Change Your Image
SoWhy
Reviews
The Orville: A Tale of Two Topas (2022)
Subverting apparent messaging
By having Topa being born female and assigned male in infancy (complete with surgery to reflect this), Seth MacFarlane cleverly tricks anti-trans viewers into believing that this is an episode about the evils of children identifying as trans and the vindication of them later realizing that they are not.
But this is not an episode about detransitioning which is the decision to reverse a prior decision to transition (and which happens very rarely in real life). It is an episode about someone who was assigned a sex without their involvement realizing that who they are does not match what they look like.
Topa never made a decision to be male. She was forced to be in the wrong body because her society was unable to live with someone like her existing. Instead of allowing her to decide who she is, that decision was taken away from her by society and her parents. This is, therefore, more akin to what intersex people experience when parents, under the pressure of doctors and societal norms, decided after birth to assign male or female to a child.
Both MacFarlane's directing and writing and the performances of alle actors involved are superb. The third season of The Orville shapes up to be the best yet.
Harley Quinn: There's No Place to Go but Down (2020)
Great episode
From the hilarious trial sequence to the pit full of old favorites all the way to Ivy's speech this episode had some of the best bits of any episode of the show. Even the b story with Gordon and Barbara was pretty interesting and had a great action sequence.
Despite some whiners who will bemoan everything remotely outside their narrow worldview as some kind of pandering, the final minutes, the spectacular attempt to escape and the kiss, actually are great writing and the cumulation of the whole story so far. Harley has always been a sidekick and defined herself through Joker but she finally found someone who she truly loves and more importantly loves her back. And Ivy always knew that Harley was more than a friend. Her dating Kite Man was always portrayed as more trying to ignore this fact than true love.
Those now lamenting the show's apparent turn to "diversity" just because two women kissed (in 2020, gasp!), are well to remember that romantic feelings between Harley and Ivy are nothing new but straight from the source material.
Going Postal (2010)
Better than "The Colour of Magic" but worse than "Hogfather" (Updated)
SkyOne has tried to tackle the very difficult task of creating a movie based on Terry Pratchett's fantastic universe once again with it's third movie, "Going Postal". Just like those two before it, "The Colour of Magic" and "Hogfather", this title seems randomly picked from the list of Discworld novels - their first movie was based on the 20th, the second on the 1st and 2nd (unsuccessfully trying to merge them into one), this one on the 33rd. While "Hogfather" was a brilliant adaption, with characters and scenes true to the book and a great atmosphere, "The Colour of Magic" was influenced by a terrible arrogance. After having made a near-perfect adaption (as perfect as possible at least) with "Hogfather", "The Colour of Magic" changed a great many things from the books it was allegedly based one: The main character was 40 years older, the plot changed, they tried to cast people who were famous rather than those who fitted the book and they tried to combine two novels into one movie. And the end result was, predictably, very bad, at least if you had read the books before it.
"Going Postal" seems to rectify some of the last adaption's mistakes. The scenery looks much more like it's described in the book and many of the secondary characters are indeed based on the book - with the exception of the main character, Moist von Lipwig, unfortunately. While I do like Richard Coyle, he, as a 38-year-old, cannot convincingly play a character who should be in his mid-20s. And of course a number of changes were made from the book, some irrelevant and partly creative (like the B/W sequences depicting his crimes) and some relevant and stupid (like having Adora ride with him, Angua in the beginning, meeting Reacher Gilt so soon etc.) because they were different precisely to make the story work.
One can hope for further adaptations of Pratchett's works nonetheless and possibly SkyOne will avoid unnecessary changes in their next adaption (we can only hope it's "Night Watch" :-)) and stay true to the book where possible. Still, "Going Postal" is an enjoyable adaption of one of the (imho) best books by Terry Pratchett, despite some changes that will annoy someone who already read the book.
Update: It seems I spoke too soon. When I wrote the review, it was after viewing part 1. Unfortunately, part 2 managed to be much more like "The Colour of Magic" than "Hogfather". Vital, important parts of the plot were either removed or changed (Vetinari keeps the money; Offler was the god who allegedly provided it; Moist chose the message rather than Ridcully - although it was vital to the plot that the wizard did so (because it had many pictures); Adora giving up smoking; etc.) and frankly ridiculous story lines and changes were added (Gilt is now, as a fellow reviewer wrote, more of a James Bond supervillian wannabe rather than a con man like Moist - even to the point of killing Horsefry himself; the overly dramatic scene on the tower at the end; the soppy speech at the end and the "rescue"; etc.)
