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Moving Pictures (Discworld #10)

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 23,046 ratings · 407 reviews

'Holy wood is a different sort of place. People act differently here. Everywhere else the most important things are gods or money or cattle. Here, the most important thing is to be important.'

People might say that reality is a quality that things possess in the same way that they possess weight. Sadly alchemists never really held with such a quaint notion. They think that...more

Paperback, 396 pages

Published April 1st 2005 by Corgi (first published 1990)

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Mar 27, 2012 Mike (the Paladin) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

I'm stingy with my 5 star ratings and considered going with a 4 here, but I really enjoyed this read. It is hilarious. From Trolls who don't want to get "type cast" (I played a troll who runs out and hits him with a rock) to a talking wonder dog who can't get noticed because he's too "scruffy" the cliches of the movies get very skewered. Everyone is headed to (the?)"Holy Wood" to be a star. And of course as we all know, moving pictures or, "the clicks" can effect the fabric of reality.

Sir Terry...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Keely rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humor, reviewed

I have a lot of friends who swear by Pratchett, but I found him rather dull. I tried reading the first book in the series, but I couldn't finish it. A friend suggested this as one of his better outings, so I bit.

He seems to harp on the most obvious jokes, extending one-note gags into paragraphs, chapters, or even whole books. I found that out of every ten jokes, one would make me laugh and nine would make me groan and roll my eyes. Really not a good rate of return.

His world-building is passable,...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Callista rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-satire

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I’ll start with the things I liked about this book. I liked Victor, how he’d managed to just barely not pass his wizarding exam multiple times so he could stay in school and how his basic decency helped save the day when things started going wrong in Holy Wood. The dogs--human-smart Gaspode and well-trained Laddie--were great fun. Even though Laddie wasn’t smart like Gaspode, he was so sweet-natured that he was lovable. The scenes involving the trolls were the best parts of the book, very creati...more I’ll start with the things I liked about this book. I liked Victor, how he’d managed to just barely not pass his wizarding exam multiple times so he could stay in school and how his basic decency helped save the day when things started going wrong in Holy Wood. The dogs--human-smart Gaspode and well-trained Laddie--were great fun. Even though Laddie wasn’t smart like Gaspode, he was so sweet-natured that he was lovable. The scenes involving the trolls were the best parts of the book, very creative and funny. Trolls doing movie stunts, trolls trying to overcome stereotypes, trolls courting--great stuff. I loved it when the wizards decided to venture out of Unseen University and investigate the clicks, then got involved in trying to fight off the forces of evil. The most hilarious wizard-centred bits were the Bursar and the Archchancellor (with a crossbow!) on a broom together, but the business with the massive wheelchair was good, too. Ginger was okay in that she was smart, cynical, and not easy, although her snippiness got a little old.
I found the book mostly quiet-chuckle-funny. There were a few parts that made me really laugh, though. It wasn’t, like several of the other Pratchett books I’ve read, so continuously LOL funny that I had to read parts of it aloud to people (whether they wanted me to or not). Some of the puns were eye-rollingly bad. Maybe it was just me--there were real-life things going on other than what I’ll get around to mentioning later that could’ve influenced my attitude--but this didn’t strike me as being as fresh and funny as most of Pratchett’s other work. Part of the reason for that could be the huge number of other things that have poked fun at Hollywood over the years. It's an easy target. The lazy person as actor, the ambitious starlet, the scheming agent, the over-the-top ridiculousness, the moneygrubbing, the send-ups of Singing in the Rain and King Kong--we’ve seen it all before. Granted, there were Discworld twists to it all, but it didn’t feel as original as some of Pratchett's other stories.
And maybe I’m just thinking about this too much or taking it personally, but I’m not quite clear on what, if anything, the author’s point is supposed to be. Is it just a silly story with people and animals acting goofy, monsters causing trouble, and people rising to the level of heroes to save the day? Or is the message really that movies are false and bad for those who make and watch them and that people shouldn’t waste their time with fiction? If so, how is reading books--unless you read nothing but educational nonfiction--any different? Although I like reading and movies as an escape from the drudgeries of real life, I also sometimes think I’ve spent too much time indulging. Unfortunately, I also happened to be reading this when the Aurora movie theatre massacre occurred. While I do not in any way blame fiction for the actions of any disturbed, real-life individual, it was eerie to read a mayhem-in-a-movie-theatre scene right after hearing and reading reports of the real-life attack. To me, the real attack was an assault on a sanctuary--a place where people go to be happy and should feel safe.
This book was still worth reading, and I’d still recommend it to anyone who’s interested. It just doesn’t rank up there with my favourite Pratchett books.
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Feb 10, 2013 Gavin Felgate rated it 3 of 5 stars

