Maybe a different blockbuster - we don't want to be killing Joseph Mazzello's career.
A Hippie in the House of Mouse (Jim Henson at Disney, 1980)
- Thread starter Geekhis Khan
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Lol, I guess Home Alone not getting sequels does put a hamper on his career, but we'll see whether him or Culkin gets the role in Jurassic Park. Maybe we'll see them in the next Willow sequel? 🤷♂️
If nothing else, I can see Culkin as a teen sitcom star in his later child years.
If he stays with Disney, maybe he could star in some Disney movies on the side if he's mostly clean for the late 90s/2000s?
Disney, Death, and Des
Interview with Terry Pratchett
Des O’Connor Tonight, December 19th, 1990
Interior – Des O’Connor Tonight Set
The Theme Music plays as the show returns. Terry Pratchett sits across from the host, Des O’Connor.
Des O’Connor and Terry Pratchett c1990 (Image sources “F24news.com” & “nndb.com”)
Theme music plays, Title Card superimposes on the screen.
Fade to commercial.
[1] Pointy Wizard’s Hat tip to @GrahamB.
[2] This particular interaction happened in our timeline too.
Des O’Connor Tonight, December 19th, 1990
Interior – Des O’Connor Tonight Set
The Theme Music plays as the show returns. Terry Pratchett sits across from the host, Des O’Connor.
Des O’Connor and Terry Pratchett c1990 (Image sources “F24news.com” & “nndb.com”)
Des
With us now is the bestselling author Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld books have become quite the phenomenon in the UK and are gaining international recognition as well. But, of course, the big news, as it were, is the release of an animated feature film based on his 1987 novel Mort by the Walt Disney company. Terry, what can you tell us about the film?
Terry
Well, Des, it’s, shall we say, inevitably a mixed blessing to see one’s work adapted by another, be that other a book’s cover artist or a major animation studio. My good friend Josh Kirby, for example, can’t help but strip my heroines down to nothing. I’ll spend pages describing their perfectly practical outfits and without fail they’re half naked whenever they appear on the cover! (laughs) I guess that’s fantasy art for you.
Des
Having seen Mort, I will say that nudity does not appear to be an issue here. Princess Keli remains quite clothed the entire time. Even her nightgown is quite demure.
Terry
Ah, yes, one advantage of Disney in that regard is that they try to keep things family friendly. If anything, they take things too far in the opposite direction. No smoking, for example. Not even a wizard’s pipe. Every kiss is a magical moment devoid of carnal desire. I can’t imagine how they’d handle Nanny Ogg! And yet violence doesn’t seem to be an issue for them. You can have these terrifying scenes with Death slashing down at Mort in the final fight that frankly terrify me, and I wrote them!
Des
Of course, the biggest question, the Ankh River hippopotamus in the room, is: did you like it? Was it a fair adaption?
Terry
On the whole, yes. Mr. Henson seemed quite taken with the story and endeavored to keep things true to the book. He loved the sensory aspects of Death’s realm in particular and worked quite hard to capture the sounds and images as I described them, particularly the life timer room. Mr. Burton, who was managing production and sketched out a lot of the concept art, and Mr. Keane, who was doing the direction and framing, made sure to take their time there and let the effect soak in.
Des
And were there areas where things didn’t quite align [to your vision]?
Terry
Well, (laughs) the musical aspect was very strange. I had a lot of visions in my head for Mort and Ysabel, but a Sondheim-style duet was not one of them. In general, they trimmed things down from the text and let the songs tell the story. Alan and Howard were kind enough to let me muck about with some of the lyrics to make sure that the story was there…
Des
Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, the composers of the songs.
Terry
Yes. They are brilliant gentlemen. Howard can be a handful, but he’s undoubtedly a genius. I learned a bit about the musical theater myself, at least in the mechanics behind the scenes, the difference between an “I Want” song and an “I Am Becoming”, for instance. I’ve of course enjoyed my share of performances on the West End and was planning on involving some of that in an upcoming Discworld story, actually. Perhaps a Witches tale.
Des
So, is there a song that stands out for you?
Terry
“Death’s Lament”, I believe it is called. They really captured the soul of the man, or Anthropomorphic Personification, as it were. Christopher Lee is brilliant and sang it exceptionally well. He confessed to me that he nearly became an opera singer in his youth.
