The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Hogswatch 2022: The Amazing Maurice Movie (Mildly Fantasy Threatened)

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, it’s time for another Hogswatch Extravaganza as we discuss The Amazing Maurice movie!  SPOILERS START AT 17m20sNightmare Rabbits! Nightmare Wildebeests! Delightful Rats!Watch the episode video here.Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail]: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretWant to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Trombone comment - alt.fan.pratchett (now Google groups)Hogfather/DEATH/Twiggy - Twitter (@BewilderedPod) How The Amazing Maurice changed the game for Terry Pratchett - Telegraph Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Hello again, Hogfather. Hello, Francine. How are you? I'm very well. I must say you have uncanny ability to turn up as Joanna has just left him, primarily or not turned up for self. Have you two fallen out? I'm getting a bit worried. I have no problem with Joanna whatsoever. I do not like the people say we look and sound alike. Yeah, it's a little insulting, I think, considering you spent so much time on that beard, which I must say has now covered almost all of your face, which is quite different from last year. That's beautiful. Have you been eating well? I have been eating fantastically Francine. No, I can't see Joanna. I came in and landed

on the back balcony and there's no sign of her. Oh, no, she smokes out the front. Well, I'll try and catch her on the way out then. But in the meantime, how are you Francine? You having a delightfully merry hogs watch? Yeah, so far. So far so good. I mean, I put up a little tree. I've got a couple fairy lights behind me and I put on red lipstick. This is about as festive as I get. So I support this. This is a sensible amount of festive Francine. Well done. Good. How are the bores? Bores are lovely, healthy, snorting, doing as they do. Yes, they might have to clean up Joanna's balcony on the way out. Oh, don't worry about it. She'll be fine. She just sweeps it onto the street below.

Excellent. Do you have any letters for us while you're here? I have Francine. Thank you for remembering to ask me. I have a few letters from lovely people. I have so few lines to remember. I mean, questions, ad hoc questions, not lines. This isn't fucking scripted. Stacy. Lovely, Stacy. Stacy would like a burley and strong in the arm ballista for Christmas. Stacy, you shall have a burley and strong in the arm ballista. Remember to aim it at Tories. Sorry. Hogs watch got political. I think I went off on elves unionising last year. So it's good. It's balanced now.

Oh, don't talk to me about fucking elves. Craig. Craig has written to me in his richer Scottish Brogue, which I am obviously also speaking. And in his castle, not too dissimilar to the one on the traitors. I haven't anything to do with that shit. Please can we have world peace, happiness and a hard boiled egg? Well, I can do the egg, Craig. I mean, no promises about the rest. Olyphi. Olyphi would like the ability to finish all the book series that they've started. Oh, wow, I think world peace might be easier. Yeah, Olyphi, I'll get you anything like me. I'll get you after the world peace. But just read one more. One more. You can do it, Olyphi. One more. Can I recommend the Discworld? A very spooky man with tusks

has just ordered you to. So I would. Yes, the tusks are more implied in this outfit. You're under the beard. Under the beard. Under the beard. Owl. Lovely owl from, I don't know if you've heard of it, Francine Desert Island Discworld. Oh, yes. Yeah. No, I've heard of owl. All right. I had a letter from owl. He's been dead good this year. Good for owl. Good for owl. So I was going to ask you to bring me some presents. But then I remembered you mostly dispense meat and meat byproducts. So I would like the greatest meat dish ever created that one used to be able to get in the City Cafe in Edinburgh. It is the Yorkie Porky, two large German sausages with a seam of molten cheese running through them wrapped

in a seam wrapped in crispy bacon and served on a mountain of mustard seed mashed potato in a giant Yorkshire pudding with gravy. And if not, if not, I would like some pork scratching owl. I can maybe do the poor scratchings, mate. I mean, are you not tempted to try? I'm absolutely going to make that. I mean, no, no, that's I mean, would you leave the recipe for Joanna? I will absolutely leave that recipe for Joanna. She would love that. That sounds fucking excellent. Ben, you might know Ben, he's from the Pratchat podcast over in Forex. He's passed on a letter to me from a lovely Forexian. Lovely Forexian writes good day. How are you? It's me, Bronson. Oh, I see we're committing to the bid for this one. I don't

know if I'm going New Zealand now. I'm not doing the fucking exit. All right. I live in New Rimwoods, Lammados in Forex. My sister reckons you don't come all the way here. But Miss Fayette School says we're no further away from the hub than plenty of other places. So why not? She doesn't let us sing the song about your bores, though. Did you know one of them has a name that's very rude here? Can you tell me which one she won't say? Ruta. Yeah, I'm going with Ruta. Pretty warm here at Hogswatch, even though it is winter. So I drew a picture of an outfit you could wear to stay cool. I hope you like the thongs. Bronson, I love the thongs. Well, I want to see this. Where's that? There's no. Oh,

fancy. For Hogswatch, can I please have a real Leather's Portable Junior Klax Tower? I'll be able to send messages all the way to bugger up. Bronson, you may have what you wish, but don't send messages to bugger up. It's a silly place. I'll only encourage them. Exactly. Bronson prompts us to leave me out some pro sandwiches and one of his dad's beers for Hogswatch. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bronson. I look forward to a prawn sandwich and a beer. A nice break from the pork pies. Please leave it refrigerated. There's risks with prawn sandwiches. And lastly, PD. PD is written in. And PD says, Dear Hogfather, this year has been to the passage of time. What foul old Ron has been to personal hygiene. Sounds like PD has not had the best of

years. So PD says he's being selfish this year on top of wishing health and contentment to our dear little co-fay. There's no fucking fay on this. Are there Francine? You didn't tell me about fairies. I did definitely not touch that enchanting looking object out in the forest several months ago. No. Good. Thank you. On top of wishing health and contentment to the dear little co-whatevers and our lovely community, PD would like a break. Have a nice Hogswatch day and for the year of the quarrelous megapode, he'd like to live an extremely quiet, peaceful, meandering life in utterly predictable and precedented times, possibly with free electricity for the year. Now, PD, we're all quite familiar with unprecedented times. And I can't promise

that precedent will return to our lives. But this is the time of year when we celebrate coming out of the dark. And maybe we can celebrate a hope that precedent will return. And if nothing else, PD, I promise you that I will not send you the cheerfulness fairy. That, I think, is worth waiting gold. Absolutely. Or worse, the fairy's waiting gold possibly. How much does a promise weigh in gold, Hogfather? What a key question to ask. As much as an atom of justice or beauty, but a little bit more than a bean in a stew. Very good. Very good. Now, Francine, I'm very sorry to have missed Joanna again. Send her my best, but I've got to crack on. I usually forget to mention you here, to be honest,

but I'll try because you'll leave that recipe for the calling-sounding sausage-cheese seam. Absolutely. I will leave that recipe for Joanna. However, must fly, busiest time of year, you know how it is. Good night. Good night. On Gouda, on Ruta, on Tufka, on Snalda. Oh, sorry about that, darling. There was a badger, Caroling. Oh, all right. Yeah. I'm out of the deep dark wood, silly. Apparently. Coral's the Vols. Lovely little hedgehog singing soprano. I do don't miss anything. You're right. Do you get another coffee? Yeah, do you know what? I prefer nothing. I think it's just as well I never carried on with theatre.

