Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic Thursday, March 27th, 2008
There was a two part miniseries on the UK’s SkyOne channel this week called “Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic“. It’s an adaptation of his first two Discworld books and it’s far and away the best Terry Pratchett adaptation I’ve ever seen. Jenn and I watched the first part and a little of the second part last night and we were really impressed. Sean Astin plays the cheerful but clueless Twoflower, the Disc’s first tourist. Tim Curry plays a conniving wizard named Trymon, who is constantly looking to move up in the ranks at Unseen University. Jeremy Irons plays The Patrician, the incredibly intimidating ruler of the sprawling city of Ankh-Morpork. Christopher Lee is the voice of Death. The miniseries is also filled with a million other UK actors you may have seen somewhere, maybe flipping past WHYY or BBC America or something. The guy who plays Mr. Filch (the grumpy old caretaker of Hogwarts) in the Harry Potter movies is in the second part. He plays Cohen the Barbarian, an adventuring hero who so good at what he does that he’s able to survive into his 90’s. But the celebrity actors are only half of what makes this miniseries great. The overall presentation, the look and feel of it, brings a good measure of class to an otherwise ridiculous comedy.