Des
So, did all of the stars sing their own parts?
Terry
Yes, they did indeed. Helena Bonham Carter did a good job singing as Ysabel and River Phoenix sang quite well as Mort, though he apparently had to go through a crash course on operatic singing as he’d only sung rock and folk stuff before. Winona Ryder was a far better singer than I’d expected. If I could correct anything it would be the accents, though to be fair they did try.
Des
In an earlier interview with the BBC, you confessed your concerns with the casting of two Americans. Do you still hold those concerns?
Terry
Well, let’s just say that Mr. Van Dyke’s “Cockney” in Mary Poppins, if we can be generous in calling it that, was running through my head the second that they announced casting River and Winona. River did quite well, actually, at managing a Midlands accent, which is a mark of his arch-perfectionism, I guess. Winona, well, she tried, bless her. (shrugs)
Des
We hear that you even played a voice role yourself.
Terry
Yes, the, ah, Lecturer in Recent Runes, specifically. I think that I had two lines. Of course, that was hardly any worse than Jim Henson himself got, who voiced the Senior Wrangler[1], or Eric Idle, who played the Bursar. You probably didn’t even notice any of us when placed alongside Brian Blessed as Archancellor Ridcully.
Des
You mentioned once that other studios had considered optioning Mort besides Disney.
Terry
Ah, yes. One studio in particular, the name withheld to protect the guilty, wanted to do a live action production. Things were advancing when the producer says to me “It’s great, we love it, it’s high concept, but we need to lose the ‘Death’ angle[2].” They wanted to reduce it down to a bloody Rom-Com!
Des
That rather misses the point.
Terry
To put it mildly.
Des
(shuffles papers) The film itself has gotten good reviews and is selling tickets, although a few have raised issues with the subject matter, addressing death and mortality in a, and I’m quoting here, “kid’s movie”.
Terry
“Kid’s movie.” (sighs and shakes head) Even accepting the “kid’s movie” label, which I of course don’t, I’ve always taken issue with this idea that we need to shelter children from the bad things in life, like death and sadness. Bollocks, really. Death is inevitable. You can’t hide from it without becoming its slave. That’s the point of Albert, really, a man so afraid of his mortality that he is literally enslaved to Death! It’s like trying to shelter children from gravity! Jim Henson and I were of a like mind there. We agreed that exposing children to the natural course of life, in particular its closure, was a necessary part of growing up! I like to think that Mort handles the issue fairly well and respectfully. Still, the MPAA and BBFC both gave the film a PG rating.
Des
So, on the whole, will fans of your books like Disney’s take on Mort?
Terry
Yes, I believe that they will in general. Disney kept the themes intact and it follows the general storyline. There are some pragmatic changes due to the run time, of course. Mort’s “day off” is dropped entirely and instead they focus more on Mort and Ysabel’s contemptuous early relationships in the first act, mostly in the duet and associated montage. Some of Mort’s encounters “on the job” are cut back to near nothing to save on time, so Mort’s interaction with the Listening Monks is reduced to two lines, which is a shame since they brought in Eric Idle to play the Abbott and he recorded numerous funny lines that never made it in. There are some tests [storyboards] they did that are just hilarious and it’s sad that they had to be dropped. They also added in this late second act split-screen ensemble number with all of the characters singing together from opposite ends of the Disc to reinforce the stakes and the links between their story elements. Quite elegant, that latter one, really.
Des
So, there’s an art to the adaption.
Terry
Certainly! Glen Keane described it as having to “distill it down to its core elements”. Every second counts in a hundred-minute feature, and in animation in particular every frame of film costs a lot in time and resources to make it happen, so if you “waste” a foot of film then you’re out a lot of time and money. And unlike in live action where you can cut and edit after the fact, in animation you have one chance, so I’d dare say that over half the effort is made up front with storyboards and pencil tests before they snap the first frame.
Des
Another concern that many had was having the film resonate with international audiences, particularly ones who don’t know the Discworld novels. How was that managed?
Terry
Very carefully, I’d say. I hear that there are already Americans wondering why there was an Orangutan at the Unseen University. They didn’t spend much time describing the Discworld itself in the movie, either. Great A’tuin is never mentioned by name and we only really see that the world is on the back of the elephants and the turtle at the very beginning and when Mort is circling the world on Binky.
