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Hitchhikers Movie Update
DaViking writes "Over at Yahoo Movies there are a few more pictures, including one of the Heart of Gold, and an updated trailer for up coming Hitchhikers movie." I'm hoping this film will inspire some sequels, too!
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how bout burt reynolds in smokey and the restaurant at the end of the universe?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
They're going to make Heart of Gold into a spaceball.
Just too bad that Mr. Adams died too early! He had a lot of satiric writing left to do! Or as a friend of mine that I lent a book of Adams to stated; "I wonder what he smoked..."
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I like that!!
Sorry, but that rendering of the Heart of Gold looks wrong. It's supposed to be shaped like a running shoe. Hmm, perhaps it is supposed to be a running shoe shaped for the foot of a superintelligent shade of the color blue.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Am I the only one who gets an image of Charlie Brown when looking at art of Marving looking down at a barren landscape? Weird :)
Whatever happened to a "space age running shoe sleekness"?
:D
However, on a positive note, that spacecraft does look like it's from a Douglas Adams novel
-- n
It seems that spheres are going to be a very common shape in this movie, With Planets, The Hart of Gold that looks like a big sphere, and Marvins head which is a huge sphere on a little body. I don't know about everyone else all those sphears seem more of a nineties thing. The 2000 seem to prefer more edges in the style.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"Marvin the depressed robot"? WTF? He's Marvin the Paranoid Android. I know he is a robot who is depressed, but sheesh he is, was, and always will be the paranoid android.
If they can't even get that right... let's hope its just the phone sanitizers at Yahoo who made the mistake and not the movie's writer(s).
Sailing over the event horizon
Burt Reynolds in " So Long and Thanks for the Deliverance "
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
It looks like a Death Star to me. And Marvin, while looking sufficiently depressed, doesn't look quite right either. I liked the TV series take on him. It fit.
Because we all know that if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
Besides, sequels are usually just as good if not better than the original.
Sorry. I'll shut up now.
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there's very little to be said for artistic license. I, for one, am just happy that this is making its way into the visual realm, and relish the thought of getting to see what the disney artists concepts of adams' work end up looking like. perhaps holding one's tongue and putting judgement by the wayside until it's been released would be a pragmatic thing to do?
;)
nevermind...that's not a shoe!
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
We're calling for a sequel because H2G2 is the first in a series of five books. It's natural for fans of the books to want the whole series to be made.
>it was never designed to be a film
the fact Douglas Adams himself worked on a version of the script seems to suggest otherwise.
...that's a space station!
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy [1981]
.
Yeah, well, the TV series really sucked aswell, IMHO.
> I remember it being described as "sleek."
Quite -- there is no way Zaphod Beeblebrox would be seen dead in *that*. Let alone bother to steal it...
And as for "Marvin: the depressed robot", he doesn't look capable of sounding depressed. Hey, maybe they'll give him a voice like a bored 12 year-old, that'd be *really* clever...
*sigh*
I think it's cause for concern when the release is 7 months away and all they have so far is CONCEPT ART!!!
Or is it possible to produce a film of this proportion in that span of time???
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
For those who don't want to scroll through countless popups: wget http://mp3content01.bcst.yahoo.com/bus01root6/Bus0 1Share24/yahoomovies/6/8768235.mov
Mos Def is going to play ford prefect!! awesome. haha
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I love HHGTTG and probably will go see it just for that, but it looks like Disney is tring to make it into a kids movie. Just look at Marvin. (Mod me down if you want) but it saddens me that Disney is making this movie. I fear that they might try to "clean" up the movie.
I admit, i look forward to the movie about as much as a dental pick shoved up my left nostril, and think it will probably be as entertaining as the American Red Dwarf, but, unlike the Boyz on the Dwarf, H2G2 is solid enough to take the Disney member up the back orifice.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Douglas Adams himself spend the last years of his life writing the script and trying to get it done. Heck, he's been trying to get it made into a movie for a long time now. It's his vision, he wants it to be a movie, so he thinks it should be made.
... that this movie is better than the first one they made. Im very interested to see how they create an infinite amount of monkeys and then the missile that turns into a sperm whale!
I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. - Catcher in the Rye
I'm sick of these elitist "guardians" of their prized, beloved geekdom.
Guess what? Douglas Adams was working on this movie for YEARS, so clearly the creator and author thought it was "ameneable for conversion." People thought it wouldn't work as a novel since it was a radio series first. Well, it did work as a novel. Now we're seeing the fulfillment of Adams' desire to make a film version.
