BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Majin Gojira »

SpottedKitty wrote: 2020-01-18 09:50pm
bilateralrope wrote: 2020-01-18 09:40pm It sounds like someone had a completely unrelated story they wrote. Then someone decided to shove it into Discworld to try and make it sell better.
Sort of like what happened to the first "Starship Troopers" film? Bleah...
Nah, that was more active hate for the source material. Or, rather:

"Wow, this book is fascist as hell. Let's make a movie out of it to mock fascism!"

And also:

"I wanna make a giant bug movie, let's go with this since it has soldiers fighting giant bugs!"
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Iroscato »

I'm floored and fascinated at how wrong-headed this looks. The actual style and wardrobe, whilst odd, wouldn't necessarily kill it for me - I love me a shakeup of period setting a la Sherlock now and then - but the bastardisation of the source material and cringeworthy wokeness of it all is bloody awful to behold.
I was so looking forward to this, especially when they announced the casting for Vimes. Now I'll probably give it a peek just to see how badly they fuck things up.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Elheru Aran »

Iroscato wrote: 2020-01-21 09:04pm I'm floored and fascinated at how wrong-headed this looks. The actual style and wardrobe, whilst odd, wouldn't necessarily kill it for me - I love me a shakeup of period setting a la Sherlock now and then - but the bastardisation of the source material and cringeworthy wokeness of it all is bloody awful to behold.
I was so looking forward to this, especially when they announced the casting for Vimes. Now I'll probably give it a peek just to see how badly they fuck things up.
Yeah, their version of Vimes, I can buy. Now normally I'd picture someone a little more Clint Eastwood-esque, but... this isn't bad. A run down cop finding his way out of the bottle, I can see this guy being. Angua is also not terrible. Carrot is meh.

Cherry though... ugh. And the wardrobe and shit? A distinct lack of effort is noted. Frankly, there's a distinct lack of effort about the whole thing from the looks of it...
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Iroscato wrote: 2020-01-21 09:04pm I'm floored and fascinated at how wrong-headed this looks. The actual style and wardrobe, whilst odd, wouldn't necessarily kill it for me - I love me a shakeup of period setting a la Sherlock now and then - but the bastardisation of the source material and cringeworthy wokeness of it all is bloody awful to behold.
I was so looking forward to this, especially when they announced the casting for Vimes. Now I'll probably give it a peek just to see how badly they fuck things up.
What is "wokeness"? How does one define it? And why is it offensive?
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Majin Gojira »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-01-26 09:57pm
Iroscato wrote: 2020-01-21 09:04pm I'm floored and fascinated at how wrong-headed this looks. The actual style and wardrobe, whilst odd, wouldn't necessarily kill it for me - I love me a shakeup of period setting a la Sherlock now and then - but the bastardisation of the source material and cringeworthy wokeness of it all is bloody awful to behold.
I was so looking forward to this, especially when they announced the casting for Vimes. Now I'll probably give it a peek just to see how badly they fuck things up.
What is "wokeness"? How does one define it? And why is it offensive?
"Wokeness" is derived from being "Awake" or "Aware" of modern inequalities regarding race, sex, orientation, etc.

It's offensive to some people because it points out that despite advances made, equality between these differences is still a long way off, and they feel like because they aren't bigots who foam at the mouth, they can't be racist in anything they do.

Basically, a person worried about "Wokeness" missed the point of THUD and a lot of Terry's other work by MILES.

Though in this case, the books from over 30 years ago are more culturally sensitive and progressive than it's TV adaptation.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Majin Gojira wrote: 2020-01-26 10:11pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-01-26 09:57pm
Iroscato wrote: 2020-01-21 09:04pm I'm floored and fascinated at how wrong-headed this looks. The actual style and wardrobe, whilst odd, wouldn't necessarily kill it for me - I love me a shakeup of period setting a la Sherlock now and then - but the bastardisation of the source material and cringeworthy wokeness of it all is bloody awful to behold.
I was so looking forward to this, especially when they announced the casting for Vimes. Now I'll probably give it a peek just to see how badly they fuck things up.
What is "wokeness"? How does one define it? And why is it offensive?
"Wokeness" is derived from being "Awake" or "Aware" of modern inequalities regarding race, sex, orientation, etc.

It's offensive to some people because it points out that despite advances made, equality between these differences is still a long way off, and they feel like because they aren't bigots who foam at the mouth, they can't be racist in anything they do.

Basically, a person worried about "Wokeness" missed the point of THUD and a lot of Terry's other work by MILES.

