(no subject)
May. 21st, 2010 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2Last night I got my copy of The Colour of Magic on DVD. This is a 2 hour made-for-TV movie by the same people who did The Hogfather. I tried to watch the first half before going to bed, but I got sleepy and bored and had to turn it off.
The movie stars David Jason as Rincewind (looks too old and is not much of a runner, but otherwise okay), Sean Astin as Twoflower (would have preferred an Asian actor but he's not bad), Tim Curry as Trymon (power-hungry senior wizard of Unseen University), Christopher Lee as the voice of Death, and Jeremy Irons as Lord Havelok Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
That last bit was a surprise, as Vetinari does not yet exist in the original book. But I imagine it's one of the first things Pratchett would correct if he were to ever rewrite this book. I appreciated it for what it was -- an attempt to insert one of the best characters of the series into a spot where he should have been from the beginning. Unfortunately, the original scenes aren't written with Vetinari in mind, so it's not a perfect fit.
The Unseen University librarian appears early in the story as a human, too. Apparently he gets turned into an orangutan later on in the movie, and is played by a man in a rubber suit, with predictably poor results. Ah, well. As nicely done as these TV movies are, they're not big-budget Hollywood affairs.
Despite all of the excellent acting talent and some very nice scenery and sets, I can't say I've found this very enjoyable (so far). I've read that it gets better after a slow start. Still, there's no getting around the fact that The Colour of Magic is the weakest of all the Discworld books. There's some funny stuff but not much of a plot. The finely detailed characterization and astute storytelling that are the hallmarks of Pratchett's later writing are not very much in evidence here. The second book, The Light Fantastic, is better, and I understand the TV movie covers both books, but Pratchett really didn't start to tell stories until Mort and Equal Rites, and then hit his stride with Wyrd Sisters and Guards, Guards (in my opinion).
So this movie is a bit of a curiousity. I would have loved to see them tackle the Lancre Witches or the Night Watch stories next, or even one of the other stories about Death, instead of trying to do the first two books. Apparently this month is the premier of the third television movie from the same people, and this time they're doing Going Postal. I expect that will be a lot more fun to watch. There were rumors of a big-budget Hollywood treatment of The Wee Free Men back in 2006, but that's probably dead -- a good thing, since Pratchett saw a script that bore almost no resemblance to his book. But I'd love to see a proper treatment of the Tiffany Aching books as well.
I don't believe any of my friends have seen this movie yet either, so I'll have to lend it to them once I've watched it.
The movie stars David Jason as Rincewind (looks too old and is not much of a runner, but otherwise okay), Sean Astin as Twoflower (would have preferred an Asian actor but he's not bad), Tim Curry as Trymon (power-hungry senior wizard of Unseen University), Christopher Lee as the voice of Death, and Jeremy Irons as Lord Havelok Vetinari, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
That last bit was a surprise, as Vetinari does not yet exist in the original book. But I imagine it's one of the first things Pratchett would correct if he were to ever rewrite this book. I appreciated it for what it was -- an attempt to insert one of the best characters of the series into a spot where he should have been from the beginning. Unfortunately, the original scenes aren't written with Vetinari in mind, so it's not a perfect fit.
The Unseen University librarian appears early in the story as a human, too. Apparently he gets turned into an orangutan later on in the movie, and is played by a man in a rubber suit, with predictably poor results. Ah, well. As nicely done as these TV movies are, they're not big-budget Hollywood affairs.
Despite all of the excellent acting talent and some very nice scenery and sets, I can't say I've found this very enjoyable (so far). I've read that it gets better after a slow start. Still, there's no getting around the fact that The Colour of Magic is the weakest of all the Discworld books. There's some funny stuff but not much of a plot. The finely detailed characterization and astute storytelling that are the hallmarks of Pratchett's later writing are not very much in evidence here. The second book, The Light Fantastic, is better, and I understand the TV movie covers both books, but Pratchett really didn't start to tell stories until Mort and Equal Rites, and then hit his stride with Wyrd Sisters and Guards, Guards (in my opinion).
So this movie is a bit of a curiousity. I would have loved to see them tackle the Lancre Witches or the Night Watch stories next, or even one of the other stories about Death, instead of trying to do the first two books. Apparently this month is the premier of the third television movie from the same people, and this time they're doing Going Postal. I expect that will be a lot more fun to watch. There were rumors of a big-budget Hollywood treatment of The Wee Free Men back in 2006, but that's probably dead -- a good thing, since Pratchett saw a script that bore almost no resemblance to his book. But I'd love to see a proper treatment of the Tiffany Aching books as well.
I don't believe any of my friends have seen this movie yet either, so I'll have to lend it to them once I've watched it.
