Customer Reviews

Moving Pictures (Discworld)

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

. . . and our little life is rounded with a sleep." This snippet of Prospero's from Shakespeare's The Tempest, was beautifully ad libbed by Humphrey Bogart during the filming of The Maltese Falcon. It pretty much sums up the experience I took out of reading Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. Life in Holy Wood, like life on Prospero's island is one where magical events occur encouraged by a host of spirits. Since these magical events unfold in that piece of the universe known as Discworld, they unfold with wit, humor, and more than a bit of thought.

As the title suggests, Moving Pictures is Pratchett's take on Hollywood. In a manner similar to his approach to Men at Arms, The Truth, and Going Postal, Pratchett takes the development of the motion picture industry and through the literary equivalent of time-lapse photography compresses it so that the reader experiences in a brief time span that which occurred over decades on our slower-moving planet. The result is hilariously funny and made me shake my head and murmur, how did we let this nonsense happen.

CAST OF CHARACTERS: As a click trailer might say: Introducing Victor and Ginger (think Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers) as the leading man and lady of this epic. Also new to Discworld is Thomas Silverfish (think Samuel Goldwyn of MGM fame), the first big producer on Discworld. As in Casablanca, Pratchett has also rounded up the usual suspects. Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler (can't think of a character on earth that remotely resembles Dibbler!) and Gaspode (think Oscar Levant as played by a stray dog) are featured prominently and hilariously. This is a big step up for these two contract players in the Discworld series! Rounding out the featured players is that zany group of performers known as the wizards, led by their fearless librarian (think the Keystone Kops meets Planet of the Apes). And, as they say, a cast of thousands, including assorted trolls, an overly obsequious dog known as Laddie (think Lassie) and other delightful diverse denizens of Discworld.

THE PLOT: The plot is simple. It is about the power of dreams in a world, as Dibbler might say, "gone mad". Dreams, particularly the dreams of Ginger, play a critical role in the book. A group of alchemists have invented movies or clicks as they come to be known on Discworld. Fearing that such magic might anger the wizards of Unseen University the alchemists move out of Ankh-Morpork to a strange and wondrous place called Holy Wood. In what seems like only days, clicks become the next big thing. People from around Discworld come to Holy Wood for no apparent reason other than a strange compulsion. Perhaps mysterious forces are at work? The excitement level gradually builds, the outlines of an evil, dark plot by the spirit world reveals itself as in a dream, until all heck breaks loose. Victor strives valiantly to save the universe with the wizards following close behind in a manner reminiscent of the Keystone Kops. The climactic fight scene is both dramatic and hilariously funny. Of course, the fun in any Pratchett novel is not the ending but the journey. Hollywood references abound. It is always fun trying to spot some, even those which Pratchett may never have intended. Dibbler's hilarious product placements and his `invention' of subliminal advertising were worth the price of admission.

Some have suggested that Moving Pictures is not as `good' as his other Discworld books. There is an inference, perhaps, that it does not address profound issues relating to life, the universe and everything as was the case in Mort, Small Gods, or Thief of Time. For me, however, the profusion of cultural gods (from Valentino to Pacino) created by Hollywood and its enormous impact on popular culture throughout the world seems just as worthy of the typical Pratchett treatment as small gods in the form of a turtle. I also have to add that it was a pleasure seeing both Gaspode and Dibbler in more prominent roles.

All in all, as I finished Discworld I kept coming back to Bogart looking wistfully at the worthless Maltese Falcon that so many people had died in pursuit of their dreams. Perhaps for his next click, Dibbler can have Victor close by reminding the audience that, like Prospero:

Our revels now are ended: these our actors
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yes, and all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a wrack behind: We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Th-th-th-that's all folks!!!

Moving Pictures, the 10th Discworld novel written by Terry Pratchett, has the distinction of being the first one with which I've been a bit disappointed. All of the typical elements of a Discworld book are still there: witty satire on an aspect of society, humour, and weird situations. They just don't come together as a whole. It was a bit difficult to get through as a result, because I did become bored at certain points. Pratchett includes a few characters that don't have much to do with the plot, but instead are there for a one-off joke. This seemed to pad the book far more than the joke, while amusing, was worth. One character in particular falls into this category: he's there to make a joke about Victor's exit examination; then later on in the book, he keeps trying to go out for a night on the town, but keeps getting stymied. Again, the joke is amusing, but the pages devoted to it seem to be a waste. Another example is the antics of some of the wizards. The situations that they get themselves into are hilarious, I must admit. But as part of the narrative, they don't merge well.

