# Why do all Discworld video adaptations suck?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 29, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430 "2012-11-29T02:35:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/1 "2012-11-29T02:35:28Z")
I love PTerry, I really do.
But it kills me to watch the attempts that have been made to bring his works to video.
**The Colour of Magic** movie with Sean Astin and Tim Curry seemed promising, but it was such a disappointment.
As were the visual versions of **The Hogfather** and **Going Postal**.
I had high hopes for the animated **Wyrd Sisters** but it too disappointed me.
It seems to me the mistake is trying to replicate nearly every scene and every clever bit of dialogue from the original text into the movie. The mood/ambiance/cleverness just never translates from one venue to the other. Scenes that absolutely slew me when I read them in the books left me feeling absolutely ‘meh’ onscreen.
It does seem to me like someone could still make a success of it. But perhaps it needs the combined efforts of Peter Jackson and the Monty Python crew to bring it off…
Thoughts? Opinions? Debate?
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/2 "2012-11-29T02:42:28Z")
I haven’t seen the others but I thought Hogfather was pretty good. My wife enjoyed it. She hadn’t read the book but didn’t have trouble following the story. I thought it caught the spirit of the book pretty well and included all the important parts.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/3 "2012-11-29T02:43:24Z")
I just saw **Going Postal** and rather enjoyed it.
Not as good as the book, of course, but it was solid.
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/4 "2012-11-29T02:44:49Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#):
>
> I just saw **Going Postal** and rather enjoyed it.
>
> Not as good as the book, of course, but it was solid.
I agree with this. I thought it was a fine adaptation and was reasonably pleased with it.
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/5 "2012-11-29T02:59:06Z")
I thought they got better each time, and don’t think any of them actually suck, but they do lose something.
When I think of the character types that the Discworld are made up of, I think of influences like _The Goons_, Spike Milligan’s _Q Series_, _Monty Python_, the _Carry On_ films, _The Goodies_, _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_, _Blackadder_, and comic books like _The Beano_ and _Whizzer and Chips_. Those are extremely over-the-top silly, and a lot of the humour in Discworld is clearly based on that but pulled back into slightly more reasonable levels.
The adaptations have completely overlooked those influences, and instead have gone for a straight comedy with relatively straight performances, and only comedic situations to carry the jokes. This just doesn’t work as well as it ought to.
But having said that, how do you do that kind of heightened comedy these days? It would’ve worked marvellously in the 80s, even in America where films like Airplane were not a million miles away, but comedy has changed since then and now has to be approached differently, anchored a little more solidly.
Which is one of the reasons I don’t like much modern comedy these days. I’ve grown out of it.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/6 "2012-11-29T03:09:45Z")
I thought **Hogfather** and **Colour of Magic** were pretty amazing and perfect adaptations. I mean, they actually found a believable Nobby. Haven’t seen **Going Postal** yet.
Different tastes, I suppose.
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### Author:  [@OneOfOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneOfOne)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/7 "2012-11-29T03:29:24Z")
I liked Hogfather and Going Postal, neither as good as the book, but both good adaptations with their hearts and other organs in the right place.
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### Author:  [@Patch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patch)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/8 "2012-11-29T06:50:28Z")
I’ve enjoyed all three, and am looking forward to others.
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/9 "2012-11-29T13:28:23Z")
> [@OneOfOne](#):
>
> I liked Hogfather and Going Postal, neither as good as the book, but both good adaptations with their hearts and other organs in the right place.
I agree their hearts were in the right place, but I just couldn’t find the funny bone in them.
**Guanolad** pretty much nailed my disconnect with the visual adaptations. The profound irony, the social satire, the homages to other authors, universes, and genres are just so much of my enjoyment of the written material, and to me they just seem so lacking in the screen versions.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/10 "2012-11-29T13:41:06Z")
I think part of my problem is that nobody can ever look, but specially _move_, the way my mental images of the characters do. Can I blame Kirby’s covers?
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### Author:  [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/11 "2012-11-29T13:59:25Z")
I like **Hogfather** a lot, but it probably helps that it is one of the few DW books I don’t own (it never seems to be in the store when I wander by). Going Postal wasn’t bad.
> [@](#):
>
> The Colour of Magic movie with Sean Astin and Tim Curry seemed promising, but it was such a disappointment.
