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HHGTG Screenwriter Interviews Himself
Overly Critical Guy writes "The screenwriter for the upcoming Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film has interviewed himself. A snippet: 'Who am I? "Not Douglas Adams" is the answer that concerns most people.'"
when the answer is not "42"?
For a writer - that is, someone who ought to be proud of what they write, unashamed - he sure masks a lot of words with random punctuation marks.
I hope this doesn't become a fad, most film actors don't have the IQ of an average person let alone enough to figure out that they are talking to themselvs....
--- [Insert intresting Sig here]
Seriously though, the attitude he has in this self interview gives me (some) hope for this movie. He seems concerned with keeping the movie parallel to Douglas Adams' intentions and style.
He also noted how his initial reaction after reading Douglas's script was "I can't write this, this guy's a genius and I'm no genius." Who knows, it may even turn out decent. Eh, who am I kidding.
.. this guy strikes me as a good person for this task.
:)
And when I told him of my "I'm not worthy" moment, he said "I think you're perfect for it and that attitude will probably help you."
And he seems to really grasp the bizarre HHGTtG humor
(Let's just hope the rest of the movie will be made by equally promising folks)
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
Being the imaginative , day dreaming type , I've always seen stories rather than read them ...
... Or see Arthur Dent flying around trying to grab his bag with the bottle of retsina ...
..
Like seeing a sandworm while reading dune or seeing the patronus (made of glittering points of light) from a low angle (only hooves visible) making ripples on the lake as it runs
The Harry Potter movie literally destroyed that picture I had in mind, because a movie still cannot give me the "real" feeling the book gave me
But I guess , illusions provided by a book cannot be enjoyed by everyone... some just need a little "CG" help.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
And I didn't get a chance to watch their commercial and music video reel before the call (because my DVD player wouldn't play UK Region 2, but I digress)
The snake bites itself in the tail...
bash$
Agreed. It's over his head obviously.
I'm glad to read that he followed up his script-reading and hiring by going straight to the radio shows. Both the TV shows and the first two books showed amazing genius, primarily because they sprung forth directly from those radio shows.
In radio, you must build your images in the spoken word with minimal sound effects. You must do it clearly and succinctly. This translated very well to the TV screen, because they didn't throw away the descriptions altogether and replace them with images. They just added TO the descriptions.
The first two books were very dialogue driven, and dialogue is where Adams' genius really showed through. The other books in the "trilogy" never felt quite the same, and I stronly believe that feeling came from the lack of basis in well-formed radio drama/comedy.
I can't wait.
Visit Lockjaw's Lair. He won't bite.
But I doubt this stunt will be enough to silence the most rabid of followers of Douglas Adams' work, that particular camp will only be content if this movie is never released at all. After all, not even Peter Jackson, with his vision, scope, funding and love of the books could silence the complaints following the rings trilogy.
He has to realise that with book-to-film adaptations, whether it be Harry Potter or Battle Royale, you can never satisfy the lunatic fringe. In fact, in the end, you can never win, all you can do is please as many people as you can.
From reading the interview, this guy seems to 'get' Adams humour, so this could be an exception.
As for US remakes, I really never know why they bother most of the time. The Ladykillers? For the love of good, why are they remaking the Ladykillers? Personally, I reckon the Orange adverts at the cinema are far too close to the truth of how movies get made.
I am not any of the "ists" .. but then as a neutral observer, I would say let the duck float and and let the fish swim. J D Sallinger is funny no doubt, but then comparing him with G B Shaw would be injustice to both. For the more literally challenged of my friends here, check out the difference in the humour of Blackadder or Monty Phython and Friends or Will and Grace.
I don't think Brit and American humour can be mixed. None of them is inferior ( ok that is being neutral to the point of getting irritating, so the confession : I do admire the Brit humour more ).
Hoping this guy proves my doubts to be plain paranoia.
We'll see. Fortunately there aren't many "real people" in this movie.
So what else is new?
mod parent up insightful you atlantic sea dogs
[homer simpson dog voice] "I'm an atlantic sea dog, and I wreck every british film I touch" [/homer simpson dog voice]
It's just like that, in fact, it's exactly like that.
there is more film goodness here including what I think is a picture of marvin.
You know what? It just might work, after all Pete Jackson did a damn good job, and everyone thought he would suck.
Lets just all pray George Lucas doesn't walk near the studio. [shuddering at the thought of Ja-Ja Marvin]
Arthur Dent = Martin Freeman ("Tim" from The Office)
Ford Prefect = Mos Def (weird, but I could see it)
Warwick Davis = Marvin (?!? uh, Willow?? is Marvin short, I can't remember)
Humma Kavula = John Malkovich (say no more)
Zaphod Beeblebrox = Sam Rockwell (right on!)