Though in this case, the books from over 30 years ago are more culturally sensitive and progressive than it's TV adaptation.
Well, its certainly true that a lot of writers try to be progressive but, whether through mixed messages/trying to please both sides, or through lack of thought as to the implications of what they're writing, or overly simplistic writing, or because they were never really sincere progressives to begin with, end up botching it horribly. I could imagine this show going down that road, trying to be progressive and doing a really clumsy job of it, though I'll give them some benefit of the doubt for now.

But when that happens, its not because a show was "took woke" (how exactly can one be too concerned about the marginalization of women and minorities?). Its because its badly written.
"I know its easy to be defeatist here because nothing has seemingly reigned Trump in so far. But I will say this: every asshole succeeds until finally, they don't. Again, 18 months before he resigned, Nixon had a sky-high approval rating of 67%. Harvey Weinstein was winning Oscars until one day, he definitely wasn't."-John Oliver

"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

I SUPPORT A NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE TO REMOVE TRUMP FROM OFFICE.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Majin Gojira »

The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-01-26 10:18pm
Majin Gojira wrote: 2020-01-26 10:11pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-01-26 09:57pm

What is "wokeness"? How does one define it? And why is it offensive?
"Wokeness" is derived from being "Awake" or "Aware" of modern inequalities regarding race, sex, orientation, etc.

It's offensive to some people because it points out that despite advances made, equality between these differences is still a long way off, and they feel like because they aren't bigots who foam at the mouth, they can't be racist in anything they do.

Basically, a person worried about "Wokeness" missed the point of THUD and a lot of Terry's other work by MILES.

Though in this case, the books from over 30 years ago are more culturally sensitive and progressive than it's TV adaptation.
Well, its certainly true that a lot of writers try to be progressive but, whether through mixed messages/trying to please both sides, or through lack of thought as to the implications of what they're writing, or overly simplistic writing, or because they were never really sincere progressives to begin with, end up botching it horribly. I could imagine this show going down that road, trying to be progressive and doing a really clumsy job of it, though I'll give them some benefit of the doubt for now.

But when that happens, its not because a show was "took woke" (how exactly can one be too concerned about the marginalization of women and minorities?). Its because its badly written.
The thing about TV writing (as well as movies) is that it has to get by a LOT of people in order to get put on the air and that can muddy or ruin things as it goes down. Throw in things adaptations have to worry about (IE: a budget) and it's probably why we have Cheery as she is described so far.
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Reviewing movies is a lot like Paleontology: The Evidence is there...but no one seems to agree upon it.

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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Majin Gojira wrote: 2020-01-26 10:24pm
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-01-26 10:18pm
Majin Gojira wrote: 2020-01-26 10:11pm

"Wokeness" is derived from being "Awake" or "Aware" of modern inequalities regarding race, sex, orientation, etc.

It's offensive to some people because it points out that despite advances made, equality between these differences is still a long way off, and they feel like because they aren't bigots who foam at the mouth, they can't be racist in anything they do.

Basically, a person worried about "Wokeness" missed the point of THUD and a lot of Terry's other work by MILES.

Though in this case, the books from over 30 years ago are more culturally sensitive and progressive than it's TV adaptation.
Well, its certainly true that a lot of writers try to be progressive but, whether through mixed messages/trying to please both sides, or through lack of thought as to the implications of what they're writing, or overly simplistic writing, or because they were never really sincere progressives to begin with, end up botching it horribly. I could imagine this show going down that road, trying to be progressive and doing a really clumsy job of it, though I'll give them some benefit of the doubt for now.

But when that happens, its not because a show was "took woke" (how exactly can one be too concerned about the marginalization of women and minorities?). Its because its badly written.
The thing about TV writing (as well as movies) is that it has to get by a LOT of people in order to get put on the air and that can muddy or ruin things as it goes down. Throw in things adaptations have to worry about (IE: a budget) and it's probably why we have Cheery as she is described so far.
Yeah.

I'm a strong believer in democracy in general, but I make a big exception for writing decisions. ;) A couple of co-writers can work, if they know and respect each other and work together to compliment one another, and even the best writers do tend to require some editorial oversight to reign in their worst excesses, but nothing will ever convince me that "written by committee" tends to lead to good results more than having a clear narrative vision from the top.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by streetad »

It's not 'wokeness' per se, which I think most people would agree is a good thing, and which is already present in the original stories. Featuring a sub-plot about a female dwarf from a species where both males and females traditionally present the same way wants to explore human concepts of femininity and faces varying levels of prejudice or acceptance.

It's the terrible muddle-headed forced 'wokeness' of a corporation desperate to make sure everyone knows which side of the culture war they are on. Where some exec sees a character that has a superficial resemblance to non-binary individuals in real life and decides 'we really need to force that angle as much as possible. Bonus points if we upset some die-hard Pratchett fans on the Internet, so we can call them bigots and stir up some free publicity for the show'
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by The Romulan Republic »

streetad wrote: 2020-02-02 04:25pm It's not 'wokeness' per se, which I think most people would agree is a good thing, and which is already present in the original stories. Featuring a sub-plot about a female dwarf from a species where both males and females traditionally present the same way wants to explore human concepts of femininity and faces varying levels of prejudice or acceptance.

