I don't watch a lot of movies because I didn't have a lot of time. A lot of movies and television of late have become more niche oriented and horrible, I'm trying to write this sequel to a first book I haven't even published and I have a ton of video games I bought on sale I still want to play so there. So, I watch a movie or a little TV when I get a chance. You know, I guess I really don't watch a lot of movies or television. Go figure.
Full disclosure: I am a Terry Pratchett fan. Excuse me, Sir Terry Pratchett. To me his Discworld series is really a series of essays and treatises on government, economy, society, gender identity, religion, tradition, belief and more all disguised as high fantasy. Or low fantasy depending on your point of view.
And when the BBC decided to create a series I got excited. Then I heard they would be updating the stories and characters I got nervous. Then I saw the promo photos and got confused. Then I saw the first episode and now I wish I never had. It went off the rails about thirty seconds in and never looked back.
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| I own 31 books in the series and recognized two of these characters. One was the rock person. |
So how bad was it? Very, very bad. Imagine if they had taken Harry Potter and instead of Hogwarts set it in an stereotypical Hollywood "inner city" school and claimed they'd made it better. It's like the people who made it didn't read the stories, or even if they had didn't understand what they were working with. What emerged here is, in perhaps a good-hearted attempt to be inclusive, is a ridiculous mess that can't even keep up with the basic architecture of the city Ankh-Morpork, which in the books is practically a character itself, much less create the setting need to tell the stories that come later. The stories that actually make you think, that make this a cut above just plain fantasy.
From here down, SPOILERS. Not that I think you should ever watch this, but still, got to be fair.
This version of death sounded like Wendell Pierce from The Wire (when I wrote this honestly didn't know that was actually him). That's not terrible, but the characterization did not sound like an ethereal being curious about humanity. Its interaction with Vimes as a framing device was way too casual, too chummy. DEATH speaks in capital letters. DEATH is aloof.
This Sam Vimes looks like a dirty bum version of Jack Sparrow, and that alone says a lot. Maybe it was the black eye liner, but that was not a good first image to invoke. Vimes is a complex character, this guy feels more like Frank Gallagher from Shameless than someone competent just half in the bag.
Was that dog at the beginning supposed to be Gaspode?
Why does the Patrician's palace look like it's in the middle of a grand estate and not right in down the city off the river? What are the soaring peaks and tall hills littering in the background, isn't the city at the bottom of the Sto Plains where it meets the circle sea? This just feels so off. Later we get a crows eye view and it looks like the Unseen University is atop a lush green hill as well. The city is a part of the story, and here is feels like they cast it wrong. I mean, the books were written in part to so that you could follow along on a map. This looks like the visual designer just thought of how pretty and majestic this all would look.
How is Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf, almost as tall as Carrot Ironfounderson, who is a large human? And why is this person beardless? The entire dwarf story arc is discussion on gender identity, society and acceptance and here it's just rinse washed for clarity. The writers basically threw away a multi-season B story and perhaps a whole season if they ever got to go to Uberwald. This is what I meant when I said the people who did this either did not read the whole series or didn't understand it. How they did Angua I don't even want to talk about. Even worse how they did Detritus. And Lady Ramkin is not Batwoman despite how much I like the actress playing her,
And since I'm here, the whole series develops a number of strong female protagonists. Angua, Lady Ramkin and Cheery are just the tip of the iceberg, I mean had this been done well we might have gotten a Granny Weatherwax headed Witches series, but this show felt a need to stuff things in at the beginning and just ruins it. You want to make the Head of Assassin's Guild a woman? Fine. By the way, the producer needs to realize the point of some the stories was that ill informed old men were making all the less than intelligent decisions, which was discussion on bad governance, but hey, inclusion. Maybe they just chose the wrong actress to swap out the Patrician, so maybe that, but I would have preferred the Charles Dance version quite frankly, in the proper setting of course. But they swapped out Dibbler? What was the point of gender swapping Dibbler? Meat pies, guaranteed one hundred percent pig! You mean pork? I said one hundred percent pig.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly....No Nobby Nobbs? No Fred Colon? That's just not right.
I want to be generous but so much of it didn't make sense, from the weird mix of sci-fi and fantasy to the how the story didn't want to respect the characters or the audience they'd obviously hoped to bring in by using characters "inspired by" the Discworld series. It's a series with millions of books sold and instead of at least an attempt at faithful adaption we're giving this. If it was going to go this far afield, twist it so much to update it and fix it, then why even use the Discworld names?
I am not amused.
If this all shows up on a streaming network four or five years from now and I'm holed up in the house unable to walk and can't find the remote, I'll give it another go. But for now this just isn't for me.
Barkeep. I'm getting healthy now, thank you. I'll have my bourbon with branch water please, thank you
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