I have hope.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I know purists might argue that "think of a number" isn't really a question. However if they think that would have stopped Adam's they are quite mistaken.
I think actually it's like the question "Why is a raven like a writting desk?". Lewis Carroll didn't intend there to be an actual answer... but he found the readers' solution "...because Poe wrote on both." to be be true and funny.
BTW has anyone else noticed the similarity between "genuine people personalities" and everyones favourite windows application clippy the paperclip?
Adam's was a genius...
I could not agree more. All the versions of HHGTG are classics, but the radio show has the primary vision from which the rest sprang. You've not had the full experience until you've heard them.
Luckily, KCRW has them on-line at: http://kcrw.org/show/hg
As for US remakes, I really never know why they bother most of the time
how about no creativity, money over art, no forward thinking, no culture
An American writing a British film is going to be about as successful as an American writing a Hindi or Iranian movie
the problem is the HHGG is based on an undercurrent of very British humour, particularly jokes about class, beaurocracy and the like (do Americans really get the references to British Rail etc.?). E.g., Vogons aren't funny because they are grotesque green aliens, they are funny because they are the local council town planning department in space. It is a well known fact that cricket makes no sense to Americans whatsoever. But theres a reason that he didn't write about the "baseball wars". Etc. The zany sci-fi stuff floats along top this. I'm a little concerned its going to end up all the latter and none of the former.
Interesting that I am reading this as their are 42 comments.
I'd never heard of these guys before reading that interview, but i found their website, Tongsville. You can check out some of their music video and shorts here to get an idea of their style. I'm encouraged.
for those saying that a brit should've been picked for the screen writer: bullshit.
genius is indiscriminate, and british cultural humour is not only "gotten" by brits, as the last 20-some years of Monty Pyton fandom in the US has demonstrated. Nor are brits the only ones that can create such humour.
Furthermore, kirkpatrick said he didn't even make all that many changes, just organized it so it would fit the film format (ie, so that the action wouldn't be crouded at one end of the film, with the other 3/4ths of it boring as fuck).
I don't know about anyone else thought about Chicken Run, but I thought it was very similar in style to Wallace and Grommit. Are not the writers/makers of W&G british? (I personally thought Chicken Run was more fun and humorous overall, but what do I know. I'm a stupid American, right? bigots.)
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I think the problem is not with the script writers and producers, but the funders, the film company. You see, script writers tend to have a great sense of humour. However, when a film company sees this, they see this. This means that film companies only feel particularly jolly when it's pushing hundreds of thousands through the turnstiles. They don't care how many people laugh, just how many people cough up.
has proven to the people of the UK that Americans really don't get it. At all. The pained embarrassment on the face of Pythons when faced with "fandom" should tell you all you need to know frankly.
If you had 13 fingers , you'd be either very unlucky or use a base 13 to write stuff :)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
The third was far and away the best.
How can you argue with Wowbagger the infinitely prolonged?
Plus, it had the most balanced tone of the lot. Right between silliness of the first two and the moodiness of the last. Try listening to the read-by-the-author audiobook of the third and see if you're not missing something. It's just fantastic.
Kill, Tux, kill!
On h2g2 there's more movie stuff, including an interview with the director and producer, and a short clip of behind the scenes as the first scene is filmed.
Yes, they are British. In fact, I'm typing this around 100 metres away from the animation studio (Aardman) at which they were made.
However, I do believe that Chicken Run was touched up somewhat by DreamWorks, to slightly Americanise it - after all, Chicken Run was bankrolled by a US film studio, whereas the Wallace and Grommit films were bankrolled either by Aardman themselves or the BBC
He has to realise that with book-to-film adaptations, whether it be Harry Potter or Battle Royale, you can never satisfy the lunatic fringe.
The problem is, with something as bizarre as this "trilogy", the lunatic fringe is a rather large percentage of the whole readership...not meant as a troll but you have to admit, these books are strange.
Well, with Doughlas Adams not around, someone of course had to do the screen-writing. I wished all along that the chosen someone be British.
Well, it's probably unimportant that the writer inherit concretely from the British class so long as he implements the Satirist interface.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Good thing the producer and director, most of the crew and much of the cast are British, then.
Only two words need be said regarding the "americanization" of chicken run. Mel. Gibson.
he was watching CHICKEN RUN (with his sons? I don't know. In my head, he watches it weekly) he thought "hey that writer seemed to create a feature film that worked as a big studio movie while still keeping an existing and uniquely British sensibility.
