I just watched The Colour of Magic, a live action movie based on the book of the same name by Terry Pratchett.
It was better than Hogfather, but still pretty bad.
Bad things:
(1) It’s The fucking Colour of Magic. It’s early work, and not really very good compared to Pratchetts later work.
(2) Rincewind is supposed to be a recent “graduate” of university. I always saw him as late 20’s, early 30’s. In the movie, he’s _old_.
(3a) Twoflower is a honky. He’s from the Agatean Empire. He’s meant to be asian.
(3b) Twoflower is played by Sean Astin. Badly. Not sure what Astin is trying to do with the character, but it’s not working. Hard to believe he knocked Sam Gamgee out of the park, and also played this shitty role.
Good things:
(1) Excellent Lord Vetinari
(2) Much better special effects than Hogfather
(3) Smokin’ hot dragonrider lady.
Once again, though, they pick the weirdest books to make into movies. First Hogfather, and now The Colour of Magic? What the hell? The ones that would pretty much make immediately good movies (Mort, for example. Or Guards Guards) get passed over in favour of ones that don’t really have a plot or that require intimate knowledge of discworld backstory. Bizarre!
March 25, 2008 at 9:09 am
I thought Higfather was pretty decent. WOnder if I’ll agree or disagreewith you about Colour of Magic? I certainly don’t like the idea of an old Rincewind!
March 25, 2008 at 10:43 am
Rincewind in this movie is, for starters, played by known character actor David Jason. David Jason is a fine actor. He’s also 68 years old.
March 25, 2008 at 10:45 am
It’s no worse than what Jackson did to Aragorn…
March 25, 2008 at 9:17 am
In 1989 someone insisted I try reading The Colour of Magic. I think I got as far as page 32 before giving up.
March 25, 2008 at 10:53 am
I like the first two books.
March 25, 2008 at 1:39 pm
You would think Terry would be wary considering how awful the animated cartoon movies were, but then I think they skimped on the voice actors big time and managed to drain all the humour from it.
I listened to the audio books, read by Tony Robinson, now that man can get it right.
March 25, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Karl and I found Hogfather unwatchable. We got about twenty minutes in and bailed, and we __wanted__ to like it. I’m now right off the idea of productions of Pratchet.