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: Men at Arms (1993)
• Spin-off: Soul Music (1994)

Mort (1987)

Terry Pratchett (writer).

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‣ Wyrd Sisters (1988)

Terry Pratchett (writer).

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.

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‣‣ 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.

animation fiction moving picture series

‣ Guards! Guards! (1989)

Terry Pratchett (writer).

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‣ Pyramids (1989)

Terry Pratchett (writer).

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‣ Moving Pictures (1990)

Terry Pratchett (writer).

It’s got little to do with fantasy.

References here: Soul Music (1994).

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‣ 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.

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‣ Soul Music (1994)

Terry Pratchett (writer).

Like Moving Pictures (1990), it’s too thinly connected to the secondary world to achieve much.

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