It's the terrible muddle-headed forced 'wokeness' of a corporation desperate to make sure everyone knows which side of the culture war they are on. Where some exec sees a character that has a superficial resemblance to non-binary individuals in real life and decides 'we really need to force that angle as much as possible. Bonus points if we upset some die-hard Pratchett fans on the Internet, so we can call them bigots and stir up some free publicity for the show'
Getting a bit conspiratorial, there. I don't think companies generally want to upset fans (though they generally manage to do so anyway, partly because a lot of fans are unpleasable, and partly because a lot of execs are morons). In fact my impression lately has been that the big companies tend to throw social justice under the bus when push comes to shove, to try to please everyone (See: Rise of Skywalker).
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"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan."-General Von Clauswitz, describing my opinion of Bernie or Busters and third partiers in a nutshell.

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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by streetad »

Possibly.

There's a notable absence of any of the non-human Watch members in any of this pre-release stuff, which either points to budgetary issues (never mind the dwarfs, how do they portray a convincing Sgt Detritus, capable of emoting etc with a Doctor Who level budget?) or a lack of faith that the audience will 'get' the fantasy elements. Perhaps that's the only explanation needed for the changes to Cheery's character.

Another thing I noticed is that there is a also a conspicuous lack of the more 'comic relief' members of the Watch in the marketing material, which points a little bit to the type of show they are making.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2020-01-26 10:18pmBut when that happens, its not because a show was "too woke" (how exactly can one be too concerned about the marginalization of women and minorities?). Its because its badly written.
The only way I know of for a work of fiction to be "too woke" is when hammering home the moral lesson the writer wants to impart takes priority over consistent characterisation and a plot that makes sense.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Zaune »



So... yeah. That happened.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Elheru Aran »

I have no idea what was going on there. Vimes looks like shit. None of the characters are particularly recognizable other than maybe Detritus. Is Vetinari now female?

This isn't going to be worth watching, is it...
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by madd0ct0r »

Discworld always had s heavy streak of punk, even if the original setting, covers and illustrated books were more olde worlde. Later ahnk morkpork, massive immigrant city, burgeoning industrial revolution, dwarf gangers wearing clang and heaving markets and nightlife, railways and the clacks... There's energy there. A bit like a knights tale or the few years back Casanova series.

Femme vetenari dosent both me at all. The character is essentially androgenous.
Vimes... Vimes has always had a split personalisation. He is not a noir character, but the first books are. The imagery used in the illustrated ones is clint as the lonely
lawman. This version is one I can see being called vetenari's terrier, sitting down to a badly fried meal and teaching the art of really dirty fighting.

Couldn't figure out who any of the others are. Red head is Angua? Dhort, Goth cut is cheery? (Hah, that makes sense)
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Elheru Aran »

madd0ct0r wrote: 2020-10-10 02:03pm Couldn't figure out who any of the others are. Red head is Angua? Dhort, Goth cut is cheery? (Hah, that makes sense)
The short blonde girl is Angua. Cheery has long hair and is NOT a Dwarf. The redhaired woman (it turns out to be a wig) is Lady Sibyl.

I don't question your assertion that Discworld is 'punk' in some ways... but the fact is that there is a certain vision of the Disc from descriptions in the books and the artwork (much of which was approved by Terry) that this just does not fit at all.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by bilateralrope »

That Vimes could work. The characterization seems close enough.

Same for Vetenari. They are making a lot of changes, so a gender swap is pretty minor. The rest of the characterization seems to work.

As for the rest of the characters, they didn't get enough screentime for me to judge.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Enigma »

It may been quite a while since I've read a Discworld novel, but to me I find the portrayal of Vimes to be off. I like the character but to me it isn't true the novels. I've always pictured him as a world weary every day man, a police captain that knows how the world work, yet still try to uphold the law.

Then again, that is just me.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by madd0ct0r »

Labelled pics here.

https://www.denofgeek.com/books/the-wat ... -date/?amp
Marama Corlette (Blood Drive) is Corporal Angua, “tasked with Carrot’s training and keeping the rookie alive.”

Lara Rossi (Crossing Lines) has taken on the role of Lady Sybil Ramkin, “last scion of Ankh-Morpork’s nobility, who’s trying to fix the city’s wrongs with her chaotic vigilantism.”
Those seem to be departures from the books. Nobby and Colon roles washed out. They are characters in the first two books representing the average dodgy cockney scouse morporkian. They are caricatures of the plebs, and the whole 'why do we need diversity training' joke series of the second book might be too nineties to work in a new show. They get the spotlight in jingo, but that trip won't be in the show, and after that vetenari and pterry retire them to traffic duties. They only reappear as main characters once more, and that's in nightwatch as their teenage selves.