Yeah, you know me too. Right, cool. Do you want to make a podcast? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Hello and welcome to The Tree Shall Make He Fret, a podcast in which we are usually reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, one as time in chronological order. I'm Joanna Hagen. And I'm Francine Carroll. And it's time for our bonus Hogswatch extravaganza 2022. I can't believe it.

Note on spoilers before we crack on. We are a spoiler light podcast, heavy spoilers for the book, The Amazing Morris and his educated rodents. And anything in the Discworld canon up to that point is fair game. We will avoid spoiling any major future events in the Discworld series. And we're saving any in all discussion of the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Ground, until we get there so you dear listener can come on the journey with us. Flying through the night sky on the Hogfather's Slay. I'm not going to get more abstract. So I remember last year I said something

about Skeletal Grandfather and Orgot Groom. Yep, that did get depressing. We are going to be talking today about The Amazing Morris, the new movie adaptation. But we will very pointedly warn you before we start that discussion in case you don't want to be spoiled on it. If you haven't had a chance to see the movie yet, follow up. We have some follow up from our last episode. We only just put that out. And yeah, just release that.

Sorry, was it listeners? This is probably coming out on Christmas Eve, but we're recording this on Monday. So we have follow up from the episode that came out today. From Olyfee on Reddit. Love the book, but there is a point where Keith gets handed a trombone to play. To quote the book, Keith took it, wiped the mousepiece, put it to his mouth, pressed the keys a few times and then blew one long note. As a former band nerd, this struck me as odd since trombones do not, as a rule, have valves and the pitch is instead altered by moving a slide.

Some quick research has shown us that there is, in fact, such thing as a valve trombone and that they were first made and used in the 1800s. The sound wasn't as good as a regular trombone. Military bands did use them for their compactness, I suppose, hitting the musician in front of you with your slide during a march wasn't appreciated. So it turns out Corporal Knopf really could have had a trombone with keys. Yes. As it happens, when I was meandering through the news groups the other day in preparation for that episode, I also saw somebody make the point about the trombone in the first place. Somebody else comment that many tenor trombones do have valves in

addition to the slide. Mine, mine being David Undertown, commenter in 2001, certainly does. It saves you from having to use six positions so much and helps fill in some of the range, as you say. Not too sure about the history of the valve trombone. Long speculation. And then Pratchett replies, thank you. Excellent. Well, it was nice. Confirm. That's a good enough confirmation. And then another question from Ben on off of Pratchett. What do you mean another? You don't know of any former questions from Ben off of Pratchett.

I know, but he's asked questions for the podcast before. Oh, I see, of course. And we just did a Q&A episode and Ben asked some questions. Follow up Morris question. My reading of the bit where dangerous beans dies is that Morris in his killer cat brain state kills him. Is that how you read it? Does it change your feelings about the deal Morris makes with death? Oh, which do you have any thoughts? I hadn't read it like that. Now I want to reread it and read it like that again. I think it's intentionally ambiguous.

But it sort of fades to black as Morris pounces. Yeah. And then Morris comes out of the fire with beans. He's still yelling Morris, isn't he? By that point, he's not nearly dead. Exactly. But then he could have been carrying him and then smoke inhalation had done it. Yeah. I prefer thinking of it as smoke inhalation than Morris killing him. I can see it. I think it could go either way. I guess it would change my feeling on it, but not to the negative or to the positive way. I'd have to think about it from a new angle, but I like that as an alternative interpretation. I like it as an interpretation and I do think

it makes the deal with death make a bit more sense that it's about assaging his own guilt as well as just feeling like the rats need dangerous beans. Yep. Yep. No. I don't have a proper answer for you there, Ben, but good observation. I like it. And we have a couple of general listener questions. This is the Hogs Watch episode and that is what we do. Yeah. Even though we dusted that, which is why we've only got a couple. Craig sent us various requests for guests for next year. Okay. I'm making absolutely zero promises about anything, but I can promise that we've got some fun things lined up for next year that might be enjoyable. All right. And Melissa from the

Lovely Bewilderby's pod has a couple of questions, including the traditional annual Hogs Watch question of the remaining books left, which is the one you're internally squeeing about the most. And putting that last year, I said Amazing Morris, which is quite fitting. What's your answer? Well, I've got the list up once again. And I think, right this minute, because I've already thinking very hard about Night Watch, I'm not internally squeeing, so I'm up to internally clockworking. So I'm going to say going postal. That's right. Or thud. Love most of them very much. Going post a little bit nice to go somewhere completely different for a bit. Yes. If not geographically, then internally.

I have a couple of answers. I mean, Night Watch I'm excited about, but with a healthy apprehension of how do I talk about that book? Because I think it's just so beloved. I'm just fucking diving right in. I'm trying not to think about that. I believe Monstrous Regiment is next year. And I am insanely excited to talk about Monstrous Regiment. Expect emotions, possibly some gender. At least one gender. And non-discworld, we're going to do Nation next year. Yes. I cannot wait to talk about Nation. Yes. That to me is the more awkward one to talk about. That's one of my favourite books.

But it's... Oh, many layered. So, yes. Nation is going to be an interesting conversation that I am very much looking forward to getting my teeth into. When are we doing that? I don't know which month yet. Okay, cool. Good. But it will be next year. Okay. I just told you I don't have time to remind you what year that is. If you can. I don't mean to turn this into an interrogation. Just a slight concern at this point that you may have become unhinged from time. And we'll start floating up to the ceiling.

Kind of an old mother dismass burst our crosses, but I'm fearing for you at the moment. The hint of lobsang thrown in for good measure. Second question, and I'm going to link to the actual tweet in the show notes, but Melissa has a skeleton dressed as death and has bought him a Hogfather jacket for Christmas. But it unfortunately stops quite short around the Pelvic area. Extremely good. It looks like a 1960s advert starring Twiggy. Very much so. But Melissa would like to know, should the Hogfather have pants, or should Melissa start a death charity calendar where one month he's a suggestively dressed

firefighter, suggestively dressed Hogfather without pants, suggestively dressed pizza, pizza delivery skeleton, charity for the kids? I think it'd be incredibly disrespectful to do that calendar, and I insist that you do. Please. I should also put out that Melissa clarified that she meant pants as in the trousers kind of pants and not the way English people say pants. Well, either would be a start. If we're going to take the English web pants as well, I feel like big comic but boxer shorts could work here. Or like frilly knickerbockers, you know, the ones that go to your knees.

