Hitchhiker's Guide Film Reports

wakaranai writes "The BBC reports that the new "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" movie will star Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) as Arthur Dent. According to the Internet Movie Database filming starts early 2004, and Marvin's voice will be Stephen Moore, reviving his role from the classic 1981 BBC TV version." If you haven't seen The Office, it takes the subject matter Dilbert has bored us with, and makes it utterly hysterical. This is a good bit of casting. I'm still available to play Zaphod.

Comments

Hopes for Zaphod

[dpille]

I hope they'll spend some serious CGI money on Zaphod- I was always somewhat disappointed that on the TV series, the 2nd head mostly looked asleep or simply turned from side-to-side. I've always thought there are sections of dialogue in the books that make much less sense or are less funny if you can't imagine each head speaking its own mind.

Re:Hopes for Zaphod

[cjpez]

Bah. I hope they use as little CG as possible. HHGTTG isn't supposed to be some glitzy high-production thing; it's B-movie camp, and B-movie camp at its finest. Zaphod's plastic-head-attached-to-his-shoulder thing from the BBC TV series was outstanding. CG could ruin a good movie like this.

Poor Synopsis

[Afty0r]

If you haven't seen The Office, it takes the subject matter Dilbert has bored us with, and makes it utterly hysterical.

That's an utterly terrible synopsis. Dilbert and The Office share only their setting (an office) and very little else. In contrast to Dilberts "engineers banging heads against the system" the office chooses to explore primarily the relationships and personalities of people in a small office and the lack of authority or system which allows an incompetent boss to reign supreme.

Re:Poor Synopsis

[pacman on prozac]

He was a standup comedian for years and is still going with it so he does do a few other things.

It's meant to make you cringe, thats the point of it really. They deliberatly avoid obvious gags, its not that kind of show. I guess you could see it as one of those shows thats main point is to make you feel better about your own life because its not as bad as theirs, although I have worked in offices with worse bosses & atmospheres so I could be wrong on that.

I'd say its a very individual thing as to whether you find it incredibly funny or just annoying as hell, and perhaps a very thin line. For years I just thought the former, now I'm hooked. My girlfriend hates it and cannot sit for more than 30 seconds with it on the tv.

If you do appreciate their humour then it is hysterical, they are more down-to-earth than most other comedies on the TV so it seems a fair statement. It wouldn't have run for 2 series plus xmas special if nobody liked it either.

Re:Word twisting

[andyrut]

Given that the original was a radio show, which contained one or two words....

With radio, the audience isn't shown what's going on, thus there has to be a certain degree of narration to give them some idea of what's going on.

With a movie, the audience sees the action for themselves so narration wouldn't have to be used.

WHY is this being entrusted to a newbie director!?

[vapid transit]

WHY!? For the love of god. I've never heard of Garth Jennings. Its not like this guy's even worked his way up to director. IMDB does not have him listed as crew or writer for any major motion pictures. I hate to be negative but I'm truly anticipating disappointment from this film.

Re:Word twisting

[Silverlock]

Just a few days ago I found a DVD of the 1981 film version in a video store. Of course, I immediately grabbed it. The special effects and graphics are horrible but it's still Hitchhiker's.. I enjoyed it immensely.

I bring this up because the original has a ton of narration (accompanied by bad graphics) but, hell, it could be a starfield screensaver with some guy reading the entire text in the background and I would still love it. I think it's too good of a book to be ruined by a change of medium. It's been a radio show, a book, a film, an Infocom text-adventure game, and who knows what else. There's a reason for that...

Fitting, actually...

[ackthpt]

It would be fitting to noir it up a bit, as it really is a very cynical work. When I read H2G2 back in the early 80's I thought it was a stitch. The last time I read it, about 1995, I realized it was cynical and very biting, though appears humorous and whimsical on the surface. What DNA was saying about things though his characters and story line is unfortunately true enough about Britain if not other parts of the world, the USA prominently included. Sirius Cybernetics == Microsoft? That would have been some foresight, but that SC would be some company or companies was inspired by something.

Read the books again and look beyond the humor. It's probably only the humor which will appear on the screen, which could be a bit of a let down. Include some of that cynicism from the books and it could be better than just another light british comedy.