The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents: (Discworld Novel 28) (Discworld Novels)

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Lodge, Guy (30 January 2023). " 'The Amazing Maurice' Review: Spry British Animated Romp Shows a Cat (or Even a Rat) May Look at a King". Variety . Retrieved 30 June 2023. First of all, if there was a film this reminded me of it would be the 1995 Chris Noonan film Babe. In this very good movie, a young piglet confronts the contrast and distinction of animals as pets and being loved as a part of the family while also being food. Mission: Impossible" Cable Drop: Darktan performs this stunt to safely disarm a rat trap, suspended from bits of string. Well, I have definitely learned a lot about rats. I have mixed feelings about this book. Terry Pratchett is usually SO GOOD at mixing light-hearted silliness with a more macabre subject matter, but this time something felt a little… off. The rats are great at first, a nice blend of ratty grossness and the angst that comes with sudden enlightenment… or puberty. The rat characters are well-developed and as authentic as a bunch of talking rats can be. Maurice the cat is also a wonderful character.

Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Sardines is the quirkiest and most eccentric of the rats, always laughing and joking and dancing everywhere. While other rats don't always take him seriously, they can't deny that he, in many ways because of his quirks, is exceptionally good at what he does. AWN Staff (13 June 2019). "Sir Terry Pratchett's 'Amazing Maurice' Being Turned into Animated Feature". Animation World Network. Archived from the original on 12 June 2019 . Retrieved 7 November 2020. Terry Pratchett really knows how to write a kids book. I would have devoured this thing when I was a lad. Maurice and the rats are good characters, as is Keith, the aforementioned stupid-looking kid. The origin of Maurice and the rats' intelligence was fairly well done. Hell, it's a fantasy story. How much explanation do you need? Pratchett took the classic story of the pied piper and Discworld-ed it up with questions of philosophy, destiny, and leadership. And rat-kings. Do Not Go Gentle/ Don't Fear the Reaper: Darktan manages to combine both of these tropes in his Rousing Speech to the rats: death in itself is not something to be feared, but the Bone Rat will only pass you over if you can look him in the eyes. Given that it's the Disc, he's likely not speaking figuratively.Break the Cutie: Dangerous Beans dealing with the fact that Mr Bunnsy, a children's book where animals are less animal, is fiction. As Maurice and the rats become more "human", the rats discuss the concept of a soul and a god; a big rat who lives underground. Since rats are a tunneling species, it is appropriate that their god would not be above in "heaven" but below in the underworld - the place humans put Hell. The Bone Rat is their concept of the Death of Rats - Death's counterpart for rats - a skeletal rat with scythe. The rodents in Terry Prachett's Maurice and his Educated Rodents are - D'oh! Sorry, Maurice! The AMAZING Maurice and his Educated Rodents- anthropomorphized. But they are not slaves to the morality of man. They've got, as Richard Adams would say, dignity and animality all their own. They were seeking understanding of themselves and each other. I never cared much for definitions such as "allegory" or "fables". I care about "ring of truth" (if I think too much about types of stories I get confused and start labelling everything). Same goes for satire. Pratchett's satire would still be good if the things he was satirizing didn't exist. I wish all who wrote that would use that as their bench mark of success... Would it matter if you didn't know who it was? What they did? I don't really care that they are rats. Pratchett sure didn't. It was probably that that made their society and feeling of bonds (man, rat, whatever) feel... well, feel. No stupid Lugini tried to force rules on them. Aboveground, Maurice makes similar observations, including that many of the rat tails the rat catchers display as proof of their successful hunting are in fact shoelaces. Maurice and Keith meet the mayor's daughter Malicia and introduce her to the talking rats. Hoist by His Own Petard: The Rat King turns its sapience-stripping power on Maurice, reducing him to an ordinary cat with no thoughts, only instincts — including the instinct to pounce on nearby small squeaky things, and a lot of pent up aggression from having spent months repressing that instinct around the Changelings. A few minutes later, there's no more Rat King.