Either way, heart print. Yeah, either way, heart print. Also reminded me of the delight of the Jordan Nicholson books and just replacing random words and songs with pants. Now I'm choosing between my two favourite Christmas carols, Pants the Herald Angel Sing and Oh Pants or Ye Faithful. Truly beautiful, both. Yeah, absolutely. Right. Glory to the newborn pants. Okay, before we go completely off the rails, I think it's time we dive in. Before we go even more off the rails, I think it's time that we dive into our

movie chat for the amazing Morris. Proper here be spoilers listeners. From this point, we are going to be talking about the movie. If you don't want to hear what we have to say, then Merry Hogs Watch and a Happy New Year of the Quarrelous Megapode. Yes. Okay, so the amazing Morris. Yeah, we saw that on Saturdays now Monday, so it's reasonably fresh in our minds. Doesn't mean we remember any of it. No, we did see it at the cinema though, which means I was paying more attention than I do when I have to watch these things at home. Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, this is the first

Terry Pratchett or Discworld feature film as in released in the movies. Very exciting. We did talk a bit at the end of the last episode about this being kind of an exciting new turn for Pratchett, and it was a lot about it in Marks of the Askle for the Telegraph, which we linked in the last thing. So yes, it came out this week, December 22, at least in the UK, made by Sky, along with a couple of other German animation companies and things, and with the full support of Narrativia, directed by Toby Genkel, co-directed by Florian Westerman, and screenplay by Terry Rossio, who wrote, among other things, one of my favourite movies, The Road to El Dorado. Is that so? Yes. There you go.

And I'm pretty sure that film is wire and bisexual. Causing effects. We're going for that, are we? I'm going to try this one more time. Right, overall impressions. Yeah. I liked it, which is not a given for me. I'm not a big fan of screen adaptations of Pratchett books as a rule. I did enjoy Hogfather quite a lot last year, but I think I was more critical of it than I will be today, because I had a very nice time indeed, and I was very impressed. It was really good fun. The animation is really cute. I really enjoy, especially with seeing a kid's film, exactly what the BBFC states is the problem, if it's ARPG. So this one contained

mild fantasy threat. I was mildly fantasy-threatened. And that's what you can really want from a film. That's good. I like that. But yeah, considering how much I love the book and was really ready to... I was trying to go in very open-minded, but a bit of me was just ready to fucking hate it. I had a lovely time and really enjoyed it. Yeah, there's some of the things I had about the design, but it's very much a subjective. It's not that I think they fucked up. It's just my preference. Yeah. One thing I did really enjoy about watching it in the cinema is, especially because it's like the weekend before Christmas, there are lots of families there and lots of young kids,

and you could kind of very much pick up the five that they were all really enjoying it and getting excited. And I was just thinking how nice it is that for a lot of kids, those kids that might be like their first memory of going to the cinema and one of the first films they ever saw in the cinema. And then they might take that and end up getting into all the other Pratchett books, and that's a really lovely thought. Yeah. Although it's going to be a bit of shock if you can't buy the book right after that for your little kitty wink, isn't it? Yeah, no, a little bit. Slightly more than mildly found to see threatened. Yeah, but maybe having seen the film, they won't mind the horror in the book as much. Perhaps. I think sometimes, especially when you're younger,

watching a film of something can help you get into the book of it. Well, as we said, I'm not sure it's the kids that would have so much fun issue as the parents. Yeah. So one thing I really liked about what the film did was how they did this framing device around it. A very self-aware one of its largely militia in her library, kind of narrating the film and reading like the Mr. Bonsie excerpts. Yes. Yeah, it's also incredibly self-aware, more so even than the book. So it's militia, just kind of kicking through the fourth wall every hour and again, when she feels like it. Replacing it in a narrative with outer narrative, but to camera. Yeah, because you have Morris joining in and doing some of the voice-overy, narrating, whatever. And yeah, because so much of

what Pratchett writes is very much focused on a certain character's point of view. It's very nice to be able to still put that in visually because I think that's something that a lot of films can miss. Yeah. I think it's cool that again, yeah, it's kids watching it. I quite like the thought that they're learning about things like framing devices and foreshadowing. Like, and they were being spelled out and saying what it was. I think that's nice. I think more children should be forced to learn about literature. Yeah, it's quite educational really, isn't it? Yeah. It was a bit odd in the, and we'll probably go back to that later, some of it was in this adult voice because that was Malisha's voice. Yeah. And she was meant to be a kid,

but she had a very deep adult voice. And so the whole kind of, I think that almost maybe blurred the line more with the narrative and the fourth wall breaking. But yeah. No, it kind of worked, though. I like it. And the Mr. Bunsey stuff is really perfect. So you get the kind of animation of the book and the little characters interrupted, like talking to each other and the story being told. And it looked like as much as I would imagine a book called Mr. Bunsey has an adventure looks. Yeah, it was Beatrix Potter, wasn't it? Yeah. It was very Beatrix Potter. But the way it's interspersed in the story is almost exactly the same as how it's interspersed in the story in the book. So you get the tension in the, in the Bunsey story of he's going into the dark wood

as things start getting darker in the, in the book and in the film. I think it's almost more prominent in the film because it's easy to ignore in the book. Yeah, it made me appreciate the start of a chapter. Yeah, it made me appreciate a bit more how that's all paced in the book. Yeah. Is it because it matched the pace in there perfectly? Yeah, definitely. All right. So the characters are a cast. It's good casting, I thought. So we'll start with Morris voiced by Morris or Maurice voiced by Hugh Laurie. Can't be Maurice-ing it. There is some debate in the film. But Hugh Laurie, yes, he did a good job because I wasn't just thinking, oh, that's Hugh Laurie the whole time. No, but I think it's a familiar enough voice that I, because I think

Morris is one of my least favorite character designs of the film. It works in the film, but like ever since you pointed out the fact that the teeth are kind of weird to me. The teeth never got that much better. But the I wrote a note right near the start saying the human eyes are very off putting. He had human eyes, but then they turned cat eyes when he had his like cat break. Yeah. So human eyes with the whites around the the iris. And that was looking like it's very uncanny valley with the human teeth and human eyes there, but it did make the the eye transformation more dramatic. It did. I liked his monobrow. I think that helped roughen up his face a bit. A little bit. I still don't love that it was a ginger cat because like he's described

as a mangy tabby and I just like the look of it. But I guess a ginger cat's probably a lot easier to animate. Yeah. Because it's a more consistent color palette and it works. It fits with the tone of the film. It's a very distinct looking thing. Yeah. He needed to look a bit more beaten up if you ask me, but yeah, he could have done with being a bit scruffier. But there's something about Hugh Laurie's voice that has me just a little bit instantly charmed anyway. Yeah, absolutely. Very good tail though, very well animated tail. Yeah, considering it's a big puffball, there's a lot of expression in it. One thing at the animation, the paws were fucking spot on. Yes. There's a little detail to go on, but like when his paws are spreading,

like when he's having a stretch, that's very, very cat. That's a good point. Yeah, I mean, the animation in general is really good. Who else then? Oh, Keith Himesh Patel. He's probably one of the changes about the film, I like the least. They do change his character a bit. How do you mean? They just make him, he's a bit more insecure. He's got less of the quietly clever thing. Like he's a bit sort of clumsier and sillier and pratfally. He's your typical Pixar character now. Yeah, very much so. He's like, interested by Militia straight away, like she does her first incredible working out the whole plot. And his response was like, Oh, I think I love her. He doesn't get a chance to work anything

out like puzzle out solutions. Quite as much he approves when she gives them the laxative antidote, which is a huge change in character from the book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think just the lack. He was definitely a slightly ahead in the air genius in the book, wasn't he? Which you've missed in favour of relatability in the film, I think. Yeah, he's a bit more of just an ahead. I don't feel like every protagonist needs to be relatable, which is a general complaint I have with pop media now. But yeah. But yeah, I would have liked if he was a bit more bit quieter, a bit cleverer and falling down. But I get why they made the changes. Again, it's a kid's film. And he was funny. I should say now, actually, early on, I do realise that when