It'll work as a movie too. If you don't like that, DON'T WATCH THE FILM. You've still got the book and radio series. It won't be a disappointment. I have a feeling it's going to be a hilarious film.
Of course it's going to be a huge disappointment. Name one book to movie conversion that wasn't a disappointment to someone who read the book previously. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be a bad film, just not the one you envisioned. But what the movie will definitely do is give the book a ton more readership.
The problem I see with the film concepts so far is that it seems like it's taking itself too seriously. Those concepts for the Heart of Gold and Marvin are too mainstream and contemporary. They don't scream "HHGTTG!" and look as if they could be placed in any sci-fi movie coming out today. If they actually took a chance and *GASP* took ideas from the book and made the Heart of Gold look like a "sleek running shoe" then perhaps people would be able to recognize the design as a part of the film.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Each version I saw/heard/read had some major differnences to tweak it to the medium - but they all worked.
From the official website: "If you don't want Flash you can go directly to the blog."
And where does this link take you to? A page with a single full-screen Flash.
Ah well...
Oh, you uh...
OK then.
It wasn't designed to be a book, either. It wasn't even designed to be a radio series. The first episode of it was designed to be an episode of a radio series about the world ending in different ways. Fortunately, Douglas Adams wasn't good at designing things; he was good at coming up with brilliant material. The thing about Douglas Adams is that he would turn out a lot of stuff that didn't fit together at all, and have a good editor make it into something that worked.
That's not to say that the movie will actually be done well. But HHGTTG is just about ideal for doing in different media, because it's really a set of characters and situations, not a story.
(Oh, and it's already a TV miniseries)
So there should be plenty of material for 5 or 6 more movies
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Marvin looks like a small little stormtrooper drone. Yuck! And the Heart of Gold ... like a flying airport. All drawings and photos so far look way to clean and 2001 like.
...
...
And I miss a bit more englishness so far
Very different to the first pictures and stuff Peter Jackson released about Lord of the Rings (which had just the right 'feeling'about them).
I am afraid Hitchhikers will be a flop
Well, I tried to view the trailer, but Yahoo! wont let me. They saw I have to upgrade my Firefox browser to MSIE or Netscape and install Windows Media. Anyone have an alternate link?
Did anyone else notice the constellation near the end of the trailer? How can they give away the answer without asking the question?
Mr.
I think Dent Arthur Dent was played really well and the jokes well timed. I still prefer the books (and to my shame, have never heard the radio version).
Of course, Hollywood appears to know about as much about what a blog is as what the Heart of Gold is really supposed to look like. Just because you take your standard production news site run by some faceless intern with no community feedback features and CALL it a blog, doesn't make it a blog...
Toby,
A little reading on Adams will tell you that every time some new H2G2 thing comes out is meant to contradict at least a little bit with everything else.
The readio show, the books, the TV series, the musicals, everything, they all contradict, and if this is faithful to Adams' vision, there is no doubt that it will contradict too.
The characters are important, not the scenery. The art for Marvin is spot on, and Mos Def is going to be a great Ford Prefect.
I wonder how much I'll be scolded for saying this, but I love the concept art for Deep Thought, just seems to make sense.
I can't spell ripburger
What is new in that trailer? Seems like the same one that was floating around before, but I'm too lazy to look up the old one. And as far as the shape of the Heart of Gold, blame it on a glitch in the Infinite Improbability Drive. That always works.
...in Marvin leading the concept shots? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Am I the only one who's watched the first HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy "movie"?
Here's a link to it, I remember renting it a long while ago.
Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, The
of Life the Universe and Everything is 42. Any one else spot it written in stars in the top left corner in the last few seconds of the clip? Go watch it again, its there.
"The Heart of Gold is NOT a SPHERE!
READ THE GOD-DAMN BOOKS!"
Sadly, I don't think that's gonna happen at all... We might not be looking at watching the film so soon but if Adams was still 'in control', crap like this wouldn't happen, IMHO.
Wasn't the Heart of Gold supposed to be shaped like a giant sneaker?