Cats Have Nine Lives: Maurice literally has nine lives — or rather five, as he's lost four already. Shrouded in Myth: The genuine Rat Piper encourages tales about what his magic pipe can do so that people will deal on his terms. An extra easter egg are the innuendos on kids and young adults literature and movies, some kind of indirect fourth wall break, because the serious, heavy, often boring adult classics Pratchett satirizes in many of his other works are exchanged with the really good kids' stuff. It also shows that even in the, allegedly simple, literature for young bookworms, there is so much potential for remixing, reinterpreting, and retelling that one would wish to get into a time machine to be able to enjoy it once again, or sadly often the first time, with the full immersive pleasure of being young again.Maurice watched them argue again. Humans, eh? Think they’re lords of creation. Not like us cats. We know we are. Ever see a cat feed a human? Case proven. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a 90-minute dramatisation in 2003, adapted by Peter Kerry and directed by Chris Wallis, which was repeated on BBC 7 on June 2, 2007 and April 27, 2008. The character of Dangerous Beans was voiced by David Tennant. Darktan's voice was a spoof version of Sean Connery's Scottish burr. The narrator in the adaptation was Maurice himself, describing to Dangerous Beans how they arrived at the perilous situation near the end of the plot. Quotes from Mr. Bunnsy Has an Adventure, which appear as chapter heads in the book, were read by the character Peaches. To mark the occasion of Terry Pratchett's knighthood, it was broadcast on BBC 7 again, along with other dramatisations of his work, in February 2009.

Even the dumb-looking piper kid is starting to give Maurice static about scamming the populace with their fake plague of rats. As a huge Pratchett fan, I would read his descriptions of paint drying. This - this goes down like cold lemonade on a hot summer day. I devoured this book like it was covered in Nutella.But there was more to it than that. As the Amazing Maurice said, it was just a story about people and rats. And the difficult part of it was deciding who the people were, and who were the rats." Expy: At first glance, and indeed at second glance, Maurice can come across as one for Gaspode the Wonder Dog; Maurice's Origin Story is similar to Gaspode's second origin (normal stray animals made intelligent from exposure to magical garbage - indirectly in Maurice's case), they're both, on the whole, smarter than the humans they hang out with and use similar tactics in manipulating said humans, and they are both masters of snide and sarcastic comments. As the story goes on, however, it turns out that despite similar set-ups and circumstances, the two animals are actually very different when it comes down to it — where Gaspode is ultimately a pessimist who loves to wallow in self-pity and set himself up as a tragic hero, Maurice has a more positive outlook on life and is a lot more unashamedly a self-centered Jerk with a Heart of Gold— with a bit of a Dark and Troubled Past. Although, given how Gaspode mentions that other animals were affected by the magical garbage, the rats' intelligence comes from the same source. Maher, Kevin (29 June 2023). "The Amazing Maurice review — meta gags ruin rat caper". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 30 June 2023. Malicia, the granddaughter and great neice of the Sisters Grim clearly "inherited the story telling talent". She is convinced that Maurice was probably owned by a witch who lived in a ginger bread cottage in the woods, (Hansel and Gretel from the Brothers Grimm) and that Keith must have been a prince left on a doorstep with a crown and a magical sword (reminiscent of the heir to the Kingdom of Lancre, Tomjon, left with the traveling theatre group as well as Captain Carrot, but also a very common theme in numerous fairy tales ( The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, Thumbelina, the Speaking Bird), legends (Oedipus Rex, Excaliber) and bible stories (Moses found in the bullrushes). She claimed to have two evil step sisters (Cinderella) when she is really an only child.. Waif Prophet: Dangerous Beans. Maurice inwardly notes that he's the closest thing the Clan has to a wizard.

A Bloody Mess: Maurice is searching for the lost Dangerous Beans and Peaches when he discovers a trail of red liquid, which he follows to find... the rats' copy of Mr. Bunnsy, lying abandoned in a puddle of water and leaking red ink. He notes that this is, in its way, just as disturbing as finding the body of one of the rats, because Peaches and Dangerous Beans take great care of the book and the fact that it's been abandoned means something dire must have happened to them. Milligan, Mercedes (2 December 2022). "Exclusive: 'The Amazing Maurice' Lets the Fur Fly in U.S. Theaters February 3". Animation Magazine . Retrieved 2 February 2023. They discover a great deal of food stolen by the men and large cages when the local keekees are being bred for coursing.She crouched down and peered into the hole. ‘There’s a sort of little lever,’ she said. ‘I’ll just give it a little push …’ Parfitt, Orlando (5 November 2020). "Sky sets animated feature 'The Amazing Maurice' with Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke (exclusive)". Screen Daily. Archived from the original on 5 November 2020 . Retrieved 6 November 2020.