• Saintbaba@alien.topB
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    1 year ago

    There’s a passage from Small Gods that has lived rent free in my head for over 20 years, about how the first human Om found and his first prophet was very nearly a goatherd but by a chance of minor geography was a shepherd instead:

    They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.

    …and for me, it’s like, short of just some flat voice over, how do you put that on screen? The concept, the idea, the delicious rhythm of the prose-and-near-poetry of it?

    • Sleightholme2@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      I really dislike that line. It is very popular and appears insightful, but Pratchett is completely wrong about sheep. He is taking his views on sheep from the UK (which is where he lives) where sheep are left on their own for most of the time as their is plentiful grazing and are occasionally rounded up and driven by the farmer. Middle-eastern shepherding where there is much less available grass the sheep are led by the shepherd from place to place. This is the kind that is referenced in the Bible. There has been enough research on sheep psychology to prove that they aren’t as stupid as people like to think, they are capable of pattern recognition and problem solving. Two flocks can meet and mingle, and then be separated just by them recognising which shepherd is theirs.

    • mildlypessimistic@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Yes exactly.

      Here’s another quote from Small Gods and it’s one that lives rent free in my head about life in an authoritarian state:

      Fear is a strange soil. It grows obedience like corn, which grow in straight lines to make weeding easier. But sometimes it grows the potatoes of defiance, which flourish underground.

      Now, someone adapting this scene might do a sweeping footage over a corn field that zooms in on a faceless farmer trying to pull out a stubborn weed while a voiceover says the line. It’s possible that it might work, but there’s a good chance it won’t work as well as it does in my head when I read it. But I’m thinking it’s more likely that scenes like these are gonna be cut, and that’s an abomination unto Nuggan

      • Quartz_Cat@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Lol you just have a narrator

        Have you all never seen any movies with a narrator?

        I don’t understand

        • Agilus@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          It’s generally considered that it’s bad filmmaking to use a narrator. People want to be shown things in a movie, not told them.