The Colour of Magic (1)

Like in Hogfather, Death is pretty much lousy done, which is shame because Death is the most awesome character in Discworld series. But beside that, it is absolutely fantastic. I thought it would be impossible to adapt Pratchett to feature film and preserve it's original charm, but movie definitely possess spirit of written Discworld. The Luggage and legendary Del Boy in role of Rincewind are an inexhaustible source of entertainment. :D9/10

I've never been able to read Terry Pratchett's books, mostly because they were too ... British. All those large words and phrasing that seems to always say more than one can possibly understand. So I was grateful for a chance to grasp a little of what all this Discworld business is all about.The film is clearly a TV movie, the special effects are simple and either completely CGI or weird mashups (like the fire breathing dragon bit), but that never bothered me because the acting was great, the story fun and the people in it clearly enjoying every moment of its making.Bottom line: like the old Shakespeare plays that BBC was doing and I gobbled up as a young child or like Doctor Who or any other of those shows that Brits do, which are cheaply done, but with a lot of soul, I really liked it. I am looking forward to watching Hogfather, next.

I had been waiting to see The Colour of Magic since they announced it. I couldn't be happier...Jeremy Irons as the Patrician was what I imagined. Although I wondered about his choice of accent. And while I had expected Rincewind to be younger, David Jason's face is so wonderfully expressive, that I didn't care. Tim Curry's Trymon was typical to his villains and David Bradley as the Hero, wonderful..In order to have made this any better for me, they would have had to make a mini series of 4 nights at least..I believe that even non-Pratchet readers can still get the bulk of the humour, and it is close enough to the books that the most rabid fan will not object.

Mr. Pratchett's books tend to be a bit nudge-nudge/wink-wink for my tastes. A little bit of Hitchhiker's Guide humor (or should that be humour?) goes a long way for us far less punny Yanks. So I've never read the book(s) that spawned this nearly 4-hour TV movie (seen last week on the ION Network in the U.S.).I didn't read the IMDb comments until after viewing, but I had the same bipolar "This is great" feeling during some scenes, and "This really sux" disdain during others. The cheesy budget constraints are a frequent stumbling block, as is the British tendency to keep speeding up scenes to fast-motion ala Benny Hill/Goodies/Python/BadNews/YoungOnes/etc. Poor substitute for genuine chuckles, which should have been aplenty, given the ludicrousness of the fantasy genre – An earlier comment mentions deviations from the book that "didn't make sense," but I disagree with most of the incidents he mentions. For instance, when the walking wardrobe (nice visual, but usually sped up like a Benny Hill chase-scene) seeks out Cohen the Barbarian to help his master, I just assumed the wardrobe – described as "fiercely protective of its owner" – recognized it needed heroic help to get Frodo's pal --- I mean the Worst Wizard's pal – out of his increasingly dangerous predicaments.And I certainly don't think we needed any more pit stops along the road to the distant finale, no matter how entertaining or troll-filled those pitsops may have been in the books.Tim Curry chews up all his scenes, and even seems to be paying tribute to (or gently mocking) several past roles with several sly bits of dialogue and inflection that harken back to Legend, Times Square, Annie, Spamalot, the Shout, and even Rocky and a couple of his cartoon villains.I didn't know Christopher Lee was Death until after viewing but, wow, his scenes were among the best! I loved how he just pops up out of nowhere whenever someone's life is on the line, seemingly caught in the middle of whatever he was doing at the time and becoming increasing bitter that his sharpened scythe is only scooping up uncredited extras and no marquee stars. You can tell much of what little budget there was went into tinting and partly animating his sequences, each of them terrific. I actually laughed aloud when our intrepid Tourist said, on the reaper's own monochromatic porchstep, "How often does one get to be at Death's door?" So the movie seems to be a low-budget but fairly accurate TV transcription of Pratchett's usual entry-level teen fiction take on the fantasy genre. Yeah, it's boneheaded at times, but at least the low common denominator it aims for is usually a funny denominator. To paraphrase the late Don Thompson, If you LIKE that sort of thing, this is that sort of thing.