I'm speaking in this generally wanky manner, whatever I'm speaking about, but now I'm going to be speaking about a kid's film. And I do feel a bit self-conscious about that. You're just all going to have to get on the ride with us here. Yeah, it should be analysed as much as anything else. Or agree, not pretend agree with us on this that it should be. It's teaching your children, listeners. And it's a Terry Pratchett film. Yes. So, Melissa, voiced by Amelia Clark, you already pointed out that the voice feels a bit deep for a young character. I don't know why children are all voiced by adults now. I know quite often they were, but they used to make their voices more childlike then. And nobody does voice actors anymore,

they just get in actors. Yeah, and I love Amelia Clark a lot, I really do. But I can't hear her voice and not just go, oh, it's Amelia Clark. But yeah, she was good. It was fine. But it was, there were a few moments throughout. I was like, why is this grown woman talking like this? The kind of, so I didn't really mention with Keith, but they do play off more of a romance between Keith and Milisha. Yeah. Which I thought that was stupid, but whatever. I can kind of see why they did it. Tell me why. We keep saying this, we can see why you did it. Why? Explain. We're meant to be analysing this. I think it's kind of, I know it's a kids film, but it's still just like an expected bit of a movie thing, like it's another bow to put on the end.

And but you're thinking it's an animated film, it's kind of a play on like, not quite fairy tales, but that source of story where you sort of maybe end up with a boy and the girl together. And it's another excuse to play with tropes. Like they get to give her all the dialogue at one point, she's sort of saying, oh, well, if you had someone else, then we could end up together because there needs to be something standing in the way and getting to absorb that. And just like I said before, you know, in the book, the being a part of someone else's storyline is a big character moment for her. They use the romance to give her a bit more emotional motivation in that. And that becomes

quite a, like a very loud and emotional moment where it's almost like an offhand comment in the book. Yeah, it's not as emotional. Yeah. I think my unreflection, why I don't think it works so well is because Pratchett, I think, leaves his happy ever after his open ended. And he has said explicitly before, I never think about the next 30. Well, think about the next bit now. And I feel like something like this. And again, I'm just going to overthink this children's story for a second. But they're meant to now be quite prominent figures in a town. They're what 13, 14 year olds, they're not going to stay together. They're going to be fucking horrible to each other at some point. They're meant to be

part of a bureaucratic system. The economy of this town, Joanna, relies on Keith. What happens when he's moping at home because Malish is being a twat? As we know, she will. Tell you what, I am going to put a pin in this argument and come back to it later when we talk more about some of the changes they made to the story. No, I mean, like we're presenting arguments, not we're fighting each other. Dark Town voiced by Ariane Bakare, who I don't think I've actually seen in much else apart from this. No, me neither. But that says nothing. I know. He has been in a lot of things. It's just that none of the I have not watched any of the things. And it feels like he got a bit done down in places

like you don't get to see him totally fixing a trap by himself and knowing all those little things. No, he's very much just stock sergeant character, isn't he? Yeah, he's not as cool in this. They made him less cool. And that's not fair. Who else? We have Dangerous Beans, voiced by David Tennant, who also voiced Dangerous Beans in a radio play of version of the book. What's that say? He did, which I've not actually listened to. Yeah, they made that character a little bit different, didn't they? Yes. They made him more of this like profit figure worshiped by the other rats with a very much like almost preachy vibe when it came to the Mr. Bunzy stuff.

That's true. He was a bit more preachy. And I think the rats were all a little bit more into it, whereas it was obviously all a bit more divided. Yeah, which is harder to show in short movies, isn't it? Yeah, a lot of these changes like did streamline the story, which you needed to do. Like if this was the genuine page by page adaptation of the book, it just wouldn't have worked. So we've got Gemma Raston as Peaches. Gemma Raston, who to me will always be the head girl from St Trinian's. Terrible film that I loved. She was very good. She was very convincing. I nearly teared up when she did. Yep. She does the little cough very well, the little hem, and it gets acknowledged as well, which I thought was a nice nod to the book.

And when you have the reveal that Mr. Bunzy isn't real, they changed the character and motivation around again. So she's more hurt by the reveal than Dangerous Beans. Yeah. Which was nice because it gave Dangerous Beans a bit more to do. It does kind of just play into the damsel there, doesn't it? Yeah, she does go a bit damsel in distressy. Whereas I feel like Prophet having a crisis of faith is more interesting. But again, it's kind of moving it towards the easily understandable. Yeah. And then Nourishing, voiced by Julie Atherton, I thought she was all very sweetly done. And it was nice that they didn't just kind of push the character over to one side,

because it's not the most important character of the whole thing. Yeah. No, she was not a massive character, but good to have. We have Sardines, voiced by Joe Sug. Yeah, not at all how I imagined Sardines, but pretty cool. Younger. Like younger and bouncier. And I know bouncier is difficult considering all Sardines done his dance, but I always thought of him as one of the older rats. And he ends up being like a little bit more helpless in the film, because there needs to be, I haven't mentioned, but obviously Hammond Pork isn't in the film. So there needs to sort of be someone who is getting rescued and running around to be a rat present in the action a bit more. And that ends up being

Sardines quite a bit, which it was a nice choice. I didn't hate that. I've got to say, I like Darktown's No Scars. Oh yeah, that was a good choice. What they were meant to be exactly. Catscatch? Yeah, probably. I like it, yeah. Tough rat, he's had a tough life. We have possibly the most what the fuck part of the film, The Pied Piper, voiced by Rob Bryden. One of the biggest changes and one of the goodest, one of the best changes, I think, because what the fuck was that? That really creeped me out. And I think that was cool and good. I think it was cool and good and also awful and appalling. If you've opted to listen to this section without watching the movie,

