Just finished watching Hogfather. The adaptation is great. If you haven’t read the book, you should; if you have read it, then you need to see the movie. It’s almost entirely faithful, and there are no deviations, only omissions that had to be made for the sake of brevity.

Nonetheless, much of the important dialogue is kept, like the following scene that I reproduce from my copy of the novel:

‘All right,’ said Susan. ‘I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.’

really? as if it was some kind of pink pill? no. humans need fantasy to be human. to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.

‘Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—’

yes. as practice. you have to start out learning to believe the little lies.

‘So we can believe the big ones?’

yes. justice. mercy. duty. that sort of thing.

‘They’re not the same at all!’

you think so? then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. and yet— Death waved a hand. and yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world, as if there is some… some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged

‘Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—’

my point exactly.

This is what makes Hogfather my favourite Pratchett novel. It sums up why, though I am a pretty strong rationalist, I read fantasy and science fiction, and why I believe that a child’s sense of wonder is necessary in our grown up world.

I was going to write more, but the words to express what I’m thinking aren’t coming out right, so I’m going to leave it like that.

Edit:Here is a brief interview with Terry Pratchett regarding the movie.