I got behind on the Discworld re-read, but the next book was Eric, about which I have almost nothing to say: it’s Rincewind, it’s slight, it’s about bureaucracy, and I haven’t read the version with pictures but didn’t feel the lack (unlike The Last Hero, which has at least one scene that doesn’t make any sense without the pictures). But then, I don’t particularly care for Josh Kirby’s Discworld art.
Next up is Moving Pictures, which kicks off the “invading pop culture” line of stories. (Or, well, is there a line? There’s Soul Music, and I suppose Unseen Academicals to a certain extent. Anyway. This is what series re-reads are for.) These have never been my favorite so I was not particularly enthused to read this one.
The University comes into recognizable form here, with Ridicully (who I do like, which I don’t think I expected at the time), the Bursar (not yet on the dried frog pills, but getting there), the Dean, and Ponder Stibbons. This book also introduces the dog, Gaspode. Otherwise, the only thing I have to say about it is a spoiler, so I will put it behind the jump.
SPOILER: I can’t tell whether it’s a shot at the Hollywood establishment and mainstream movie-making, to have the thing that limits the movies’ ability to capture the audience be a giant Oscar statue. Or is it meant to suggest a countering of crappy mindless movies, like the SciFi Channel’s monster-of-the-week things? More likely the second, I guess, since I tend to think of the pop culture satires as being gentler (as they rely so much on specific knowledge of the things being satirized), and the first would be a lot broader attack on the medium.
It’s been a while, but I thought of most of the things that were done for the movies to make them stop as placation, usually in the form of attention.
So I wouldn’t have considered it out of place that an Oscar would have a similar placating effect as announcing the Matinee.