Dear Listener, and I understand that because I do that with stuff a lot. The version of The Pied Piper in the film, we don't get him coming to the town. There's a plot where his pipe is necessary to control the rat king. So the Militia and Keith have to go and steal it. And he is very leggy dressed in oddly bright colors and using his pipe to control animals so that he can eat them. Yeah, he's not a wandering freelancer so much as a cryptid, I would say. Moves around like a spider, has one of the creepiest houses I've ever seen, has little children's heads all over the place, like carvings. But I'm like, it's specifically said that he leads, that he's led a hundred or children away. And then he says, Oh, I believe

half the things you've said about me. And then one of them I forget in which now goes, which half? Aha, aha, I'm going to cook you. Yeah, and then he does, it gets a bit Hansel and Gressel near the end of his, which nice way to bring in another German fairy tale, I guess. As much as it was great in a what the fuck is happening kind of way, I was a little bit disappointed purely because when I heard Rob Brighton was going to voice The Pied Piper, I imagined The Pied Piper from the book and that whole interaction. And that would have been fun because The Pied Piper and that is a sarcastic dickhead. And I think Rob Brighton can do that very well. Yes, especially if he kept his full Welsh accent for it. Yeah. Again, though, it's

kind of bringing it into the what makes a normal movie ending, isn't it? And that's not a cooperation with Nice Rob Brighton. It's a showdown with a big trench coat for the rats. Yep. Speaking of, oh, don't point, you've got the mayor next. Sorry, I didn't know you were going to segue. The mayor voiced by Hugh Bonneville. Who you might know is the Earl of Grantham. Oh, I do know him as the Earl of Grantham. That is something I've watched. He's also in the Paddington films. Other listeners. Listeners who haven't watched Down to Naby. He's also in the Paddington films, which I haven't watched because... No, I haven't. I'm told they're good. I'm told that good people love them. And apparently they're very sweet and make people

happy. And that just that puts me off. Yeah, I'm disappointed we didn't get a little bit more mayor because they do make him very mayor of a small town in a kid's film looking like he's the Rotund sort. No, he's very timbered and night before Christmas mayor, though, isn't he? Yeah, he's almost exactly the same shape. And yeah, The Rat King Slash. It's actually named in the credits as Boss Man, which again, if you're listening to this, having not watched the film, The Rat King is a large amount of rat. It's literally a whole bunch of rats in a trench coat. Yep. It is great. Which is my favourite trope. I like it when there's a lot of things in a trench coat. We do like it when there's a lot of things in a trench coat. David Duelist does creepy so well.

But I feel like what was most creepy about that character were the rat sound effects and the movements. I think A plus 10 out of 10 to the animators and soundscapers for that character because the way he moves across the floor, the noises he makes when he eats and drinks seem like many rats in a trench coat, as we've all seen so many times. Exactly how I would imagine many, many rats in a trench coat forming one sentient evil being. They go into a bit about they kind of gloss over making The Rat King and describe it as putting a lot of rats in the bucket. That's a little bit more magical. And on top of that, a lot of the characters already know what A Rat King is, like Morris is aware of it and know it as this evil figure that you've got that's

going to be impossible to fight. Yes. That is an interesting one. I think it's a nice shorthand for especially kids watching it to be able to do, as you know, Bob, Rat Kings are evil and also we shall need a special magical pipe to kill it. Yes, that is true. Yeah, that was easier than trying it. Well, first you've got to explain what a guild is and then you've got to explain what a masterpiece is and then you've got to, yeah, that doesn't make sense. The eyes, I thought were very creepy, very good. Yeah, like lots of glowing rats eyes peeking out of one gap in the sky. Almost looked a bit spidery, didn't it actually? Yeah. The Rat King, when you see just the Rat King. When it's the eight rats with the tail. That's yeah. I feel like somehow it's less creepy that

they were all like facing inwards like that towards their little magic tail ball. Yeah, and the voice is coming from the tail ball. I wasn't a big fan of that either. I wanted them to be sort of pulling at it and rearing the way they're described in the book. Because it seemed more like it was just a little mini rat stonehenge. Yeah. It was cool and a good effect, but not scary. Yeah, that was a lot less scary than the larger one. We'd already had a trench coat full of rats. It was probably best not to push our luck. The Rat Catchers, I thought were a really good character design. They did the one thin one, one fat one. They're both very creepy looking. Yeah. I think they kind of degenerated into the real idiot villain duo rather than

actual characters, but yeah. Yeah, because they know they've got another boss from the start, whereas obviously the whole thing in the book is that they don't know they're being controlled. That's true, yeah. So yeah, so they very quickly become the silly little duo in this one, but for all that they were very fun. And again, it worked for a kid's film. On a quickly point out that they made Mr. Clicky somehow sentient. Yeah. I didn't hate it. It was adorable. It was. And it obviously set up for that nice little line at the end where she can go, and the character we've almost forgotten about will come and save the day. And I was like, Morris? And then Mr. Clicky appeared. I was like,

oh, I genuinely had forgotten about him. All right, yeah, fair. But again, impressive just how much personality can be put into a technically inanimate object, like it doesn't have a face. And so it's all in little movements, and it's really cute. It was. And it did, of course, get its Deus Ex Pantaloons moment. It saved the world by upsetting the Joker's trousers. The Joker? Yeah, no, we're just going back. The Pied Piper. Pied Piper's trousers. Yeah, he was dressed like a fool, though. So I can see how you'd call him the Joker. I did think actually in the moment, because we weren't sure who was up the trousers at that point. Yeah. That militia just kicking him straight into the fire like that without checking that

whoever was in the pantaloons was going to be able to ex-pantaloon. Yeah. It was a little hasty, but obviously it worked out well. But I would be having words by where that little clockwork wrapped. Oh, and then we have death and the bone wrap both turn up. And this is lovely. They've proper based it on the Paul Kidby design for the characters. And you could you could tell it was based on a different style, but it seemed a lot more illustration-y cartoony in those moments, which worked okay, because they were going to a different dimension for them. But I think it was noticeably a different artist. Yeah. I mean, they're separate from the action. Yeah. That's yeah.

Death Voice by Peter Serafinowitz, who is brilliant and perfect as death. He's also death in the new audible audiobooks. He is the one who to me, I can only hear him say Fran books and the shipping forecast. But it was a proper like, slightly excited bounce in my seat moment when I saw before anyone dies, we saw death and the bone wrap watching the action. Yes. And that was sort of excited because I thought, Oh, that means they're actually going to do that bit. And B was just like, Oh, it's just nice to see them. It is. It's just nice to know that they're there. It's nice to know the actual sonification of death is hanging around the outside of your scene, isn't it? That always comforts me. That's definitely going to die.

That's good. Or maybe he's just having a near something experience. Well, that's true. A lot of our favorites do pop in to say hi. Cool. This is the last one. I can't hear you. I'm sorry. Well, you tried. Cool. So the film, The Amazing Murris. What about it? Gonna talk about it? All right, let's talk about it. We're literally making a podcast on it for a scene. Oh, fuck. Yeah, no, we should. Okay. Yeah, we should talk about it. Let's talk about how it changes the changes from the source material. What have they toned down on what have they kept grim? What do you think? Well, the first thing I noticed was a quote, because it's one of the big quotes in the books. And it's changed from when someone dies, it's just a word. And here it is,

when someone gets hurt, it's just a word. I was like, Ah, so we're not going to deal with death today. There is still some death in the film, but it is definitely toned back a bit. Dies. Well, we see deaths in the rapid, but it's off screen. Oh, that's true. We're aware they're happening. Yeah, that's true. One bit that I think kept a bit of grimness in, but also really made me laugh was a chain of dead rat skeletons going up to a thing of poison. Yeah, I've got that both in stage grim and made me laugh out loud. So what that says, I don't know, but it was very funny. And obviously we have both Morris and Dangerous Beans dying. Briefly, yes. Briefly. But that's still there.

