Discworld fans? The Hogfather SkyOne thoughts

[Vodka7]

Ok, I know there have to be more Discworld fans on this board than just Lawdog and me, so what do the rest of you think of SkyOne's Hogfather adaptation?

Personally, Part 1 has done more than anything this season to put me in the Christmas spirit, and I'm sure when I watch Part 2 after dinner it will do the same.  To give you an idea of how great it is, I downloaded it last night (yes, yes, I pirated a free program from another country that there's no way for me to currently buy--once it comes out on DVD it'll get added to my collection with every Discworld book and the other two DVDs), converted it to DVD while I slept, and popped it in this afternoon to "check the quality" by watching the opening credits.

Of course, the credits turned into the first five minutes, which basically turned into watching the entire thing, and I'm absolutely loving it (I couldn't stop until I saw Death, right?.)  Aside from a few characters (the Dean?  come on, he's supposed to weigh like twenty stone), just about everyone is cast perfectly, and I nearly jumped out of my seat with joy the first time the Death of Rats appeared on screen.  I'm sure some people out there on the internet will be complaining that Death himself is basically a giant muppet, but for a made-for-public-TV-movie, you shouldn't exactly be expecting ILM to be doing the effects.

So, what's everyone else think?  Favorite moments?  Does it hold its appeal for non-Discworld fans?  (I wonder about that, especially with people stateside being a lot more familiar with Harry Potter and A Nightmare Before Christmas than Death and the Hogfather.)

For those of you in England, Sky's replaying part 1 on Christmas, and part 2 on Boxing Day, so set your Tivo's, or whatever the British equivalent of that is.  And for the rest of us, you can either wait until someone decides to release it on DVD (and an American DVD at that, if you don't have a multi-region NTSC/PAL converting DVD player) or I'm sure, er, a google search of something along the lines of "terry pratchett hogfather hdtv part 1" without the quotation marks might turn up something.  You know.  Maybe.  Or if the letters a.b.tv mean anything to you, oh, say, yesterday might be an interesting place to check thoroughly.

Ho ho ho!

[wingnutx]

I need to check out Diskworld.

[Cromlech]

I watched the first hour, before leaving for the pub. I have the whole thing recorded though, so I will be watching it in it's entirety soon.     

[grislyatoms]

Crap, I wish I hadn't missed that. I am a die hard Discworld fan. As a matter of fact, I was re-reading "Wyrd Sisters" just last night.

[BrokenPaw]

I just re-read "Monstrous Regiment".  I'd love to see "Hogfather".  Guess I'll have to wait for it on DVD. 

-BP

[Cromlech]

Don't be silly, you are using the internet, after all.

 http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=hogfather

[Vodka7]

I managed to put part 2 off until today, and it was just as good as the first.  (One recommendation though--when you get to the end of part 1, stop the video before it gets to the clips from part 2.  There aren't any big spoilers plot wise, but it does ruin two of the jokes in part 2, and takes the edge off one of the most heartwarming moments.  And this comes from someone who's read the Hogfather at least three times.)

A few minor annoyances did crop up--the hangover cure was nowhere near as funny as I remember it from the book, and in fact most of the wizards scenes seemed rushed and underdeveloped.  (Not to mention, how was that supposed to be the Great Hall?  I've been in high school cafeterias that were larger.  Maybe they were afraid of people confusing it with Hogwarts.)  Seeing the back of the LIRR's cloak did make up for most of the shortcomings though, as did seeing Hex's hourglass pop out when he was computing.

In short, highly recommended, and I'll be happily watching it again when I meet up with family this weekend.