Slashdot Mirror
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trailer
Rakkis writes "A new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer is available on the frontpage of Amazon.com. From IMDb: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy follows the travels of Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman), who is saved from the demolition of the Earth by his pal Ford Prefect (Mos Def). Ford is really an alien doing research for an updated edition of the universe's ultimate travel companion, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy opens April 29th.""
Direct link to SWF and a download?
AmazonFilms.swf
broken link to mov file
Cool. Does the final movie include the entire series?
see a Text Widget
Is that where white-trash aliens live?
Apparantly the trailer won't show in firefox. Might be my adblock filter though.
I've read the whole series of books multiple times, and I'd have to say, after seeing the trailer and reading reviews on AICN, it looks like its gonna be good.
- my userid is lower than yours
Where does this Humma Kavula charachter come from?, played by Malkovich.. Was it created especially for the movie? I like the trailer tho, I think Martin Freeman is great as Arthur, the look on his face when he hears that Zaphod and Prefect are related is brilliant.
to screw the fans over by forcing a site like Aint-It-Cool to shut down their download of the trailer just so that Amazon can have non-downloadable, lower resolution, crappier version up "exclusively."
Bite me, Eisner.
Opening on April 1 would have been more appropriate.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Anti-slash confirms: Slashdot's editors are dying.
In another devistating blow to slashdot's editors, it was learned that Michael was fired as an editor on slashdot. We at anti-slash are proud to have brought about this partial victory by our unrelenting jihad of bringing their injustices to light.
The specifics of this case are documented in this post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=138099&cid=11
Quote:
This can be confirmed by visiting http://slashdot.org/authors.pl. Michael is not listed.
Fact: Slashdot's editors are dying
Is it me, or did that trailer have very, very little showing that might've actually come from the books/radio show?
I mean, yeah, the intro was pretty much the books, but what the heck was all that stuff afterwards?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
I have mixed feelings about this. I mean every new adaptation of DNA's work is open to interpretation but....
when did Ford's thumb become a magic hitchhiking device?!?
Beyond that, It's not as bad as I feared although not as good as I hoped. I think Marvin looks kinda neat, different from the comic book version. Arthur looks about right although Zaphod I think is gonna kill me. I think they're also gonna play up a Arthur, Trillian romance more which I think will hurt it.
My bum will definitly be in a theater seat the moment this hits theaters though.
-Teiresias
I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed...
Phil
After watching the TV series, Mos Def as Ford Prefect is a bit wierd. From the few scenes in the trailer, Prefect seems a little too, ..., in focus. Whereas in the book and TV series, he also seemed a little out of it.
But then I just saw 5 seconds of Prefect. Can't wait for the movie
Bad english accent make Nigel go sumthin' sumthin'!
As long as she continues to treat him as a twit, I think it could work.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
...That they appear to be running around a quarry. This has not yet proven successful for British SF ;-)
Mos Def?? MOS DEF?? Who is this guy, and what did he do with Ford Prefect??? Where's a Vogon when you need them?
I've been waiting for this for so long. When I first heard the news I think a little pee came out...
http://spaces.msn.com/members/thedewmaker/
Panic!
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
without hearing anything, it looks great. If worse comes to worse, I can just go to see it with a good pair if earplugs in.
Performing the primary job of a trailer, it looks cool. The visuals seem rather impressive actually. I suppose this might be worth checking out in the theatres. I know it can't BE the novel. The book being too amazing. But perhaps it can at the very least do an ok job of entertaining me for a while.
Just a boy doing unproffesional IT work that's way above his head.
It looks much like the "old" trailer. Nothing to see here, move along...
you had me at #!
"Mostly harmless."
"42"
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Would you consider this a date movie? If so, which Linux distro does your date prefer? =-)
Strangely enough, my girlfriend (real live person; not a blow-up doll) likes H2G2 enough to sit through the movie. She also prefers Windows although the virus that infected her computer the other day might change that perception.
Plant a tree in a developing country.
Firefox 1.0 / Fedora Core 3
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Ford is really an alien doing research for an updated edition of the universe's ultimate travel companion, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Belgium, my cover's blown. That's it, I'm off home. Your planet sucked anyway, monkeymen!
