Gaiman Fans...

[lovecraft68]

These days so many things have been adapted to movies or streaming services as shows and have been huge let downs that are outright insulting to the source material and its fans

But Netflix Sandman has me excited, perfect look, tone, and feel

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Gaiman says he's excited by how well it works, so I'm looking forward to it.

The BBC got Good Omens spot on, and American Gods looked perfect, just needed to be edited down by a third and not go off-piste in the second series. I was gutted - I wanted to love it so much, but it was just toooo sloooow... But still, promising precedent for interpreting Gaiman.

 

[lovecraft68]

Gaiman says he's excited by how well it works, so I'm looking forward to it.

The BBC got Good Omens spot on, and American Gods looked perfect, just needed to be edited down by a third and not go off-piste in the second series. I was gutted - I wanted to love it so much, but it was just toooo sloooow... But still, promising precedent for interpreting Gaiman.

I agree Good Omens was accurate, but to me the quirky nature didn't translate well to TV, great cast, but it just seemed to cheesy for me. But my daughter who is a huge Gaiman fan loved it, so I get yelled at if I say It was meh.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I agree Good Omens was accurate, but to me the quirky nature didn't translate well to TV, great cast, but it just seemed to cheesy for me. But my daughter who is a huge Gaiman fan loved it, so I get yelled at if I say It was meh.

Eh, the book is pretty cheesy, being early Pratchett (and Gaiman claims equal guilt). You're not English, are you? I'm about the same age as Adam and Them, (which is all a spoof of Damien and The Omen), and it was so close to home I expected my parents to live next door.

 

[Bramblethorn]

These days so many things have been adapted to movies or streaming services as shows and have been huge let downs that are outright insulting to the source material and its fans

But Netflix Sandman has me excited, perfect look, tone, and feel

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this one. Been catching up on some of my half-watched Netflix stuff so I can start on Sandman with a clear conscience ;-) It's never going to be possible to satisfy everybody with an adaptation but so far I'm pretty happy with all the choices I've seen.

I laughed at these two, technically not wrong but kind of missing the point:

 

[Bramblethorn]

Gaiman says he's excited by how well it works, so I'm looking forward to it.

The BBC got Good Omens spot on, and American Gods looked perfect, just needed to be edited down by a third and not go off-piste in the second series. I was gutted - I wanted to love it so much, but it was just toooo sloooow... But still, promising precedent for interpreting Gaiman.

I really liked S1 of American Gods. Several "I can't believe they dared to go there" moments, in particular with Vulcan, and Orlando Jones' entry as Anansi was spine-tingling. Never ended up watching S2 though; we have the DVD somewhere around but I get sidetracked from series easily, and then the bad blood around Jones getting fired from the series left a sour taste.

Good Omens was great. even if it suffered a bit from "why is she throwing herself at the geeky guy again?" syndrome. I'm curious about the mentioned second series, apparently based on ideas that Gaiman and Pratchett were kicking around for a never-written sequel. Usually that kind of thing disappoints but if anybody can pull it off it'd be Gaiman.

 

[Defluer]

I need my nerd card revoked. I tried to read Gaiman (in the thread name) like it was some Japanese fetish category.

My thought was, "Guy ma... Gah ah e ma... No, I'll just click it and see what knew fetish there is that I haven't heard of. And maybe how to pronounce it."

 

[SimonDoom]

The only thing I've read of Gaiman is American Gods, and it didn't quite do it for me. I just wasn't sold on the basic concept or conflict. It seemed contrived and I didn't feel like he sold it. I didn't see the series. Wasn't interested after reading the book. I haven't read anything else of his.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I need my nerd card revoked. I tried to read Gaiman (in the thread name) like it was some Japanese fetish category.

My thought was, "Guy ma... Gah ah e ma... No, I'll just click it and see what knew fetish there is that I haven't heard of. And maybe how to pronounce it."

Gaiman once received an award at a GLAAD event, and remarked that it was the first time he'd been applauded just for pronouncing his name correctly.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I agree Good Omens was accurate, but to me the quirky nature didn't translate well to TV, great cast, but it just seemed to cheesy for me. But my daughter who is a huge Gaiman fan loved it, so I get yelled at if I say It was meh.

