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[Hedge]

Here's a semi-relevant treasure: not too long ago some concept art of the cancelled animated Disney adaption of Mort was put online. Looks great to me, even though - given some rumors - the movie wouldn't have been a faithful adaption at all (which is why Terry bought the rights back with his own money). Probably for the best, Disney doesn't seem like a great fit. It's way too British for that.

Please note: this has nothing to do with the upcoming adaption. That's going to be something new.



All this comes from the portfolio of Disney's Claire Keane (who worked on Tangled and a thousand other Disney movies): http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/mor...ney-s-abandoned-terry-pratchett-film-surfaces

That.. looks really neat.

 

[Rimon-hanit]

Best news. never read, The Watch, though.

Neil Gaiman inherited Terry's hat.

He better not lose it.

 

[Boem]

Best news. never read, The Watch, though.


He better not lose it.

The Watch is just the (work?-)title of the show, it's not based on a single book. It will use the characters from the books starring Captain Vimes and the others from the City Watch (so Guards! Guards!, Feet of Clay, Night Watch, etc.), but they'll be completely new stories, set after the last Discworld novel.

It's probably the hardest project to get right, now that Terry isn't with us anymore, so I don't blame them for starting with some straight adaptions.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Set after the last watch novel?

I dunno, it'll be kinda hard to grasp vime's character if you haven't seen his journey from the start.

 

[Teriyaki Blues]

I feel like having a banana daiquiri now, anybody with me?

Going to keep an eye out for these projects, Good Omens was my favorite book for a very long time. Discworld also holds a special place in my heart, of course.

 

[Santiako]

I'm so glad that all the rights are controlled by his family and people that cared about Terry, they know that they have to either do it right or not at all.

 

[Hasemo]

Hm... None of these are even close to my favorite books in the series, but it was the same for previous adaptations and in the end I really liked those, so I'm excited.

 

[Hammer24]

Please don´t fuck this up.

 

[Boem]

Set after the last watch novel?

I dunno, it'll be kinda hard to grasp vime's character if you haven't seen his journey from the start.

Yep, it's tricky. I expect them to go with a version of Vimes in his prime as that is what most people are familiar with, but if you look at the last couple of books

Spoiler

you get the impression that Vimes was nearing the end of his journey as a character. The same goes for characters like Vetinari, who would surely show up in a Watch TV show. I don't see them killing of or otherwise retiring big characters like that

. - also, about last novels, I still haven't been able to read Shepherd's Crown. It's there on our coffee table, staring at me. Let's just say I'm not in a hurry to finish the last Discworld novel I'm ever going to get. Started to reread all of his works (including non-Discworld novels), currently at Moving Pictures. I'll get there someday, I don't mind taking the long road for this one.

I think they would be better off starting with adaptions of some of the existing Watch books - they're newcomer friendly and, compared to some of the other books, pretty filmable. If those work out, they could always do a limited series of new Watch adventures (incorporating Terry's ideas, although it's unknown how much he was able to do before he got too ill).

On a related note, there was a touching reference to Terry and Captain Vimes in a recent episode of Endeavour, the current Inspector Morse prequel series:

https://twitter.com/J_G_Parker/status/691383655483207680

This was not long after he passed. I won't lie, someone started cutting onions a bit in here when I first saw that. Pratchett meant a lot to me growing up. There's actually a bit of Vimes in the character as portrayed in that series, and the writers are obviously fans as well so I doubt that was unintentional.

 

[Clegg]

Having watched Peaky Blinders I think Paul Anderson has the look to be a good Sam Vimes.

So does Stephen Dillane

 

[Boem]

I've always been curious about who you could get to play Nobby Nobbs. I always half-imagined him as Baldrick (although the actor has obviously aged too much at this point). Tony Robinson did do a lot of the audio books, the adventure games and he had a cameo in Hogfather, so he's a fan (he was also at the memorial):

The actor who played him in Hogfather didn't have the looks (he was too tall and normal looking), but I thought the actual acting was fine. It wasn't the version I would want to see in a story where he'd have a bigger part, but for a smaller cameo he kind of almost worked for me:

(coincidentally, that's the back of Baldrick's head in that shot there. That's the cameo I was talking about earlier - even though the time has passed for him to play Nobby, I appreciated that he still got to share a scene with him).