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Am I the only one who has a problem with this being called a new trailer? There was actually a /. story when this teaser trailer came out about 6 months ago.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
If Disney can't even get the Heart of Gold to look like a sneaker, how can we expect them to get the mockery of intergalactic corporations right? If only Douglas Adams is dead only for tax purposes after selling his artistic license to the Mickey Mouse club, we might one day see an H2G2 movie worth all this expensive simulation. Otherwise, the Ursa Minor publishing houses might as well pack it in - we'll be better off reading the longer, but more accurate, Encyclopedia Galactica.
--
make install -not war
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Ok, repeat after me. It is a mass media oriented movie adaptation of a non visual original that appealed only to a niche market.
Changes will have to be made in order to make it marketable and profitable. Kids will want to see it, and they will not understand the humour, so they will need cutesy characters. Many non intelectual types will expect more explosions and COOL effects than required so they will be there. The ships will be of a more recognizable shape so that the average moviegoer doen't say "A sneaker! This is lame". And so on...
If I don't get another Battlefield Earth I will be more than happy with the movie. And only if it makes a profit we will get a sequel.
Cheers, Adolfo
I was hoping they would make one movie per novel, sort of like lord of the rings. There is so much material in the books that there shouldn't be a problem to make several movies, one per novel.
Harald
Marvin looks like a robot 5 year old who needs a hug. What the crap? I always pictured marvin as a tall lanky 29 year old robot dreading turning 30. I mean, jeez, what does a huggable robot have to be depressed about? It's the stand-out tall freak robots that have reason to cry. The interiors for the Heart of Gold look good, but I'm not entirely sure about them.. Too ballroomish for my tastes.
"Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
It doesn't look like what I remember from the series either.
and don't get me started about marvin the cutesy wutesy sad charlie brown robot.
liqbase
The series is already one of the more genre-busting SF stories out there. It started out as a radio play, was done as a series of books, a TV miniseries, a text adventure game, and finally another radio play. Making a movie hardly seems worse than any of the other transitions.
In case you're stuck with the idea that Doug Adams wrote the books and everything else was just trying to make a buck with cheap work, it started as a radio play, and Adams has had a hand in every adaptation to date, including this new movie. (Yes, he's dead, but that doesn't seem to stop him.)
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
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The site opens up to an image of the Earth with a big red button under it.
/., pushing the button made the Earth explode.
Last time the movie was mentioned on
Now, pushing the button makes a large bulldozer roll in from the right and pushes the Earth off the screen.
Some bunch of morons must have been disturbed by the animation of the Earth exploding and complained.
Name one book to movie conversion that wasn't a disappointment to someone who read the book previously.
Stand By Me and Shawshank Redemption were both based on Stephen King novellas. Stand By Me is an almost letter perfect adaptation of "The Body". There were some deviations in Shawshank Redemption but they were tolerable and weren't total "re-imaginings" of the essential story. The mere mention of Harry Potter does seem to shut some minds down but those movies are faithful to their source material. Come to think of it, The Andromeda Strain was also a good adaptation and a rare example of good cinematic sci-fi.
Nonethess, I agree with you. Most book to movie adaptations go beyond what is necessary to bring a detailed novel to a two hour movie. 9 times out 10, the story will be cheapened so that all the tired Hollywood cliches can be crammed into what could have been a good movie. Even worse, you have things like I Robot which have almost nothing to do with the books they come from. I Robot was originally to be called Livewire and had some character names from I Robot grafted onto it so they could rape Asimov's corpse for a few extra bucks.
At least Martin Freeman seems to be exited.
Martin Freeman's blog of the movie can be found here. It also includes the stupid game of babelfish!
Cheers
Adolfo
Yes, I'm aware Douglas Adams had input into the screenplay, for the many people who pointed that out. It may just be my dislike of films of course. I just don't think this is going to do any to inprove HHGTTG, I think people are getting too excited about it.
I'm sure this film is going to be a HUGE disappointment, but then, perhaps I'm just being pessimistic.
How oddly appropriate.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The BBC TV series concept of the Heart of Gold didn't look that bad, IMHO.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
That's not true. Alfonso Cuaron had a fair share of mistakes, (Harry isn't allowed to use magic out of school, although he does in the very first scene, and the students wearing mugglish clothes in school is just wrong.) and Chris Columbus is just a terrible director.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
You make some arguments about how "bad" the original HHG movie was, not taking into account that it was every bit as "bad" as most Monty Python or Dr. Who. That is, after all, part of the charm. Every other argument you make applies quite aptly to other cult classics.
For instance...
If you were able to stand the cheap-ass Original Trilogy, I don't think you'll have anything to complain about from the New Trilogy.
