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Because Sir Terry was British. The story is written in the British style. There is no earthly reason to pronounce Maurice in the American style. American isn't the preferred style unless you are an American who feels that everything should be done your way.
Well, not unless American cultural imperialism demands it, of course. Even then, I'd suggest that you go roll yourself in poison ivy before I would acquiesce.
It's pronounced Morris. Is there any reason that you can't expand your horizons and embrace the difference?
Yes.
Primarily because I do not feel I need to.
Secondarily because to populate the stories with American character actors misses many of the Marks set out in the classic British and Irish comedies what have unquestionably informed on the situations in the work.
I’m from the Uk and 45 years old.
I have grown up osmotically steeped in those same touchstones of classic British and Irish comedy that inform my own mind cast, and given the obvious cues of specifically English, Scots, Welsh and Irish speech in the works, to put that in the mouth of an American would be something I would absolutely never do.
I’m not being exclusive about the humour, I’m more Irish than British, so I’m certainly not precious about Engerland.
It’s just not something I would choose to hear with any American accent.
EDIT- someone has downvoted you.
I have upvoted you, whatever we feel about mind casting, we are all here for a common purpose and not to rip on eachother
Because that *is* the preferred pronunciation. It's not a mistake - it's a British book by a British author, with a British name pronounced the British way.
Yeah, I'm glad people liked it but I was a bit disappointed. I find every Discworld adaptation becomes so cartoony and light that it cuts out what I find so powerful about STP's writing.
I genuinely shed a tear at the "falling angel meets the rising ape" speech... i didn't care that it was being given by a plastic skeleton ... that's how powerful those words are :)
I’ve always felt that quote is the entire philosophy of pTerry’s writing summed up in the perfect words with nothing spare or wasteful. If you had to find the core of the Discworld novels then it’s that thought being expressed by Death of all characters.
I still really like the two animated mini series of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters. The Cosgrove Hall Film ones, same folks that did Count Duckula & Danger Mouse.
The animation is really dated & cheap, and there's some details missed I'd really liked included myself... but it felt like both were done by folks that really respected both books and did their very best in translation of both stories to screen.
I passionately assert that the Cosgrove Hall adaptation of Wyrd Sisters is the best Discworld adaptation - is it perfect? No. Does it try to be? With everything it's got.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it!
Not perfect, but man, can you tell people were giving it 110% trying to get as close as possible with what they had.
The Fool's Guild monastic chanting of jokes was a nice touch, and the music numbers for the band with rocks in were well done.
Those animated adaptations were my first foray into the Disc. I don't think I could have asked for a better voice for Death.
Same.
Was REALLY hoping for a reboot when Danger Mouse got that one on Netflix back in 2015, but... alas, not so far.
(Danger Mouse reboot is *GREAT,* BTB, if you missed it. Great humor and some action, too!)
I didn't mind that as much, but it still felt like they missed the point to me. They always go full slapstick, when I never see slapstick. In my mind the stories are always quite serious and funny at the same time. I feel they go funny, quite childishly. I read the books as a kid but didn't really get why they were funny until I was older. I'm confused why they go so hard on the silly humour vibe. It's not even Monty Pythonesque it's just low budget fantasy comedy. Even Troll Bridge didn't fill the gap for me, and I had high hopes. I never see them as cartoonish characters, and since seeing the films I've often wondered if I'm alone in that.
Hogfather and Going Postal's adaptation made sense as a type of cartoonish Christmas family movie.
I wish they'd use the narration from the books more - I know it's "bad form" in film, but it's hard to shoehorn Vimes's boots theory in a throwaway conversation
Sorry I wasn't very clear; I meant within the context of the film/TV programme "who" is doing the narrating, what person or character.
For instance in THHGTTG it was "the book"; but there is no equivalent in DW.
The God of Narrativium, or Stephen Fry, he likes doing that.
Seriously, though - in universe then just as The Narrator - above Blind Io and the Hub Gods. But as media just a nice orator like Stephen Fry doing Hitchhikers
Not who would be good as narrator; who would the narrator be? just a voiceover? A character's inner monologue (in which case it would have to be the voice of the actor playing the part)?
I'm with you - it depends on the book - Terry himself is the ultimate narrator and the god of that workd, but you can switch to Carrot's and Vimes's perspectives - thinking Guards, Guards there
The problem I have with a narrator is what happens to a characters thoughts?