The rest of the book contains some wonderful skewering of Hollywood and the movie business. I loved how Dibbler wanted to add elephants to everything, with mass battle scenes (with different people galloping by in take after take because they only have a couple of horses) and romance where there wasn't any before. Theda (who calls herself Ginger) and Victor heat up the screen with kiss after kiss, and everybody assumes that they're lovers (hey, it happened on screen, right?). Who cares if something didn't really happen, it will look exciting!

The main characters were less memorable than Pratchett's characters usually are. I found both Victor and Ginger to be kind of bland. This is ironic, considering how they are perceived as almost larger than life by the people who watch these movies. In the book, however, they are a trifle boring. I didn't get any sense of chemistry between them, like I did with William and Sacharissa in The Truth. They are capable in their roles as a vehicle for Pratchett's satire, but as characters themselves they fall a bit short.

Thankfully, some of the other characters make up for this deficiency, and they prevent the book from sliding into tedium. Dibbler is wonderful as a man who has let too much power go to his head. He's a director that thinks he knows everything (he has, after all, run a highly "successful" business selling "sausages" in a bun). He has some of the best lines, and if he doesn't get his elephants, he's going to be very unhappy! Gaspode, the talking dog, is another winning character, and I was glad to see how he was introduced. Pratchett defies logic a little bit in keeping Gaspode talking when the other animals stop, but he's such a great character in subsequent books that it's worth it.

Every time I thought of putting this book down, something funny or interesting happened. Unfortunately, it's not like a Pratchett book to ever make me have that feeling in the first place. Still, it is worth getting through it. I don't think you'll feel you've wasted your time reading this. However, if you start the series with this book, know that it's one of the weaker ones and you can move up from here. Give it a try.

Somewhere in Discworld the last priest of Holy Wood shakes hands with Death and one of realities weak points (it has many) suddenly is unguarded. Not long after, an alchemist in Ankh-Morpork suddenly figures out how to make a form of octo-cellulose that only explodes occasionally. In no time, rolls of this miracle compound are being fed into picture boxes where tiny demons frantically paint pictures on the film. You guessed it, the Discworld entertainment industry is about to take a great lurch forward (or maybe backward).

Suddenly, ancient Holy Wood was on the map, drawing people to it form all over the world. And from outside the world as well. In the spaces between the universes, unmentionable creatures are drawn like magnets to the thin reality of feature filmmaking. Nor are the locals much more respectable. Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler sells the world's most horrible sausage business and heads for tinsel town to become a mogul, trolls enroll as bit part players, and people who should never be allowed to cook, are.

The good guys are just as various. Victor Tugelbend deserts wizardry, and Ginger Withel leaves the farm in order to make it big in show business. These two reluctantly become involved in what is really going on, which is, as usual, 'the end of everything as we know it.' But the very best character of all is poor Gaspode, the talking dog, a disgraceful looking canine who spends his time (when he isn't out drinking with his friend Laddie the Wonder Dog) keeping Victor and Ginger alive and relatively down to earth. Gaspode is as corrupt and sneaky as they come, but he knows that it is no fun being rotten when there isn't a world to do it in.

'Moving Pictures' is parody and punning, as Pratchett makes fun of everything from 'Gone with the Wind' (Blown Away) to H.P. Lovecraft. This is one of his works that is a bit short on plot, but makes it up with humor and a string of outrageous sight gags. The portrayal of Hollywood's foibles is spot on, and you will find yourself recognizing pieces of famous films, carefully twisted to create snorts and chortles. (You will never, ever, feel the same about King Kong again) Even though this is not one of Pratchett's very best - try 'Small Gods' and 'The Truth' for that - it is still delightful entertainment.

