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The Colour of Magic on Sky-TV
Mar. 24th, 2008 09:24 pmThat was fun! We've just finished watching Part Two courtesy of a Sky+ recording, and enjoyed it a lot.
The overall look is much improved from Hogfather, with better indoor sets and outdoor location work thanks to a bigger budget. David Jason and Sean Astin played very well off one another (even though Rincewind in the books is much younger, and Twoflower is Auriental, but making him Hammerkin is OK, I suppose: the cliché-tourist version of both is a great taker of snapshots.) Tim Curry showed his teeth a lot and Jeremy Irons made a great Patrician – unnamed, but obviously Vetinari, complete with Wuffles-as-a-puppy.
"What are we going to do with you, you little scamp?" immediately became a favourite soundbite...
...Unlike "wearing a wet copper armour and shouting all gods are--" (at which point the production had second thoughts about Rincewind's line.)
This one's a real niggle, because the word 'bastards' is in the book and it's what was shot; watch David Jason’s mouth. Even this mouth-movement was pixellated out during last week's trailers, but I didn't think the actual broadcast would be censored; I was mistaken. If post-production thought their redub to "idiots" wouldn't be noticed, they were mistaken. It's partly hidden by a sound-effect clatter of rock, which only points up how clumsy it is. Try this: since "bastards" turned out a no-no, then instead of bowdlerising it, drown the entire word with the rock-clatter. Beep it out with convenient local noises. Just as effective, and maybe even funny.
SFX is spotty and needs work to even it out from the highs of the view of Ankh-Morpork to the lows of green-screen horseback closeups (check how people rise in the saddle at a real gallop and bounce faster, guys!) - though I liked the dragons a lot, their appropriate upside-down roosting posture a well-thought-out idea. Action sequences could be a lot better, the swordfights in particular being clang-clish-clang knife-sharpening exercises (swashbuckling isn't what the Discworld is about, but still...)
Pacing overall is much improved on Hogfather, but still sporadically sluggish, especially in dialogue. Some exchanges that should be crisply delivered instead come out Slow And Portentous, (all right if the subject matter warrants it, otherwise not), and even though characters who dot their speech with needless Significant Pauses are mocked in the books, too many such pauses remain on the screen.
The fault here isn't the writing, though there were a number of places where I'd have trimmed hard. (I've done it before: 'deliver this in a leisurely way - if you can.') However the direction still lacks punch. I don't know whether Terry comments about this anywhere, but Vadim Jean remains too fond of admiring the view whether real or CGI, unwilling to cut an over-lengthy close-up, reluctant to alter a good line "taken straight from the book": maybe he's still a bit too respectful of the original material. Nothing wrong there, except that good prose dialogue doesn't invariably become effective screenplay dialogue.
In case you think I'm sticking the boot in, I'm not. Read the first paragraph again, then consider that my few subsequent paragraphs of criticism cover nearly four hours of TV time. The Colour of Magic is definitely fun, stuck much closer to the original material than any Hollywood suit could stomach, and I have a feeling that the next one (Going Postal, apparently) will be better yet.
The overall look is much improved from Hogfather, with better indoor sets and outdoor location work thanks to a bigger budget. David Jason and Sean Astin played very well off one another (even though Rincewind in the books is much younger, and Twoflower is Auriental, but making him Hammerkin is OK, I suppose: the cliché-tourist version of both is a great taker of snapshots.) Tim Curry showed his teeth a lot and Jeremy Irons made a great Patrician – unnamed, but obviously Vetinari, complete with Wuffles-as-a-puppy.
"What are we going to do with you, you little scamp?" immediately became a favourite soundbite...
...Unlike "wearing a wet copper armour and shouting all gods are--" (at which point the production had second thoughts about Rincewind's line.)
This one's a real niggle, because the word 'bastards' is in the book and it's what was shot; watch David Jason’s mouth. Even this mouth-movement was pixellated out during last week's trailers, but I didn't think the actual broadcast would be censored; I was mistaken. If post-production thought their redub to "idiots" wouldn't be noticed, they were mistaken. It's partly hidden by a sound-effect clatter of rock, which only points up how clumsy it is. Try this: since "bastards" turned out a no-no, then instead of bowdlerising it, drown the entire word with the rock-clatter. Beep it out with convenient local noises. Just as effective, and maybe even funny.
SFX is spotty and needs work to even it out from the highs of the view of Ankh-Morpork to the lows of green-screen horseback closeups (check how people rise in the saddle at a real gallop and bounce faster, guys!) - though I liked the dragons a lot, their appropriate upside-down roosting posture a well-thought-out idea. Action sequences could be a lot better, the swordfights in particular being clang-clish-clang knife-sharpening exercises (swashbuckling isn't what the Discworld is about, but still...)
Pacing overall is much improved on Hogfather, but still sporadically sluggish, especially in dialogue. Some exchanges that should be crisply delivered instead come out Slow And Portentous, (all right if the subject matter warrants it, otherwise not), and even though characters who dot their speech with needless Significant Pauses are mocked in the books, too many such pauses remain on the screen.
The fault here isn't the writing, though there were a number of places where I'd have trimmed hard. (I've done it before: 'deliver this in a leisurely way - if you can.') However the direction still lacks punch. I don't know whether Terry comments about this anywhere, but Vadim Jean remains too fond of admiring the view whether real or CGI, unwilling to cut an over-lengthy close-up, reluctant to alter a good line "taken straight from the book": maybe he's still a bit too respectful of the original material. Nothing wrong there, except that good prose dialogue doesn't invariably become effective screenplay dialogue.
In case you think I'm sticking the boot in, I'm not. Read the first paragraph again, then consider that my few subsequent paragraphs of criticism cover nearly four hours of TV time. The Colour of Magic is definitely fun, stuck much closer to the original material than any Hollywood suit could stomach, and I have a feeling that the next one (Going Postal, apparently) will be better yet.
