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The Hogfather | 
 enlarge | Director: Vadim Jean
Actors: Neil Pearson, Tony Robinson, David Jason, Stephen Marcus, Joss Ackland
Studio: Genius Products (TVN)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.37
You Save: $7.58 (51%)
New (38) Used (12) from $7.34
Rating:  88 reviews
Sales Rank: 1185
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Ntsc, Widescreen
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 189 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: GEPD80604D
UPC: 796019806046
EAN: 0796019806046
ASIN: B0010X741Y
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
Release Date: March 4, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: ******BRAND NEW****** ** Over 1.5 million orders shipped worldwide and more than 500 000 items in stock, BUY FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE, ESTABLISHED SINCE 1998 - INETVIDEO ~~~
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Product Description
Studio: Genius Products Inc Release Date: 03/04/2008 Run time: 189 minutes
Amazon.com
Based on a fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett, The Hogfather is an extraordinary satire-adventure set in the mythical realm of Discworld, a kind of parallel-universe version of Earth. Discworld's alternative to Santa Claus is the Hogfather, who also chases around in a sled delivering gifts to children (on a Christmas-like night known as Hogwatch), but who looks like, well, a wild hog and is pulled through the skies not by reindeer but a bunch of grunting porkers with long, dangerous teeth. Just as the Hogfather is about to complete his annual mission to leave toys for kids under their Hogwatch trees, a specter makes a deal with a professional assassin to kill the jolly old fellow. The job is farmed out to a psychotic monster named Teatime (Marc Warren), who sets about trying to get to the Hogfather through, of all things, the Tooth Fairy. While danger stalks these immortal characters, Death (Ian Richardson) himself takes the Hogfather's place on his magical rounds, with comic consequences. Meanwhile, a governess named Susan (Michelle Dockery), possessor of a strange secret and awesome powers, determines that the Hogfather is in danger. She sets about trying to find him and discovers Teatime's plot, while a cluster of clumsy wizards (led by Joss Ackland) try to make sense of what has happened and what they can do about it. It's hard to explain the charm and wit of The Hogfather, which is full of quirky, ironic humor, except to say that it's easy to fall in love with this British television special and its dark delights. (Some a bit too dark for younger viewers.) The cast includes a very funny Tony Robinson of Black Adder. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 83 more reviews...
 Truly love this movie! November 6, 2008
Tsiri 2006 (San Antonio, TX)
This is truly an interesting and different take on the Santa Claus story set in an alternate universe. It's fun to watch Marc Warren in a truly creepy role. My favorite line in the movie: "...hello inner child, meet the inner babysitter." It's a fun alternative to traditional sappy Christmas movies, although I don't recommend it for small children.
one of my all-time favorite dvds October 28, 2008
crystal_angel (Cincinnati, Ohio; USA)
I absolutely love anything and everything pertaining to discworld; I have 2 characters on the Discworld online game, one of which is a newbie helper. I've listened to every single one of the discworld books at least twice, and preordered the Colour of Magic DVD from Amazon.uk the very second I possibly could. With all that being said, I simply had to get my hands on this movie as soon as I heard it existed. Fortunately, I have a region free DVD player, so I ended up purchasing the region 2 2 disc edition of Hogfather. I can't say enough about how much I love this movie. It is very faithful to the book; in a lot of cases, dialogue is word for word out of the book, something which, at least in my humble opinion, is all to rare in book to movie adaptations. Another treat for me was that Nigel Planer, the narrator of the first 23 Discworld audio books, played the part of Sidney the wizard in the movie. As if that wasn't awesome enough, David Jason, who is currently one of my two favorite actors along side Hugh Laurie, played the part of Albert brilliantly. I thought that Ian Richardson did a fantastic job as the voice of death; he sounded just like I would imagine Death sounding from the books. Evrything I've already mentioned would be more than enough to earn this movie 5 stars as far as I'm concerned, but the real icing on the cake, for me at least, was when I discovered that the region 2 version of the Hogfather DVD which I had purchased included audio description for visually impaired viewers. As a blind individual, this fact in and of itself immediatley catipolted the Hogfather DVD into my top 10 favorites. It was great to know everything that was going on,
while still watching the movie by myself. Further more, I was able to watch this movie with a blind friend, and even though he knew nothing about discworld, he was still able to follow what was going on and ended up enjoying it almost as much as I did. I'm planning to share this movie with my parents over the Christmas/Hogswatch holiday and hope that they'll enjoy it too. If I were forced to come up with something negative to say about this DVD, the only thing I could possibly consider a flaw, and I'll be the first to admit that it's hardly even worth mentioning, is that I think that Tony Robinson should have played the part of Knobby Knobs; just based on the fact that he played the
part of Baldrick in Black Adder. I could be completely off base on wanting that change, though, so please feel free to take my opinion regarding that issue with a pound or two of salt.
In all seriousness, however, I would most definitely rate this movie adaptation of Hogfather 10 stars. I don't know if audio description is available on the US edition of Hogfather, but I would certainly hope so. In my humble opinion, audio description should be as readily available as closed captioning, but that's not at all relevant to this review. Incidentally, I just got the Region 2 DVD for The Colour of Magic, which is even better than Hogfather,and it also includes audio description.