I guess I'll have to go back and watch this given all the generally positive comments on this thread. I decided quite a long time ago that there was something about Pratchett's style that mostly doesn't adapt well. Douglas Adams (who of course wrote for radio) would do one hilarious 'Guide' exposition and then follow it with one hilarious 'dialogue' exchange. Fry and Lauries P.G. Woodhouse adaptions worked because they'd have Laurie behind a piano, give him a monologue from the stories about (e.g.) how aunts aren't gentlemen, and have Fry go 'Indeed Sir' at the end. Pratchett tends to write in a way where the narration and dialogue are much more intertwined in a way that it's impossible to separate out on the screen - he'll often comment on the dialogue as it happens to point out the absurdety of a conversation that might not be that absurd on it's face. You also have the issue with the Discworld that everyone seems to have a very different mental image of what everything is supposed to look like.

I've been in two minds about watching it, and the casting of the very undemonic David Tenant wasn't very encouraging. I suppose I'm in danger of becoming a fantasy book snob like the character in my latest story who refuses to watch the Lord of the Rings movie because of the skateboarding elf.

Good Omens was great. even if it suffered a bit from "why is she throwing herself at the geeky guy again?" syndrome.

Okay, googling to see how attractive they've made Anathema - oh my, it's a good job they thought to give her round glasses so we know she's also a nerd. Just out of interest, who have they cast as Newt...Jack Whitehall...Christ, I'm already regretting my commitment to watching this two sentences ago.

My first intro to Gaiman was Good Omens then I basically got everything I could afford from him, which included the sandman collection. Have yet to read something from him that I don't enjoy but it was all a stark difference in tone from Good Omens (which, admittedly, I got 'cause of Pratchett.)

I think, although he was always too polite to say it directly, some of the interviews with Pratchett suggest that he wrote all the prose in Good Omens as it would have been too messy stylistically to have them both contribute actual words to the book.

 

[tenyari]

Gaiman says he's excited by how well it works, so I'm looking forward to it.

Gaiman's already had to go on the attack against "fans" who are criticizing aspects of the upcoming show.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I guess I'll have to go back and watch this given all the generally positive comments on this thread. I decided quite a long time ago that there was something about Pratchett's style that mostly doesn't adapt well. Douglas Adams (who of course wrote for radio) would do one hilarious 'Guide' exposition and then follow it with one hilarious 'dialogue' exchange. Fry and Lauries P.G. Woodhouse adaptions worked because they'd have Laurie behind a piano, give him a monologue from the stories about (e.g.) how aunts aren't gentlemen, and have Fry go 'Indeed Sir' at the end. Pratchett tends to write in a way where the narration and dialogue are much more intertwined in a way that it's impossible to separate out on the screen - he'll often comment on the dialogue as it happens to point out the absurdety of a conversation that might not be that absurd on it's face. You also have the issue with the Discworld that everyone seems to have a very different mental image of what everything is supposed to look like.

I've been in two minds about watching it, and the casting of the very undemonic David Tenant wasn't very encouraging. I suppose I'm in danger of becoming a fantasy book snob like the character in my latest story who refuses to watch the Lord of the Rings movie because of the skateboarding elf.

Tennant and Sheen have pretty good chemistry as Crowley and Aziraphale, IMHO - remembering that Crowley is only meant to be a half-hearted kind of demon, and Aziraphale's not the most angelic of angels.

They did make some changes in adapting to the screen, and they're not going to be to everybody's tastes, but overall I thought it was about as faithful to the original as one should ask for. One advantage of being mildly face-blind is that I'm not very susceptible to "but that character doesn't look like my mental image!"

I think, although he was always too polite to say it directly, some of the interviews with Pratchett suggest that he wrote all the prose in Good Omens as it would have been too messy stylistically to have them both contribute actual words to the book.

Not according to Gaiman (posted in 2006 when Pratchett was still alive and not yet diagnosed with the Embuggerance, so presumably would've been in a position to correct the record had he disagreed):

"At an educated guess, although neither of us ever counted, Terry probably wrote around 60,000 "raw" and I wrote 45,000 "raw" words of Good Omens, with, on the whole, Terry taking more of the plot with Adam and the Them in, and me doing more of the stuff that was slightly more tangential to the story, except that broke down pretty quickly and when we got towards the end we swapped characters so that we'd both written everyone by the time it was done, but then we also rewrote and footnoted each others bits as we went along, and rolled up our sleeves to take the first draft to the second (quite a lot of words), and by the end of it, neither of us was entirely certain who had written what."

