Reviews of Mort (1987) and related work
- Spin-off: Wyrd Sisters (1988)
- Adaptation: Wyrd Sisters (1997)
- Spin-off: Guards! Guards! (1989)
- Spin-off: Pyramids (1989)
- Spin-off: Moving Pictures (1990)
- Spin-off: “Troll Bridge” (1992)
- Adaptation: “Troll Bridge” (2019)
- Spin-off: Men at Arms (1993)
- Spin-off: Soul Music (1994)
Mort (1987
)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
‣ Wyrd Sisters (1988)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
Most centrally, Macbeth (1606).
Probably the first time Pratchett found a really rich premise for the Discworld. His witches are an improvement over the trio in The Black Cauldron (1985), a similar compromise between stereotype and character.
‣‣ Wyrd Sisters (1997
)
Seen in 2018.
Oddly faithful. It preserves even the most literary jokes, which doesn’t make sense for a film, and it animates the silent movie gags instead of using film. It’s also too cheaply produced to bring any visual pleasure to the adaptation, and it adds a few stereotypes (like the enhanced appearance of WxrtHltl-jwl, pronounced here) but its overall faithfulness is sort of endearing.
References here: “Troll Bridge” (2019).
moving picture adaptation animation fiction series
‣ Guards! Guards! (1989)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
‣ Pyramids (1989)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
‣ Moving Pictures (1990)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
It’s got little to do with fantasy.
References here: Soul Music (1994).
‣ “Troll Bridge” (1992)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
Read in 2022.
Cohen the Barbarian isn’t keeping up with the times.
References here: After the Campfires (1998).
‣‣ “Troll Bridge” (2019)
Seen in 2021.
Crowdfunded, with end-credits filk. It has the same basic problem as Wyrd Sisters (1997), being too straight an adaptation, too literary, with almost no concern for differences in media.
moving picture adaptation fiction
‣ Men at Arms (1993)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
The silicon brain heat sink is the perfect symbol of Pratchett’s Discworld: The mad genius of a late-night D&D session, building a world by probing its limits, including its limits as fiction.
‣ Soul Music (1994)
Terry Pratchett (writer).
Like Moving Pictures (1990), it’s too thinly connected to the secondary world to achieve much.