Des
So, the big question: are there any future collaborations with Disney on the Discworld side?
Terry
Well, that remains to be seen. Jim Henson told me that Disney “doesn’t
do sequels” as a general rule. In fact, I hear that some middle manager once proposed low budget direct-to-video sequels of some of their most famous works to Roy Disney, Cinderella 2 and whatnot. He had figures and predicted profits and whatnot with him to make his case. He was out the door that evening, tossed on his ear by Sweetums, to hear Glen describe it.
Des
So, no chance for an adaption of your upcoming Reaper Man, I take it?
Terry
Well, get back to me on that, I’d say. (laughs) Knowing what I do now about film adaptation, I’m honestly not sure offhand how you could adapt any other Discworld books. Equal Rites, perhaps. Maybe Moving Pictures given the subject matter. Most of my other stories have multiple parallel interacting plotlines. For Reaper Man you’d probably have to focus exclusively on Death’s story and lose the Wizards’ subplot entirely, and I doubt even Disney is going to do the thing I have planned with the snow globes.
Des
Well, with that said it seems our time has come to an end for today. Mr. Terry Pratchett, thank you for your time.
Terry
It was my pleasure, thank you, Des.
With us now is the bestselling author Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld books have become quite the phenomenon in the UK and are gaining international recognition as well. But, of course, the big news, as it were, is the release of an animated feature film based on his 1987 novel Mort by the Walt Disney company. Terry, what can you tell us about the film?
Terry
Well, Des, it’s, shall we say, inevitably a mixed blessing to see one’s work adapted by another, be that other a book’s cover artist or a major animation studio. My good friend Josh Kirby, for example, can’t help but strip my heroines down to nothing. I’ll spend pages describing their perfectly practical outfits and without fail they’re half naked whenever they appear on the cover! (laughs) I guess that’s fantasy art for you.
Des
Having seen Mort, I will say that nudity does not appear to be an issue here. Princess Keli remains quite clothed the entire time. Even her nightgown is quite demure.
Terry
Ah, yes, one advantage of Disney in that regard is that they try to keep things family friendly. If anything, they take things too far in the opposite direction. No smoking, for example. Not even a wizard’s pipe. Every kiss is a magical moment devoid of carnal desire. I can’t imagine how they’d handle Nanny Ogg! And yet violence doesn’t seem to be an issue for them. You can have these terrifying scenes with Death slashing down at Mort in the final fight that frankly terrify me, and I wrote them!
Des
Of course, the biggest question, the Ankh River hippopotamus in the room, is: did you like it? Was it a fair adaption?
Terry
On the whole, yes. Mr. Henson seemed quite taken with the story and endeavored to keep things true to the book. He loved the sensory aspects of Death’s realm in particular and worked quite hard to capture the sounds and images as I described them, particularly the life timer room. Mr. Burton, who was managing production and sketched out a lot of the concept art, and Mr. Keane, who was doing the direction and framing, made sure to take their time there and let the effect soak in.
Des
And were there areas where things didn’t quite align [to your vision]?
Terry
Well, (laughs) the musical aspect was very strange. I had a lot of visions in my head for Mort and Ysabel, but a Sondheim-style duet was not one of them. In general, they trimmed things down from the text and let the songs tell the story. Alan and Howard were kind enough to let me muck about with some of the lyrics to make sure that the story was there…
Des
Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, the composers of the songs.
Terry
Yes. They are brilliant gentlemen. Howard can be a handful, but he’s undoubtedly a genius. I learned a bit about the musical theater myself, at least in the mechanics behind the scenes, the difference between an “I Want” song and an “I Am Becoming”, for instance. I’ve of course enjoyed my share of performances on the West End and was planning on involving some of that in an upcoming Discworld story, actually. Perhaps a Witches tale.
Des
So, is there a song that stands out for you?
Terry
“Death’s Lament”, I believe it is called. They really captured the soul of the man, or Anthropomorphic Personification, as it were. Christopher Lee is brilliant and sang it exceptionally well. He confessed to me that he nearly became an opera singer in his youth.
Des
So, did all of the stars sing their own parts?