The tenth discworld novel revolves around the arrival of "Holy Wood", and not surprisingly, this is a satire on the movie industry. The art of making movies is created by alchemists, and suddenly everyone is drawn to Holy Wood, wanting to become an actor.

Typically for a Discworld novel, things are not straightforward and in addition to a number of digs at the movie industry, with jokes about how everyone wants to be the first to make a talking picture, the story gets increasingly bizarre as real...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: recentlyread

Sometimes I think Terry Pratchett should be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature (or maybe Chemistry or Physics). Seriously! I'll write up my nomination and share it with you some day. As novels, the Discworld books don't hold up to rigorous critical scrutiny, but as performances of satirical fantasy they are peerless. Their plots are ridiculous and often lose all credibility by the climax. But the story and its credibility are not the point: how far the fantasy can take its reductio ad a...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Donovan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comedy, fantasy

Terry Pratchett does for fantasy what Douglas Adams did for science fiction...pure comedic genius.
Moving Pictures is just one story that features in the Discworld series. If you don't know what the Discworld is, then you must lead a poor shallow inconsolable life and no amount of funny witty puns collected in to an adventure filled story is going to make your day: or will it?
It only cemented what I thought was great about Pratchett's writing. Which is to say colourful, flamboyant, easy to read a...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Smcleish rated it 3 of 5 stars

Originally published on my blog here in April 1998.

I think this is probably my least favourite of all the Discworld novels. Reading it again, I found that I did pick up more of the film references than I did the first time around (the benefits of several more years of film-watching).

Briefly, the plot is that the idea of movies invades the Discworld, sending people mad in ways that mimic various Hollywood characters - Sam Goldwyn, Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and so on. There's even a (dumb...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Христо Блажев rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Подвижни образи” на Пратчет плаче за филмиране
http://www.knigolandia.info/2011/12/b...

Ех, Света гора (Holy wood)! Място на мечти наяве и впримчващи съновидения! Там, където 15-метрова жена се изкачва по огромна кула, а в ръцете й безсилно се е отпуснал Библиотекарят, а около тях пикират двама магьосници на метла. Където кучето Пляси с отрицателен интелект непрестанно тича насам-натам да спасява кой ли не от какво ли не, а дълбокомисленият пес Гаспод умело дирижира неговите страстни пориви. И на...more

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Jun 23, 2011 Pat rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are a couple different kinds of Discworld books in the Pratchett library: the Vimes books, the Early Period books, the set about Rincewind and/or Wizards/Witches, and the set of odd one-offs. This would be a book about Wizards (although thankfully no Rincewind, who I kinda loathe) but mostly it's about the motion picture industry and Hollywood in general. The only central character who really carries over is Gaspode, the small stinky talking dog. The rest of the book (although the Libraria...more

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Jan 31, 2010 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, movies, pratchett, humor

Given a choice between books and movies, many people - myself included - will say that books are always better than movies. "You can use your imagination," we'll say, "drawing on the powers of the human mind to create things that manifestly are not real. You can decide for yourself what the scenes look like and how the characters appear, rather than have some director feed his or her vision over yours."

Despite that, however, we all still love the movies. If you gave me a novelization of Casablan...more

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Apr 05, 2009 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars

Synopsis from Google Books:

Discworld's pesky alchemists are up to their old tricks again. This time, they've discovered how to get gold from silver -- the silver screen that is. Hearing the siren call of Holy Wood is one Victor Tugelbend, a would-be wizard turned extra. He can't sing, he can't dance, but he can handle a sword (sort of), and now he wants to be a star. So does Theda Withel, an ambitious ingénue from a little town (where else?) you've probably never heard of.

