I was kinda shocked to learn this, and I'm torn between delight and despair. I've been reading a lot of Discworld lately, and actually just finished Mort a few weeks ago.
On one hand, I'm skeptical that Disney is going to be faithful to the source material, since that is very seldom the Disney way. Princess Keli, who in the book is comically assertive, is in serious danger of becoming an archetypal Disney Princess, and God only knows whether they will end up making Death like a villain for want of an antagonist. Will they try to make it a musical? I can scarcely imagine Death singing (though hasn't the character been voiced by Christopher Lee in other Discworld adaptations?)
On the other hand, Disney seems to be trying to rediscover its identity lately, and Mort might be the film it needs to assert its return to greatness. Disney has been releasing films that divert from its traditional formula in a key way for quite a while, so there is little reason to assume they will paste Pratchett's characters into their tired formula and market it as a new film. Thanks to Dreamworks, it is chic to market movies that parody fairy tale conventions in some way, and Discworld certainly does that a lot.
There is a lot of great material in the book that could transfer well into film, especially with the personality of traditional 2D animation. Mort is almost a quintessential cartoon protagonist, and the relationships between the characters are developed in a way that can be translated into the film medium pretty well.
It will certainly be interesting to see how this turns out. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll end up seeing the best of both Pratchett's humor and characters and Disney's imagination and personality. I guess we'll have to wait until at earliest 2014 to find out.
What do you all think?
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
My concern is mostly that Disney will miss the quirk-factor. I read the second link which includes a summary of the plot and I can already see how tempting and easy it would be to a make a very boring, straight-forward adaptation of the story.
Mort was the story that introduced me to the Discworld series and the Death books are still my favorite. I read a few others but the majority of the Discworld books do little for me.
Its still too early to judge and I'm looking forward to seeing concept art and maybe hearing some song snippets. I'm pessimistic enough not to be excited but I'm willing to give them a chance.
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
Speaking of Discworld adaptations, does anyone know if Sky1 is making any more? I really liked Hogfather and Colour of Magic, though I haven't seen Going Postal yet.
Posted by Bella Bee (Member # 7027) on :
There were some TV animations of a couple of Discworld books (I'm sure one of them was 'Wyrd Sisters') years ago. I didn't really like them.
But then, at least for me, much as I love Pratchett, his stuff doesn't translate easily to the screen. There's something about the inner lives of the characters that writers of comic films tend to lose.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I like the list of movies to these directors credit. I think there's a good chance this goes right.
FWIW, I think the sky adaptations feel like films of a live play. Were I watching them in live on stage, I think I would enjoy them immensely, but on film they left me a little flat (I, too, haven't seen "Going Postal"). On the other hand,unless I was just horribly unlucky and managed to miss both of them, my two favorite moments in "Hogfather" (the child asking for the "swored" and the argument with Susan at the end-- "[humanity is] the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape") were both left out of the film, so that may add to my underwhelemedness.
Posted by Phanto (Member # 5897) on :
Mort is a bad choice IMO for an adaption.
Something like Hogfather would be much better.
IIRC, Mort has a fairly complex storyline and is not imo one of the best Discworld books. Something that is simpler and has a defined bad guy would go over a lot easier.
Posted by C3PO the Dragon Slayer (Member # 10416) on :
quote:Originally posted by Phanto: Mort is a bad choice IMO for an adaption.
Something like Hogfather would be much better.
IIRC, Mort has a fairly complex storyline and is not imo one of the best Discworld books. Something that is simpler and has a defined bad guy would go over a lot easier.
With all due respect to your IMO's, I disagree. It is true that Mort doesn't have a clear-cut villain, and it may be tempting for Disney to make Death fill that role, but the story itself is very character-driven in a way that is easily adaptable to the screen. I'd love to see a faithful rendition of the dialogue between Mort and Ysabell in a movie. This book in particular makes fun of fairy tale cliches a lot, which has proven to be very marketable in animated features recently, so I'm optimistic that at least Disney won't try to take out the meta-humor or miss the quirks.
The story of Mort is actually not that complex. It includes a lot of recently popularized animation tropes: a clumsy, awkward protagonist who doesn't fit in and thinks too much starts a new life in an otherworldly setting, a princess is saved from a power-hungry Duke's assassin, something goes wrong, they have to race against the clock to score a final victory, the character you think would be the villain (Death) is really just misunderstood, a character's (also Death) naivete is used to satirize social conventions, and it ends with a dramatic sword fight at the stroke of midnight. The challenge of adapting Mort into a movie is not preserving the story, but maintaining the subtle humor and narrative that pervades Terry Pratchett's work.
Sure, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, but Mort seems to me to be one of the best Discworld books to adapt to the screen (though I would also love to see a Guards! Guards! or a Night Watch movie).
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jim-Me: and the argument with Susan at the end-- "[humanity is] the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape") were both left out of the film,
I could have sworn that moment was in the sky adaptation.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I confess I may have missed it-- I've only seen "Hogfather" once through and it was in bits. I *did* miss it, in the sense that I really wanted to see it and didn't...
but we have netflix on demand now so we will be watching it soon in its entirety. I'll update my opinion at that time Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Watched part 1 of the Sky1 production tonight. Yeah... it's better than I remembered. Nobby and Susan in particular are very well done.
It definitely does have the exchange with the little girl at the mall... it's only missing the one joke--
Girl: I wanna castle with blue pointy things, annan army, anna swored. Death: What do we say? Girl: a BIG swored? Death: That's right.
I think perhaps I was distracted a bit too much by circumstance last time. I'm enjoying the heck out of it this time.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:IIRC, Mort has a fairly complex storyline and is not imo one of the best Discworld books...
*blink* Mort is in my top three.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
ok... the other speech is there, too. I just got done watching it. I evidently was really preoccupied for Christmas 2007.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)