Agreed.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/12 "2012-11-29T14:00:15Z")
I’ve been letting my kids watch the cartoon miniseries of Soul Music. They like it. But it sucks. Very slow moving, terrible comic timing.
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### Author:  [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/13 "2012-11-29T14:19:24Z")
I haven’t seen Going Postal yet and am hopeful about that, but the others have just been a little dull. The humour is very text-based, I think, lots of puns, the footnotes, etc; to translate well to screen they need to take the general idea and do something a bit different, not just make as faithful an adaptation as they can.
David Jason as Vimes was also terrible casting.
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### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/14 "2012-11-29T14:48:47Z")
_The Hogfather_ was decent. Not great, but mostly okay. Michelle Dockery was great as Susan as was Marc Warren as Teatime.
_Going Postal_ was more problematic. Richard Coyle was the exact opposite type of actor to play von Lipwig. Great on _Coupling_ as a dufus, but can’t really pull off a charming, devious, unnotable looking conman type. None of the other actors made much of an impression. That’s not good. They also changed a lot of the story for no clear reason. Nearly, but not quite sucked.
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### Author:  [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/15 "2012-11-29T16:07:47Z")
Agreed on how disappointing they are. The Colour of Magic was the worst. Hogfather – well, Death wasn’t right. Too obvious, too material. Going Postal was the least bad. But they all feel a bit stiff and lifeless. I had figured that the wonderful text-based humor would be lost, but all the other humor was lost – too reverential, I think. I won’t look at another adaptation – I want to sustain my pleasure in the books.
I read them all in a row, as I sat in waiting rooms, while my Dad got radiation treatments or chemo or just saw the doctors again. Not only did they keep me at an even keel during an uncertain time, so I could take care of my Mom and Dad, but they even got me to laugh out loud. The movies barely even make me crack a smile.
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### Author:  [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/16 "2012-11-29T17:02:39Z")
I guess I’m the odd man out who enjoyed The Colour of Magic. I particularly liked Jeremy Irons as the Patrician.
The thing is that fundamentally, I didn’t think that the BOOK was all that funny - I feel that a lot of “early Pratchett” is trying too hard and that, for example, Rincewind is a lot funnier in concept than he is in practice.
So I enjoyed it. It made me laugh. It wasn’t gut bustingly funny, but I wasn’t expecting it to be either.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/17 "2012-11-29T17:11:20Z")
The Colour of Magic is definitely not funny. (The first two books of the Discworld series are both unfunny.) I was disappointed they decided to make a movie out of it, and disappointed they were so faithful to the book. If they were going to make a movie out of it, they should have improved on it.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/18 "2012-11-29T18:30:27Z")
Honestly, the Discworld books never struck me as _funny_. Clever, satirical, insightful, and enjoyable, certainly, but not _funny_.
I do acknowledge the SkyOne adaptations played things pretty straight, though. Pratchett’s way of writing the Discworld also makes it seem vaguely abstract and not clearly defined, and the way SkyOne presented the Discworld made it _very_ real.
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### Author:  [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/19 "2012-11-29T18:41:44Z")
Postal started out sort-of promising but quickly lost it’s way. I found the other two pretty unwatchable. The adaptations have the wrong approach - they approach the text too literally somehow and it just doesn’t translate to the screen. I think Wright & Pegg together might make an interesting adaptation as they seem to do the dark, dry Brit humor very well.
I also question the choices of books - these three are not to me the obvious ones to adapt to screen. “Guards, Guards” might work better, assuming you could really nail the casting, as it is one of the more visual, direct stories that introduces Discworld in general to the audience without having to assume great knowledge through in a bunch of exposition. Or I would love to see a serious director take on “Small Gods”, which for the most part can be completely divorced from everything else in Discworld.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [November 29, 2012, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-all-discworld-video-adaptations-suck/642430/20 "2012-11-29T19:02:19Z")
I’ve seen them all, and they are okay, but I wouldn’t be a fan if I depended only on the films. It is great that the books are rambling, since they fill in little bits of the world. The films should be more focused, and don’t need to film every precious word and scene.
As for humor, I agree with most of what has been written. The scene in Hogfather here Death takes over at the department store is one of my favorite in all the books. In the film is was just meh.
The production values are great, and I’ll get all that come out from Netflix, but I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone as a Pterry starter.
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