But the click click of...more Synopsis from Google Books:

Discworld's pesky alchemists are up to their old tricks again. This time, they've discovered how to get gold from silver -- the silver screen that is. Hearing the siren call of Holy Wood is one Victor Tugelbend, a would-be wizard turned extra. He can't sing, he can't dance, but he can handle a sword (sort of), and now he wants to be a star. So does Theda Withel, an ambitious ingénue from a little town (where else?) you've probably never heard of.

But the click click of moving pictures isn't just stirring up dreams inside Discworld. Holy Wood's magic is drifting out into the boundaries of the universes, where raw realities, the could-have-beens, the might-bes, the never-weres, the wild ideas are beginning to ferment into a really stinky brew. It's up to Victor and Gaspode the Wonder Dog (a star if ever one was born!) to rein in the chaos and bring order back to a starstruck Discworld. And they're definitely not ready for their close-up!

This is the tenth book in the Discworld series, and in my opinion, one of the best, alongside Mort, which was hilarious.

In this adventure we see the creation of Moving Pictures, basically films. This is Pratchett's take on the creation of the movie world. Set in Holy Wood, the alchemists have created something dangerous and enchanting. People rush to Holy Wood from all over the Discworld to seek fame and fortune - but something is not right. As Victor gets drawn into the fray, him and his co-star Ginger find out the secret danger that is Holy Wood, and with the aid of Laddie and Gaspode, a talking dog, they have to save the day.

This book is incredibly funny. Pratchett is subtle and sly with his humour and mocking of Hollywood. We see the characters chasing fickle dreams and destruction. As ever, the books are engaging and exciting. There was adventure and some heart stopping moments. Pratchett does not fail to catch the imagination and like with the other books I was quickly and easily transported to the Discworld.

As in the other books, Death features. He seems to be the most regular character, and as always he made me laugh. I loved it when he was in the bar drinking, very funny. Gaspode was probably my favourite of the new characters. His dry humour and sarcasm were great reading. There were so many funny characters andstory lines in this book. I loved the troll, Rock and his aim for fame, and the troll Ditritus and how he tried to date Ruby, and I think the funniest part of the book for me was when the senior wizards were sneaking out of the university like naughty students.

This is a great book. I highly recommend it. There is action, film, adventure, love, trolls, dwarfs, talking animals, wizards and Death, alongside fire, hidden cities and Dibler, the man always out to make a fast profit. I can't think of a complaint for this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

9/10
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Sep 14, 2012 Nenia Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: x-2002s, x-series-bk-10

Alchemists have always been secondary to wizards in the realm of Ankh-Morpork - until now. For they might just have discovered the secret of turning silver, not lead, into gold, via the silver screen. That's right! The alchemists have gone Hollywood Holy Wood.

Pratchett does an extraordinary job satirizing the superficial culture of Hollywood, and the film industry. From Gone with the Wind, to product placements, to the disgusting taste and texture of movie-grade popcorn, to how everything is alw...more Alchemists have always been secondary to wizards in the realm of Ankh-Morpork - until now. For they might just have discovered the secret of turning silver, not lead, into gold, via the silver screen. That's right! The alchemists have gone Hollywood Holy Wood.

Pratchett does an extraordinary job satirizing the superficial culture of Hollywood, and the film industry. From Gone with the Wind, to product placements, to the disgusting taste and texture of movie-grade popcorn, to how everything is always about looks and sex appeal, instead of talent, in the inappropriately-named Holy Wood, nothing is sacred.

Moving Pictures is probably my favorite Discworld novel so far, including the Tiffany Aching miniseries. MP was just that good. I got the impression that Mr. Pratchett had a blast writing this book as well; it's fairly easy to tell when an author is having just as much fun writing the book as you are reading it: the writing seems charged, sparkling with wit and fun. It's like being out with someone who's just totally happy to be there.

Oh, and the main characters are all new (with a few cameos from old favorites, of course, like Lord Ventinari - and Death). There's Detritus, the love-sick troll; there's Victor and Ginger, two young aspiring actors who may or may not like each other, and who may or may not end up having to save the world; Gaspode, the Wonder Dog who doesn't look like a Wonder Dog, and so ends up playing second fiddle to the brain-dead Laddie, who does look the part but has less personality than a water biscuit; and Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler and his nephew, Soll, who prove that, while blood may be thicker than water, nobody can stab you in the back and watch you bleed like a relative.