Also, for everything the Sky One movies didn't get right, the costumes and set design were always on point. I loved that they just straight up went with the Paul Kidby versions of the Watch outfits. You really can't do them better than that.

I should watch those older movies again.

 

[nded]

Fingers crossed on Good Omens.

 

[Maledict]

I would honestly really recommend not reading Shepherds Crown. Put it on the shelf with the collection, but it's really not a good way to end his career. It's a bad re-write of Lords and Ladies that Cleary wasn't finished at all.

On the plus, Good Omens has the potential to be amazing. Really excited about that, I've always thought it was underrated amongst his works.

 

[Boem]

I would honestly really recommend not reading Shepherds Crown. Put it on the shelf with the collection, but it's really not a good way to end his career. It's a bad re-write of Lords and Ladies that Cleary wasn't finished at all.

On the plus, Good Omens has the potential to be amazing. Really excited about that, I've always thought it was underrated amongst his works.

Yeah, you could tell in the handful of novels before Shepherd that his ability to write was sadly diminishing. I'm not expecting the best story of the series, but there's no way I'll never read it. It was too big a part of my life for me to ignore it. I don't expect to get there before 2017 though - like I said, I just want to soak in the entire series again first.

I'm also filling up my collection with the handful of books/related things I didn't have yet. The big missing piece for me currently are some of the older Discworld Diaries - they always had a lot of exclusive Pratchett-written texts and art. Some of the older ones go for hundreds on ebay, which is out of my reach. They actually hinted at a book collecting all of those texts before he passed (and it got released in Germany, but no English version exists), and I actually e-mailed his publisher to find out if that's still coming, but all they could tell me was that all planned Pratchett-related works were put on hold after his passing, and that they couldn't tell me if it'll come out or not. Very nice people though, they wrote me a nice, personal response, full of respect for the man.

 

[Boem]

Small update: articles about the event are coming out, so now I have proof instead of all of you having to take me at my word.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/tv...to-adapt-terry-pratchett-collaboration-for-tv

Not much there that I didn't already cover, but here's a touching part about why Neil Gaiman changed his mind about adapting Good Omens without Terry besides him:

Gaiman had previously said he would not adapt their 1990 fantasy novel about the end of the world without Pratchett, who died in March 2015 from a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease. Before Pratchett’s death, director Dirk Maggs – at Gaiman’s instigation – adapted Good Omens for BBC Radio 4, which broadcast in 2014 and included cameos from Pratchett and Gaiman. At the time, Gaiman said he had urged Radio 4 to adapt it because: “I want Terry to be able to enjoy this while he’s still able to.”

But Gaiman, who flew into London on Thursday night for a memorial event for Pratchett at the Barbican, announced to whistles and cheers that he would be personally adapting the book for television. He said he had been spurred to change his mind when he was presented with a letter from Pratchett, intended to be read after his death.

Pratchett’s longtime friend and assistant Rob Wilkins recalled asking Gaiman to adapt Good Omens as they were driving back from Pratchett’s house, on one of the final occasions Gaiman met with him before his death. He said he had approached Gaiman because “it required love, it required patience”.

“Absolutely not,” Gaiman recalled replying, to laughter. “Terry and I had a deal that we would only work on Good Omens things together,” he explained. “Everything that was ever written – bookmarks and tiny little things – we would always collaborate, everything was a collaboration. So, obviously, no.”

But Wilkins revealed to the audience that Pratchett had left a letter posthumously for Gaiman. In the letter, Pratchett requested that the author write an adaptation by himself, with his blessing. “At that point, I think I said, ‘You bastard, yes,’” Gaiman recalled, to cheers.

“How much are we allowed to tell them?” Gaiman teased, before he was hushed by Wilkins. “Are we allowed to tell them it is a six-part television series?”

The article also talks about earlier attempts to get Good Omens adapted (and some of the big names involved with that, like Johnny Depp (not my choice) and Terry Jones, as well as confirming the other three adaptions.