MikeScone
Mike - Camera Corner Mod
"Let me tell you about angels..."
I've been a fan of the Discworld series since I stumbled on a production of Mort on the BBC4 website. I've read and re-read all of the books which are out in paperback, and have a bunch of the Tony Robinson-read audiobooks to listen to on the iPod. I've seen the TV productions for some of the books, and they were good, if not perfect. There's just a certain ironic feel to Discworld that's hard to pin down.
A few days ago I got the DVD of Going Postal, and it was really great. They followed the book reasonably well - a few storylines, characters and incidents were left out (Moist's initiation as a postman, Anghammarad the ancient golem messenger, the magical sorting engine by Bloody Stupid Johnson), and a few details slightly altered (Sgt. Angua reveals herself, Stanley invents perforation instead of Moist, Spike invents the Woodpecker instead of the Smoking Gnu), but by and large they kept true to the feel of the book. The sets and effects were spot on, with the clacks looking just like I imagined it, and the streets of Ankh-Morpork were appropriately grubby ("a city of a million people, and all of them with armpits...").
The actors fit the parts amazingly well - as soon as you saw a character you knew who they were. Even characters who had no speaking parts and were never pointed out were there - when Saccharisa Cripslock was interviewing Moist, it was a vampire running the camera, and you could say, "that's Otto Chriek". Charles Dance was terrific as Lord Vetinari - his voice was absolutely perfect. Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) had Toliver Groat down pat.
All in all, very much worthwhile.
I've been a fan of the Discworld series since I stumbled on a production of Mort on the BBC4 website. I've read and re-read all of the books which are out in paperback, and have a bunch of the Tony Robinson-read audiobooks to listen to on the iPod. I've seen the TV productions for some of the books, and they were good, if not perfect. There's just a certain ironic feel to Discworld that's hard to pin down.
A few days ago I got the DVD of Going Postal, and it was really great. They followed the book reasonably well - a few storylines, characters and incidents were left out (Moist's initiation as a postman, Anghammarad the ancient golem messenger, the magical sorting engine by Bloody Stupid Johnson), and a few details slightly altered (Sgt. Angua reveals herself, Stanley invents perforation instead of Moist, Spike invents the Woodpecker instead of the Smoking Gnu), but by and large they kept true to the feel of the book. The sets and effects were spot on, with the clacks looking just like I imagined it, and the streets of Ankh-Morpork were appropriately grubby ("a city of a million people, and all of them with armpits...").
The actors fit the parts amazingly well - as soon as you saw a character you knew who they were. Even characters who had no speaking parts and were never pointed out were there - when Saccharisa Cripslock was interviewing Moist, it was a vampire running the camera, and you could say, "that's Otto Chriek". Charles Dance was terrific as Lord Vetinari - his voice was absolutely perfect. Andrew Sachs (Manuel from Fawlty Towers) had Toliver Groat down pat.
All in all, very much worthwhile.