Overall, this was a charming addition to a charming series. I do have one cause for complaint, though, and that is the fact that (in my opinion) Mr. Pratchett is rather terrible at endings. The beginnings are always lovely, hilarious, and full of suspense. The middles are amazing - promising many more laughs to come, and twisting, treacherous plots that will have you clutching your heart (when you're not too busy holding your sides). But the endings are almost unanimously disappointing, dissolving into a kind of manic craziness that doesn't really fit with the earlier pacing of the novel at all. At first, I thought this might be just me. But as I read more and more Pratchett books, my suspicions firmed and I realized that what I was feeling wasn't an isolated phenomenon. So I guess this is something to keep in mind.

4.5 stars.(less)

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Feb 26, 2013 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: discworld, fantasy, fiction, humor

This one danced on the edge of being too-obvious parody, but in the end I think it landed well.

In this one, a place known as "Holy Wood" has started drawing people towards it, all becoming obsessed with making "moving pictures." The main plot involves the forces driving that obsession (and their connections to the Things in the outer dimensions, which you will be familiar with if you've read other Discworld books), and the two main characters who become stars. And their talking dog.

But this, at...more

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Oct 11, 2012 Dawn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

I enjoyed the romp through a silly version of what Hollywood would have been like when it first started, but sped up to include working up to the talkies. This book featured very few characters I’d encountered before (only the Patrician, a cameo by Carrot & the Sgt. and Windle Poons), so it was mostly a new cast to me. This happens when you read the Diskworld stuff out of order. Not that there really is an order, per se.

This book follows a lazy wizarding student turned movie star, Gaspode th...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Discworld's pesky alchemists are up to their old tricks again. This time, they've discovered how to get gold from silver — the silver screen that is. Hearing the siren call of Holy Wood is one Victor Tugelbend, a would-be wizard turned extra. He can't sing, he can't dance, but he can handle a sword (sort of), and now he wants to be a star. So does Theda Withel, an ambitious ingénue from a little town (where else?) you've probably never heard of.

But the click click of moving pictures isn't just

...more

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Oct 22, 2010 Cory Hughart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, british, humor, fantasy, pratchett

A new magic seeps into the Discworld, a magic that has the ability to transform reality and turn seemingly ordinary people into stars--and not the kind made of slowly exploding hydrogen either. It comes from a place called "Holy Wood," and it's got people acting very strange...

I really enjoyed this installment of the Discworld series. If you've been reading the books in order of publication, you'll know that Pratchett Terri often lets our reality slip off into the Discworld for a bit of satire,...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Melki rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humorous-fiction

Who'd want to spend their time moving pictures? Most of them looked alright where they were.

A shady sausage vendor and a student of wizardry head to Holy Wood for fame and fortune in the early days of the Discworld film industry. Hey, kids! Let's put on a show! Sounds like wholesome family entertainment, does it not?

Well...since this sprang from the mind of Terry Pratchett, expect chaos and devastation, licentious landladies, mass hysteria, dogs and cats sharing conversations...

S-o-o-o-o...in a...more

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Feb 04, 2011 MisterFweem rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reading-again

Again, reading Terry Pratchett is good medicine. And I mean reading it. I've tried watching some of the movies made from Pratchett's work and they are -- and a whole -- generally unwatchable. I know Pratchett has a fear of Hollywood (which I can understand) but I have concluded, after watching many British sci-fi/fantasy movies, that they can't make one watchable. At all. I promise I've tried. I really, really love Pratchett's stories, so I thought watching some of the films based on them would...more

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May 21, 2013 David Sarkies rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comedy