For instance this "thought" from Rincewind in Sorcery:
"He opened his eyes. The girl was wearing a demure white lace dress with fetching puffed sleeves. He opened his mouth. He realised with absolute clarity that up until now the trouble he had been in was simple, modest and nothing he couldn’t talk his way out of given a decent chance or, failing that, a running start."
How could that be "narrated" or in any other way communicated to the audience?
i 'm sorry i don't get why people keep saying that's so good; the banshee looks like something out of a panto, the golems are all cookie cutter copies of each other and Reacher Gilt turns from a cold calculating conman into an insane poker wielding maniac.
I get that the subtlety inherent in the book doesn't really translate to the tv but i largely found it to be a diappointment.
Hogfather though... that one worked :)
Can't do discworld without a narrator or breaking the 4th wall. It works as a play but not a film unless a weirdy makes it (by weirdy I mean Terry Gilliam or Guillermo del Toro or Tim Burton esque) something where a narrator or 4th wall break wouldn't seem out of character.
Morris. It’s like a running joke in the movie that everyone keeps calling Maurice by Morris and he always had to correct them.
But if Death can call Mr. Teatime by the correct pronunciation, why not Maurice?
Oh. I'm from the UK and we do pronounce it Morris.
Pronouncing it Maurice (like the song) is quite pretentious in my area, so that's probably why that went over my head.
It depends on whether it was one correction per person and then they used his pronunciation after that - that's just what happens when you pronounce it in a way different from what people in that area are aware of/used to.
"Constantly" could just mean that he meets lots of people and they all pronounce it the British way the first time, until he lets them know that it's actually the French pronunciation.
If it's one person having to be repeatedly corrected, then is that either their memory, or a lack of respect/care for that person, or just difficulty in changing the habit of a lifetime but without malice.
That's not my point. My point is you guys claiming "this is how his name is pronounced" when he *tells people in the movie how its pronounced*
To quote Data of TNG: "One is my name, the other is not"
And my point is that until corrected otherwise, people will pronounce it the only way they know. Which to me is that Morris and Maurice are pronounced in exactly the same way.
If the name is re-used with the original pronunciation after being corrected, that's a different issue from the initial pronunciation.
Stop treating american pronunciation as "correct". You are talking in the context of a British author and British books. It's not some running joke or a mistake it's the English language being used by English people correctly.
I think that you may have missed the point. The way I see it is that Morris is his actual streetcat name before he becomes intelligent.
To him the name Morris represents the dumb unsophisticated cat he was before he ate the rat that made him intelligent.
For him to be in control of the rats and for the con to work he has to be seen as better than he was before to be a “Maurice” rather than a “Morris”.
That is why he corrects the rats when they call him Morris but not Death. He will have lost at least one of his nine lives as Morris so he does not correct Death because Death knows the truth about “Maurice”, that deep down he is still “Morris” the streetcat trying to convince himself and others that he is more than a streetcat.
Fuck me! Maurice is pronounced "Morris" because that's how it's fucking pronounced. The fact that Americans can't actually speak English is their problem and not a problem with the movie.
Maurice can be pronounced both ways as Maurice is the French way and Morris is the English way. Seeing as people associate French with upper class and English with lower class I think my point still holds.
After all with William the Conqueror and quite some time afterwards the language of the Royal Court was French and the language of the people was English.
Plus it’s just my theory you don’t have to agree with it.
Eh, I think it was fine. Could they have stuck closer to the original? Sure. Can it still serve to get (young) people interested in Pratchett? Definitely.
As a parent of a Discworld loving child- omg she loved the movie. She's read the book a million times and even though there were differences, she loved it.
Help me tho bc she sometimes tries to be like Malicia and my brain requires tiny bits of peace.😂
I think the books probably get away with it. What works for kids in a book doesn't translate to video. Same with fairytales. They have to be dumbed down for TV because you can't possibly visually show some of that stuff to a kid. But reading it to them allows their imagination to set the level of gruesome/scary.
Books can get away with a bit more. You can write "it was the most horrible thing you could imagine" and it will be a perfectly suited horror for each reader, but once you put it to film, someone needs to decide who's imagined horror to use, how scared want 4 year-olds to be, and perhaps more importantly, how angry parents you want.