Oh, and don't tell me it was good despite/because of the time it was made. It wasn't. It was crap; the effects were crap, and replaced any interesting visual images the script or following novels might have conjured up with some shitty and high-budget (esspecially for the time) special effects.
Everyone was fucking annoying in the series too. What a pile of crap.
I'll admit.... the updated graphics were great in the remixed versions, but they don't come close to excusing the rest of it.
When Peter Jackson changed things in The Lord of the Rings, they were in ways that MOST people who were at least just casual fans of the trilogy wouldn't notice, or wouldn't mind. Even some hard core fans accepted the changes.
The stuff Disney is doing to HHGTTG is inexcusable. Ford wasn't/isn't black. The Heart of Gold isn't a Death Star. There was no Vice Prisident of the Galaxy character in any of the series. And Marvin was supposed to be sleek and high tech looking in a way that only didn't quite look right probably because of how he held himself in his composure.
The more and more I hear about this movie the more pissed off I become that they're destroying it. I would write to complain to someone but I doubt anybody worth complaining to is easily contacted, and they probably don't care even if they were available for complaints.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I'm containing my hope for sequels until I see that the first one doesn't suck. I fear that the sequels are much more likely.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Checkout Planet Magrathea for a decent repository of HHGTTG news - its run by MJ Simpson, arguably the best source of Douglas Adams info around (including, obviously, info about the upcoming film). Apparently there is a whole lot more material coming out on Tuesday.
And to think I owned that domain 4 years ago...
... and then I remember it's on my sig :)
"So, once you know what the question actually is, you'll know what the answer means."
I'm running Firefox on Gentoo. When I tried to watch the trailer, I got to this URL, which tells me that I need to 'upgrade' to IE or Netscape.
First round running shoes, now upgrading Firefox to IE. It's a world gone topsy-turvy!
For those who hadn't noticed yet: try reloading the http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com site a few times. (Hm... Would that be considered a Serial-Slashdotting?) There are a number of different fashions in which the earth gets obliterated -- Not sure how many there are total, but I've seen at least 7 different ones.
Oh, cheer up, Marvin!
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
Was excited about this until I saw Disney is making this movie. Great, another CG movie that would be great for adults, being "dumbed" down for the kiddies.
Blizzard will you PLEASE just make a Warcraft movie and prove that CG movies will make money in the PG-17 realm (adult themed). I don't know why I am the only that is tired of CG movies (Toy Story, Sharks Tale, Incredibles and "insert CG kiddie movie here")!
Seriouly, am I alone on this?
gotta a light for my Sig?
...there are so many inconsistencies in the Hitchhiker's universe.
Well, things tend to get screwy when you mess with probability.
I'm going to become a theologist and a scientist so I can spend long hours into the night arguing with myself.
I worked in marketing at the studio for a very short time before I was...err...it didn't work out. Anyway, from what I know of the studio, if anyone on earth can totally fuck up decent source material its disney. That's what they do. (see bicentennial man). It could be great, against all odds. But please, do not get your hopes up. Its better to be pleasantly suprised that disappointed.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
A little reading on Adams will tell you that every time some new H2G2 thing comes out is meant to contradict at least a little bit with everything else.
Exactly! And a fan would tell you that that is because Earth lies on a fault line between parallel dimensions. After all, our galactic zipcode is ZZ9 plural Z alpha...
(Zaphod: "What do all the Zs mean?")
But this is a Disney Movie with hollywood actors. Very expensive to make, so it has to be very mainstream to produce Nemo type profits.
Nevertheless, you make a very good point
Sure, each version contradicted a bit with the others (like, for example, Lintilla and the clones being missed out of the books / TV series / game (OK, so the game ends on the surface of Magrathea, so that doesn't count).
But, there were still general consistencies - the earth is destroyed, 42 is the answer, Marvin has a pain in the diodes down one side, Zaphod has three arms (even if it was a throwaway line from the radio series that then had to be included...), and the Heart of Gold is sleek like a running shoe.
"She's furniture with a pulse"
While I'm surprised that it doesn't look like a shoe, I think it's too early to make assumptions it is going to be crap.
But the discussion brings me back to something I've been thinking about for a while.
Why does Hollywood pay what is no doubt a huge ammount of money for rights to a book, and then make somethign completely different.