I must admit that this was not one of my favourite of Pratchett's books but I suspect that if I end up reading it again, the score will go up and the review will change, however we are getting to a point where maybe the best of Pratchett's discword content is behind him and he is exploring other avenues to try and get a laugh. Okay, Pratchett does more than try to get a laugh, and in a way it is sort of like the Simpsons where Pratchett uses a fantasy world to poke fun at the weirdness of our w...more I must admit that this was not one of my favourite of Pratchett's books but I suspect that if I end up reading it again, the score will go up and the review will change, however we are getting to a point where maybe the best of Pratchett's discword content is behind him and he is exploring other avenues to try and get a laugh. Okay, Pratchett does more than try to get a laugh, and in a way it is sort of like the Simpsons where Pratchett uses a fantasy world to poke fun at the weirdness of our world. In a way Anhk-Morpork is probably supposed to be London, though in this film I suspect it is more like Los Angeles (though I think I'll stick with London considering Pratchett is English).
Basically this entire story is a poke at movies, in particular Hollywood, and for me it simply did not seem to work. Okay, I liked the book, but a part of me simply felt that Pratchett may have been trying to hard. There were some good jokes in there, though most of the didn't make me laugh all that much. I guess my favourite scene is where all the animals come and start talking with the hero Victor and the rabbit ends up taking huge offence at being called Thumper. It ends up that Victor makes a friend with a talking dog names Gaspode (though since he is ugly, he doesn't get noticed all that much). Poor of Gaspode though has to put up with all of the attention being focused on a stupid dog named Laddie (and it is clear that, even only being able to speak dog, all Laddie can do is say 'good dog Laddie, good dog).
The tired old themes of 'everybody wants to make it in Holly Wood' are played out, as well as the idea that actors don't actually do all that much (which is why Victor likes the job so much because he simply does not like doing anything all that much). I would have to agree with Pratchett on that because there are a lot of people out there that work incredibly hard for a pittance, but actors seem to rake it in. Okay, I should be a little more specific and say that only a certain small group of actors seem to rake it in, when in reality all they have to do is to do stuff in front of a camera, and that is it.
In a way it is how the economic system of this world is structured. There are people out there who work incredibly hard every day of their life, are careful with their money, only to lose it all in a stock market crash. There are others that simply because they have the right connections, or make the right friends, end up living a life of luxury and doing token things to suggest that they care for the poor (for instance the CEOs who sleep out on the street for a night to say that they care about the homeless, only to go home to their mansions and sleep in a comfortable bed, or the same CEOs who say that they care about the poor in society but are not willing to substantially cut their pay to more realistic levels while the employees in their company struggle to make ends meet).
When the global financial crisis hit I suggested to my boss that one way to actually kick start the economy was to increase the pay of the average worker so that they had more disposable income to go and buy stuff. Hey, I have quite a lot of disposable income, but I tend to shove a lot of my money away into investments. However, I am one of the few that would do that (and if my pay were increased, it would only mean that more money would get shoved away into investments). However, I am a bit more of a realist because I also understand the nature of supply and demand, and the fact that there are limited resources. The thing is that the more money there is in the hands on the ordinary person, the more people there are wanting to buy limited amounts of stuff, which means the price of that stuff increased to meet that demand. However, on the flip side, if there are less people out there buying stuff, and that means that there is less demand for the stuff, then the price will drop accordingly. However, the catch is also that the less people buying stuff, the less money companies are making, which means more people out of work. That is why I like investing in utilities.(less)

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Mar 02, 2012 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The alchemists of Ankh-Morpork may be trying to make gold, but when discover how to make Octo-cellulose instead, they suddenly realize that while they may not be able to transform other materials into gold, they might have found a different way to make gold. Afraid that the wizards of Unseen University will not understand that their new moving pictures don’t make use of magic, the alchemist move to a remote location known as Holy Wood to build their new industry. Soon, the new town of Holy Wood...more

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Aug 22, 2011 Aldrea rated it 4 of 5 stars

Once again the Discworld has me giggling. Darn near chronically. This time, it’s Holy Wood and all the references to various films. Especially when it’s just plain wrong (have you followed a “yellow sick toad” lately? Or perhaps you’ve a desire to be “a lawn”?).
There’s a lot of things going on in this one, lots of characters with their viewpoints and plots. But the main one focuses on Victor, and later Ginger, and the strange magic of Holy Wood (not real magic, mind, silver screen magic). At fir...more

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Mar 25, 2012 Kua rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, b-1-1

Dopo aver letto l'ennesimo libro di Pratchett (ok ok sono solo tre finora, ma aumenteranno!), mi è sorta spontanea una domanda: come diavolo è possibile che nessuno abbia ancora trasformato i suoi libri in film??? Sono praticamente perfetti per essere trasposti sul grande schermo, gli ingredienti ci sono tutti: humor, spessore, trame imprevedibili, colpi di scena... E allora come mai sono uscite solo poche produzioni per la televisione? Questa è una cosa che proprio non mi spiego. Ma passiamo al...more