Moving Pictures, like all of Pratchett's work, is entertaining, satirically funny, and very poignant, containing all the finer elements of the early books and some unexpected twists from the Disc as it warps our view of reality into the Discworld view. All manner of delightful Hollywood lore ends up in this tale of Holy Wood, including A Night at the Opera, Gone With the Wind, The Little Rascals, Lassie, King Kong (my favorite passage in the book) and Ben Hur. There are way too many wonderful parodies to list, and each one contributes a bit of a gem to this book, which like many of Pratchett's, causes the reader to think while he is engaged in reading.
The Alchemists awaken a great evil beneath Holy Wood, and it's up to a student wizard who never graduated, a farm girl, and Gaspode the Wonder Dog to save the day as the fate of the Disc hangs in the balance. There's romance, action, and a thousand elephants, all Discworld style. This book also contains the most scenes with Windle Poons, the Disc's oldest known wizard, and for me that was worth the price of admission.
If you are a Pratchett fan, you will naturally read this book in your progression from title to title, but if you've never read Pratchett, start your journey on the Disc elsewhere, like in one of the series. This stand alone is good, but only superb to the truly devoted. I liked it, and I never stopped smiling during my sit through with it. Essentially it is a "dog book," but it contains wizards, trolls, eldritch boding, and dwarves. Not many other dog tales can boast that loud.

If you are going to start reading diskworld novels, please do not start with this one.

It's not that good. It feels like a 'quota book', as if a book publisher said "Hey Terry, you promised us a book this year...". It probably was nothing like that, but it seems like the author took characters from previous books, renamed them and stirred and then didn't sharpen his satire and wit on a proper whetstone.

The topic is dying for good satire, but this didn't strike a cord with me. I still laughed at a lot of things and heck, I'll take a Pratchett book any day over just about any other novel. However, I have re read most of Terry's books over the years, but I have never picked this one up again.

Start with the gaurds series, the witches series or the rincewind series - any of those will give you a good laugh and a good push into diskworld!

The Guild of Alchemists have created a new form of entertainment - moving pictures! Soon Ankh-Morpork is gripped by this latest craze and everyone's trying to break into the business as more and more 'clicks' are made out at Holy Wood. The speed with which the phenomenon spreads is quite strange and soon reluctant actors Victor Tugelbend ("Can't sing, can't dance, can handle a sword a little,") and Theda Withel (aka 'Ginger') are caught up in epic events set against the backdrop of a world gone mad! With a thousand elephants! Once the order arrives, of course...

Moving Pictures is a bit of a 'fallback' Discworld novel. That is, whilst still entertaining, funny and enjoyable, there's also the feeling that Pratchett simply came up with a cool idea and let it meander around for a bit aimlessly rather than being really fired-up and inspired by the concept. His taking of a real-life phenomenon and turning it into a Discworld novel is a pretty consistent way generating stories throughout the series (he also does Discworld takes on the theatre, the post office, rock music, organised banking, Christmas, war and newspapers in future books, with football and taxation still to come), but it does feel like he hasn't put much more effort into the book than what he did with, say, police procedurals in Guards! Guards!

Of course, Pratchett on an off day is still considerably more entertaining than a lot of fantasy authors at their best, so Moving Pictures is still a decent novel. Pratchett is clearly a big movie fan and it's fun trying to find all the references to various films in this book, from Gone with the Wind and Charlie Chaplin through Laurel and Hardy to The Blues Brothers and Back to the Future, not to mention a particularly hilarious inversion of King Kong. There's also some nice prescience on Pratchett's part: the book is now twenty years old and his comments on product placement and the culture of celebrity seem more relevant today than ever before. Characterisation is also pretty good, and the regular cast continues to grow with the arrival of Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Gaspode the Wonder Dog (don't ask) and most of the regular cast of Unseen University, led by the formidable Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully (finally ending the tendency of UU archchancellors in the series to have the lifespan of a colony of terminally depressed lemmings living near the Grand Canyon).

The book has a rather unusual problem for Pratchett, which is pacing. Pratchett usually handles pacing pretty well in his books, with a slow introduction to the story followed by rising action and a (usually) well-handled climax. Moving Pictures isn't quite like that, and stutters a few times with a start-stop feel to the action. In fact, it appears that the main problem has been solved two-thirds of the way through the book, followed by the 'real' grand climax in Ankh-Morpork which also turns out to be a fake-out before we get the final, somewhat anti-climatic, ending in Holy Wood. It's a bit all over the place, to be honest. In fact, it feels like on of those really big Hollywood action blockbusters which goes on for about half an hour too long after the movie should really have ended, which I suppose is quite appropriate.