I don't know if it's made a comedy thing exactly, but it's not played as that sad. Morris keels over, he doesn't put his head down. Yeah, it's definitely... I didn't find that particularly emotional. It didn't make me cry. And it obviously does make me cry in the book. You also, it tones down the crisis of faith that Dangerous Beans goes through. I mentioned this a bit already. I don't think Peach's crisis of faith is comparable. Like you don't get Dangerous Beans having this, God, we're just rats stuff. And I think that was a shame. I think they could have kept some of that in. Yeah. I think the big one obviously was leaving out Hammond Pork.

That got rid of any of the kind of leadership tension as well, as well as got rid of obviously the death of Hammond Pork. Got rid of, I think, the contrast and the similarity, which is interesting between him and Darktown. I think they just kind of rolled Hammond Pork into Darktown, except there was none of the conflict between the old and the new rats either, or even within like their heads, kind of thing. They kind of take out all of the internal politics of the rats. And they're almost, there's only a couple of them that speak, and it's all just a bit side-kicky. Yeah. The rats are less of the focus. The focus is a lot more on the human characters and Morris.

Yeah. And even a little less on Morris and a bit more on the humans. Yeah, very much so. It was interesting because they made the humans quite, not insipid, but like not. I mean, that just takes our characters. That takes our characters. It's fine, but... They're not as richly layered as the... But I think Militia is, to be fair. But I said, yeah, Militia is kind of the protagonist at this one, even though Morris is the flashy showman. Yeah, very much so. The front man. Yeah. I mean, I think like just looking at it as an overall film, they've obviously streamlined it and cut a lot, especially at the end. And I think that's a good thing, as I mentioned,

the page-by-page adaptation just wouldn't be a fun film. Yeah. But yeah, I do miss having the internal politics of the rats a certain amount. I think so. I think it might have fadded to it. Yeah. I can see why you wouldn't want to do the classic Fractured 3 Ending Ending, especially because the Fractured 3 Ending Ending is almost epilogical. And here's how things actually end with admin and whatever, and that doesn't translate as well to screen, to be fair. Yeah. Like, I love the committee meeting ending of the book, but I can see, well, I cut that in favour of, look at how nice and happy the town is now. I think the other massive thing they got rid of was the torture, yeah, of the rats,

the huge cages full of rats. Yeah. I mean, it mentioned at one point, and you've crammed rats into cages. Like, you don't really cram them into cages. You all had your own roomy cage. It was, yeah. Yeah, they gloss over a lot of the horrors that are done to rats. I don't think fear was really shown. No, it was a mild fantasy threat, not a depiction of fear. In my, I can't help contrasting any of this kind of stuff with Watership Down. Yes. Because that is something that really showed fear and politics and death within a children's film, and was perhaps rightly avoided by a lot of parents because of that. So I kind of see why you're not going full-watership down with it.

But it could have cope with having a bit of Watership Down in it, even though that film traumatised me when I was in primary school, because we were shown it in school. Oh, fun. And I watched it at home. I don't remember it traumatising me. Mum was quite horrified when she found out that Dad may brought it home or watched it on the telly or whatever. But I don't remember it upsetting me more than whatever else. I had like full-on nightmares about it. Well, you're a very sensitive soul, aren't you? Yes, that's what they often say about me. Sensitive Joanna. You put it on the front, Joanna, but you're having nightmares about rabbits. What does that say about us?

Add nightmares about rabbits. I was... No, I'm just going to update the canon now. Have regular nightmares about rabbits. Look, they're fucking creepy, all right? No, okay. Do you know what? I've said it now. They are kind of creepy. They just look at you twitching. Yeah, they've got the weird. They've got like sheep faces. Yeah, they don't make noises. Yeah, no, it's not good. No, they do. They scream, mate. Oh, yeah. All right, fine. That's worse. But they added a bit of... They added some creepy bits, like the creepy eyes and the hands grabbing peaches. Oh, yeah. They left in the rat pit. I was... Once I saw that they were going to leave out the

rat cages. I was wondering what they'd even put in the pit. Yeah, and they kept the pit in, and again, it's played a bit more for laughs. Rob Wilkins gets a cameo in that bit as well. Yes, remind me who he is. I think he was the voice of the rat pit announcer guy. That was fun. They bring the rat king in as a villain much earlier. You see the rat king, like the boss man, the rats in the trench coat arguing with the mayor. Yeah. And I think that worked to build in the fear where they'd taken out some of the other stuff. Yeah, although, of course, if you're watching that for the first time, you have no idea what that is. No, but it's clearly a bad guy, and you've got David Tulis doing bad guy voice.

He does do bad guy voice very well. He is. He's got such a gorgeous voice. He's Lupin, by the way, guys, so I couldn't recognise either. Do you want to have to tell me? He's Lupin, and he was also in Sandman. They move the big confrontation at the end out into the open. It's out in the daytime and in front of the town rather than in the sort of cellars and things underneath. Yes. Yeah, it's a showdown. Yeah, a public showdown. Yeah, definitely. I thought that bit, the moment where all the rats were revealed, like rising mass, that was very cool and good and scary. I feel like, and this is very subjective, I think kinetic force to drag them in is not as cool as mind control.

Yeah, they do a tiny bit of the mind control stuff. You hear the racking's voice in, like, dangerous beings' mind, and that bit felt very ominous, but the fact that it's only done once kind of makes it a bit shit. Yeah. I guess kinetic force is obviously easier to show. Yeah, very much so. Actually, he is crazy spooky. On the whole, I'm finding things to criticise because it's more interesting than just saying, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. But overall, I like the way it moved. I like the character design, the weird funnel shape. I liked every moment of reveal for him. I thought it was very cool. I thought the way they did his glove hands was very creepy and cool. Yeah.

Because at that point, you're imagining the kind of feeling of it. It was like, that's all going to be kind of wriggling. Yeah. Yeah. PD sent in an interesting email, actually. Also, I really love the film. The changes made were understandable to make it more family friendly, but was wondering, like, what it felt like it was missing. It still felt like there was another gear, but you missed the, what PD said was, we lose Terry. Without Terry is the audible narrator and without his access to the inside of people's minds and the surrounding darkness. They become just good stories. And you can say of any author, most of the trick of a good film

adaptation is to keep the feel intact when you lose the internal narrative. But it was only watching Morris that it donned me just how much we lose without Terry's voice talking to us. And I thought that was a really interesting point that I think that is the biggest thing missing. You can't have as much of the fear and the ominous and just how everyone feels about it without every each character saying, I feel this way about this now. Yeah. And even though you did have Melissa explicitly saying some of the cool framing bits. Yeah, there was that. Especially when it comes to like Morris as a character, I think Morris has probably hit

the hardest by that because you see brief moments of him sort of having a conversation with himself, but it's not the same as his internal dialogue with his conscience. And when you get to the point where he has his big confession over killing additives, it's played more for comedy. Yes. You made a point about a lot of like characters making silly faces at what should be tense moments. This is my general complaint with everything and it makes me a real commudant and I know it. I call it the Marvel movie thing because that's just what I feel spark the whole fucking trend. But it's any moment of high tension has to be diffused for a laugh.