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Feb 17, 2011 R. August rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

As with The Simpsons and Futurama suffer from the problem of having a great setting, great jokes, great writing, and crummy plots, making 30 min. episodes of the cartoons enjoyable, but the movies hard to sit through. Usually by the 1 hour marker in the movies I start wondering why I should care and thinking about going home. Setting and writing grips you and plot keeps you. I've had the same problem with the discworld novels - good setting, good jokes, good writing, but by page 150 I stop reall...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: british-books-challenge

Moving Pictures is the first in the so-called "Industrial Revolution" line of discworld novels. It was published in 1990, the same year as Eric, and is a wonderful satire on Hollywood and the film industry.
Main characters in this story are Victor Tugelbend, who devised a very intelligent system to fail exams at Unseen University "good enough" not to be thrown out, and Theda 'Ginger' Withel, who just wants to be herself, as big as possible. They are both drawn away from their day-to-day lives by...more Moving Pictures is the first in the so-called "Industrial Revolution" line of discworld novels. It was published in 1990, the same year as Eric, and is a wonderful satire on Hollywood and the film industry.
Main characters in this story are Victor Tugelbend, who devised a very intelligent system to fail exams at Unseen University "good enough" not to be thrown out, and Theda 'Ginger' Withel, who just wants to be herself, as big as possible. They are both drawn away from their day-to-day lives by a wild (and dangerous) idea - the same idea which helped the alchemists invent the 'clicks' (as in movies) and which made Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler a very successful producer (because he knows how to advertise). They all meet at Holy Wood, a hill between dunes and close to the ocean, which hides from them a civilisation long gone...
Victor and Ginger notice that something is wrong about Holy Wood (and it's not because of the talking animals that hang around there). Well, them and the wizards in Ankh-Morpork, who have a device that shows where reality is unravelling, and how much. Only they don't know what it does, and like Victor and Ginger they only figure it out at the last moment - just in time to save the discworld from the Things from the Dungeon Dimensions?

Having finished with the tenth discworld novel now, I must say that what I love and admire most about the whole series is the recurrence of characters. I've met CMOT Dibbler, and of course Detrius, before, and the next novel puts old Windle Poons right in the middle of its plot, after he's been introduced in Moving Pictures. Discworld characters are - in general - a weird and funny bunch, and it's great fun meeting them all again from time to time, as minor characters to another story.
For a conclusion on Moving Pictures I want to mention that I definitely didn't get all the movie references, and probably misunderstood a lot of them (after all, the book is 22 years old). Nevertheless, the novel made me laugh a lot, and the grand final was again grand.
I'll leave you with one of my favourite quotes from the book: "Just when you need to save the world, there's a world for you to save".(less)

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Feb 07, 2013 Candy Wood added it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-fantasy

The Discworld books that are focused on one satiric target sometimes seem to stretch the joke a bit far, and Moving Pictures is like that but still hugely enjoyable. This time the people of Ankh-Morpork are being strangely lured to Holy Wood by dreams of fame and fortune; the city’s wizards don’t know what to make of this new kind of magic, if it’s even magic. Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler is perfectly suited to the role of movie mogul (as C.M.O.T. Dibbler, of course). It probably helps to be more o...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Nathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: author-male, books-i-own, high-fantasy, humor, rated-3-star, read-2013

Part 10 of the Complete Discworld Reread

Wow, what a slog. When I started this reread I was wondering how a couple of those I had ignored would read a second time around, with “Moving Pictures” being my biggest fear. On this occasion my memory was correct, this may be the weakest Pratchett book until the football one released a few years back.

Now don’t get me wrong, even a bad Pratchett book is worth reading, and this wasn’t a complete waste of time. As per the usual, some of the humor hits hard...more Part 10 of the Complete Discworld Reread

Wow, what a slog. When I started this reread I was wondering how a couple of those I had ignored would read a second time around, with “Moving Pictures” being my biggest fear. On this occasion my memory was correct, this may be the weakest Pratchett book until the football one released a few years back.

