doggydog2312 OK, first thing's first.This doesn't have the budget of your average fantasy movie, so don't expect good effects or masks or settings all the time. They fit 2 books of material into 3 hours of film so a lot was cut - understandable and all things considered, well enough. Colour of Magic is not the most interesting / best written of his books to begin with - which doesn't diminish its importance in the grand scheme of things, but hey, it doesn't help anything. All that considered, it's well done and I can appreciate it.But some things I can't get over.For example... the cast. The fact that David Jason and Sean Astin are fans of the book, made me like them even more. But man... Rincewind ISN'T OLD. OR FAT. You don't go and change the appearance of the most recognizable character from a very well known series and change his appearance and back story drastically so that it would fit the actor playing him :/. Heck, even in the playback he's neither ginger nor looking like the marathon runner he is. I don't buy Twoflower as an American too... And the Librarian... one of the best characters of the novels is, despite everything shown extensively as a human, and an irritating, neurotic one to boot. And as an ape... he's downright creepy. There's one exception -> Cohen does look like himself, I'll give you that. There are more completely unnecessary discrepancies but I don't care to continue with naming them all.To sum it up, David Jason as Rincewind, despite being a great actor that I respect a lot, kills the movie for me. And it's NOT his acting's fault (even if I've seen better performances from him and feel like he was overacting in some ways), it's just the way he looks. I can't imagine Rincewind like that. It's just not him.And the humor, OK, so that's subjective, but I've found that the "old" one works only occasionally in here and the newly added stuff is groan or face-palm inducing in all situations bar one (Death's last comment of the movie got a smile from me). Some things look really shoddy too, but I'll "blame" that on the budget and not take it against the movie.Strange that Pratchett would allow some these... but who knows. CoM (more) and LF (less) ARE apart in some ways from the canon he created later on to begin with. It might be OK if you look at it in that way.

siderite I've never been able to read Terry Pratchett's books, mostly because they were too ... British. All those large words and phrasing that seems to always say more than one can possibly understand. So I was grateful for a chance to grasp a little of what all this Discworld business is all about.The film is clearly a TV movie, the special effects are simple and either completely CGI or weird mashups (like the fire breathing dragon bit), but that never bothered me because the acting was great, the story fun and the people in it clearly enjoying every moment of its making.Bottom line: like the old Shakespeare plays that BBC was doing and I gobbled up as a young child or like Doctor Who or any other of those shows that Brits do, which are cheaply done, but with a lot of soul, I really liked it. I am looking forward to watching Hogfather, next.

alisoncircus Forget the "disjointed themes and story lines" and forget the apologia for them. Pratchett fans can't help but be bored silly by this and I don't see how non-fans over the age of 10 could be entertained. Where Pratchett's writing is crisp, clever and witty this movie is pedantic, stupid and dull. Yes, Vadim Jean did an excellent job of deciding what to keep and what to dispense with in translating the books into a screenplay. Some of the dialogue is even cleverly delivered. But that isn't enough.The early Discworld novels barely have anything you could call a plot. They are just "one thing happening after another" until you either get to something that feels like a resolution or it feels like a good place to stop. Instead of being plot-driven, they are pun-driven. Some of the original puns depend on being read, but most of them can be visualized, or at least replaced with the visual version, which is slap-stick. Virtually every time anyone says anything in this movie there is either a pause for effect (ruining the pacing) or something else steps on the line (ruining the delivery). And there is no slap-stick at all - when something happens, it's practically in slow motion, presumably so the under 10-year-olds don't miss it. But even Pratchett's stories written for children (which these weren't) do not presume the level of idiocy in their audience that this movie does.The joy of a Discworld novel is not just in the obvious puns, allusions, metaphors, humorous references and other "plays on words" that he uses, it's in discovering the hidden ones that make you feel really pleased with yourself for having noticed. This is the man who introduced the character "Carrot" in book #7 and had someone "look at (him) in a new way and start a revolution" in book _fifteen_. If you're not familiar with your French philosophers and don't have the luck to find the quote on a calendar (as I did) then you won't recognize the reference. But what kind of a convoluted mind writes six books in between the set up and delivery of a pun? Let alone such an obscure one? Terry Pratchett, and no one else.But aside from having no intelligence, the movie lacks another vital Discworld element: character. In the novels, Rincewind is practically an athlete (from all that running) and is probably in his early thirties - it _wasn't_ that long ago that, as an undergrad of normal age, he took that dare he shouldn't have. In the movie the character doesn't run because the actor can't. He's too old. And most of the Rincewind humour is dependent on the running! His lines are nearly always thrown over his shoulder. Twoflower, on the other hand, is at least as badly cast. He comes from the Agatean Empire, which on the "world and mirror of worlds" that is the Discworld reflects all the metaphors, clichés and prejudices that the west (particularly England) has for the east - particularly China and Japan. Um, don't you think you could have cast an Asian? Or are we still back in the days when whites played all roles, no matter how ill-suited they are to them? This character doesn't even come off as a good tourist! Instead he looks and acts like a 5 year old who's trying to pretend he's stupid.What's really frustrating is that all of these actors are really, really good at their job. This just isn't a job that should have been given to these particular actors. Tim Curry, for example does his absolute best with his lines and his character (and his best is very, very good), but the pacing messes him up so badly that he can't even make you snicker. Talk about wasted effort! It's almost enough to make you cry.Vadim Jean's other effort, The Hogfather, is a much better watch because he got the casting right - or at least, right enough. But the pacing is just as bad. It's as if someone were reading the novel aloud to you, with a stammer and pausing for a full second after each line.It could have been so much better.

ohgeebear1 I had been waiting to see The Colour of Magic since they announced it. I couldn't be happier...Jeremy Irons as the Patrician was what I imagined. Although I wondered about his choice of accent. And while I had expected Rincewind to be younger, David Jason's face is so wonderfully expressive, that I didn't care. Tim Curry's Trymon was typical to his villains and David Bradley as the Hero, wonderful..In order to have made this any better for me, they would have had to make a mini series of 4 nights at least..I believe that even non-Pratchet readers can still get the bulk of the humour, and it is close enough to the books that the most rabid fan will not object.