Except for the ale, of course. And the cheese biscuits, you know those octagonal ones with the sesame seeds on, they were quite nice too. Still, anyway, I'm back to Betelgeuse...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
If I go to this film in the theater, and I see anyone sans towel, I'm going to be very depressed, and I will probably panic as a result.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
I'd hate to have our inside geek joke be revealed to the world. It's always been sort of a secret code, if you knew what it meant, then you belonged to the tribe. Now every avid moviegoer in the world will know what it means.
There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
Looks good, and I'm optimistic.
As a plus, this can legitimately deviate from the books/etc... the books were different from the original radio series, the BBC miniseries was different from both the book and the radio versions.... I'd expect nothing less than a movie that's different from all three previous versions.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
what about a new trailer? hmmm?
No, apparently it's a discontinued tent. Comes in white, though.
EricAnti-slash confirms: Slashdot's editors are dying.
In another devistating blow to slashdot's editors, it was learned that Michael was fired as an editor on slashdot. We at anti-slash are proud to have brought about this partial victory by our unrelenting jihad of bringing their injustices to light.
The specifics of this case are documented in this post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=138099&cid=
Quote:
This can be confirmed by visiting http://slashdot.org/authors.pl. Michael is not listed.
Fact: Slashdot's editors are dying
i had no idea he was playing Ford Prefect. i was mildly excited about this before, but now i can hardly contain myself.
-geeky fanboy x 2
Where the hell is Zaphod's second head????
Did they change Trillian's name to Trisha?
Bad vibes already :-(
who wants to bet that a bunch of you are going to say that once the movie comes out?
This looks retarded.
... does have a tendency to make lousy remakes of great originals. I wonder if they will manage to make a hash of 'The Hitchikers Guide'? That being said mucking this up should be impossible. That book is just so damn funny even an idiot should be able to make a at least a mildly funny film from it.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
It's a little hard to believe, but the movie is actually one of Douglous Adam's last works.
One thing the movie wont be is an adaption of the books and radio play all over again, it's something fresh new and different in the Hitchhiker universe. I'm looking forward to it very much.
If you're curious about what the plans for the movie were, and the process heading up to it you might want to check out "A Salmon of Doubt" which compiles Adam's final works, along with several letters and coorespondencies leading up to this movie amoung other things
I'm going to be forever wondering what the story behind half a cat and the rhino will be though...
MOS DEF? Ford Prefect? WTF?OMGLOL! That is the last person who I'd expect to be Ford Prefect.
Trillion had better be played by Dolly Parton in that case!
Mos Def is an extremely gifted musician and skilled actor. He was recently nominated for an Emmy as a lead actor in a mini-series for his work on Something the Lord Made on HBO. He has also been in numerous other films which you can look at here.
When will you people give this damn thing a rest? It was a bad book and it will be a bad movie. I'm tired of hearing about it.
Not related, though
4Z5TX
direct link to quicktime movie
G G_Trailer1_Book9273_0300.mov
http://bvbp-qt.vitalstream.com/HitchhikersGuide/H
people are repetitive creatures too scared to admit their own mistakes.
everything has been said, yet the mistakes continue to sting the pride.
Link to higher rez QT version
:)
Get it before the server asplodes
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
It looks like they're taking a LOT of creative liberties with the script. Too many perhaps?
For instance... in the preview, they show Ford introducing Arthur to Zaphod. In the book, the whole comedy of the scene is that they both play it cool. Not so in the preview.
It is my fear that Hollywood is going to ruin another perfectly good book. I'd like to go see it, but I'm going to be very sceptical.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!
Douglas Adams, on a number of occasions, said that he never intended the film to be a direct adaptation of the book. And, in the introduction of at least one of the books, he talked about how the books were different from the TV show which was different from the radio play. I wasn't all that impressed with the trailer. It looks like the story, which was always for me very cerebral, has been dumbed down into an action flick. I like action flicks as much as the next guy, but not every movie has to be one. The trailer does make it come across as very, MIBish. A fun movie, but nothing to write home about. Right now, I'm thinking that Sideways is going to turn out to be a lot funnier than Hitchhiker.
assuming the trailer gives the sense of the film,
then from the macho voiceover announcing the film like it's some sort of action flick, via the sheer cowardice of zaphod's hidden second head, through slapstick, slapstick ffs!, onto the apparent absence of that which defines the h2g2 genre, the book, i don't mean the object in the hand, i mean the voice, the calm measured, well spoken voice that tells you that space is big, really big....
just,
no
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/HitchhikersGuide/HG G_Trailer1_Book9273_3000.mov
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
I think the book won't be as good as the radio show.
