Having now seen both parts of Sky TV's adaptation of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, one thing is clear. Part one is (loosely speaking) The Colour of Magic, part two is (very loosely speaking) The Light Fantastic.
Neither part struck me as a particularly good adaptation, not least in terms of being faithful to the books. Both dwelt too long on inconsequential things, or glossed over parts that could have made a big difference to the end result. Both outright changed things that didn't need changing (Bel Shamharoth is a spider now?!) because they weren't even dealt with directly. I'm sure budgetary constraints played a significant part in deciding how to adapt the two books, and that much of it may have ended up on the editing room floor... but the films as shown felt a little amateurish, despite the impressive cast.
Part two actually seems very dark - in the sense of lacking light - meaning it was difficult to tell what was going on some of the time. The special effects in either part weren't that special, and some of the scripting could have been written by a teenager who'd only just finished reading the two books. Very little character shone through, and one thing Pratchett does very well is character.
The big shame of it is that the last adaptation - Hogfather - was so much better. Fewer 'big names' in the cast, tighter script, more faithful to the original material... The only thing that failed for me was the casting of Marc Warren as Teatime. Around that time, he was appearing in everything, including the BBC's adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula (that is to say, they chose to adapt the Coppola movie, rather than Stoker's original book).
In other news, my headache proved to be rather persistent, and I spent a good portion of the day in bed, asleep. At this rate, though, I may get an early night and do some reading before I put my head down.
Not much looking forward to the coming week, all told.
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