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As the author of a book and that the main broadcaster of his television adaptation has its advantages, you are the only one who can decide what to add or enlarge, what to shorten or lose everything. For Neil Gaiman, adaptation Good omens, the book he co-wrote with the late Terry Pratchett, was a playground where he had to add characters and scenes discussed with Pratchett that did not appear in the original novel.
** SPOILER WARNING: There are a lot of spoilers coming out for Good omens below.**
These new elements included the Archangel Gabriel and imagined a sequence of pre-credits that followed Aziraphale Angel (Michael Sheen) and the Crowley demon (David Tennant) over 6,000 years of history. It also meant that Gaiman had to make tough calls on what to modify, including a set of human bikers known as the other four horsemen of Revelation.
"For me, it's a simple philosophy that I have to[[[[Sherlock showrunner]Steven Moffat, "Gaiman told SYFY WIRE. "He told me, 'When they make you cut things, and they will always try to write a replacement scene that will become a YouTube clip. Make the scene you're doing funnier. "
Below, Gaiman and some of the creators of the other programs describe some of the most important changes that have occurred during the process of adaptation.
EPISODE 1
By the time Gaiman and director Douglas Mackinnon had finished working together, episode 1 was about 75 minutes long. "Which means we had to lose 20 minutes," said Gaiman. "And those 20 minutes were really hard to lose, because it was 20 minutes of beautiful material."
Among those minutes, there was a protracted scene of Crowley disabling the London mobile phone system, while he later showed up to the demons of the graveyard during his perverse assault of the day.
"We have built a huge plateau in South Africa for BT Tower," said Michael Ralph, Production Manager. Crowley enters the lobby and tells the security officer that he was sent by Rataway Pest Control to do a preliminary inspection. He is taken to the top floor, infested with hundreds of rats, called to do what the demon asks. (The rats were animated.) Crowley walks to the computer room and rocks the tea of a thermos in the network controller, which makes it blink and turn off. Mission accomplished!
The scene then included people in the streets of the city facing the interruption of their mobile service at the worst possible times (when they have to close a case, arrange a kidnapping or avoid a break), and Crowley moves away in smiling. "We filmed everything, including the helicopter arrivals in the BT tower," Ralph said. "There was a huge amount of work to do there," said Cinematographer Gavin Finney.
"Our solution to put episode 1 at the center of our concerns was to throw away everything that was not directly part of the story," Gaiman said. "We ended up with something that is incredibly fast and full, but we only run in 50 minutes."
The character of the archangel Gabriel, introduced in episode 1, is also a show creation. "He is a major figure in the biblical tradition, but he was mentioned only briefly in the novel," said Jon Hamm, who plays Gabriel. "I knew that somewhere in the background of Neil 's mind, this character had a much more complete existence than in the novel, and I'm glad it' s where we are, where we can get it. flesh out, and that I could be the person to fleshing. "
EPISODE 2
One of the footage shot for episode 1 was cut, but survives in a montage of episode 2 to present the Four Horsemen of Revelation. The war spends its holidays in a small African village, turning a peaceful place into a hell – mainly by standing at the bar and slamming beers while its presence inspires others to take up arms (and grenades … and rocket launchers). Ralph built a corrugated metal bar, pierced with holes, to let small beams of light through the pencil. "Visually, it was charming," Finney said. Other early moments with the rest of the Four Riders – and the impact of their presence – have also been reduced.
An additional scene that Gaiman was determined not to cut is Agnes Nutter's flashback. It was an expensive scene, involving a large number of extras in period costumes, as well as pyrotechnics. But it was also a scene from Pratchett, and when Gaiman consulted what he calls his celestial vision of his co-author, he imagined Pratchett saying a rude word to anyone who tried to cut it.
EPISODE 3
The most elaborate sequence – a 30-minute cold opening – is not based on the book itself. "It's an exploration of the characters who [are] Mackinnon said, "But you had to externalize it, you had to show it.
The thing was, it was quite expensive to cover about 6,000 years of history, with different looks and locations, and the production had to be creative to stay viable. The South African spot used for Noah's ark in Mesopotamia in 3004 BC. is the same place used for the crucifixion at Golgotha in 33 AD – from a different angle. Ralph noted that the crucifixes were the most difficult part; he had to oversize them to have an impact on the camera, and he used a river of red cloth on the ground to suggest an abstract river of blood. The ancient Rome of AD 41 was built in the same studio later used as a dungeon during the French Revolution of 1793.
A scout for the children's camp gave production the idea of staging Arthurian's Great Britain in 537 AD – a Surrey Valley where a castle turret was visible. "I thought," Would not it be fantastic in the mist? Ralph said. "We did not need to build anything. We only needed to add fog.
"A ridiculous amount of fog," Finney agreed. "We were discussing the ideas of Excalibur and Monty Python."
The next period of history, Shakespearian London in 1601, brought a little luck – Good omens must be the first fictional production to shoot in the Globe Theater. The problem was that they could only shoot for five hours, which was not enough time to shoot with 500 costumed extras. The solution? Turn a Globe Theater into an empty theater and have Shakespeare play a flop. ("It's funnier," said Gaiman.)
Revolutionary France brought a lot of difficulties. Ralph studied how to make a functional guillotine and had the perfect place to install it – at the University of Cape Town, where architecture recalls that of 1793 in France. "I was going to build a platform and make sure that the hot water washes away the blood and the steam that goes up," said the designer of the production. "But we ran out of time to do it before the opening of the university." They then came up with the solution to hear the guillotine outside of a dungeon cell (built in the studio).
Somewhere in this sequence – perhaps after Shakespearian England but before revolutionary France – was supposed to be one more capsule: Aziraphale opening his bookstore for the first time. Gabriel introduces himself to tell Aziraphale that he has been promoted and that he can return to paradise, but Aziraphale does not want to go there. Crowley arrives with chocolate and flowers to congratulate Aziraphale and hears the conversation. He turns around and installs something where Aziraphale must intervene to prove to Gabriel that the appearance of Aziraphale on Earth is essential. "It was really funny," said Gaiman. But her justification for taking it out was that she had not advanced the story as much as the other moments.
EPISODE 5
When the four horsemen of the Apocalypse assemble to ride, they attract some human bikers – or at least they did it in the original scenario. Four Hell's Angels riders were chosen: Pigbog, Greaser, Skuzz and Big Ted, but their scenes were cut before the first reading.
"I think I said, 'I can not do that and make it look good,'" said Mackinnon, "human cyclists would have followed our supernatural cyclists along the highway, only to decide that they needed some of their own nightmares Part of the humor comes from what they can not decide on.Do they have to be serious bodily injury? embarrassing personal issues? people taking selfies? Cruelty to animals? Do not things work properly even after crushing them? No alcohol lager? Preoccupied, they miss an obstacle in front of them and collide with a spilled fishing truck, and at least the One of them becomes People covered with fish.
Hastur, the demon, lands on Crowley's car as he moves and climbs into the car. "I thought," It's two days of filming, "Mackinnon said. So instead, they reached a compromise – Hastur would only appear in the car. "You can have flashy things, but you can also have a pretty simple thing that tells the story," Mackinnon said. "And Neil embraced these compromises because he knew that it was still history."
Good omens Season 1 is available on Amazon Prime.
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