And it's because it's a guaranteed way to get a laugh and a react in the cinema. And that's considered a win, like how fucking clickbait is seen as engagement. And therefore it's a win. Any reaction is good. But it completely ruins tension, which is an important part of I feel like media and every single high moment of tension in adults and kids media now seems to have to have a right little quick, a smug little observation or just a stupid expression just to make sure we all know we can chuckle. The one that sticks in my head was when he jumped on the bottle of rat tails and they'd done that. They'd done the really cool breaking of the dam and Morris just becoming

cat again. And he just had to do the stupid expression as he reached the like ball tails. Oh no, come on. Like the ear. Yeah, no. Let him have a moment of anger. I did like that we got a literal Darkwood and the characters wandering through it. Yeah, that was very good. Very Germanic. Very Germanic. All of the surroundings were very cool. Oh yeah, the town looked beautiful. I think the suitors were done really well. They were very, as you'd imagine, and very creepy as well. Yeah, nicely spaced out. Like you can see that as the kind of maze that the book is talking about. That's a win on animation, isn't it? You can have the weird angles that you try showing a

system like that on a film without an insane budget. There any other big changes you've got a strong opinion on? No. No, not huge opinions. No. And I mean, as I say, I'm mainly, I would say, out of all of those, many of these just complaints for the sake of we're talking about it. Out of all of that, the one thing I do object to is like the lack of any real tension, because I feel like they're thinking that kids can't deal with it. And I don't think that's true, but I understand that you don't want complaints from parents. But we speak as a generation traumatized by a will to be stampede.

Yeah, now that I did have nightmares over. Okay, yes, you know, I think that's justified. I'm not going to make fun of you for having nightmares about that. Not on camera, only so you can see them like the good guy at the second we hang up listeners. I will be texting. She's going to be texting me gifts of symbol with my father, like just before I go to sleep every day. Constantly sending you pictures of Wildebeest. Brother. So what bits in the film made you proper laugh out loud? Dead Rat Chain, obviously.

Yeah, that was one of my favorites. Okay, we're gross, I guess. At the same time as being horrified, the mime creeping about like a fucking spider, the pipe pipe, or rather, I did say this is cut. This is the filmmakers justifying practice hatred of mines, I think. It had mine vibes. He wasn't in black and white, but it had very much mine vibes. Yeah. And the brawl actually at the rap pit, I know I just said like ours, you know, it wasn't really shown as something bad. But I quite like just the way everyone was very into the fight straight away,

the woman jumped over the pit just to hit someone because she could. There's a chicken. A chicken is never not funny in that kind of situation, especially when animated. And I've written the line here, and I remember laughing at it, but I can't remember the context now. Two days has been, but I haven't learned anything. Where's that from? Oh, God, I can't remember now. It's been two days, Francine. That's not ideal. I think that was a Keith line. As much as I kind of complain that they dumbed down Keith's character a bit, he does get some very funny moments as a result of it. And I think one of the things that made me laugh the most was his kind of confused awe at militia.

And even Morris, who was a bit more able to deal with it, kind of going, I think this is just happening now when we're going with it. Like I very much enjoyed that energy. Yeah, just go with it. Yeah. This is not a force that is worth trying to stop right now. And everything about how militia does the very intense like, so this is the story. And this is what happening. And this is what we're going to do next. And this is how it all works. And I'm very excited about it. Like, I love that. Yeah, me too. The conspiracy flailing is real with militia. It's really relatable. I'm not sure why she has tiny feet, but apart from that, excellent.

There's a lot of good Easter eggs as well for the nerds watching. I want to watch it again because I'm pretty sure we didn't get all of them between us. No, definitely not. I've got twerp's peerage was featured at one point. Prominently displayed in militia's library. We've got a few of the rat illustrations from the book were featured within the film. That was quite cool. The rat language is especially at the end when you see the town square and where the rats are living, you see them giving lessons in the rat language and it's straight from the book. Yeah. That was a really lovely detail.

We've got in the office, whose office? In the mayor's office. In the mayor's office. The gorgeous discworld constellation. Yeah, the great art human sort of painting-y. Then the big one, of course. The bust. The bust of practice. Pallet busts of Paris. But not a raven perch to top it for tomorrow. Still is sitting. Still is sitting on that pallet bust of practice, perched above my chamber door.

Not an Easter egg, but a detail I really liked is that when the film was explaining how the rats are intelligent and showing the magical rubbish heap and the rubbish heap of the unseen university, it is perfect. It looks exactly how I imagined it. Also, did you see the bucket of goop? Didn't that seem like a paint icon to you? Like an MS paint icon. That was quite cool. I liked that quite a lot. Also, just little, not even Easter eggs, but just cool little real attention to detail. Beautiful bit. The fact that we're pollarded trees. Oh, yeah.

Dossed down the roads and just made it look like somewhere where people lived. The fact that Mr. Bunsey Burke, as they were flicking through it, it would be like, there's Ollie the snake. Here's the character that looks the most like him within the rats. There was a physical mirror of each of the characters, which was quite cool, even though they're all different species. Really enjoyed that. Just stuff like the illustrations on the XO rat poison, just like the branding they've done for all these fiction. It seems extremely what Proud to have done. Just spent all this time really well building just for the tiniest bits.

There's so much fun little detail. Again, I think that's a fun benefit of animation, as you can do that without like spending giant amounts of money on a props department you have to make like say labels for poison tins. You said something about the fountain. I didn't catch what you've said. Oh, so there's a fountain in the town square and it's a dragon, but it looks like a dragon coming out of a toilet. And I'm assuming it's a reference to the dragon of unhappiness coming out of someone's toilet and flying up their bottom. Oh, yes. It's a dragon coming out of a toilet so that it must be a reference to that and not just someone's silly idea,

because that would be a super weird coincidence if it was. Yes. Oh, we got rinse wind and two flowers. Yeah. We saw it with it and I was like, that's rinse wind. Then you saw his hat and I was like, that's rinse wind. And I was looking at that so hard, I didn't even see two flowers, you mentioned him. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, taking a picture of rinse wind when the town's gone touristy at the end. Yes. So that was a delightful Easter egg. And I hear that the luggage is in there somewhere, but I missed him. Yeah, we didn't see the luggage because Paul Kidby is credited in the film as they used his designs for rinse wind, two flower death, the death of Bratz and the luggage.

Ah. That's Paul Kidby's like specific credit. They've used his design. You know, the dragon just had a thought. I remember seeing a dragon in a bathroom scenario on in a picture and it's, there's a dragon in a bath on the cover of dragons at Crumbling Castle and other stories. And I've never read that. Oh, I don't know if I've read it. I think I've got a copy of it. So I wonder if it could also be that I wouldn't be surprised if Pratchett had the toilet dragon and all the one thing. Quite possibly. But I'm going to stick with my dragon of unhappiness theory because I like it. Oh, yeah. No, I think yours was probably most likely. I was just hoping in my head that I'd seen a picture of it somewhere.