Take I, Robot, for example. I can't imagine the rights were cheap. But they made a film that takes from that work the name of one character and pretty much nothing else; in fact they made a film that is practically an anti-asimov film. Why?
I mean, surely you can divide the world into two classes of people. Asimov fans won't go to see it just because of the name because 5 seconds of the trailer is enough for you to realise it has no relationship to Asimovs ideas and work. And people who aren't azimov fans are people who want to see Will Smith kicking robot butt around, and so they'll go whatever you call the love interest. So why? It doesn't seem to make any sense to me.
And don't get me started on making a John Constantine movie and casting Neo in it. (Although I guess WB do get the license on the cheap in that instance)
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
If I hear the line "Ford, I am your father" in the movie, I swear...
That ship looks like something Lucas would cook up.
--
Agreed.
I fear that they might try to "clean" up the movie.
So you're worrying the ads might pitch Marvin as "your plastic pal who's fun to play with?"
Yeah, they'll be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Has everyone forgotten the first 2 HHGTTG movies that have already been released
I was told in this movie slartibartfast shoots first!!
btw, I live in "Belgium!" so watch your language.
...and who will author it? Who's publishing it?
Having admired the videos of Hammer & Tongs and see that they were suggested to direct by Spike Jones when Jay "Austin Powers" Roach couldn't commit, I am not too worried. Even if this is under the Disney banner, I don't think it is doomed. Just like Pixar films, don't suck (yet).
[boostventilator]
Before any US /.-ers mod me down for that remark on patriotic grounds (I'm not a Brit, but Aussie, btw), consider this:
The original Arthur Dent was very, very, very English - meaning that, no matter what happened, he approached it with the traditional (and much stereotyped) British "stiff upper lip".
Case in point: refer to the tale he told Fenchurch in "So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" about the biscuits in the railway station.
Adams' delightfully dry humour will only translate well if Arthur maintains the original Dent nature.
And let's face it, the dialogue is the best part about HHGTTG, in all it's forms - radio program, book, TV series, LP series, stage show and (hopefully) this movie! I doesn't need to be about great special effects as long as it's funny :)
Adams himself said the TV series was his least favourite adaption, but he was happy enough at the time to keep a heap of the main actors (Jones, Jones, Wing-Davey and Moore) and my guess it was he wanted the TV show (and presumably the movie) to have the same feel.
I know that's not possible right now, but I'm sure he intended it to keep its original look and feel.
I'm really looking forward to seeing if this movie version measures up to the dream :)
I devised my sig. going around Hyde Park corner on a moped
Of course. The movie is going to suck compared to the book, sure. But the the fact that it came from HHGTTG means that it'll be better than many of the movies coming out next summer.
Offtopic, but "Am I Evil" is by Diamond Head, not Metallica (Metallica's cover of it first on "Kill 'Em All). -IS
How about: ..from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
Your question ("Name one...") is a trap, because no matter what movies someone names, whether the adaptation was successful or not is completely subjective.
For example, take Lord of the Rings. Many "purists" complained about the changes Jackson and company made there--in some cases only to find out that the creators were actually savvier about the source material than the fanboys (I'm thinking specifically of the "Po-tay-toes" scene in The Two Towers, which was roundly condemned in Tolkien forums as an unwelcome addition but which in fact was straight from the books).
In any case, I thought Master and Commander was a tremendous movie, and as true to the heart of the Aubrey-Maturin novels as it is possible for a movie to be--despite a completely invented storyline that never took place in the novels, except in bits and pieces. Now, I'm sure there are many who have their complaints with the movie, but I have read all the books several times and don't think anyone's more "qualified" to judge than I.
demi
Is that the same publishing in which the scrabble set read "What do you get when you multiply 6 by 7"? Yes, I see how that is a reliable source.
Then again, my English version also has a picture of the heart of gold as a running shoe. More specifically, it has 4 fourths of a picture of the Heart of Gold as a running shoe. You need all four books to see the bigger picture.
Shachar
I had some hopes about this movie, but the more I hear about it, the more I worry. I hope they know what they are doing, this is like LOTR! I've always thought the Heart of Gold should look very sleek and sexy. Why? Because of the irony. Because of Zaphod. Zaphod loved making an impression, he only cares about style. The "boat" skimming the surface of the water with some fins? Silly and useless, but oh, so stylish. The sofa inside of a glass sphere? Impractical, but very stylish. Thus, the Heart of Gold should look sexy, because it is the one thing that *doesn't* need to be. Do you see why? It doesn't zip around like any other ship, it stays completely still. That is why it MUST look awesomely sexy. The one in the picture looks like a goddamn deathstar. Marvin looks a bit too cute. He's "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with", and that doesn't look too fun to be with. I like the casting of this movie, except (and I hate and fear to say this part) I don't like Ford Prefect being played by Mos Def.
xyzzy - operation overload.