Now don’t get me wrong, even a bad Pratchett book is worth reading, and this wasn’t a complete waste of time. As per the usual, some of the humor hits hard (I was particularly fond of trolls worried about being typecast into a only a few roles). And it also has a better than average over all storyline; a strong setup, decent pacing, and a very good conclusion. So why did I struggle so much with it? Lots, and lots of “easy” jokes that just twist around Hollywood titles, often without much creativity.

Follow the yellow sick toad. What’s up, Duck? Play it again, Sham. These are the things that dragged the story down throughout, and were all too common. Not all were misses, when you throw everything at the wall some will stick; I caught references to Merchant in Venice and King Kong that were a bit more subtle (and a King Kong reference that was not so subtle).

Oh, the book is about the making of movies in Discworld. The alchemists who discover the process move to a small area called Holy Wood, where people are irresistibly drawn to in droves. Some kind of greater magic is in place, and in some ways the films start making themselves, going in directions the actors and directors don’t expect. Wizard’s apprentice turn actor Victor learns that for many years there were guardians to keep reality in check, but the last one’s death left a void, letting Holy Wood’s magic come through to mess with reality.

The real star of this story is Cut my own throat Dibbler, in his largest role to date. Drawn to any money making scheme he can find, his escalation of everything in Holy Wood was what really kept me going. Constant attempts to force advertising into pictures made me laugh every time. The book also finally settled the Unseen University’s revolving door of Archchancellors, with Ridcully settling in quickly. Gaspode also makes his first appearance, and the talking dog doesn’t disappoint. There is a reason I am not talking about the main protagonists, Victor and Ginger; they were boring characters and I am not surprised they don’t show in any more books.

I guess I am being hard on this book. The bad puns were not all that funny to me, but others may enjoy them more. The story itself is pretty solid, and the more I think about the ending I realize it was very strong. But if I, admitted Pratchett fanboy, struggle through a book of his I have to go with my gut.

3 stars. For film buffs and huge Pratchett fans only. I would hate for someone to read this and decide that Pratchett isn’t for them.
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Oct 15, 2010 Pvw rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

Pratchett is funny in his satire, but when I compare him to Jonathan Swift or Douglas Adams, the first one is more socially relevant and the latter is just... funnier. Pratchett has an abundant fantasy and delivers some enjoyable descriptions. But this abundance is also a problem, because he continues introducing new weird characters to the book until you want to shout: "Terry, start your story now!!" In 'Moving Pictures' Pratchett takes on the Hollywood circus - a rather easy victim to parody....more

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Dec 07, 2012 Michael Clemens rated it 4 of 5 stars

After the disappointment of Eric, Sir Terry is back in form with Moving Pictures. Some of the best books in the series seem to be of the bow-meets-girl variety, though true to Discworld form, that tired trope gets a workout here as Pratchett's punning parodic pen is aimed at the heart of movie-making in general and Hollywood in particular. True to the plot, some of the Disc's supporting characters are elevated to a starring role. Even without the mythological underpinnings of the Disc, this woul...more

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May 08, 2009 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett is the first of his Diskworld novels to make me go "Meh..." The idea is that an evil spirit breaks lose and starts putting ideas in people's heads that give birth to the creation of motion pictures, or "clicks" on the Disk. It's got enough good lines, jokes, and parodies to make it entertaining, but the whole Hollywood lampoon seems so out of place on the Diskworld that I found it really distracting and jarring. Indeed, Pratchett seems to anticipate this reacti...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

First I have to confess that I listened to this book, I didn't read it. I know that a few people make a distinction there as a voice can create a different air or bias to the story. I should also mention that this is the first book by Terry Pratchet I've read where the main hero wasn't a character named Moist. I'm rather fond of Moist and his exploits. So my review of this book boils down to my thinking, "It's a Terry Pratchett book without Moist". If this is your first encounter with a Terry Pr...more

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About Terry Pratchett

Sir Terry Pratchett sold his first story when he was thirteen, which earned him enough money to buy a second-hand typewriter. His first novel, a humorous fantasy entitled The Carpet People, appeared in 1971 from the publisher Colin Smythe. Terry worked for many years as a journalist and press officer, writing in his spare time and publishing a number of novels, including his first Discworld novel,...more

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Quotes from Moving Pictures

“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.” — 675 people liked it

“The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off.

A dog's wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has it's own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It's like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.” — 229 people liked it

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Moving Pictures (Discworld #10)

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