I have posted before about how some of our family are big fans of the works of Terry Pratchett. We have most of his books. My other half has read many of them several times, but I have not read them recently. We were intrigued that a TV show was to be made based on the Ankh-Morpork City Watch by BBC America. Less promising were comments by Pratchett's daughter and Neil Gaiman saying it did not have too much to do with the original books.
My other half particularly likes The Watch books featuring Captain Sam Vimes and as we watched the first couple of episodes she got increasingly angry with how much the production diverged from the books. I had forgotten many details and am not so particular, so I persisted after she gave up.
The series includes lots of characters from the books, but some have changed race and/or gender. That does not bother me too much. It is a shame they omitted some of the Watch such as Corporal 'Nobby' Nobbs. Vimes is not quite as I imagine him, but Richard Donner did create an interesting character. Corporal Cherry in the books is a female dwarf who can express her femininity in the city (as I read it), but here Cheery is a trans person (played by Jo Eaton Kent) and it seems not all dwarfs are small. It is a good portrayal of a trans person who can be themselves, but just not what I expected.
The story is a mish-mash of several books, but it does hang together reasonably well. I quite liked the scenes with the assassins. There are some nice performances by the cast.
It was largely filmed in South Africa with a sort of steampunk vibe. There are various elements of our world such as electricity, which it is suggested were conjured by the wizards who have been observing 'Round World'. I think it is mentioned that Ankh-Morpork is on the Discworld, so flat-earthers may like it for that. Not sure if ours is supposed to be resting on elephants and a turtle though.
This show may struggle as Pratchett fans will not like all the changes and anyone unfamiliar with the books may wonder what is going on as they will not know the characters. You have to wonder why someone would get the rights to a much loved set of books and then change so much. I know this also happened with Peter Jackson's Tolkein movies, but those at least followed the basic stories from the books.
The Pratchett books have been filmed before. There are a few animated and some live action productions that are much more true to the books. I think I need to watch those again.
Has anyone else seen this? What did you think?