There may not be a better time for a proper adaptation ofDiscworld. After all,fantasy television just keeps getting more popular, and with increasingly massive budgets going into these shows, we’ve reached a point of spectacle that would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago whenXena: Warrior Princesswas as good as genre TV could ever hope to be. Yet with that increase in budget and quality of special effects, there has come a commensurate change in the tone of these shows as they become more and more grim.
DespiteDiscworld’scomplicated reading order, it could be the ideal choice for a shift in direction when it comes to the fantasy genre. The books' focus on themes of truth, justice, freedom, and love, have the potential to help make Disworld into a welcome entry into yet another fun, fantasy world.
Discworld Deserves A Faithful TV Show - How It Can Get It Right?
It Needs To Actually Be In A Conversation With The Source Material, Not Just Copy The Jokes
There have been three tries at makingDiscworldTV over the years, and they’ve all had flaws. In the 90s, Cosgrove Hall Animation made cartoons out ofSoul MusicandWyrd Sisters, which were faithful enough adaptations of their sources, but the cheap animation is almost unwatchable now, never mind that neither were ever released in high definition. The 00s brought live-action TV movies ofThe Colour of Magic(with some ofThe Light Fantasticfor flavor),Hogfather, andGoing Postal, which were well-received, but dull. And then there’s the 2021The Watchseries, which didn’t live up to expectations.
Every Terry Pratchett Adaptation Ranked (Including The Watch)
With BBC America’s The Watch season 1 having come to a close, it can now be assessed alongside other adaptations of Terry Pratchett’s novels.
The problem with all of these has been that they’ve had to make too many compromises from the original material without trying to do anything new. Of course,The Watchtried to do new things, but in doing so it made a mess of them and strayed so far from the source as to be unrecognizable. It’s certainly a tricky balance for any adaptation of books to film, butDiscworldhas something special at its heart that, if someone can just get it right, could change the face of fantasy TV.
Now Is The Perfect Time For A Discworld TV Show That Adapts The Books Properly
Fantasy TV Is At Its Height Of Popularity So It’s Time For Someone To Take It Down At The Knees
Discworldhas heart and empathy in a way that no one expects it to, because they’re those silly books full of characters with names like Carrot and Moist and Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler who all go on magical adventures. But those adventures have them encounter social issues like gender inequality, workers' rights, and nascent fascism.Discworldcharacters are alive on the page in ways that avatars of fantastical grimness like the Targaryens could never be, because the Disc’s inhabitants have all the flaws and foibles of real people.
Terry Pratchett Abandoning Discworld’s Original Premise Saved The Fantasy Saga
The long-running and beloved Discworld series by Terry Pratchett might not have been such a success if the author hadn’t made this key change.
A goodDiscworldshow will have to make changes and cuts to the books. That’s inevitable in an adaptation, and doubly so when working with novels that are up to 40 years old. The important thing everyone has missed so far is that those changes have the opportunity to serve the story instead of underestimating its audience. Satire past a certain vintage needs to be handled with care, but this is an opportunity to breathe new life into the stories, so long as it’s done by someone who understands narratives the way Sir Terry Pratchett did.