Bottom line: If you even remotely enjoy good British humor, fantasy, discworld or if you're just in the market for a different kind of Christmas movie, this DVD is an absolute must buy.
In closing, I can't help adding that if you enjoyed this movie and end up becoming a discworld fan, if you're already a discworld fan or even if you just enjoy online gaming, you should come and visit the discworld online game. The address is discworld.atuin.net port 4242. My characters, Eponine and Ramie would be more than happy to talk with or help out any newcomers to the game.
Hogfather October 27, 2008
Christopher B. Carter (Tampa, FL, USA)
As a big Disk World fan I was worried that the film would not be faithful to the book. Thanks to the magic of the disk, I was not disappointed. The film is as close to verbatim as the constraints of time and technology allow. Every character and situation is rendered wonderfully. I now know what Nobby Nobbs looks like, for example...er, taking into account the fact that they made the artistic decision to use a real human being to play him, that is.
Get it! If you know the disk world, you will be welcomed home. If not, you will want to visit again. I have ordered three additional copies to be given as stocking suffers this coming Hogswatch Eve.
 A Happy Hogswatch, Indeed October 14, 2008
A. Weekley (Detroit, MI USA)
I enjoyed the film adaptation of Terry Pratchett's novel as much as I enjoyed reading the book. The essence of the character of Death isn't captured quite as well as the others, but otherwise The Hogfather is a wonderful cinematic adaption of the Discworld and it's unique citizenry.
Very good, but a slight miss September 26, 2008
D. Bishop
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Discworld is a planet where magic is not only in existence but more or less commonplace and well known. It is, as you may guess by the name, a disc-shaped world flying through space on the back of 4 elephants, on the back of a tortoise. Why? Because. If you have trouble accepting this, you may not enjoy Discworld.
I had to buy this movie after watching it, because I enjoyed it a great deal, but also because it seemed worth watching again and I had it as a rental. I really enjoyed the book this is adapted from, especially because it is one of Pratchett's more complex books. This, however, is lost a bit in the movie translation. Because this book is so complex, it makes for a difficult screenplay. Also, the book really is not as new-reader friendly as others in the series, and requires you to know the characters. The movie tries to fill in these gaps, for the non-Discworld fan, by having dialogs tossed in, such as Susan repeating many times about her relation, or Quoth (the raven, not sure if he's ever named in the movie) giving an extremely out of character talk about history.
Also, the book itself runs on several different tracks at the same time, gradually letting the reader understand what the full impact is. Unseen University, for example, has the events sped up quite a bit, and moved out of order for cinematic benefit. The shower scene for instance, in the book version, is much funnier, longer, and much later. Also, Ridicully (the head wizard) also has a cloud of swear words flying around him like bats due to the random magic. Instead of these, you see the spell being cast by the wizard in the Tooth Fairy's castle, which does not happen in the book, nor do you get the long explanation (twice!) of why and what they are doing.
These flaws are like any book to movie translation though - you have to understand that a movie simply moves different, and they did a decent job. The acting is very true to character, and with a vast majority of the talk being word for word, down to the physical posturing, pulled from the book (the last 10 minutes are a great example of this). The end of the thieves in the castle was likely cut out due to time, as it's played up much more in the book, however the one thief you do see go panicky, Cheesewire, plays his part excellently. If they had left in some of Medium Dave's responses to him, it would have been even better.
Susan, Death, and the children (minor roles but exactly as listed in the book) are played very well. Albert was a bit over the top, but he really does act that way in this book, which is a bit atypical for his character. Hex is portrayed a bit better in the book, but they were fair to it in the movie. I would have liked the scene with Death and Hex to have been a bit more true to the book - it was really good.
My final comments are about features - this DVD is sorely lacking in subtitles, which should be a basic feature on every movie. I enjoy putting them on to read along, as sometimes you may miss or not hear a comment, or perhaps understand the scene more, not to mention the hearing-impaired would of course desire this. There is no option for this, and I was not able to make my DVD pick any up at all. Secondly, the interviewer for Mr. Pratchett has very poor interviewing skills. His answers are well given, with open ends that she completely fails to ask about. She is obviously reading off a script, and if he is he fakes it well. She replies "brilliant." in a flat tone after every answer, and sounds bored. This was disappointing.
In summary, I would recommend this for any Discworld fan, as it's a fairly good interpretation of the book. It is about 90% true to the book, and nothing is far enough off to make you want to turn it off. For the unfamiliar with Discworld, I would suggest picking up a novel first at your local library to see if you like it, as a lack of knowledge of the world may really impact your enjoyment of it. Think if you picked up the 3rd Harry Potter book as the first one. Would you understand why these kids are being chased all the time, and the school seems to be inhabited by madmen? There are something like 30 Discworld books out, with Hogfather being about midway through the run. A good jumping on book might be "Guards, Guards", or perhaps "Mort". The first in the series is "The Colour of Magic", but it may be a hard read for the new user. The follow up, "The Light Fantastic" is a much better book.
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