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Hitchhiker's Guide Movie Greenlighted
Overly Critical Guy writes "According to Chud, the Hitchhiker's Guide movie is a go." It's too bad DNA won't be around to see it, but good news for his fans. I hope they can borrow Weta Digital's render farm to perfect some of the characters, though anything will be an improvement on the BBC series' special effects.
If this isn't yet another false hope...
WAHOOOOOOO
And of course the special effects will be better than the BBC version's were. That was made in 1981, after all, and on about the same budget that Doctor Who had at the time, so it's not exactly unexpected is it?
The DVD release of it is, of course, wonderful, because the TV series' animated sequences still stand out as some of the best I've ever seen. Hand-drawn too. I hope they preserve that look for the film, although no doubt these days it'd be done on a computer.
Music will be critical for the atmosphere too. Fingers crossed...
Miri it is whil Linux ilast...
but good news for his fans.
I'm not so sure about that. For me, almost all the 'goodness' and 'funniness' of HHGTTG in is Adam's writing style and narration. I imagine watching the events on screen would be rather flat. HHGTTG is very well tailored to the book medium.
bring a towel to the opening premiere.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
from the article:
;) Besides, the BBC DVD version has some great interesting subtitles of where the stuff was recorded etc. for those of us who remember watching it the first time round on TV
;)
The novel was previously adapted into a cheap-looking BBC series, which you can see on DVD and anticipate slightly better special effects for the new version.
This sounds cool as long as it doesn't turn into some Hollywood style space jaunt full of effects and no character. The BBC effects were straight from Dr. Who's reject cupboard but I thought it suited the underlying sarcasm of the book
Actually, thinking about it, I could stand Zaphod's heads being slightly better
ermmm... don't take any notice of me... I'm too old...
What a surprise now the suits .
a) Dont have to pay the author anything.
b) He's not around to maintain quality.
Conclusion. It will probably suck.
siggy played guitar
That used to be true with the pre-MTV generations.
Today's youth can't use their imagination. They've got to have entire animated movies in games, 3d graphics and surround sound to "become immersed"...
I don't think that they can improve on the original. For exactly the same reason we still watch ST TOS - we love the style of the original stuff - I'd say you couldn't remake it if you tried.
Having said that I am all for the project - and I will be taking my towel (just in case).
Jon - TheSpork
The BBC *radio* series was the original. I believe you can buy it now as mp3 CDs. The BBC TV series was basically just a filming of the radio script, with a few minor adjustments. And then in the books he fine-tuned many of the jokes to absolute perfection.
For me the radio plays will always be the highlight, though, with the books in second place. The animations on the TV series were *wonderful* but everything else looked wrong. Trillian is a sight classier than that, for a start (she's an astrophysicist ffs, not an airhead Essex blonde). Ford and Arthur looked nothing like they did in my head. And Zaphod... spare us. And as someone else said, Marvin doesn't really look like *that* does he?!
I can just see it now:
Disney's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
I'd sooner watch the BBC version than have a Disney funded film. Who cares about the FX anyway? the strong points of the novel and TV series are the story and all it's humour.
Cheap or not has nothing to do with it, the casting was spot on, the acting just great - the effects were the perfect level of low-tech.. if they over do the CGI they'll ruin the movie - it's Adams' ideas and narration that makes that story, and Ill bet you they screw up the movie, by getting the emphasis wrong.
So whos it to be? Brits or Yanks making it?
So.. The Guide will be really shaky, oddly cut, using all the current 'trendy' angles.. In other words.. Really really annoying ?
Two words: Spike Jonze.
Dont count him out just because he's a video director.
"Eagles may soar, but weasels dont get sucked into jet engines."
anything will be an improvement on the BBC series' special effects
I dunno. They tried to improve Red Dwarfs special effects and ended up making it worse. Sometimes, flashy new special effects are not what you need. A decent and funny story is much much more important.
The whole point of "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was that it was on the wireless, and therefore there were no pictures outside of your own head. This meant you had to work harder to suspend your disbelief.
Adapting it to TV was always going to be difficult because some of the people who had heard it on the radio would have developed their own ideas of how the characters looked and acted, which would not tally with the TV producer's ideas. Now, I know the BBC's special effects were a little on the cheesey side, but a TV licence was cheaper in those days - especially as there were still many people watching in mono and paying an even cheaper licence. {Stating the obvious, the BBC is funded from TV licence fees and does not carry advertising. This means, in theory at least, that the programmes it shows are ones that people have paid to watch, rather than ones that advertisers have paid to show in order to interrupt}. Again, you had to suspend your disbelief: make a conscious effort to believe that that lampshade dangling on a length of fishing line was really a spaceship.
Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but I can't imagine Hollywood making anything but a massive pig's ear of the story. Today, a mass of special effects are generally used to cover up a thin plot {invariably with some kind of sex angle added} and/or one-dimensional characters {and ac(tors|tresses) who were chosen more for their unrealistic conformance to the ideal of Conventional Beauty than anything else}. In mediaeval paintings, before anyone had worked out that light travels in straight lines and so distant objects appear smaller than close ones, the most important character in the scene was painted the biggest. In Hollywood movies, the most important character is either the "prettiest" or "ugliest" depending on whether they are a "goodie" or a "baddie". Plots, too, are reduced to a simple battle of "good" versus "evil". This doesn't work for complex characters, so sometimes characters are distorted so as better to fit the stereotype. {Can you imagine Hollywood's take on something like "Trainspotting"? All the characters are basically on the same side. Disney probably would make them all the Baddies, and introduce a young orphan boy for the Goodie. Or it might be more politically correct to have a girl this time. Uh, yeah, maybe we could use that baby instead of making her a cot death victim. [Never mind that the whole point of that scene was that you were hoping all along that she wasn't dead, but at the same time you knew she was anyway - and the confirmation knocked the wind out of you]. Said child meets a Special Friend - an improbable character, who {after a little playfighting and banter} helps them break into an underground laboratory and poison a batch of junk. Renton and Sick Boy are seen cooking up in the Mother Superior's flat. Child looks out of window. Dead bodies lie still. Solitary church bell rings. Tommy [not dead of AIDS] and Spud solemnly promise never to touch junk again. Tearful scene in which Special Friend departs forever, while outside the sun is shining. The end}. And, while my imagination is generally capable of making up for poor SFX, I find plots and characters harder.
For an example of what I mean, look at Star Wars Episode I. There are just too many things out of that film that don't gel when you come to think about them afterward. Explosions, obviously. Pod racers? Someone's having a giraffe. What keeps the outside part of those engines from rotating? Battle droids? Come on, if you're going to make an entire army of foldy-uppy robots, you should at least give them proper weapons. The original Star Wars {now re-named Episode four - A New Hope} stood up far better to post-movie analysis.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"anything will be an improvement on the BBC series' special effects."
Oh come on, that's not very fair. It was made with the best effects available at the time, including some groundbreaking work. (Watch the extras on the DVD set for more info.)
LOTR was made with the best effects available, including new stuff. If the effects don't look primitive in 20 years time I'd be very surprised. That doesn't mean they're crap. If LOTR is remade in 20 years, it's highly likely that anything will be better than WETA's current abilities.
At the time nothing was better than the BBC special effects. Of course it could all be done now with a PC in half the time and looking 10 times better, but that's the nature of technology.
The obvious choice would be Parminder Nagra, the star of Bend it Like Beckham
If I recall correctly, the book Trillian described as having dark skin, being either from the Middle East or India. She also had advanced degrees in mathematics and astrophysics.
The TV series portrayed her as a ditzy blonde, probably because some marketroid thought it was good idea.
You know, I always got the feeling that "Mostly Harmless" was deliberately written by a bitter man to piss his fanbase off so that they'd stop bugging him to write sequels to the first four books.
This is the same author, after all, who wrote the whole middle of "So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish" in response to the publisher's demands, but then prefaced the section with a note that the middle of the book was crap, please skip to the end which has a nice bit about Marvin in it.
I shudder to think how he was planning to sabatoge the movie, which he must have regarded as a worse sellout than books four and five.
Funny. I always thought it was the other way round: He was poking fun at fans who insisted THHGTTG be all about robots and spacecraft.
...precisely because it is a little calmer and, dare I say it, romantic in its quirky, wistful fashion.
Then again, "So Long..." _is_ my favourite in the series
What I'm dreading is a movie that focuses on the "jokes" alone. Then again, if they at least get them _right_, that'd be something too. But there's always been more to it than breakneck pace "gags". In the comparatively mediocre and not-quite-so-funny "Life...", I liked the thoughtful moments best -- Trillian and how she relates to the Krikkit warlords (or Haktar), for example.
And "Mostly Harmless" was sort of bitter, weary and brooding throughout. That, too, was a sellout? Hm.
Yeah, it's a really, really expensive PDA. But it's definitely an impressive one. God, I hate Sony. They belong to both the MPAA and RIAA, yet they still crank out uber-l33t electronic products.
However, you might not feel comfortable about writing "DON'T PANIC" on the cover. After spending $700 on something like this, you might get really paranoid about anything that would deface it.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
The first LOTR Movie was coming out and everyone said how the pictures of the characters in their heads would be better in every way than the movie production. But personally, other than the characters in my head I would have chosen the ones from the movie.
Give it time, if it sucks, we will all bash it later together as a big family.
But there is always hope that you might enjoy the movie, reserve your judgement for after when you are either looking for the directors house to set ablaze or speed dialing your 4 friends and 6 different emergency functions to tell everyone you know about the movie. (A PARAGRAPHICAL SENTENCE)
I LOVE YOU
[cx]
I'm not sure of that. There is a point were it stops making a difference, and it's indistinguishable from real. IMHO LotR a milestone- is at that point (mostly - don't mention the ents). It is the end of special-effects-as-special-effects, you know, stuff that you look at and go "hey, that's pretty special". After a while the brain adjusts and you just accept that Gandalf is twice as tall as Frodo and it seems normal not special.
Indistinguishable from real for you, maybe.
The practical perspective tricks used for LOTR have been used for years. There's nothing particularly new or impressive with them - just the scale of them, because they're in nearly every shot.
The computer graphics shots? I can still see some glitches.
When I can't see glitches, and someone who's at least twice as good as I am at seeing glitches can't see them either, then it'll be perfect.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
A lot of people slag off the BBC version, but it did get a few things perfect... Marvin, for example. I can't read the book without hearing the voice from the series.