But no, I was thinking of the cover of the book. I've not read. But yeah, details. Absolutely delightful. Listeners, if we missed any as well, point them out to us. Yeah, do. We're going to have to at some point, like by the films, we can go through frame by frame when that's a thing we can do. I'll be grabbing it when it comes out on DVD and having a much more intense rewatch. Because it is beautiful. It's beautiful throughout. I feel back because I feel like I was critical through a lot of this reviewing. And I know I keep saying that. But I did really enjoy the film. And I think it was largely because of all the world building effort they put into it. It was done with so much love. It was obviously just done with

so much care and love and respect towards what Pratchett had made. I mean, let's talk about this. Why do you like this so much better than the other adaptations you've watched? So I was wondering about that. And I think there's a couple of bits. First of all, it is that like other stuff I've said already, just the fact they, despite they did turn it down quite a lot, they didn't try and patronize anybody with it. They did what they did to make it the film. And I don't really like films that much. So most of what I've criticized is probably just why I don't watch films that much. But like this more than the others, I guess, it's a smaller scale, I think, which helps. So it's not fucking color of magic. You're not trying to do an epic adventure

on a small budget. And it is a bigger budget, which helps. It's animated and good budget animation. It's not soul music. So I think the reason Hogfather works a lot better than color of magic, like Fantastic, or just color of magic as it was called, wasn't it? Was partly because it was a lot more contained. It was a smaller story within smaller bits, smaller location set, whatever, however you do it. I don't know how you make movies. But with this animation, they did that, even though they didn't have to. And I think it worked a lot better. They kept it within the tap, within the sewer, within the, and yes, they expanded a little bit. We went to the widewood and the weird open showdown arena that every small town has. Yeah, I think it's just

a mixture of smaller scale, better production. And it's not fair to say that none of the others put care and attention into it, because they obviously did. But you can see it in this because it's like such crystal clear fucking animation on a cinema screen. Yeah. It's quite possible that in color of magic, there were loads and loads of those little details that I've missed. But I watched it on a shit TV at home. And it was, it was before 4k was the thing. So yeah, who knows? But yeah, I mean, how do you think it sizes up to the other ones? I think it's probably tied with, of the ones we've discussed, it's probably tied with Hogfather for first place. Okay. Like, I do like the color of magic adaptation, even though it's

super inaccurate to the book and the castings completely off and it has a lot of problems. Like, I still think it's just a fun thing to watch. It was just a gurning for me. It's just a woefully missed cast, David Jason, but he's perfectly cast in Hogfather. And I think Hogfather is obviously, it's a very different thing. It's not a kid's book, it's not trying to be a kid's film, it is quite kind of family friendly enough that you could watch it at Christmas, but it still goes into the deep stuff that the book does, which is where I think it has the edge on this one. But this one is just a fun thing to sit and watch, like I would quite happily watch this again at Christmas, I quite happily like watch this with my nephew.

Yeah. I think it sizes up really well, not just as an adaptation, but as an introduction to the disc world. Yeah, absolutely. And do you know what, as an introduction to a lot of the more serious themes that they've had to turn down? Yeah, as an introduction, not a deep dive. Yeah, they're not not there. They're just not gone into an end up. You get to meet death. You do get to meet death. Even if we don't go all the way to someone dying. We get to meet the idea of, even though we didn't see the ratty politics so much, we saw the idea of cooperation, but also remaining individuals. Yes. If this had been made in the 1960s, it would have been an anti-communist piece of propaganda. All of the Rat Kings would have had little sickles

and hammers stamped on their foreheads. But as it is, it's a weird cryptid fucker. Yeah, so overall thoughts, that was a good film. I had a lot of fun. If you've decided to listen to this having not gone to see the film, I highly recommend finding a way to watch it. I think you will enjoy it. Yeah, even though we just wrote the, well, we didn't really go through the plot point by point, did we? We didn't summary it. You know what the plot is, if you've read the book pretty much, but not all of it actually, there's still a lot of twists and turns. There's room for surprise. And no, it's not a perfect adaptation because a perfect adaptation wouldn't be a good film. No. The complaints I have are complaints to my personal tastes.

And I think most of them were the correct call for this situation. I would just obviously prefer it if everybody made films to suit me in particular. A 31 year old who does not go and see films. I do actually have one last complaint I forgot to mention. Let's end on a negative note. Go on. Let's end on a negative note. No, Keith does get a bit of manifesting some magical destiny towards the end there, which does he? Oh, he does. Yes, quite right. It does. And it's nice for him. It's a happy moment. It's fun and it works in the movie, but it just for me, I would prefer it to be the way he is in the book, and he does never magical destiny. The power was in your heart all along, Joanna. Not in the... They just murdered a guy in the woods

for no reason. Yeah. But the power was... He had mass murdered children in play, but that was still quiet. Someone did die, fuck. They burnt a man alive. Yeah. Wow. Okay, no, let's step back for a second. These children are on menace. Wait, no, they threw him down a well. They threw him into an oven. Yeah, but then he got out of the oven and fell down the well. Oh, did they? I was making a note. They tried to burn a man alive. Listeners, the point is the power is in your hearts. And if you feel like a random man in the woods might have murdered a lot of children, apparently it's fine to kick him into an oven. And then throw him down a well. Because the power is in your heart. A coherent moral message. My name isn't militia. Whatever I say, my name is Scream.

Right, I think that's all we can say about the Amazing Morris movie before we go completely off the rails. Stamped the fourth wall into dust. I guess throw a timestamp here. Listeners, if you skipped our Morris chat and you've come back, hi, we won't spoil it for you. Now we're going though. We are coming back on the, so this will be coming out Christmas Eve. Again, I haven't got a full schedule for next year yet, but I can tell you we're coming back on the 9th of January to begin our discussion of Night Watch. Yes. We're very excited. Thinking of fair. A little dark. Just a little. That's going to be some, well, it's going to be some emotions. There's going to be some political emotions, just some, some good old fashioned trauma emotions in there. Some,

yeah, I'm not going to spoil it. Some singing. A little bit of singing. Tuneless. But there. Tuneless. Often obscene. So until January, dear listeners, if you'd like to get in touch, you can follow us on Instagram at true shall make you fresh on Twitter at make you fret pod on Facebook at the true shall make you fret. Join our subreddit community r slash t t s m y f. You can email us your thoughts, queries, castles, snacks, rats and for leaving pigs pulling a sleigh the true shall make you fret pod at gmail.com. If you would like to support this nonsense financially, you can go to patreon.com forward slash the true shall make you fret and exchange your hard earned pennies for all sorts of stuff. If you are on our Patreon already, a recipe might

have come out recipes incoming. There'll be a rabbit hole probably the first week of January because I'm being realistic about what I can do between now and Christmas. Yes. And until next year, dear listener, have a very, very merry hog swatch and don't let us detain you. Sorry, that was really half assed. Oh, it's fine. I can pace dinner. I'm not just a loud one.