciated, he more or less eats just enough to stay alive, some quote about bread and water springs to mind but I am not going to rummage around to find it] Lady S. is all wrong [someone like Fiona Shaw springs to mind] they need to roughly hit the description from the book. Too pretty, too young, too old, all very jarring [color doesn’t seem to bother me as much as gender or physical characteristics, but if a character is described as black, India brown, oriental ‘yellow’ than someone white as me playing someone who is purportedly black as the ace of spades is really jarring enough to take me out of the narrative, same with gender - a female Vetinari? I don’t freaking think so, unless they are going to put a beard on her and have her cross dress.
And how many Little People who are fine actors who would have had no problem playing a dwarf were not even considered.
Just a personal thing, but I sort of like it when a Dwarf is played by someone who is, you know, a dwarf.
Carrot is the human child raised by Dwarves, not Cheery!
I’m really hoping this is a Tom Cruise-Lestat thing. He seems all wrong for the part, the fans get mad, but then the movie was fairly decent and he did a surprisingly good job. YMMV, of course.
Of course, this has a lot of Lestats. You gotta nail them all.
Vimes looks reasonable to me in the pictures. Not exactly what I picture, but reasonable. I’ll give it a chance hoping it’s Lestat but I think it’s going to be a Detritus-sized disaster.
In canon [the books] Vimes is a reasonably functional drunk in charge of Nobby and Sgt Colon, and an old timer who was the only other watch member had just died. Carrot shows up, his father having voluntold him to the watch. Cheri shows up in Feet of Clay to become the new CSI tech/junior officer. Angua shows up in the same book [Feet of Clay] when Vimes was ordered to hire minorities. Carrot is told off to train Angua, not the other way around.
And I think Peter Dinkleage would be perfect for Casanunda