Speaking as a Brit, I found Chicken Run hugely disappointing. It was a good idea with poor execution, like it was dumbed down. It felt like a sell out from beginning to end, with much of the quirky and inventive humour of the three Wallace and Gromits completely missing. I thought Nick Park had just struck a bum note in scaling up to feature length, but I guess it was partly this guys fault too. It was laugh free.
one of those guys who quoted Holy Grail
There is nothing more nauseating than someone who quotes MP at length, trying to be funny. It's basically the sure sign of someone who just isn't funny at all. Al Gore probably does it at parties.
(brilliant ideas, too -- truly humbling),
This whole Adams worshipping strikes the wrong note with me. I mean, the guy was great, but like the rest of us, he had his occassional shit ideas. I've read the early draft of the "Salmon of Doubt". He worked over and over on scripts to bring them up to par. If you're blinded by adoration, and don't have the talent to rewrite, maybe you're just not the right guy. He seems to go from
"I'm not good enough"->"I'm really excited about the project, but I'm not good enough"->"This is my project, but I'm not good enough"->"I'm just like Adam's in many ways."->"I can rewrite his stuff better."
Putting "I felt a certain amount of freedom to continue carrying that torch, mostly with the new concepts, characters and plot devices that Douglas had already created" together with "More has been made of the Arthur/Trillian relationship and the Arthur/Trillian/Zaphod triangle. Douglas knew, as I know, that in order to make a feature film bankrolled by an American studio that is to play on the global stage there needs to be a certain amount of attention paid to character, character relationships and emotion." suffuses me with dread. Let's say Douglas experimented with a number of lame ideas to make the film more appealling, such as more love triangles and jealousy. Shouldn't be in the final film, but will be in the process outlined here.
Hammer and Tongs: the music video specialists. A 3 minute music video direction to a feature film direction? That's a hell of a leap. I'd worry with this project in experienced hands. Jackson analogy doesn't hold here, he cut his teeth on a number of low budget horror flicks like "Bad Taste", and one more mainstream "Heavenly Bodies"(?) before moving onto LotR. Anyone think of even one music video director who has gone on to make a successful full length feature? I can't.
The tide has receded and left his admission he wrote the script for "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves!" indelibly impressed on my mind like a hulk of a wrecked ship. Prepare yourselves: HHGTG will be a wreck of a film.
(For some reason I always pictured Marvin as being seven feet tall. I think it was the voice from the radio plays. It was probably described differently in the book.)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
I think the biggest problem with american works vs. British is the lack of subtely.
In Hollywoodic movies everything needs to be explicit. We need to know who are the good guys and bad guys right ahead. If there is a moral to the story, they make an effort _nobody_ will miss it. If there is a commical situation, they make every effort to make us understand that we just experianced a funny moment - or otherwise Joe sixpacks might miss the fact that someone said something funny, which is not good for their wallet.
And this is exactle what I hope _will not_ happen to HHGTTG. If it will remain a truely British film, they will be able to present the most commical, rediculous and improbable situation with a sence of casuality, as if it were an absolutely normal situation. If it will become a typical an hollywoodic film, every scene will be accompanied with a "Look - what a cool concept this is!", and "wasn't this just hillarious?". Every element in the story will be explained to death.
I sure hope this won't happen to this movie.
Because he addresses this and points out his extreme love for British humour.
I don't think you can take a guy who spent most of his life surrounded by other Monty Python characters (and drew THOSE animations) as representative of anything, really.
There are a lot of posts here claiming that Americans just won't be able to get the subtle British humor of HHGTTG, and pointing to various great Brit comedies to support this. The thing is, when people talk about 'British comedy', they mean the comedy of one particular period, the golden age of really great British comedy from about 1965 - 1985, when Fawlty, Python, and HHGTGG flourished.
Now, that was indeed a great flowering of the comedian's art, the like of which has not been seen elsewhere. But it's not an eternal immutable aspect of the US & UK population; it's an event that happened to occur in the UK. There's junk UK TV -- in fact, they produce rock bottom TV by the ton -- and there's great US TV.
So please can we discuss this with reference to appropriate cultural phenomena, sure, but not with reference to this imaginary 'irony gene' that only British people have? It's only encouraging that class of annoying English people who go on and on about Americans not understanding irony like it was the only way they could think of to make themselves feel special.
Hrm, well, my rant is over.
I'll get me coat.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Of course it'll never replace the imagery Adams planted in my head, but it might turn out to be a really decent movie. And I can really see Mos Def as Ford.