 

[TheRedChamber]

Not according to Gaiman (posted in 2006 when Pratchett was still alive and not yet diagnosed with the Embuggerance, so presumably would've been in a position to correct the record had he disagreed):

"At an educated guess, although neither of us ever counted, Terry probably wrote around 60,000 "raw" and I wrote 45,000 "raw" words of Good Omens, with, on the whole, Terry taking more of the plot with Adam and the Them in, and me doing more of the stuff that was slightly more tangential to the story, except that broke down pretty quickly and when we got towards the end we swapped characters so that we'd both written everyone by the time it was done, but then we also rewrote and footnoted each others bits as we went along, and rolled up our sleeves to take the first draft to the second (quite a lot of words), and by the end of it, neither of us was entirely certain who had written what."

Ok, interesting. I'd probably seem some version of the source that's mentioned in Wikipedia saying that Terry did most of the writing.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I guess I'll have to go back and watch this given all the generally positive comments on this thread. I decided quite a long time ago that there was something about Pratchett's style that mostly doesn't adapt well. Douglas Adams (who of course wrote for radio) would do one hilarious 'Guide' exposition and then follow it with one hilarious 'dialogue' exchange. Fry and Lauries P.G. Woodhouse adaptions worked because they'd have Laurie behind a piano, give him a monologue from the stories about (e.g.) how aunts aren't gentlemen, and have Fry go 'Indeed Sir' at the end. Pratchett tends to write in a way where the narration and dialogue are much more intertwined in a way that it's impossible to separate out on the screen - he'll often comment on the dialogue as it happens to point out the absurdety of a conversation that might not be that absurd on it's face. You also have the issue with the Discworld that everyone seems to have a very different mental image of what everything is supposed to look like.

I've been in two minds about watching it, and the casting of the very undemonic David Tenant wasn't very encouraging...

Okay, googling to see how attractive they've made Anathema - oh my, it's a good job they thought to give her round glasses so we know she's also a nerd. Just out of interest, who have they cast as Newt...Jack Whitehall...Christ, I'm already regretting my commitment to watching this two sentences ago.

The recent Pratchett Guards series was totally wrong - I think Rhianna Pratchett asked for the name to be removed in the end. Thing was, if they'd changed the names of all the characters, it would have been a decent alternative-reality crime series. Just that if you totally change the characters of Sam Vimes, Sybil, Cheery and Carrot, you don't have Pratchett's Watch.

David Tennant can act. Acting Crowley is one of his easier asks - being the attractive baddie. Look out his Hamlet, some time. Sheen though blew me away - being a convincing angel, charged with being good and fulfilling a mission yet backsliding over millennia, having to be a bit priggish yet sympathetic, that's much harder to portray but Sheen did it. Their chemistry was key to the whole thing (they did a series in lockdown called Staged, which possibly kept half the country from going mad during the height of lockdown).

The American Anathema was OK, given BBC series have to have the token American so US TV will buy them, and Whitehall managed to do Newt adequately, basically not being himself.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Ok, binge watched it last night.

The things I hated were balanced out more or less evenly with the things I loved, so these days that counts as a win.

Turned out to be a good opportunity to take the lessons learned from yesterday' shipping dynamics thread and see them in action.

Probably have to face the fact that my mild but undeniable dislike of David Tennant is something personal to me (much like my intense hatred for Rene Zellweger was)

 

[Chernosoth]

I watched Neverwhere years ago, and then missed most of the TV adaptations because I don't do Netflix. Today I finished the three seasons of American Gods. It's a great story, but somewhat obsolete. Finance and Tech are old gods with not much time left. A smarter story would be about the new gods that are born as industrial civilization winds down and burns out. That maybe too forward thinking for television, which is bound to the beliefs and gods of industrial civilization.

 

[Duleigh]

The recent Pratchett Guards series was totally wrong - I think Rhianna Pratchett asked for the name to be removed in the end. Thing was, if they'd changed the names of all the characters, it would have been a decent alternative-reality crime series. Just that if you totally change the characters of Sam Vimes, Sybil, Cheery and Carrot, you don't have Pratchett's Watch.

I am so glad I didn't see or hear anything about that. I love PTerry that much... I took his passing very hard; I have a copy of Snuff that I got late, I received it after his passing and I can't bring myself to read it. I guess that reading it will bring Diskworld to an end for me, I guess I don't want to say goodbye