Terry
Yes, they did indeed. Helena Bonham Carter did a good job singing as Ysabel and River Phoenix sang quite well as Mort, though he apparently had to go through a crash course on operatic singing as he’d only sung rock and folk stuff before. Winona Ryder was a far better singer than I’d expected. If I could correct anything it would be the accents, though to be fair they did try.
Des
In an earlier interview with the BBC, you confessed your concerns with the casting of two Americans. Do you still hold those concerns?
Terry
Well, let’s just say that Mr. Van Dyke’s “Cockney” in Mary Poppins, if we can be generous in calling it that, was running through my head the second that they announced casting River and Winona. River did quite well, actually, at managing a Midlands accent, which is a mark of his arch-perfectionism, I guess. Winona, well, she tried, bless her. (shrugs)
Des
We hear that you even played a voice role yourself.
Terry
Yes, the, ah, Lecturer in Recent Runes, specifically. I think that I had two lines. Of course, that was hardly any worse than Jim Henson himself got, who voiced the Senior Wrangler[1], or Eric Idle, who played the Bursar. You probably didn’t even notice any of us when placed alongside Brian Blessed as Archancellor Ridcully.
Des
You mentioned once that other studios had considered optioning Mort besides Disney.
Terry
Ah, yes. One studio in particular, the name withheld to protect the guilty, wanted to do a live action production. Things were advancing when the producer says to me “It’s great, we love it, it’s high concept, but we need to lose the ‘Death’ angle[2].” They wanted to reduce it down to a bloody Rom-Com!
Des
That rather misses the point.
Terry
To put it mildly.
Des
(shuffles papers) The film itself has gotten good reviews and is selling tickets, although a few have raised issues with the subject matter, addressing death and mortality in a, and I’m quoting here, “kid’s movie”.
Terry
“Kid’s movie.” (sighs and shakes head) Even accepting the “kid’s movie” label, which I of course don’t, I’ve always taken issue with this idea that we need to shelter children from the bad things in life, like death and sadness. Bollocks, really. Death is inevitable. You can’t hide from it without becoming its slave. That’s the point of Albert, really, a man so afraid of his mortality that he is literally enslaved to Death! It’s like trying to shelter children from gravity! Jim Henson and I were of a like mind there. We agreed that exposing children to the natural course of life, in particular its closure, was a necessary part of growing up! I like to think that Mort handles the issue fairly well and respectfully. Still, the MPAA and BBFC both gave the film a PG rating.
Des
So, on the whole, will fans of your books like Disney’s take on Mort?
Terry
Yes, I believe that they will in general. Disney kept the themes intact and it follows the general storyline. There are some pragmatic changes due to the run time, of course. Mort’s “day off” is dropped entirely and instead they focus more on Mort and Ysabel’s contemptuous early relationships in the first act, mostly in the duet and associated montage. Some of Mort’s encounters “on the job” are cut back to near nothing to save on time, so Mort’s interaction with the Listening Monks is reduced to two lines, which is a shame since they brought in Eric Idle to play the Abbott and he recorded numerous funny lines that never made it in. There are some tests [storyboards] they did that are just hilarious and it’s sad that they had to be dropped. They also added in this late second act split-screen ensemble number with all of the characters singing together from opposite ends of the Disc to reinforce the stakes and the links between their story elements. Quite elegant, that latter one, really.
Des
So, there’s an art to the adaption.
Terry
Certainly! Glen Keane described it as having to “distill it down to its core elements”. Every second counts in a hundred-minute feature, and in animation in particular every frame of film costs a lot in time and resources to make it happen, so if you “waste” a foot of film then you’re out a lot of time and money. And unlike in live action where you can cut and edit after the fact, in animation you have one chance, so I’d dare say that over half the effort is made up front with storyboards and pencil tests before they snap the first frame.
Des
Another concern that many had was having the film resonate with international audiences, particularly ones who don’t know the Discworld novels. How was that managed?
Terry
Very carefully, I’d say. I hear that there are already Americans wondering why there was an Orangutan at the Unseen University. They didn’t spend much time describing the Discworld itself in the movie, either. Great A’tuin is never mentioned by name and we only really see that the world is on the back of the elephants and the turtle at the very beginning and when Mort is circling the world on Binky.
