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

So, Taco . . .

[GnrlFajita]

. . . are you saying that you're a two-headed alien, or just look like one?

Re:So, Taco . . .

[blowdart]

No no, the second head is a dupe head, which appeared 3 days after the first head was posted.

Word twisting

[andyrut]

A film version of Hitchhiker's may be interesting, but I think it's safe to say that a film simply cannot pick up on the wordplay of Douglas Adams. Adams is simply a master of twisting words that can make the reader laugh out loud.

Unless the director chooses to use lots of narration, which could ruin a film.

Re:Word twisting

[Threni]

> A film version of Hitchhiker's may be interesting, but I think it's safe to say > that a film simply cannot pick up on the wordplay of Douglas Adams.

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

Re:Word twisting

[ikoleverhate]

The "voice of the guide" narration in the bbc TV series worked pretty well - when the audience was confused as to what was happening in the main story, a calm voice would start to explain... and leave you even more confused but in fits of laughter.

"after disproving the existance of god, man goes on to prove 1=2, black=white, and gets run over on the next zebra crossing"

Re:Word twisting

[HTH NE1]

You know, when I first read the book, when I was quite young, I came to the part about the zebra crossing and became very confused.

As would most Americans, when we call them "crosswalks". "Zebra" is an essential part of the humor there. Also, the "I'm in the car park" joke just doesn't have the same punch with "parking lot".

But then we got the bit about the word Belgium inserted in our edition of the books to offset the sanitizing of the Rory for The Most Gratuitous Use of the Word "Fuck" in a Serious Screenplay. (Also "arsehole" was replaced with "kneebiter".)

Still, everyone got revisions about probability of rescues and the name of the writer of the worst poetry in the Universe due to problems of people calling phone numbers and the writer actually being a former classmate of Adams who wasn't amused (though in exchange for changing the name, we did get the actual poetry about dead swans).

Re:Word twisting

[HTH NE1]

Just a few days ago I found a DVD of the 1981 film version in a video store.

That would be the TV series.

There is also at least one comic book series.

And the radio play is the original, though there came a point where multiple versions were being made simultaneously, then more radio episodes to finish out the book adaptions, and only now a movie.

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" has almost as many adaptions as has "The War of the Worlds". I wonder if they'll come out with an arcade game version next (Cinematronics did TWotW as an arcade game). Or pinball?

Stephen Moore

[mccalli]

Stephen Moore's TV version was already a revival. Stephen Moore is the original voice from the radio series, which predates the books, TV series...anything. To my mind remains the best incarnation, though I'll accept an argument in favour of the books.

He'll probably be quite pleased. Marvin, on the all.

Cheers,
Ian

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

[fruey]

They don't have to spend serious CGI. He just has to play the part twice, and then stitch them together, rather like in "Death Becomes Her" where the body and head parts were filmed separately, and the results were far more realistic than a completely CGI head like TPM or AotC. The plot of the film wasn't great, but it won the 1993 Oscar, BAFTA and Saturn awards for special effects.

The key part is how to get a decent neck on him so that the two heads work. You could get twins or a pair of similar looking actors to play each part separately, then CGI them into one. Kinda like by tying them together before shooting and stuff. Way too many cool ways to do it, but don't make him 100% CGI!

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.

The Office

[grandmofftarkin]

For those of you who have never seen 'The Office' it is a BBC comedy filmed in a semi documentary format (though it is all fictional). On the BBC website linked above there is a clips section to give you a taste of what it is like. Though to really 'get it' you have to watch a couple of episodes. You can buy the complete first series online from PlayUSA.

Re:The Office

[Aardpig]

It's always amusing to compare the people in American soap operas to the people in English ones like, say, EastEnders...

That's because American soaps are aspirational, while English ones are cautionary. Dallas: you, too, can be a millionaire with hot chicks if you work hard. East Enders: if you don't work hard, you'll end up as one of these drunk, ugly, poor peasants.

Australian soaps sit in the middle: the people are poor but beuatiful. Not sure what the message is, but it sure looks nice...

Picture

[klocwerk]

here's a pic of him.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38281000/jpg/_3 8281639_office300.jpg

looks like he could pull it off. never seen that movie though.

Anyone who liked Marvin the paranoid android....

[mgpeter]

Check out Marvin the Web Server.

It's a joke!

