Soul Music (1997)

After stumbling across Pratchett completely by accident two years ago ("Sourcery" was my first book), I underwent a 5-month long intensive crash course in getting *anything* discworld that I could get my hands on. This was quite a feat, as not all the books were published in America at that time. Once I got all the books, my fervor diminished to an extent, but it was still enough to inspire me to actually *buy* both the Soul Music and Wyrd Sister's DVDs.I was hesistant to watch Soul Music for fear that it would destroy my mental image of my favorite Pratchett book. But between the two, Soul Music does a better job of adapting the book and pacing the jokes. I felt that Wyrd Sisters was a little too rushed, and some jokes were even mumbled at points. Soul Music favored pacing over cramming in every little detail. (My favorite part is probably the scene where Death is talking with the guru-guy on the mountain and they're arguing about the color of the infinite.) The musical numbers were quite entertaining as well, and I loved how each of the tour concerts they did had a specific parody theme. The casting was good and bad. Susan was good, the Band members were good, though I do agree that the Dean and Quoth the raven grated on my nerves very quickly. Christopher Lee as Death totally made up for any poor jobs in casting, and in fact it was these movies that introduced me to Lee and made me realize how cool he is. And suuure, the animation is, frankly, weak-sauce. However, though I enjoy artful quality as much as the next guy, you don't need eye-candy to tell a good story.

I have to say, when I heard about this movie I searched and searched and finaly asked my parents to search (they were far more successful) and so after 2 years of fruitless searching, Happy 19th Birthday Heather! It was fantastic. Even thought I think they got a couple of the characters wrong (Like the Dean- I like Paul Kidby's version better)and that the Raven was just damn annoying, I still really enjoyed this film. Christopher Lee is the only one who could do Death's voice (besides James Earl Jones)and they have managed to include most of the best parts from the book. Plus I really like The "we're bigger that cheeses" line (an nice nod to John Lennon). However, you can't say that it is better than the book because really it is almost impossible to be better than the original work. But even though this is true, it is still really good in its own way. It's a little strange in parts, but hey, so's the book. I have to say that my favourite part of the movie was Glod. He was done really well and got to keep all of his cynical, witty one-liners. The only thing I have to ask is how many letters they got about the blatent ethnic-steriotyping (and if you've seen it you'll know what I mean)? Even so, I recommend this movie to Discworl fans and non Discworld fans alike (although if you're not a Discworld fan and live outside the UK I'll be very surprised if you've even heard of it).

Let's face it; the Discworld novels are rather uneven. The first three are barely worth bothering with. But then, Pratchett produced a novel, Mort, that was dangerously close to literature. Mort went on to be a stage play, and Pratchett went on to write other things. It took four years to get back to the Mort storyline with Reaper Man in 1991, and another three years to continue the story in Soul Music in 1994.Having read all the Discworld books so far, I still think Soul Music is my favorite. Having played in a band myself, I could appreciate the musical in-jokes better than most. Imagine my surprise when a friend mentions casually that Soul Music was an animated feature and he had the DVD. A trade was arranged (one of my Bubblegum Crisis volumes) and I settled down to watch my favorite Discworld novel transformed into a movie.So how was it? Oh, pretty good as a whole. After a stunning CGI opening which takes us on a quick tour of the Discworld, the film settles down to conventional animation with an occasional computer assist. My friend describes the animation as "kinda like squigglevision" (as in Doctor Katz and a couple others) but I have to disagree -- it's much better than that. There are a few places where it was painfully obvious that the animation team was trying to save a few drawings by playing the same clip over and over, but in general, the animation was adequate.The voice talents ranged from excellent to really really bad. Christopher Lee was excellent as Death, as was Debra Gillett as Susan, Death's Granddaughter. The voices of the band (Lias, Glod, and Buddy) were very good. Other voices were adequate, with the exception of the wizards at Unseen University. Yes, I know they were supposed to be petty old men, but why did they have to have the pitch, tonality and speech patterns of Smurfs? It became irritating after awhile. I found myself getting restless whenever the wizards were on the screen, wishing the scene would be over. It's a mystery how such bad choices could co-exist with such good choices.Plotwise, most everything is there. The story was shortened in a few spots, which is reasonable when filming a novel. Sometimes the editing destroyed a joke; for instance, when Nobby and Sgt Colon comment "there she goes -- Susan Death" the joke falls flat for lack of the earlier setup. "Wasn't that death?" "I dunno, it looked more like a Susan." I believe from the description in the book that Pratchett intended the sound of the shop fading and reappearing to be the Dr. Who Tardis sound, but maybe they couldn't get permission to use that.Much of the humor of the novel manages to make it into the film, and it's still funny. I laughed out loud a few times, more out of surprise that a favorite joke was delivered well.All in all, the film has a few flaws but is definitely worth watching. I've just learned that Wyrd Sisters has also been filmed. I can't wait.Now if only they would film Hogfather...

It is said that no movie may ever surpass the book it was adapted from. It's wrong. Although it is completely incorrect to say that Soul Music, the animated film (or series, depends on how you watch it. :)) is better than the book, because they are two completely different kinds of media, Soul Music managed to capture a deep essense in the book and give it life. The result - a movie filled with humor and fun, with the sort of fiction you can only bring to life with animation. If you see the movie after reading the book, unlike with other book-based movies, you will most certainly not be disappointed, because since Pratchett himself helped direct the movie, he managed to recreate the Discworld down to the tiniest detail just the same way he did in the books.