So I have to revise my initial conclusion, it's far worse than "Hogfather" (9/10) while still being better than "The Colour of Magic" (2/10): 5/10. Hopefully future SkyOne adaptions will rectify those problems.
The Colour of Magic (2008)
Well...they tried...
Well...it has been said in several comments before and it's just a reprisal of those reasons.
Two thesis:
1.) It's not a bad movie
2.) It's a bad movie
To explain:
1.) It's not a bad movie: Some characters are cast well, like Cohen and maybe Vetinari (even if I'd preferred Alan Rickman in that role^^). The sets are nicely decorated and the costumes are good. It's a good movie compared to other movies you see these days.
2.) It's a bad movie. If you liked "Hogfather", you will hate this one. Hogfather took 3 hours to narrate a 300+ pages novel. They had to cut parts and some parts did not fit, but yes, it was the same overall. Not so in "The Colour of Magic". The reason is: It tries to combine two books with 250+ pages into 3 hours. But the lesson learnt from Hogfather should have been that if you cannot distill one book in 3 hours, you really can't do it with 2 books. Important parts where simply left out, leaving but the shell of Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic. How does Rincewind know about Old Granddad? - In the book trolls who help him, are telling him. How did he open the door to the Octavo's room? - In the book he made the door want to open. I could name many more of those questions...
But that's not the worst part. The worst part is, that they changed scenes altogether. If you read the book, you will be utterly confused. Let me name some examples:
- Trymon is not possessed by Monsters of the Dungeon Dimension like he is in the book. Rincewind does not beat him in a fist-vs-tentacle fight and he does not die falling down the Tower of Art - instead Rincewind uses the Octavo to deflect a spell which then falls back on Trymon and turns him to stone. No fight, nothing, just that
- The Librarian is on the roof with him and Trymon slips on a banana peel which leads to the aforementioned ending
- Ysabell is missing in Death's Domain, so are War, Pestilence and Famine - The luggage lures Cohen to Rincewind and Twoflower (there is no reason why it should do so and none to explain it)
- The magic arrow Weatherwax uses does not bring back the luggage as it did in the books (Trymon kills him instead) - Rincewind and Twoflower are boarding the submarine-thingie out of free will and against the wishes of the Krullians
- The scenes in the town on the way to Ankh-Morpork are missing completely (except the making of the dentures and the fight with the star people, which are set in AM instead)
- The scenes with the gingerbread house where the wizards meet Rincewind are missing - instead Cohen saves them by killing them all (in the book they manage to flee and the wizards survive).
- The little star turtles are not visible in the book but they are in the movie. The red star is vanishing in the end instead of Great A'Tuin simply flying away
- Twoflower "catches" a spell for Rincewind (like a bodyguard) which makes him go into the deathlike state
- etc. pp.
There is no reason I can see to make those changes, except maybe to make the movie have more "action" scenes. It's not bad, if you don't know the novels then it's just a fantasy movie with a few good moments and nice costumes and sets. If you read them though, you will be disappointed. I mean, it's not hard to keep funny elements like Cohens "fight" with the crowd of star people or nice visuals like the spells of the Octavo dancing in the air when said.
I hope the next one they try will be Hogfatheresque in terms of quality. The books deserve it...
Hogfather (2006)
As good as it could be....
Adapting Terry Pratchett's work for TV is a difficult task. Sure, he is a great writer and I had much fun reading all his novels at least 3-5 times but his writing style lacks a certain TV-compatibility. He uses much narrating and footnotes which is very hard (if not impossible) to transform into a movie. Having said this, I must admit, this adaption with real actors is probably as good as it can be. Sure, I missed a few funny character conversations (Like the "Give-the-Dean-a-bag-of-money-gnome" or the Cheerful Fairy), it also lacked certain elements of the book, including the YMPA, Igor's Bar or the Death of Rats (who is much more important in the book) but you cannot include everything from a 300 page novel into a say 100 page movie script. The producers did the best they could and they did a really great job. The characters looked almost as if Paul Kidby drew them into life and the acting was good. The only minor problem with the movie (which couldn't be prevented I guess) is that it's hard to follow for someone not knowing Pratchett's work before. If you never read his novels and watched this movie, I recommend you do so now. Trust me, the movie is great but the books are even better ;-)