In Ankh-Morpork, there are vampires and werewolves. More importantly, the post office is a crumbling mess. Moist Von Lipwig (Richard Coyle) is a petty con man. He gets caught and Lord Vetinari (Charles Dance) hangs him to an inch of his life. Vetinari lets him off to head the defunct post office. Mr. Pump, a golem, is used as his unceasing guardian and parole officer. Groat and Stanley are the only two junior postmen. Their opposition is the Clacks which compost of countless light towers relaying messages run by the ruthless Reacher Gilt. Lipwig tries to modify Pump and goes to the Golem Trust. He finds Adora Belle Dearheart (Claire Foy) in mourning after her brother John Dearheart was killed on top of one of the Clacks towers.It's a wild, imaginative adaptation of this weird fantasy world. It's a wonder visually considering it's a TV show. I'm not terribly in love with these characters. Lipwig is too dumb at times, and too mean-spirited for too long. His first letter is a missed opportunity. There was no real reason for him to deliver it. There has to be a more compelling reason for a scheming, selfish conman to selflessly deliver the first letter. Inventing stamps is interesting. In addition, I'm uncertain about Adora Belle's character. She's very one dimensional and I would like her to be more. This is a nice wacky world and I would like to like the characters more.

People talk about the phenomenon of binge TV watching. I've been binge reading all of the Discworld books, all of which are on my shelf. That makes the second or third (or at least one fourth) time through. I had only seen the terrible "Color of Magic" and the worse "Hogfather" before, so had low expectations for this.Going Postal is true to the "look and feel" of the book. Of course, it doesn't stick to the plot, word for word. Of course, many of the characters are two dimensional. But then, the movie is made from pictures and the books are made from words. And words have power. It was a joy to watch. My wife didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did, but that was probably because I kept telling her the difference between the book and the movie. And pointing out the similarity ("Honey, did you notice the vampire photographer? That's great, he really didn't add to the movie story line, but in the Discworld series...." And we're still married.Spoiler: Viewers should be aware that the movie pays homage to old time movies in a couple of ways. One controversial way is to make the banshee into a replica of Nosferatu. I think this was a misstep, but a minor and intriguing one.

I've seen a lot of adaptations on British television, and read most of the related books, so it took me a while to bring myself to see this adaptation after the gut-wrenching horror that was The Colour of Magic. I was hoping for something better.On the plus side, some of the acting is above acceptable, especially from the minor characters. Richard Coyle is not too bad as Moist von Lipwig, but the other leading characters are very disappointing. Dance as Vetinari is neither emotionless enough to be terrifying nor terrifying enough to be intriguing, and Suchet as Reacher Gilt ends up as a typical one-dimensional screen villain. Claire Foy is unfortunately hardly worth mentioning as Adora Belle, so I hardly will.The set design is rather good, and the special effects are mostly an improvement on the embarrassment of the previous adaptations. British television has a reputation for beautiful costuming in 'period' adaptations, and Going Postal lives up to this.On the minus side, the writing of the adaptation itself is poor. My opinion is that adapting a novel should involve taking the most effective parts of it and ensuring that they are presented on screen, while discarding anything unnecessary (and usually any side plots) to save time. The LOTR adaptations were particularly fine examples, as they mostly managed to remove side plots and adapt the remaining content to flow well and retain drama. Gormenghast was slightly less fine, but retained the darkness of the original characters, which made it successful. This adaptation struggles because the writers removed the elements of the plot and characters that made the book so excellent. This left a lot of space, which unfortunately got filled up with rubbish.Specifically, what makes the book so excellent is the structure of and interplay between the characters. As always, Pratchett makes it difficult to separate the 'good' and 'bad' at face value. For example, the irresistibly likable Lipwig and Reacher Gilt are almost indistinguishable until close to the end of the book. Adora Belle is completely misanthropic, but unusually caring about her golems. And behind it all, Vetinari plays the almost godlike ringmaster.All of this is lost in the adaptation, which leaves it feeling flat and mediocre. Worse, the dialogue and plot that was added instead is sappy, lifeless and pandering. Lipwig is no more likable than anyone else, which makes a good portion of the plot nonsensical. Gilt is so transparently evil that one wonders why anyone would trust him with a single penny. And the romantic subplot with Adora Belle changes from a wonderful clash of characters and excellent banter to a rather simple and boring love interest.The adaptations are improving gradually, but I hope that eventually the writers will take some risks and write characters more true to the novels. Terry Pratchett is a hugely successful writer not just because of his plots, but because of his disregard for narrative convention, his wonderful characters and electric dialogue. It would be good to see at least some of that retained on screen.Overall, my major complaint is not what was removed or changed from the book, but what it was replaced with. An excellent book that could have been a gorgeous miniseries has become merely a dull, average miniseries with a slightly better than average plot. A huge opportunity wasted.

Perhaps I lack sophistication but I liked it.It's been so long since I read the book that the details were fuzzy to me but as with the other two adaptations I can live with the changes. To do faithful film versions would require making mini-series of them.I didn't expect a high budget production and expected to see changes, partly to make sense in the allotted time and partly to appeal to a broader audience.As for the uninitiated, I'd think that those who liked it will like the book better and those who don't probably wouldn't like the book either.Even with all the flaws in the movies I hope to see other of T. Pratchett's books adapted to film. I'm rooting for "Night Watch" as the next one.