I’ve always been a fan of Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is my absolute favorite book of all time and I’m a defender of every reworking it ever received – including the 2005 theatrical film. Because of this, I’ve been told by plenty of people (including several members of this site) that I should check out Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of books.

Now I would like to come up with a really solid excuse for not having done so. The “no time” excuse works well, but I’ve played that out along with the “there’s too much on my pile” line which doesn’t stop me from buying movies I never get around to watching. Most honestly, I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by the number of volumes to the Discworld novels and have zero idea where to start – but that doesn’t stop me from reading the occasional (and random) Doctor Who Target novelization in my car during my lunch hour. Plainly stated, I have no excuse except for my own laziness.

Like a good little illiterate bastard, when I heard that the Discworld novel Hogfather was being made into a film, I was pretty excited to check it out and see what all the fuss was about. While I still can’t judge the books, I can now state fully that the mind of Pratchett works in a beautifully cynical fashion and I will be doing some reading [feel free to offer suggestions on where to start!]

Hogswatch is very much like Christmas. The Hogfather is the Discworld’s Santa Claus and each year he drops down chimneys and delivers presents and pork products to all of the good little boys and girls. His…er…tusks seem a little bit more abrasive than our Father Christmas’ beard, but that is really beside the point. However, unlike Santa Claus, the Hogfather is very much a “real” creation which is integral not just to the culture – but to existence as well. Shamefully, the Auditors don’t see it that way. These spectral creatures are Discworld’s humorless accountant types and they seem to think that human creativity and focus on manufactured deities are causing things to be run improperly. Their plan to reconcile this error – put out a hit on the Hogfather.

Realizing this to be a somewhat unbelieveable task, the local assassin’s guild puts a character named Teatime (pronounced Te-ah-tah-may) (Marc Warren in a very Johnny Depp styled performance) up to the task. He’s a ruthless yet childlike assassin with a glass eye and zero remorse. Curiously, he had already been thinking about ways to “inhume” the Hogfather for some time now – for fun. With haste he springs right into action on his plan to get to the Hogfather by way of the Tooth Fairy. However, when Death (Ian Richardson) arrives to carry off a poor victim that Teatime slayed on his way, he learns of the plan and thinks of an equally convoluted way to prevent this, which involves his human daughter Susan (Michelle Dockery – ridiculously gorgeous) and disguising himself as the Hogfather and carrying out his duties on Hogswatch.

All of this is, of course, quite silly, although the script itself is undeniably well written and infinitely creative. Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather runs slightly over three hours which seemed a bit much before I dived into it, but really is necessary to get all the nuances of the characters and allow the ridiculous plot to come around to an actual central message. It is here that I was most surprised. Hogfather is not your typical Harry Potter style flight-of-fancy. There is a story to be told here and while it is quite convoluted at its beginning, it becomes an almost epic examination of humanity’s reason for believing as it does and why false and ever-changing idols are needed despite our society’s sophistication as a whole.

With that long running time, the script can accomplish much through dialog and acting rather than exposition or narrative. Death, despite his scary demeanor is actually quite enamored with humans as a whole and while pretending to be the Hogfather actually begins to question why certain things are the way they are. Why can’t he use his powers to give everyone exactly what they want? At one point he adds sand back to a dying girl’s hourglass since the “greatest gift is a future” but in doing so goes against his traditional role as Death as well as going overboard as the Hogfather. This is pretty deep ground to cover for a film that features a “God of Hangovers,” an addict of an elf named Albert (the most awesome character by far) and suggests that the Tooth Fairy is actually the first Boogeyman taking up a new occupation.

To delve too much into the nuances of the script wouldn’t benefit anyone reading this. Suffice to say, I think that Hogfather is easily one of the more impressive attempts at fantasy that I’ve had the privilege of seeing in a long time and is much funnier than almost any comedy in recent memory. Anyone not checking it out is hurting themselves

Presentation
I don’t know why interlaced DVDs are still released in this era of HD and all that jazz, but I guess that the ultimate answer is that pretty much no one at the Weinstein Company really gives two shits about how to make a DVD, which is evident not by Hogwatch’s transfer so much as looking at a list of titles that they’ve released. But other than this ridiculous oversight on whoever mastered this (fire them, please) the transfer itself isn’t that bad, it just isn’t sufficient for Hogwatch’s awesome imagery. The 5.1 audio mix is pretty much average but it’s hard to fault that for a television production such as this. It’s an average DVD, but mostly this film deserves more. There aren’t even any subtitles (in any language) which is pretty inexcusable in my eyes.

Extras
Interview with author Terry Pratchett – (20:49)
Seeing as how I have very little background with the author I found this particularly interesting, but I expect that fans will already know most of the information discussed. Pratchett comes across as a literary rock star like a cross between the eccentricity of Bono mixed with a dash of Douglas Adams; amusing but takes himself a bit too seriously. Anyway, Pratchett talks a bit about the Discworld novels, why it has taken so long for a film adaptation of them and what the future of holds for live-action follow-ups. I liked hearing about his reactions to this project coming to fruition. The one really fundamental problem that drags this feature down is that it was really poorly recorded. The interviewer is never seen and the questions are difficult to hear. Even Pratchett’s microphone is over-sensitized to the point where you can hear feedback when he ruffles his beard. Disappointing presentation, but the content I found worth the watch.

Original Trailer – (4:05)
The Hogfather trailer goes on a bit too long and in all honestly it didn’t do much for me. Nice to see it included though since it seems that the feature is being used sparser these days.

So the features are relatively light. The UK got a 2-disc release featuring quite a bit more content, so fans may want to import the R2.

The Bottom Line
I liked Hogfather quite a bit despite my unfamiliarity with Pratchett and the Discworld universe. With only a handful of extras and passable video quality, it’s hard to recommend this as a purchase, particularly a blind buy. It does have a fairly low retail cost and it is a very witty and enjoyable film so you could make worse investments. Hogfather though is definitely a film worth a look, so you shouldn’t put yourself past a rental.