That said, whilst Moving Pictures is not one of the stronger Discworld novels, it's still better than the earlier, less-well-written books and many of the individual characters and episodes in the book are funny and intelligently-handled, as always.

Moving Pictures (***½) is available now in the UK and USA.

An ancient curse bursts forth from the ruins of Holy Wood, alchemists discover the secret of octocellulose, Detritus the Troll is unchained and madly in love with Ruby, CMOT Dibbler moves up from suspect sausages, Gaspode is introduced, and the Librarian and a blonde... never mind, this is getting too weird...

An on-going came of 'spot the cinematic reference' wrapped around a passable plot with a fair number of twists. One of Pratchett's better pieces, but not quite at the top of his form. The Librarian and Lord Vetinari, two of my three favorite Discworld characters, have small but significant parts in this one, which of course grants it a certain degree of merit from the start (the third favorite is Greebo).

Cinematic references abound, from the days of silent film right up to fairly modern stuff, and I'm certain I've missed some of the references. But it does become an enjoyable game, trying to identify the sources, though frustrating when you feel that some bit is a reference, but can't identify the source.

I enjoyed this one, a strong four stars, but only four.

the plot is a little bit superficial and has, like the film industry, not really some depth to think about. it's a discworld book with all this nice highlights of writing style but as the main red line is not a very interesting one to me, i find this book one of the lower quality discworld ones... if you are a discworld fan, then it's of course for you, but if you are looking for a first discworld book, then make sure it's not this but instead e.g. Small Gods or Monstrous Regiment or Pyramids

Once again, the Discworld's alchemists are getting themselves into trouble. This time they've created moving pictures. Their short "clicks" immediately gain attention throughout the land and soon after people are mysteriously finding themselves drawn to a place called Holy Wood, a location out in the middle of nowhere. Soon, a huge movie industry spurts up and more and more people are coming to Holy Wood to be a part of this. Included in this group are: Victor, a wizard-in-training who would purposely fail his exams to not become a full-blown wizard; Ginger, simple milk-maid; Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, a former sausage salesman about to take Holy Wood by storm; and Gaspode the Wonder dog, a flea-bitten, diseased old mutt who can actually talk. What the people of Holy Wood don't know is that by making these moving pictures, they are actually creating a whole in the fabric of the already thin reality of Discwork. In the process, they are opening the gate for some not-very-nice creatures to come right in.

I have read most of Pratchett's books and I found this one the most disappointing. Pratchett plays too much on poking fun at the real motion picture industry than developing the characters or inserting his own brand of humor into the story. There were some classic scenes in the book, like when Gaspode tries to get some trolls to help rescue his friends Victor and Ginger from a collapsed cave by talking to them, but instead the stupid, overly trained dog, Laddie, manages to get their attention instead. However, these are few and far between. Too many times Pratchett just makes obvious connections to the film industry that are funny at first but get rather predictable towards the end of the book. The only thing I did enjoy about the book was Gaspode. This poor dog is given the capability of speech from the Holy Wood magic floating in the air and his side comments are just hysterical at times. He is the best developed character in the book.

The tenth Discworld novel is Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. Pratchett takes on Hollywood, here called Holy Wood, and the movies as the death of the guardian of a particular door and the lack of a replacement begins to cause reality, our silver screen reality, to seep into the Discworld. People begin to have these Big Ideas about making moving pictures and Pratchett, with his usual wit and humor, gives us references to movie classics as citizens of the Disc begin to make movies...in their own twisted Discworld sort of way.

Moving Pictures took quite a few pages to really begin to engage me in the story and the humor, but once it did I thoroughly enjoyed this Discworld novel. While not as good as, say, Mort, or one of the early witch novels, Moving Pictures is a decently good story and far more enjoyable than that dolt Rincewind (who, granted, has started to grow on me. Must be the luggage).

Nothing really critical here to say or examine because I find it almost impossible to discuss the plot of a Discworld novel as Pratchett is all over the place in a way that would cause most novels to fail. Yet Discworld succeeds.

Favorite Character Here: Gaspode the Wonder Dog.

Second Fav Character: Laddie (a idiotic Lassie like dog who has not been gifted the power of speech and intelligence through the magic of Holy Wood).

Good boy, Laddie!

-Joe Sherry