Slashdot Mirror
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"?
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$
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.
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
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.
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.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It doesn't matter what you think any more
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
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.
Dude, the "*#&!" crap in his interview wasn't about self-censoring. It was humor. Look into it.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
I'm sure whatever happens will be Mostly Harmless.
<jedi> There is something funny here. You laugh. </jedi>
Peter: Wow! This is the smartest show on TV!
A particular blend of Earl Grey tea sold at Harrod's. Adams used to drink it all the time.