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Book:Moving Pictures

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Moving Pictures
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Cover [[Image:|thumb|center|200px|{{{1}}}]]
Published 1990
Publisher Victor Gollancz
ISBN [1]
Pages
Series [[:Category:|]]
Main characters Victor Tugelbend, Theda Withel, Gaspode
Annotations Annotations for Moving Pictures
Notes Book #10
All data relates to the UK hardback edition.

Contents

Blurb

The alchemists of the Discworld have discovered the magic of the silver screen. But what is the dark secret of Holy Wood hill?

It's up to Victor Tugelbend ("Can't sing. Can't dance. Can handle a sword a little") and Theda Withel ("I come from a little town you've probably never heard of") to find out ...

Moving Pictures, the ninth Discworld novel, is a gloriously funny saga set against the background of a world gone mad!

Major Characters

Minor Characters

Cameos and Mentions

Things and Concepts

Locations

  • Golden River (mentioned), a troll river (and thus possibly a river of lava, not water)

Annotations

Since this is a book about motion pictures, all wikipedia links below are to the film or TV version of a given work of art (where possible), even if another version (book, song, etc) came first or is more popular.

  • "This is space. It's sometimes called the final frontier." - reference to the opening lines of Star Trek
  • "But you're made a meat, an' what do you eat?" - possibly a reference to They're Made Out of Meat, a Nebula Award winning short story
  • "the dreaded Balgrog" - reference to Tolkien's balrog
  • "Must be off 'is nut [...], [s]inging in the rain like that." - reference to the film Singin' In the Rain
  • "the Chroncal of the Keeprs of the ParaMountain" - reference to Paramount
  • "and make it a palace" - reference to the movie palaces of the 1910s to 1960s
  • "'What's up, Duck?' said the rabbit" - reference to Bugs Bunny's famous phrase "what's up, doc?" (though Bugs has also said "what's up, duck" in a few cartoons)
  • '"Mighty Paws" or - or "Speedy Hunter"' - possible references to Mighty Mouse and Speedy Gonzales, even though Victor applies them to the cat, not the mouse.
  • The mouse hitting the cat with a frying pan is reminiscent of Tom and Jerry, though there are probably many other similar cartoons (and Tom and Jerry rarely spoke). The cat's lisp is reminiscent of Sylvester the Cat
  • "The duck quacked. There were words in there somewhere, but so mangled by the incompatibility of beak and larynx that Victor couldn't understand a word." - possible reference to Donald Duck, who also speaks with a difficult-to-understand duck-like accent
  • "'Thief of ...' Rock hesitated. 'Dad's Bag, I think you said.' 'Bagged Dad,' said Morry, rubbing his arm." - reference to The Thief of Bagdad
  • "Fly with me now to the casbah" - reference to Casablanca, or possibly the lesser known Algiers, which inspired it
  • "a thousand elephants" - reference to Hannibal leading elephants over mountains in the Second Punic War. Several movies have been made about this, but reference here is probably Cabiria, given how early it is (and that it's a silent film)
  • "we're doing one about going to see a wizard. Something about following a yellow sick toad" - reference to The Wizard of Oz, where the characters (including a cowardly lion) follow a yellow brick road. A possible reference (as in Mort) to the yellow sick toad joke
  • "Colour was just a matter of breeding demons who could paint fast enough. It was sound that meant something new." - On Roundworld, most people (perhaps even TP) believe that sound preceded color. Actually, Cupid Angling, released in 1918, was the first color film, while The Jazz Singer, released in 1927, was the first film with sound. Some sources note that color movies may've been around since the 1890's. Most people incorrectly believe that The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, both released in 1939, were the first color movies.
  • '"I want to be a lawn"' - reference to Greta Garbo's famous by-line "I want to be alone" in her strong accent
  • "a wounded Royalist soldier's last words are "What I wouldn't give right now for a $1 EatTillItHurts special at ... Harga's ... House ... of ... Ribs ... Mother!" - reference to product placement
  • "One of the apprentices had stuck in just one picture from The Golde Rush and we all went around all morning thinking about gold and not knowing why. It was as if it'd gone straight into our heads without our eyes seeing it." - reference to subliminal advertising
  • "me and old "Numbers" Riktor and "Tudgy" Spold climbed up on the Temple of Small Gods" - in other words, Riktor "scaled" a building, a pun on the Richter Scale
  • "This Thing is bigger than both of us!" - parodies Rick Blaine's line to Ilsa in another reference to Casablanca
  • "[this] was undoubtedly the 57th strangest." - one of the frequent 57 references in TP's work
  • "The most graphic way of describing the Librarian's swing across the buildings of Unseen University is to simply transcribe the noises made during the flight. First: 'AaaAAAaaaAAAaaa.' This is selfexplanatory, and refers to the early part of the swing, when everything looked as if it was going well... Then: 'Aaarghhhh.' [...] a very quiet 'oook'" - reference to George of the Jungle's opening montage
  • "'A giant woman carrying a screaming ape up a tall building'" - parody of the ending of King Kong, where the exact opposite happens. The Dean's later comment "'Twas beauty killed the beast'" is a direct quote from King Kong.
  • "'Play it again, Sham'" - references the often misquoted line from Casablanca, "Play it again, Sam".
  • "'s silvery [...] And it's heavier than lead" - Silverfish has discovered uranium
  • "[6] SUB-TITLE: 'Vunce again I am fallink in luf [...] Vy iss it I now am a blue colour? [...] Vot is the action I should take at this time?'" - references the song Falling in Love Again (Can't Help It) (Wikipedia version does not include the "so blue" lyrics)
  • "[18] It was about a young ape who is abandoned in the big city and grows up being able to speak the language of humans" - parody of Tarzan of the Apes, where the exact opposite happens

Roundworld References

Direct references to Roundworld:


Films referenced in Moving Pictures

  • The Last Movie Show - this Roundworld film about the closure of the last cinema in a small mid-Western town is referenced virtually on the last page of Moving Pictures, where a broken picture throwing box spills its film in the sighing wind, with tiny figures dancing, just for a moment, in its dead glass eye...

Roundworld actors and actresses referenced

When the last of the Moving Pictures magic ebbs out of the world, just for a few moments Detritus and Ruby are transformed into Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire in a song-and-dance routine. Heralding the big dance number in Harga's House of Ribs, Detritus briefly channels Humphrey Bogart: Play it again, Sham!


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Reaper Man

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