The influence of Three's Company can be seen in most American sitcoms. Three's Company of course being lifted script for script from a British show.
Terry Gilliam is an American, and he did ok with the Python movies.
Ah, but he was outnumberred and on british soil.
You can't take the sky from me...
I don't know what's worse; that you constructed this evil phrase... or that we find it funny.
waiter!... I need a life over here please, this ones a bit stale.
Unless this man is hired by Mr Adams to be his medium. Or operates his ouija board
You can't register with an Earthly tax office with that kind of occupation, of course, so he is working under cover as a writer, dividing his time vriting for the screen and for the Guide.
Of course, assigning to copy writers to the same planet is not the most effective use of the Guide's finite -- well actually near limitless -- resources; and it would more importantly introduce the chance that Arthur Dent's work was all for nothing. Arthur protected the Guide's twice-deductable expenses and his own revenue stream by distracting the other correspondent, by suggesting to him the possible fame he might get by acting as a medium for dead writers.
What this writer failed to realise, was that Earth wasn't going to last long anyway, and that the creatures on this planet would gladly look up to anybody who did something strange, who factualised fiction, made fictition out of fact or generally asked people to notice them. So he could just as well have lived on nothing but beer for a year or droven Q-tips through his arms to acheive the same kind of recognition by the creatures. Some of them were of course so jaded by all this pointless entertainment, that when the last day came, they interpreted everything they saw as yet another marketing gimmick, huffed, and read the stock market updates.
What happened next would fail to materialize in the stock figures, but only for the fact that there would be no stock exchange on Earth. In the nearby Betelguse system, however, the sum total of all Earth futures and options fell from 100000000 Altairan Dollars to 0000.1, reflecting the odds that the news wasn't real. A similar fall hadn't been seen since the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's outsourced lawsuit generation department sued the largest company in the galaxy while all the lawyers were out to lunch, and lost the case.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
They both suck equally. Friends is not funny. Will & Grace disgusts me.
Mark Twain.... he was funny.
I used to like Python and HHGtG... looking back on them now (mind you, i'm still only 20, but whatever), i find them both to be rather pointless, inane, and generally stupid. It's not that I don't "get" cricket (I just don't get why anyone would like it).
I guess humor is the most subjective thing their is... other than beauty.
I FAIL IT! Doing a Douglas Adams impression, and managing to mix up the names of the two main characters.
Hm. Maybe I would channel better if I logged out of the political web sites and YRO, and took my tin-foil hat off.
Ah, much better.
No. No. That's just to -- weird.
I'll have to put it back on again.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
Gilliam isn't really an American; he's an honorary Brit :-P
um.... isn't mel gibson an austrailian?
It doesn't matter what you think any more
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
You make a very good point however there have been cases where a book has been turned into something very very...very bad when made into a movie.
I personally think that everyone involved in making "The Cat in the Hat" should be flogged. Granted these "books" were never really the type that should grace the big screen but it is a case in point about how wrong something can go.
Of course it's out of our hands as the last time Hollywood listened to anyone was...well never so the best we can do is hope and vote with your dollars. If the movie stinks don't pay to see it! (Nasty catch-22 there as the only true way to see if something is bad is to see it but I'm sure a few slashdotters will chime in when that time comes so that we might get some sort of idea as to it's quality.)
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
While your not wrong in saying those things are universal human experiences, there are only humans in this solar system. It's like saying "there is more then 1 computer on this planet" which is of course absolutely true, but don't you think you could narrow it down a bit? You just as easily say that incompetent monopolies, stupid governments, and incomprehensible sports are pretty much solar-system wide human experiences. At least it would be more exact. :P
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to study for my triangle-cutting exam...
click-clack, front and back. I'm not moving this car otherwise.
The character development arcs in Chicken Run were done to Hollywood formula (i.e., the Mel Gibson character's journey of self-discovery). It could well have been plotted using the screenwriting software commonly used in Hollywood (and probably was).
The Wallace & Gromit films, in contrast, have a charming naivete about them. The characters aren't instances of a Hollywood-developed psychological model, embodying drives and motivations and moving along like cogs in a well-oiled machine, but just characters, gleefully violating the rules. To a Hollywood studio executive, this would be crude, sloppy characterization (and if Hollywood money was involved, it would be sent to a script doctor to fix it before it ever got to filming); yet it works, and seems to have more soul than the products of Hollywood.