[shadowj]

Trilogy relates to 3. Sorry, just being technical.

I think the word you're looking for is "pedantic", not "technical".

You obviously haven't read the books. The fourth and fifth books both have a blurb on the cover that says something like "fourth in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy". It's a joke, very much in keeping with the late author's sense of humor.

It would be interesting...

[Anonymous Coward]

To see how well this does here in the States.
It might gain a crossover audience for special effects (they do go to many weird places, after all), but I don't think it'll get good critical reviews. The Hitchiker's Guide doesn't have a three-act movie structure, it bounces around from episode to episode. It's really more suited to be a TV series.
It's also peculiarly British. Think about it: Arthur Dent's home is destroyed (twice) by bureaucrats. (Here it would have to be corporations.) They spend time looking for a cup of tea. The end of the universe comes, *and it's no big deal*: people go to a restaurant to watch it happen. (As they say, in England, death is imminent, in Canada, death is inevitable, and in California, death is optional.) The frat-boy Zaphod is a figure of fun and the hero is the mild-mannered Arthur Dent.
I'm also disappointed that they're probably going to make Trillian into a bimbo again; she was supposed to be an astrophysicist. Nobody seems to like nerd women, except for Slashdot, Harvey Pekar, and Howard Dean ;)
And I wonder how well the nerd community is going to rally around it: THHGTTG has been out for a while, and some younger nerds have never heard of it. Hey, I never knew about the Goon Show until I read they were part of the inspiration for Python (I'm 24).
Oh well, I hope it's good...

Deep Thought

[CelticWhisper]

Maybe the Deep Thought supercomputer will be played by Virginia Tech's Power Mac G5 cluster! I'm sure Apple would state that if any computer can tell us the meaning of life, it's the G5. How's 'bout it, guys?

Wouldn't Cmdr Taco make a better

[3.5 stripes]

Vogon ??? :)

It's the guy in the "high noon" graphic

[c4miles]

If you're getting the same image at the top of the article as I am, the guy in front of all the christmassy ladies is Bill Nighy, the actor lined up for Slartibartfast.

On a related note, Slartibartfast was originally a working name for the character, which Adams chose just because he didn't like the typist the BBC had assigned for him whilst he was writing the scripts.

Re:Dilbert is funny, witty.

[CaptainBaz]

The Office is pretentious and boring. Is one of those things that only Brits get I guess.

American huh?

This may help.

Re:I'd pick...

[Baby_with_a_nailgun]

Sean Connery for Slartibartfast!

Would that make him Shlartibartfasht?

Noir it up, beeyatch.

[fenix down]

Blade Runner-style, g.

Instead of a narrator, you just have the Guide chip in with an internal monologue every once and awhile. That's what Fight Club did to keep all their clever wordplay in. Admittedly, they had it easier since FC's first-person to start with, but most of the good stuff in H2G2 is cleverly-worded exposition, so it's no problem to just have the Guide say most of it.

This has everything to be great

[rcastro0]

I hope they have a good budget and don't spoil it. BTW, I don't know that actor, and haven't seen "The Office", but his puzzled face in the picture someone posted looks perfect. If this works perhaps more people will get to know where the names "DeepThought", "Trillian" and "BabelFish" first appeared.

Anyway, Douglas Adams fans should know that his computer works are now abandonware, and available for free download:

Last Chance to See -- The CD ROM, multimedia version of his book about endangered species

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- the text adventure game adaptation (by Infocom)

Bureaucracy -- the original text adventure game (by Infocom)

Cheers.

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.

Re:6 * 9 = "42" (base 13)

[HTH NE1]

Except the real Ultimate Question wasn't in that form at all. Marvin knew it. Eddie knew it. And both said it in the third book:

"I gave a speech once," he said suddenly, and apparently unconnectedly. "You may not instantly see why I bring the subject up, but that is because my mind works so phenomenally fast, and I am at a rough estimate thirty billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number."

"Er, five," said the mattress.

"Wrong," said Marvin. "You see?"

And again here, more blatently:

"That's a pity," said Arthur. "I'd like to hear what he [Prak] had to say. Presumably he would know what the Ultimate Question to the Ultimate Answer is. It's always bothered me that we never found out."

"Think of a number," said [Eddie] the computer, "any number."

Now that's bloody Informative!