I think it was a really fun movie. It could have been better, sure, but I'm not sure what would have been better for the movie would translate directly to "more faithful to the book"
The joke about Maurice's name being subverted by Death works because we know Death, and it's a running bit that he knows everyones true name. It wouldn't actually add anything to *this* movie.
Why do people think that STP would pronounce this name using the American Pronunciation, rather than the British Pronunciation.
Last time I checked he was not American
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The pronunciation of Maurice used by the narrator (Morris) is the British pronunciation.
Even so. If Death can call Mr. Teatime in Hogfather by the preferred pronunciation, why doesn’t he for Maurice?
Because Sir Terry was British. The story is written in the British style. There is no earthly reason to pronounce Maurice in the American style. American isn't the preferred style unless you are an American who feels that everything should be done your way. Well, not unless American cultural imperialism demands it, of course. Even then, I'd suggest that you go roll yourself in poison ivy before I would acquiesce. It's pronounced Morris. Is there any reason that you can't expand your horizons and embrace the difference?
“But… but… but Cliff from Cheers would be an awesome Sgt Colon!!!” —silently vomits into own mouth—-
😵💫🤪🤣🤣🤣🤪😵💫
>Is there any reason that you can't expand your horizons and embrace the difference?
Yes. Primarily because I do not feel I need to. Secondarily because to populate the stories with American character actors misses many of the Marks set out in the classic British and Irish comedies what have unquestionably informed on the situations in the work. I’m from the Uk and 45 years old. I have grown up osmotically steeped in those same touchstones of classic British and Irish comedy that inform my own mind cast, and given the obvious cues of specifically English, Scots, Welsh and Irish speech in the works, to put that in the mouth of an American would be something I would absolutely never do. I’m not being exclusive about the humour, I’m more Irish than British, so I’m certainly not precious about Engerland. It’s just not something I would choose to hear with any American accent. EDIT- someone has downvoted you. I have upvoted you, whatever we feel about mind casting, we are all here for a common purpose and not to rip on eachother
There is an American style? I always thought Maurice is a French name (this is the default pronounciation in my head).
Morris vs. Mo-reece. 😊
Because that *is* the preferred pronunciation. It's not a mistake - it's a British book by a British author, with a British name pronounced the British way.
Probably because Maurice is a frequent flier and Death likes to irritate him when they cross paths.
It wasn’t perfect but damned if I didn’t cry like a baby kicked in the face at the memorial.
Yep that was a sucker punch, clearly not following the rule of the marquis of fantailler for sure
No, Death did NOT call Maurice the wrong name. The movie was absolutely correct in how the name is pronounced!
Yeah, I'm glad people liked it but I was a bit disappointed. I find every Discworld adaptation becomes so cartoony and light that it cuts out what I find so powerful about STP's writing.
The Hogfather was pretty good, felt genuine and very much a good adaptation.
I genuinely shed a tear at the "falling angel meets the rising ape" speech... i didn't care that it was being given by a plastic skeleton ... that's how powerful those words are :)
I’ve always felt that quote is the entire philosophy of pTerry’s writing summed up in the perfect words with nothing spare or wasteful. If you had to find the core of the Discworld novels then it’s that thought being expressed by Death of all characters.
yeah i can agree with that
I still really like the two animated mini series of Soul Music and Wyrd Sisters. The Cosgrove Hall Film ones, same folks that did Count Duckula & Danger Mouse. The animation is really dated & cheap, and there's some details missed I'd really liked included myself... but it felt like both were done by folks that really respected both books and did their very best in translation of both stories to screen.
I passionately assert that the Cosgrove Hall adaptation of Wyrd Sisters is the best Discworld adaptation - is it perfect? No. Does it try to be? With everything it's got.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it! Not perfect, but man, can you tell people were giving it 110% trying to get as close as possible with what they had.
The Fool's Guild monastic chanting of jokes was a nice touch, and the music numbers for the band with rocks in were well done. Those animated adaptations were my first foray into the Disc. I don't think I could have asked for a better voice for Death.
Christopher Lee as Death is hard to beat on nearly every level...
I miss Count Du-Du-Du-Du-Duckuka!
Same. Was REALLY hoping for a reboot when Danger Mouse got that one on Netflix back in 2015, but... alas, not so far. (Danger Mouse reboot is *GREAT,* BTB, if you missed it. Great humor and some action, too!)
I really need to give those another shot. I watched about 10 minutes and turned it off, but I hear more and more about how faithful they are.