What kind of blog, or any frequently updated web site, doesn't syndicate? How are we supposed to know when it's updated?
tbdean
When Peter Jackson went on and on about how he was going to be true to the novels and how many experts were working with him, what did everyone think? How about after your first viewing? And after you recovered from the resplendent beauty of filming? Were you able to? A lot of people who loved the movie could not read the books because FOTR was boring, probably because they didn't read the Hobbit first which is more accessible and sets up the expectation of Adventure. I found the movie dull, lifeless and melodramatic, removing all of the wonder and replacing the characters with Hollywood facsimiles.
LOTR was partially miscast and mostly miswritten and misacted. Visually, the casting for H2G2 seems really good, assuming they can act (I hope they don't all have American accents...) The American version of Coupling (a brilliant BBC sitcom) was so painfully enacted that I gave up after 15 minutes. It was like an elementary school production of Gone with the Wind.
While Kirkpatrick's heart seems in the right place, we'll have to see the execution. I do wonder what this guy has been doing with himself, as he doesn't have many credits since his first in 1990 and, most of his credits are for children's movies. Hopefully Jay Roach keeps everything good and proper.
"The area of penetration will no doubt be sensitive." ~ Spock
but I will see it any way. I can forsee my dispointment. I have never enjoyed the movie version of any book. The book creates so many personal connections that a movie destroys. Film has to be the worst medium ever created. Why are we all interested in making a movie out of books that are so close to us just to have it ripped away by feeding it to the masses. I fear hearing any reviews of the movie and listening to retards that don't understand the humor making dumb ass coments about it.
TSG
I'm sure whatever happens will be Mostly Harmless.
<jedi> There is something funny here. You laugh. </jedi>
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Did you read the interview? It's being directed by brits and has Mrs. Adam's blessing.
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Benny Hill
Any idea of whether they will try to compress the whole story into one book or will they make multiple movies?
-a
just a belgium imposter
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
That's no honor.
Peter: Wow! This is the smartest show on TV!
You could atleast give us Yanks a far chance....
Your comparing Monty Python to Friends? Will and Grace? Even here in the US we think that's crap. Sheesh, that's like comparing Mr. Bean to Tom Green.
Of course, I probably should provide my own suggestions. How about 'The Jerk' and 'What About Bob?'? I'm sure some people hate those movies, but I thought they were funny.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
I thought I'd give a quick plug for the screenwriter. I saw Chicken Run and I thought it was a good movie.
I've also included the obligatory imdb link.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
THe Simpsons
Seinfeld
Mr. Show with Bob and Dave (a few seasons on HBO, they could achieve a level of absurdity previously found only in Flying Circus)
Family Guy
Strangers with Candy (on Comedy Central now, I think, pretty damn funny)
Kids in the Hall was good, but Canadian.
A particular blend of Earl Grey tea sold at Harrod's. Adams used to drink it all the time.
Belson, not Adams, as I recall, Ms. Belson did not take Adams' name when they married.
That plus Ed Victor's comment "You nailed it" are the two things that give me hope that this will work. I'll be interested in their comments after they've seen the completed project.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
Perhaps AdTI will come out with a book about this too?
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
If Meatwad can't tickle your funny bone, your mother was a triple breasted Vogonian poetry whore.
"Yellow. No, bluuuueeeeee...."
No shit. If that really concerns people, then they need to understand that Adams has been dead for some time now. Get over it.
Prepare yourselves: HHGTG will be a wreck of a film.
I love how you posted anonymously, so that if the film comes out and is a huge success, nobody can call you on it.
"Sufferin' succotash."
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves a made President should on no account be allowed to do the job." -- Douglas Adams There's no way I can modify this quote so that it is on topic and still has the same zing. So use your imagination :)
"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." --Douglas Adams
...for nested quotation marks. I count three sets in that story.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
Isn't a self-interview should be called an autoview?
My 2 Altairian Dollars.
SIG Isn't GNU
San Francisco cancelled it's number 42 bus line just weeks after his death. That's what i call condolences!
Frasier?
tedious, obvious, I really don't get it.
- Simpson
Brilliant, osmetimes even now
- King of the Hill
I'd rather go to the dentist
- Everyone Loves Raymond
I'd rather pull my teeth out myself
- Steifeld
Seinfeld? Brilliant
- Married with Children
Dull
- Cheers
Sporadically brilliant, usually good
- M.A.S.H.
Sporadically brilliant, usually good
- Golden Girls
Interesting choice. A bit formulaic, but the performances were good and the script writing, if not the stories, was excellent.
There again even the worst of these (Raymond) shines out like a diamond among the sea of crap that is Australian TV, which I currently watch for just 6 hours a week.