No.. I believe they wrote that song for me. ;)
(You're the first person who ever commented me about this song)
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss
Well, I suppose you could talk about the cinematic splendour of Steven King adaptions. I would say that something like A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick (personally thought the last chapter of the book was shit anyway) or Godfather I & II by Francis Ford Coppola are better examples of movies that don't disappoint if you have read the book.
Well, I suppose you could talk about the cinematic splendour of Steven King adaptions.
I wasn't commenting on the grand nature of the original books. I was only pointing out that the movies made from them were faithful to the books.
A Spaceball? Oh shit, there goes the movie.
________________________
p.s FTWDGI, the above is a loosely adapted quote from this movie
p.p.s For Those Who Don't Get It (FTWDGI)
I swear, the lead designer for the movie must have a serious star wars death star fetish- look at marvin's head,look at the shape of the Hear of Gold.
Neither looks like anything like what the book said,but boy,do they sure look like the death star...
--- Nothing but Blood and Kosmos
That's utter crap, and anyone saying I Robot had only superficial connection to the books is missing the forest for the trees.
Asimov had great ideas, but, forgive me, he was a terrible writer. The Robot series literally put me to sleep several times while I was reading it. The books have about four plot points a piece, connected with enormous lengths of empty dialogue about embracing the future. I had better luck with the Foundation series, because it doesn't read like a brochure on robot acceptance, and the ideas were much more compelling. Furthermore, the Robot series (in particular I, Robot) aren't really one coherent plotline, but rather a series of thematically related short stories.
Anyway, the point is that the best you can hope for from a movie based on Asimov's books is complete thematic agreement, which I believe that I Robot accomplished very successfully. We have someone reluctant to accept technology open his mind to it in the end, the three robot laws leading to the development of the zeroth calling into question the logical flaws of humanity, and the idea of robotic sentience and how close they can come to approximating a human (and how close we WANT them to come).
We also have the interspersed action sequences, which may not have been your particular cup of tea, but certainly didn't detract from the main message of the movie. Notice that the casualty rate is very, very low, in agreement with the goals of the robots.
So we're left with a very enjoyable summer action movie with a plot that could've easily fit in as another story in I, Robot. It's probably not the script that Asimov would've written, thank god, but it is faithful to its namesake.
Yeah, I know I'm about to get moderated as redundant.
... personally I think it helps them act like morons. But, hey... look at how fantastic and historically accurate Pocahontas was, or how true to the French tragic spirit Little Mermaid came to be, or Beauty and the Beast?
It's actually a fine Disney tradition NOT to read the book the movie's about. It's supposed to help the artists be more creative. Supposed to help them think "Disney"
True Guide fans will be disappointed by the Disney product... but kids everywhere will love it. Just like they loved "Treasure Planet" which was so very accurate to the classic and the book, right?
[signature]
It looks like a teacup... remember that the infinite improbability drive was 'built' with the aid of a nice hot cup of tea.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Did you mean you're looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend?
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss
Ford Prefect wasn't meant to be black. I think everyone here knows that deep down. We also all know that Douglas Adams probably would not approve.
No, we do not all know that Douglas Adams probably would not approve. What makes you think that Douglas Adams would have cared as long as the character is fun?
Ever since I saw the movie Marvin, I have been bracing myself for the "Disneyness" of this adaptation.
I mean, how is Disney going to be able to make anything remotely as cynical and un-Disney as HHG? Disney is the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, for all intents and purposes. I hope that I'm wrong, but I refuse to get my hopes up. This movie could have been great if it was made by Terry Gilliam.
Our first hint of how wrong this is going to be is that the guys at Disney read that Marvin has a brain the SIZE of a planet, and they went and made him with a head SHAPED like a planet. A big-headed, cuddly, suicidal robot. He's just going to be the next R2D2 or Ewok. That's Disney molding HHG into a bland pre-teen product so the maximum number of dumb Americans will buy it on home video and let their brats sit and watch it a few hundred times.
I hate Disney.
foobar
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
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