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Soul Music was a 7 part British animated series from 1996, made on a television budget and panned for its typical Cosgrove Hall animation (photocopying sketches onto cels to save money, Etc....) It has been adapted too well in places, and not well at all, being the 3rd book in the death story-line it doesn't explain things from other books, like Deaths daughter, the concept of deaths house and so on.
Terry Pratchett is almost impossible to successfully adapt to visual medium because his humour comes from the way things are written, not just word play but descriptions themselves, which get totally lost when being adapted. There are no chapters just lots of interwoven story-lines which occasionally meet.
So I've decided to present it as more of a Biopic, No time travel, no alternative universes just the basics of the plot with as much of the humour intact as possible. A country boy becomes the greatest musician on the Disc, meanwhile Death (The Grim Reaper) has disappeared and someone else needs to fill in, we release why the same time Susan does.
I sourced from the German 2 disc DVD release where it was backed with Wyrd Sisters (An adaptation which suffers similar problems), which was sadly very compressed, which doesn't help Cosgrove Halls Jagged black outlined cels.
I've re-coloured to try and remove the slight green tint, de-saturated, and up-scaled to 720.
I've tried to crop and re-frame mistakes where you can see the edge of cels.
Changes:
About 70 minutes have been cut, a lot of rearranging of scenes to hide episode starts and ends:
- Episode 1 opens with the credits, then the band members meeting at the musicians guild, everything before this has been cut, scenes have been rearranged to introduce the band, the concept of guilds, The Death of rats, Death's disappearance and then Susan and her parents death, no flashbacks at this point, all is happening in the present day. This episode ends at the 11 minute mark.
- Episode 2, 3 and 4 are very interwoven: Susan finds out who her family are while the band prepare to play their first gig. It's here the university the librarian is introduced and we find out that death has joined the foreign legion.
We get some of Susan’s back story here in flashback. Susan starts her job, sees the band and Imp Y Celyn is not killed by the axe etc. The librarian runs off and the Wizards are introduced by the 30 minute mark at the breakfast table the following morning.
The Band members take new "more appropriate" names, more stoney too..... but not rolling stones.
- The Wizard’s then decide watch a concert and trap music, Susan tries to warn Imp Y Celyn and episode 4 ends at about the 50 minute mark.
- Episode 5, 6 and 7 are more or less the same but with all alternative timelines and time travel removed, rearrangements due to cliffhangers, there are loads of little trims to help with the flow and pacing. The ending is changed because of the removal of alternative timelines and time travel. Simplifying an overly complex bunch of subplots which are not fully explored due to being adapted from the 3rd in a 5 book "Death arc" down to it's basic premise, even Death can't prevent death.
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