Des
So, the big question: are there any future collaborations with Disney on the Discworld side?
Terry
Well, that remains to be seen. Jim Henson told me that Disney “doesn’t
do sequels” as a general rule. In fact, I hear that some middle manager once proposed low budget direct-to-video sequels of some of their most famous works to Roy Disney, Cinderella 2 and whatnot. He had figures and predicted profits and whatnot with him to make his case. He was out the door that evening, tossed on his ear by Sweetums, to hear Glen describe it.
Des
So, no chance for an adaption of your upcoming Reaper Man, I take it?
Terry
Well, get back to me on that, I’d say. (laughs) Knowing what I do now about film adaptation, I’m honestly not sure offhand how you could adapt any other Discworld books. Equal Rites, perhaps. Maybe Moving Pictures given the subject matter. Most of my other stories have multiple parallel interacting plotlines. For Reaper Man you’d probably have to focus exclusively on Death’s story and lose the Wizards’ subplot entirely, and I doubt even Disney is going to do the thing I have planned with the snow globes.
Des
Well, with that said it seems our time has come to an end for today. Mr. Terry Pratchett, thank you for your time.
Terry
It was my pleasure, thank you, Des.
Theme music plays, Title Card superimposes on the screen.
Fade to commercial.
[1] Pointy Wizard’s Hat tip to @GrahamB.
[2] This particular interaction happened in our timeline too.
As much as I like Pratchett's viewpoint on Henson's adaptation, I feel like I should bemoan the loss of the DTV sequel. A couple of them were actually good!
Perhaps they don't have to originate on video. Some of them got theatrical releases, while we can dump the higher end of mediocrity in that catalog to the anthology series as a TV movie.
Perhaps they don't have to originate on video. Some of them got theatrical releases, while we can dump the higher end of mediocrity in that catalog to the anthology series as a TV movie.
Living the dream without needing a scheme indeed! Nice to see Sweetums getting steady employment, it can be tough for guys with his physique in Hollywood.
Also nice to hear Jim gets an audio cameo, although I recall thinking of a live-action production at the time. Who knows, maybe success would encourage trying another adaptation. Witches Abroad would be my choice (I've mentioned it before), both because of it being one of my personal favourites and the delicious meta-joke of Disney lampooning itself, which given this timeline I'm sure they'll have a field day with. Live actors seem to get more leeway with 'risqué' behaviour, so you can merrily have Nanny Ogg being... herself without going past a PG (probably). Perfect for a Halloween release date.
Here's looking forward to what's next in the pipeline!
BTW, is the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Most Toys" still made? Because I'd like to know how the scene where Data says "I cannot permit this to continue." would have played out with the actor who played Freddy Kreuger in the role of Data...
Here's the scene, BTW (they should have had Data kill that bastard, IMO):
Interesting fact: the actor originally scheduled to play Fajo (the villain), David Rappaport (a well-known British little person actor) attempted suicide while playing Fajo (he committed suicide on May 2nd, 1990, three days before this episode aired) and had to drop out--so Saul Rubinek, who was literally just visiting the set, IIRC, was brought in to replace Fajo...
Here's the scene, BTW (they should have had Data kill that bastard, IMO):
Interesting fact: the actor originally scheduled to play Fajo (the villain), David Rappaport (a well-known British little person actor) attempted suicide while playing Fajo (he committed suicide on May 2nd, 1990, three days before this episode aired) and had to drop out--so Saul Rubinek, who was literally just visiting the set, IIRC, was brought in to replace Fajo...
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Maybe David gets a bit more therapy that keeps him from making the choice?
All, I have an early day tomorrow, so here's Monday's reply post early:
Overall, I imagined him a lot like his role in the V miniseries.
Astro at Astro World makes total sense. Six Flags seems like it could take advantage of alt-sonic IP.Speaking of Astro the Armadillo...could Triad use the newly minted SEGA IP for future promotions? Since Disney is in cahoots with Nintendo, it's very likely that Triad could enter negotiations with Universal or WB. Both are fine enough as it is, but I have a proposal that I think would be especially fitting for both franchises....
What if Triad and WB did a promotional campaign with Astro for their Six Flags theme parks, with one park getting special treatment?