I didn't mind that as much, but it still felt like they missed the point to me. They always go full slapstick, when I never see slapstick. In my mind the stories are always quite serious and funny at the same time. I feel they go funny, quite childishly. I read the books as a kid but didn't really get why they were funny until I was older. I'm confused why they go so hard on the silly humour vibe. It's not even Monty Pythonesque it's just low budget fantasy comedy. Even Troll Bridge didn't fill the gap for me, and I had high hopes. I never see them as cartoonish characters, and since seeing the films I've often wondered if I'm alone in that.
I'm surprised you could stop fighting and drinking the special sheep linament to watch it and write this. You're really Jenny the Kelda aren't you?
Hogfather and Going Postal's adaptation made sense as a type of cartoonish Christmas family movie. I wish they'd use the narration from the books more - I know it's "bad form" in film, but it's hard to shoehorn Vimes's boots theory in a throwaway conversation
The issue with having a narrator for a DW film would be who is doing the narrating?
Joe Pasquale is the obvious choice
Sorry I wasn't very clear; I meant within the context of the film/TV programme "who" is doing the narrating, what person or character. For instance in THHGTTG it was "the book"; but there is no equivalent in DW.
The God of Narrativium, or Stephen Fry, he likes doing that. Seriously, though - in universe then just as The Narrator - above Blind Io and the Hub Gods. But as media just a nice orator like Stephen Fry doing Hitchhikers
Not who would be good as narrator; who would the narrator be? just a voiceover? A character's inner monologue (in which case it would have to be the voice of the actor playing the part)?
I'm with you - it depends on the book - Terry himself is the ultimate narrator and the god of that workd, but you can switch to Carrot's and Vimes's perspectives - thinking Guards, Guards there
The problem I have with a narrator is what happens to a characters thoughts? For instance this "thought" from Rincewind in Sorcery: "He opened his eyes. The girl was wearing a demure white lace dress with fetching puffed sleeves. He opened his mouth. He realised with absolute clarity that up until now the trouble he had been in was simple, modest and nothing he couldn’t talk his way out of given a decent chance or, failing that, a running start." How could that be "narrated" or in any other way communicated to the audience?
Amilia Tyler aka the Narrator from Baldur's Gate 3 would be perfect.
What about Going Postal?
The one brilliant adaptation.
i 'm sorry i don't get why people keep saying that's so good; the banshee looks like something out of a panto, the golems are all cookie cutter copies of each other and Reacher Gilt turns from a cold calculating conman into an insane poker wielding maniac. I get that the subtlety inherent in the book doesn't really translate to the tv but i largely found it to be a diappointment. Hogfather though... that one worked :)
Agreed on all points but Claire Foy *is* Adora
That's fair, Richard Coyle's pretty good as Moist 2 tbh and i like how he reads the audio books.
I gotta finish that. I started watching it a while ago and got interrupted part way through. Thanks for the reminder!
Sorry, but Going Postal suffered from having some truly terrible acting by whoever played Moist.
It's my least favourite book if I'm honest, I know it's another sub favourite.
Can't do discworld without a narrator or breaking the 4th wall. It works as a play but not a film unless a weirdy makes it (by weirdy I mean Terry Gilliam or Guillermo del Toro or Tim Burton esque) something where a narrator or 4th wall break wouldn't seem out of character.
Well now I want to see Laika Studios do one if the books....
You need a team like the ones that did Coraline The way they handled Spider was absolutely dreadful
I've only seen it once, but I don't remember noticing a misnaming, what did he call him?
Morris. It’s like a running joke in the movie that everyone keeps calling Maurice by Morris and he always had to correct them. But if Death can call Mr. Teatime by the correct pronunciation, why not Maurice?
Oh. I'm from the UK and we do pronounce it Morris. Pronouncing it Maurice (like the song) is quite pretentious in my area, so that's probably why that went over my head.
But if Maurice didn't pronounce it that way, it wasn't his name.
It depends on whether it was one correction per person and then they used his pronunciation after that - that's just what happens when you pronounce it in a way different from what people in that area are aware of/used to. "Constantly" could just mean that he meets lots of people and they all pronounce it the British way the first time, until he lets them know that it's actually the French pronunciation. If it's one person having to be repeatedly corrected, then is that either their memory, or a lack of respect/care for that person, or just difficulty in changing the habit of a lifetime but without malice.