Angua is world weary on her first appearance, and that Vs carrot's infectious optimisim is a regular foil through the books. A 'keep the rookie' alive start sort of works, but makes their relationship a bit uncomfortable (but is that different to carrot training her in the books?)

Vigilante lady Sybil? Whut? Closest in the books her incredibly rich detached lifestyle gets is rescuing mistreated swamp dragons.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by LadyTevar »

This is a steaming pile of crap
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Batman »

What she said.

You want to do your own thing, do your own thing. Don't take something that worked, throw out everything that MADE it work, and expect people to like it because you kept the name.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Majin Gojira »

Batman wrote: 2020-10-11 10:32pm What she said.

You want to do your own thing, do your own thing. Don't take something that worked, throw out everything that MADE it work, and expect people to like it because you kept the name.
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by LadyTevar »

And Rhiannon Pratchett declares it NOT DISCWORLD
The Watch shares no DNA with Terry Prachett's Work

Rhianna Pratchett joins fans unhappy with the forthcoming TV adaptation of her father’s Discworld stories about Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch

Terry Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna Pratchett has said that the forthcoming television adaptation of the late author’s stories about Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch “shares no DNA with my father’s Watch”, and that she “should know”.

The Watch, a new series from BBC America and BBC Studios, will air in January in the US, but a trailer shared over the weekend has prompted an outpouring of criticism from fans. Describing itself as “inspired by” Pratchett’s novels about the City Watch, the new trailer for the series shows Richard Dormer as a punk-rock version of the Watch’s grizzled commander Sam Vimes, in a show that BBC America is pitching as about a band of “misfit cops as they fight to save a ramshackle city of normalised wrongness from both the past and future in a perilous quest”.

“Look, I think it’s fairly obvious that The Watch shares no DNA with my father’s Watch. This is neither criticism nor support. It is what it is,” wrote Rhianna Pratchett, a game designer and author, on Twitter.

The award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Aliette de Bodard was one of many to criticise the new trailer. De Bodard said she was “super disappointed”, and would not be watching the adaptation. “I feel someone took my teenage years and just repeatedly trampled them while setting them on fire,” she wrote on Twitter.

“I’m a big fan of remixing things and adapting them, and I don’t expect any adaptation to be faithful in the sense of rigidly following books. But... you cannot take the core of what makes the story, remove it, and then change every single character and still call it the Watch,” said de Bodard. “I see absolutely NOTHING of the books in the trailer. I see vigilantism (which Vimes ABHORS) being justified … I see Vimes as some kind of funny, incompetent seeming policeman, and that is NOT what Vimes is about. Vimes is drunk. Vimes is angry. But Vimes is never anything less than sharp.”

Neil Gaiman, who co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett and shepherded the recent adaptation as showrunner, added his voice to hers. Fans, he pointed, out, like the source material, “so if you do something else, you risk alienating the fans on a monumental scale. It’s not Batman if he’s now a news reporter in a yellow trenchcoat with a pet bat”.

Rhianna Pratchett had previously called out the showrunner of The Watch, Simon Allen, for failing to thank her father in a message to the show’s creators, and has been clear that the show is “inspired by”, rather than based on, the City Watch books. The BBC has had “complete creative control”, she has said, and she has not been involved “for years”.

In a panel at New York ComicCon last week, the show’s executive producer Richard Stokes said that Pratchett’s books were “incredible, but what was very clear from the early part of development was that none of the books individually lend themselves to an eight-part series … so we had to do a sort of pick-and-mix of the best bits across the range of books and invent our own series, invent our own world.”

Stokes said you “don’t need to know the books to be able to enjoy the series and that’s one of the most exciting things about it for a big audience”.

Rhianna Pratchett, through the independent production company Narrativia which was launched by her father, is currently working with Motive Pictures and Endeavor Content to create “truly authentic … prestige adaptations that remain absolutely faithful to [Pratchett’s] original, unique genius”.
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Crazedwraith
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by Crazedwraith »

Ouch. That's pretty damning. I had thought without ever investigating that Rhianna Pratchett was heavily involved given her status as official heir of Discworld
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madd0ct0r
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Re: BBC America Greenlights "CSI: Ankh-Morpork"

Post by madd0ct0r »

Nah, she's been calling them out on twitter for ages.

I guess one reason im not as angry as everyone else is that I thought the previous discworld adaptions, while faithful, were stodgy and boring. I hope this is better, as well as different.
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