Going Postal [DVD] (2010)

A very good adaptation that keeps fairly close to the original story. Most roles were well cast, with my favourites being David Suchet as the evil Reacher Gilt (what fun he must have had!), Tamsin Greig as the reporter Sacharissa Cripslock (very believable!), and Ingrid Berdal as Sergeant Angua (suitably menacing!). Charles Dance was very good as Vetinari, portraying the patrician aspect of the character well - but I think Jeremy Irons was more convincing as the menacing ex-assassin-turned-patrician in  The Colour Of Magic [Blu-ray] [2008 ]. The two lead characters were also well-matched and very watchable - Richard Coyle and Claire Foy certainly brought the Moist von Lipwig and Adora Belle Dearhart characters to life. I also liked the golems and the clacks towers - wonderful to see. I would have liked to have seen an "extras" disc included as the one supplied with  Hogfather (2-Disc Edition) [2006] [DVD ] was a lot of fun; a 2-disc special edition of GP is available but the ones I've seen are too expensive for me.

The first book I ever bought for myself as a child was Wyrd Sisters, and it blew me away. Terry Pratchett was and always will be my favourite and most inspiring author of all time. For me it doesn't get better than Mort, which is my favourite of all the discworld novels. So I am completely biased here, this could have been awful and I would have still at least liked it.However, in saying all of the above I was preparing myself for disappointment here, but I genuinely thought this was a very well made production and enjoyed it more than I had originally enjoyed the book. I really felt a sense of the great man's, original and wry sense of humour.I loved the visual realisation of Anhk Morpock, Ridcully the wizard and Lord Vetinari. Although those characters looked very different in my head when I had imagined them while reading the novel, I appreciated them as live moving talking actors and thought Charles Dance was every inch Lord Vetinari.I thought all the lead characters were very well acted particularly Claire Foy, who played Adora Dearheart, who acted every one else of the screen. The scenes involving the other postman who came with the derelict post office were funny without being laugh out hilarious, and felt very true to the author's sense of humour.I loved the Golum and the references to the assassins guild and the characterisations of the Guards. I thought the hangman particularly typified the discworld attitude with his 'Hello Sir, nice to see you again' patter, in the discworld everyone is just doing their job and has a code of conduct. Assassins have to join a guild so do thieves. The more weird something is the more accepted it is in this world.I love the clacks and Terry Pratchetts take on how technology in our world has overtaken the written hand and easy it for us to forget the power of simple written sentence.Overall this is a amusing, thrilling, and visually stimulating piece of drama that moved fast enough to hold your attention and keep you interested, without getting too ahead of itself and leaving you behind bewildered. Even if you have never read a Pratchett novel this is a very well made piece, and can be watched by anyone and enjoyed for what it is

Excellent book, my favourite Terry Pratchett's novel from the Discworld, but yet again these TV interpretation fall a long, long way short.Great actors but most didn't fit the roles. Trying to fit a story, which takes a couple of avid days to read, into less than 2hrs does not work. To much missed, characters not filled out, important bits missing, relationships not made. All the bits we love best about Terry work.I miss him.Very, very disappointed! Don't judge the books from any of these TV adaptations.

My family enjoyed all three of the film adaptations to date of Terry Pratchett's discworld books, but this delightful film presentation of the book "Going postal" was probably the best of the three.You can never make a film which completely captures everything in a book as complex as those which Terry Pratchett writes, but this is about as close as you can get. When the purists can't find anything more significant to fuss over than details like Lord Vetinari (a wonderfully sinister performance by Charles Dance) having hair the wrong colour, you know a film is pretty close to the spirit of the book. Of course the producers couldn't fit in all the details - the central character's quasi-masonic initiation into the postmens' guild had to go, for instance - but they included almost all the most priceless parts of the story.Apart from Dance as Lord Vetinari, all the rest of the cast were also brilliant, particularly Richard Coyle as Moist van Lipwig, the engaging conman suddenly discovering a conscience, Clare Foy as Adora Belle Dearhart, the angry and dangerous heroine, Tamsin Greig as a lady reporter, Nick Farrell as the voice of the Golem "Pump 19" and Timothy West as the chancellor of Unseen University. If the villain, Reacher Gilt, had a slight touch of Poirot about him, and Junior Postman Groat a slight touch of Manuel, that's because David Suchet and Andrew Sachs made some of the same mannerisms work in those roles.Above all, the spirit of the film, like the book, is fun and this is brilliantly captured. I can quite understand why Terry Pratchett himself says in the introduction that he was delighted by what they were doing with his book.I hadn't previously read the book  Going Postal: A Discworld Novel , but when we had watched and greatly enjoyed the film, my wife (who is a major Terry Pratchet fan) said that the book was even better. I have now read it and agree with her. We can also recommend the film versions of  Hogfather [DVD] [2006 ] and  The Colour Of Magic [DVD] [2008 ].