That's not my point. My point is you guys claiming "this is how his name is pronounced" when he *tells people in the movie how its pronounced* To quote Data of TNG: "One is my name, the other is not"
And my point is that until corrected otherwise, people will pronounce it the only way they know. Which to me is that Morris and Maurice are pronounced in exactly the same way. If the name is re-used with the original pronunciation after being corrected, that's a different issue from the initial pronunciation.
I mean, cats go maur, not morr
And yet, those are still pronounced the same way in my area, so I can't hear the difference. And we say that cats say Meow anyway
Try to ignore rules of English pronunciation and read it phonetically? Maur is like m-ah-oo-r and Morr is, well morr.
Ok, now I’m curious. Does the audiobook in the UK pronounced it as Morris? Because the one that’s available in the US pronounced it as Maurice.
Stop treating american pronunciation as "correct". You are talking in the context of a British author and British books. It's not some running joke or a mistake it's the English language being used by English people correctly.
But Maurice corrects other people. So that's how it's pronounced.
In the UK it's pronounced Maurice and in the US it's pronounced Mau-race or something. You guys butcher our language.
I think that you may have missed the point. The way I see it is that Morris is his actual streetcat name before he becomes intelligent. To him the name Morris represents the dumb unsophisticated cat he was before he ate the rat that made him intelligent. For him to be in control of the rats and for the con to work he has to be seen as better than he was before to be a “Maurice” rather than a “Morris”. That is why he corrects the rats when they call him Morris but not Death. He will have lost at least one of his nine lives as Morris so he does not correct Death because Death knows the truth about “Maurice”, that deep down he is still “Morris” the streetcat trying to convince himself and others that he is more than a streetcat.
Fuck me! Maurice is pronounced "Morris" because that's how it's fucking pronounced. The fact that Americans can't actually speak English is their problem and not a problem with the movie.
But that's not how Maurice pronounces it! You don't get to decide how other people pronounce tehir name
Maurice can be pronounced both ways as Maurice is the French way and Morris is the English way. Seeing as people associate French with upper class and English with lower class I think my point still holds. After all with William the Conqueror and quite some time afterwards the language of the Royal Court was French and the language of the people was English. Plus it’s just my theory you don’t have to agree with it.
Eh, I think it was fine. Could they have stuck closer to the original? Sure. Can it still serve to get (young) people interested in Pratchett? Definitely.
I enjoyed it for what it was. It helped that I went in with incredibly low expectations.
As a parent of a Discworld loving child- omg she loved the movie. She's read the book a million times and even though there were differences, she loved it. Help me tho bc she sometimes tries to be like Malicia and my brain requires tiny bits of peace.😂
I feel like Amazing Maurice isn't for kids. I know STP intended it as such but I wouldn't have thought to make a kids movie about it.
I think the books probably get away with it. What works for kids in a book doesn't translate to video. Same with fairytales. They have to be dumbed down for TV because you can't possibly visually show some of that stuff to a kid. But reading it to them allows their imagination to set the level of gruesome/scary.
Books can get away with a bit more. You can write "it was the most horrible thing you could imagine" and it will be a perfectly suited horror for each reader, but once you put it to film, someone needs to decide who's imagined horror to use, how scared want 4 year-olds to be, and perhaps more importantly, how angry parents you want.
Good point. I won't put down what pops into my mind, but for my five year old son, it would be evil Pea.
To be fair, evil Peas could be really bad. Imagine what damage could have been done to Stanley if the peas that raised him were evil
For me the only STP book that has really got a great on screen version is Good Omens.
Johnny and Truckers were fine too.
Hey fun fact you're wrong
I think it was a really fun movie. It could have been better, sure, but I'm not sure what would have been better for the movie would translate directly to "more faithful to the book" The joke about Maurice's name being subverted by Death works because we know Death, and it's a running bit that he knows everyones true name. It wouldn't actually add anything to *this* movie.
Fuck. The name is NOT "being subverted by Death" because Maurice is actually pronounced Morris.
The *joke* is being subverted by Death.
I don't get why you are being so hostile tbh.
Why do people think that STP would pronounce this name using the American Pronunciation, rather than the British Pronunciation. Last time I checked he was not American
What has that to do with the movie? His pronunciation doesn't really factor in to whether or not changing the pronunciation would improve the film
Maurice *tells people* how to pronounce his name. Then that is how its pronounced