Well, someone went postal, anyway. While writing the script.
I managed to snag Going Postal from netflix this weekend. It's been out almost constantly, plus I hadn't read the book until just this past week. I was really looking forward to it, since I was pretty fond of the other minis, even though they tend towards cheesiness a bit (for which I don't really blame them; a lot of things from the books don't translate well).
I was...surprised. Then stunned. Then very, very amused. It was absolutely terrible. Part one wasn't too bad, but it just kept going downhill. There were entire scenes that I genuinely liked...and then other entire scenes that made me facepalm hard. Every time they needed to do something differently from the way it was done in the book, they used the most obvious, un-subtle solution they could think of. Need a criminal to feel guilty? Bludgeon him (and the viewers) with unlikely fatalities. Need to make a scene more exciting? Dangle female characters off a cliff (twice!). Need to add still more danger? Make Vetinari behave with an uncharacteristic lack of subtlety (and in public, no less; you'd think he was trying to get overthrown by an angry mob). Need to convey some information to the protagonist? Have the assassin randomly blurt out a full confession. And on, and on.
The high point for me was when they added Mr. Pump to a scene for no reason and in defiance of all logic. It was so illogical, it rendered that and the following two scenes fairly stupid. And they actually paid someone to put that ridiculous suit on so he could basically just stand there and pointedly do nothing.
Most of the logic was so bad, it'd have to work very hard just to get to fridge logic, nevermind achieving actual sense. Plus, you know, a lot of the original dialogue sucked. (They used the term "the wire" to refer to the clacks. WIRE.)
One of the few good things you can say about it is that it gave Adora (Belle) a more active role...but since it was a frequently poorly written active role, it wasn't really progress. They made her relationship with Moist skeazy, for crying out loud.
The miniseries was so bad...I wrote this post. I can honestly only remember writing one other movie-bashing post ever. There must have been others, but very few. Though maybe that's because with something this bad, I usually have the sense to stop watching.
I was...surprised. Then stunned. Then very, very amused. It was absolutely terrible. Part one wasn't too bad, but it just kept going downhill. There were entire scenes that I genuinely liked...and then other entire scenes that made me facepalm hard. Every time they needed to do something differently from the way it was done in the book, they used the most obvious, un-subtle solution they could think of. Need a criminal to feel guilty? Bludgeon him (and the viewers) with unlikely fatalities. Need to make a scene more exciting? Dangle female characters off a cliff (twice!). Need to add still more danger? Make Vetinari behave with an uncharacteristic lack of subtlety (and in public, no less; you'd think he was trying to get overthrown by an angry mob). Need to convey some information to the protagonist? Have the assassin randomly blurt out a full confession. And on, and on.
The high point for me was when they added Mr. Pump to a scene for no reason and in defiance of all logic. It was so illogical, it rendered that and the following two scenes fairly stupid. And they actually paid someone to put that ridiculous suit on so he could basically just stand there and pointedly do nothing.
Most of the logic was so bad, it'd have to work very hard just to get to fridge logic, nevermind achieving actual sense. Plus, you know, a lot of the original dialogue sucked. (They used the term "the wire" to refer to the clacks. WIRE.)
One of the few good things you can say about it is that it gave Adora (Belle) a more active role...but since it was a frequently poorly written active role, it wasn't really progress. They made her relationship with Moist skeazy, for crying out loud.
The miniseries was so bad...I wrote this post. I can honestly only remember writing one other movie-bashing post ever. There must have been others, but very few. Though maybe that's because with something this bad, I usually have the sense to stop watching.