A Couple of Movies and a Book

Either last weekend or the one before, I managed to watch the SkyOne production of Going Postal, which is one of my favorite Discworld books. Those who don't wish to be spoiled, skip on down to the place where it says END OF SPOILERS.

The movie was great, as movies go--though since it was made for TV, it had to be split into two parts. However, lots of story elements got changed. The overarching plot was pretty much the same, but certain details from the book either didn't happen, happened differently, or got replaced with completely new plot points in the movie.

For instance, instead of just thinking critical things about other people to himself, Moist actually tells them to their faces how stupid he thinks they are--especially Tolliver Groat. (If I've misspelled that name, it's because I've never actually read the books, just listened to the audio versions, and therefore have never seen any of the characters' names spelled correctly.) He seems meaner in the movie than in the two books he's been the protagonist for so far. Not to mention, the actor who plays Moist is in his thirties, but in the book, the character is my age (26).

Charles Dance as Vetinari--I think maybe my favorite of all the main Discworld characters who have shown up in more than one or two of the sub-serieses (i.e. Vetinari, Death, Rincewind, etc.)--just didn't work very well--he was too amiable, showed too much emotion, and didn't really come off as silently menacing (or benevolently tyrannical) as Vetinari seems in the books. For one thing, he smiled too much. And for another, his hair was the wrong color entirely. The hair might've worked if he'd acted more silently intimidating, but he didn't, and that sort of spoiled his portrayal of the character, to me.

And while I'm on the subject of Lord Vetinari, I might as well mention Drumknot (again, the spelling thing) as well. I've always liked the voice that Stephen Briggs uses for him in the audio books. That voice just seems to fit the character's speech patterns to me, and I've always pictured a rather reedy body in a black robe and some sort of scholarly hat (not a mortarboard or anything, just a hat that looks like a scholar would wear it) to go with the voice for some reason; I don't know why. When I saw the movie, and Drumknot turned out to be a somewhat-chubby, short guy with no hat and wearing trousers, it was a bit of a shock. And he talked smoother than Briggs's vocal portrayal usually did. I'm not saying that was a bad thing--just unexpected.

Also, the movie portrays the relationship between Moist and Adora Belle Dearheart throughout the story completely different from the book. When Moist tells her about his past in the movie, Adora Belle goes off on him, and basically says she doesn't want to see him again. They don't make up until the end of the movie. But in the book, she is actually more understanding, and even kisses him before he goes into the burning post office to save Mr. Tiddles the cat (and Stanley).

Not to mention, the movie shows that the only reason she was such a heavy smoker was because she couldn't afford a chocolate habit after her father was swindled out of the Grand Trunk company and her brother was killed. She even quits smoking at the end of the movie. This is especially different from the story, because in Making Money, the sequel to Going Postal, she still smokes like a chimney. Nothing is ever mentioned in the books about why she started smoking in the first place.

But despite the changes made to the story, I still enjoyed the movie.

END OF SPOILERS.

The movie I've been looking forward to for almost a year now comes out on July 2nd! My absolute favorite animated TV series of all time--Avatar: The Last Airbender--has a live-action movie coming out! It's directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, who's had some duds for movies lately, so I think it's about time he had a really great one come out again. I hope he does Avatar justice--I'd be extremely disappointed if his slump continues through this movie.

It's looking like the plot will cover that from the first "book" of the animated series, when Aang meets Sokka and Katara, and they go to find a water bending teacher. I'm thinking that the conclusion of the movie will be about the same as the conclusion to that first book.

If the movie is anywhere near as good as the trailers promise it will be, then I'm hoping for two more films, one covering the second book, and the final covering the third book--and the end of the war with the Fire Nation. That would be totally awesome--getting the whole series both in animation and live-action.

The newest of David Weber's Honor Harrington novels, Mission of Honor, will be released on the 22nd of this month, and I'm eagerly looking forward to it. I'm also looking forward to book five of his Safehold series, but there's no telling when that will come out (or even what it's called) yet, since book four only just came out this past April.