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Hitchhiker's Guide Movie Greenlighted

Posted by timothy on from the gold-brick-cast-in-velvet dept.

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.

10 of 411 comments (clear)

  1. Gaiman didn't want to by Emexies · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Neil Gaiman was here in Stockholm the other day, holding a q&a with his fans. One of the questions was "How come you aren't involved with the Hitchhiker's movie, writing the script and directing it?"
    His answer?
    "If Douglas [Adams] couldn't do it, I can't either."
    He also said that the best Hitchhiker's movie is and will always be the book, or the radio show. "Hollywood can never render Ford turning in to an infinite number of penguins better than you can in your head," as he put it.

  2. Don't think so. by CGP314 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Don't think so. by xA40D · · Score: 5, Insightful

      HHGTTG is very well tailored to the book medium

      The Radio Series came first.

      IMHO the further you get from the Radio Series, the worse the books get (don't get me wrong they are all brilliant).

      If you ask me the Radio Series is the definative version. It's the original medium. It's the one which Douglas wrote the story for. The whole experience was designed to sound like a rock album... and it did.

      In some respects, turning a Radio Series into a Film is easier. But it's also a lot harder. No matter how good the special effects in the film, on the Radio the pictures are better.

      --
      Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
  3. Mr cynic says ... by madpierre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  4. Re:I'm not so sure... by girl_geek_antinomy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?!

  5. R.I.P. Peter Jones - the voice of The Book by mccalli · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It's certainly a shame that Douglas Adams won't be around to see it (and steer it), but there's also one other key person missing.

    Peter Jones, the voice of the book. In fact, so key was he to the success that he was billed as the star (each radio episode always begins with "Starring Peter Jones, as the book"). He was utterly superb, and again gave one of those performances that fixes a thing in my mind.

    It's going to be hard for anyone to match him. Best of luck to the person that eventually gets the job, but they have some work to do.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  6. Re:FSP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Spyglass/Disney

    Uhhh... so Arthur will look like a male-model, and be a go-getting captain of industry. Ford Prefect will become Ford Mustang. The Guide itself will be a multi-billion dollar company staffed by hard-working employees who really do believe in their MISSION STATEMENT... instead of a bunch of perma-drunk wastrels.

    Ahhh... America... gloriously missing the point while throwing millions of dollars around for SFX.

  7. Unfair by jazman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

  8. Re:DNA would enjoy... by Baron_Yam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  9. So to sum up the comments so far ... by Fractal+Dice · · Score: 5, Funny

    This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.