Hogfather

I wonder about the choice of Discworlds to be made into a film (making a loose trilogy out of episodes 20, 1 and 30 is something to ponder indeed) and I consider the first TV film a very weak adaptation. Although it's very hard not to enjoy this almost Christmassy adventure with Death and the Grim Squeaker and Susan. A shorter runtime wouldn't have been nice, and literalism might not have been the best choice. Michelle Dockery was by then acting just as blandly as if she were preparing for Lady Mary's pseudo-problems, and unfortunately, the whole train wreck was not reversed by the cameo from Terry himself. (28.05.2019)

I originally gave the film four stars mainly because of the excruciating running time. After watching it today I had to add a star. The filmmakers needed those 189 minutes to make the film as faithful to the book as possible. Terry Pratchett has long been one of my favorite authors and I've managed to collect all of his “Discworld” books. I had an advantage over people who haven't read his books in that I could find many references and connections in the film. Death was absolutely perfect, Michelle Dockery as Susan was excellent and Marc Warren as Mr. Teatime was demonic. The greatest thing was that nothing was lost in the film. The polystyrene sets didn’t bother me in the least. In fact, they were a nice touch among all the digital effects. (24.10.2017)

Not that this isn’t a quality adaptation, but it’s precisely the type that I just can’t stand - word for word, without even a hint of invention. The result is a strange affair which is unclear who it’s aimed at. For those who haven’t read the book, this is full of superfluous and word for word scenes, while for a connoisseur this is nothing more than a set of illustrations for the book. It’s the same problem that I find in the Harry Potter adaptations made by Columbus, which were nothing more than accessories to the books, and this only changed when Cuarón came along. The creators made this from the foundations up and we get everything here, for instance we even get the ins and outs involving Stupid Idiot Johnson’s bathroom (this is just one of many such examples). These passages have a purpose in the book, but they are completely irrelevant to the story and make the movie needlessly long and terribly slow. However, the indisputable plus points include the casting of the central characters, all of whom are exactly right and Death just radiates charisma on all sides. Considering that this is a TV production with a fairly meager budget, the visuals, the effects, the costumes and even the production design aren’t all that bad. It’s certainly worth watching, especially thanks to the really well-made second half. The first half is just too scatterbrained and inconsistent. It’s nice to see Pratchett’s cameo as the toymaker. If the makers of this want to make an adaptation of other Discworld books, I would most like to see one of “Guards! Guards!", “Small Gods" or “The Wyrd Sisters", especially if they weren’t afraid of at least amending the story a little. (09.01.2007)