Six Flags AstroWorld - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
So with a armadillo replacing a hedgehog it makes sense that a pangolin would replace an echidna:
request pang the panglion for ShadaTHedgehog by TruBluSonic on DeviantArt
www.deviantart.com
Either seems cool. I hadn't planned on going into detail on alt-Sonic verse (no time) but if anyone is passionate about it PM me.
I'm honestly not planning on going into CWC or anyone like him. Toxic internet trolls are inevitable (GIFT Theory holds true in any TL), so we'll see how TTL handles them.
RTL seems like a good option for Germany until there's a European Disney Channel at least.
Yes, we're past his OTL death. Muppets have made appearances (look back at the Mad Molly Moolah posts as well as the Jim ones). In short: TTL got Inner Tube instead of the Jim Henson Hour, but it didn't last. Many of the Muppets there went to Digit's World on PBS. Plenty of Muppet appearances in promotionals and on World of Magic and we had The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever. Other Muppet films inbound. Jim occasionally dies Kermit or Rowlf, but mostly he and Frank Oz have moved on to other things while new generation Muppet Performers take the helm with Jim and Frank as Spiritual Advisors and coaches.
The Addams Family will come up soon.
Culkin will come up again soon, as will Mazzello.
Had to Google that. Um, sure. Why not.
Just because something is created as a soulless corporate cash grab doesn't mean that the people working on it don't care about what they're doing and doesn't guarantee that it will suck. Still, I just couldn't see Jim or Ron, none the less Roy, ever permitting a "sacrilege" like that.
Thanks, welcome aboard.
I hadn't dug that deep, honestly. That said, Robert Englund could certainly have portrayed a cold, dark, pragmatic side to Data that Spiner never did.
Overall, I imagined him a lot like his role in the V miniseries.
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Intended as a joke - we only ever see male Yautja throughout the franchise.
Nice interview from Terry Pratchett himself! I am glad that Mort was generally a success for the Renaissance era, and one that could catapult Discworld into the public consciousness, especially in America. It'd be weird seeing Americans read Discworld thanks to Disney but hey, I'm all for it after reading about Terry Pratchett's life and his work. If only this happened in our timeline.
Holy crap! This is pretty big. The fact that Disney doesn't do direct-to-video means so much content has been butterflied away. Not to mention all of the subsidiary animation studios like Disneytoon Studios are made irrelevant. I still think they should expand their animation studios towards Orlando to handle TV animation or even theatrical releases like OTL.
Yes, it does make perfect sense. It's easy promotional material for both WB/Six Flags and Triad, so I could see a partnership arise to take advantage of that. I would honestly love to see a Sonic cartoon arise eventually in the TL for Nickelodeon, but we'll see if that's that case
What a relief. Keep the content from 4chan, Something Awful, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and Kiwifarms locked within the deepest depths of Tartarus, because we really don't need to read about that in this TL.
The Yesterworld video on the Disneytoon Studios had a lot of interviews pertaining to the creators behind Bambi 2, including Andreas Deja himself, about the creative process, and they did show that they were truly passionate about their work, even if the sequel wasn't really necessary. Still, hopefully we'll get to see more derivative content now that the studios are freed up to do what they want, especially when it comes to the Walt Disney Signature Series.
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Makes me wonder how Data's darker characterization would affect his character arc.
Could we have a movie adaptation of IT in the early 90's? I still stand by my idea of having Englund play Ritchie in those movies. Maybe the character of Data could temporarily leave the show while they film those movies. Especially if they film them back-to-back.
Could we have a movie adaptation of IT in the early 90's? I still stand by my idea of having Englund play Ritchie in those movies. Maybe the character of Data could temporarily leave the show while they film those movies. Especially if they film them back-to-back.
Does the emotion chip even come up in this case for alt-TNG? He might not even desire such a thing due to the Borg War and the overall changes to his character arc.
Or Robert Englund brings up the point that Data's had plenty of time (especially with how much faster his thought processes work compared to humans) to finally figure out emotions...
And also contractions.
I like the idea of Data being able to learn emotions instead of needing an add-on to get the function. That way Data's characterization can change slowly over time as he becomes more and more human.Or Robert Englund brings up the point that Data's had plenty of time (especially with how much faster his thought processes work compared to humans) to finally figure out emotions...
And also contractions.
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