Frickin' niggers, stealing a white man's role.
The book doesn't describe his skin color, but it doesn't mention Ford stealing hubcaps off of ships, either.
from http://macromedia.com, and install for firefox, it worked for me
... I counted only one head :(
arthur, what if i told you that (buffering)
attention, people of earth: I regret to inform you that (buffering)
anyway, I hope there is less of the slapstick humor in the rest of the film and more of the ideas and dialogue that make the series so great. speaking of slapstick humor, anyone notice the book 'slapstick' by vonnegut under arthur's alarm clock?
initial impressions: not yet entirely disappointed
The official site has actual quicktime / WMV trailers in multiple sizes:
http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/main.html
thanks for ruining it. now all I can think of when I will see the movie is the political correctness of the movie instead of enjoying it.
I don't really mind the exclusivity clause.
What I have a problem with is the fact that, instead of providing it in a decent format and proper frame size so that anyone could view it, snag it to their desktop, they deliberately tried to make it un-downloadable (at least until somebody posts the file name, at which point I'm sure Slashdot will get another cease-and-desist letter for linking it that way).
Putting the file out in crappy resolution, in a shitty encoding format, and deliberately making it hard to enjoy the trailer don't help their cause. Disney should know this by now. Hell, even Apple have finally fixed the problems quicktime used to have.
The only way Disney could have done anything worse would have been to release it as a Realplayer file.
I was almost on the verge of installing Flash.
Was it just me, or did the Vogons look like something out of Farscape?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
can't wait. nothing in the world is perfect, and no movie dealing with this book could meet everyone's expectations.
but it sure looks like they could have made worse rubbish, judging from the trailer. huzzah.
MORTAR COMBAT!
MIRROR: http://www.djtouvan.com/
Ok, world blows up, bits flying, "don't panic", "coming soon yadda yadda". Ends. I see people talking about what the cast look like and stuff- am I missing the correct trailer?
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Does anyone out there have a recipe for a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster that can be mixed on Earth?
I'm having trouble finding Ol' Janx Spirit at my local liquor store, and don't even get me started on Algolian Suntiger teeth...
This sig is false.
I couldn't ask for a better present. DNA is probably my favorite humorist, (followed closely by Terry Pratchett). I'm really looking forward to this film. This is going to be my birthday party... going to see DNA's imagination on the big screen!
you wouldn't keep trying to engage my enthusiasm, because I haven't got one.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
But what about the towel? I didn't see him using a towel to flag down the ship... towels, as everyone knows, are a very important thing. =)
-Vendal Thornheart
The Sirens Of Titan
Hoopy: really together guy
Frood: really amazingly together guy
Example usage: "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is."
I think it would be really cool for everyone to show up for the preview wearing a bathrobe and carrying a towel.
Blah blah blah - it's different from the book. I don't care if Douglas Adams himself penned the screenplay and intended all versions to be different. I'm going to bitch and moan about a scene taken out of context from the trailer without knowing how it fits into the story!
This is a piece of entertainment from my childhood! I somehow believe that I have "rights" as a fan to influence creative decisions by the studio and that this version might erase all love I had for the original, because appearently I can't hold two things in my brain at once. Blah blah blah!
In the first shot, we see Arthur's alarm clock going off at "7:42". Clearly, someone is on the ball!
Now we just have to hope the movie is actually good! (Or at least fun.)
-Mark
Don't panic!!!!
This sig is false.
I could swear that I laughed a lot reading the books. Didn't I? In this trailer the only things that appear to be intended to be "funny" are people getting hit with things, falling down, etc. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.
--- What?
Get some priorities!
As soon as I finished watching it I sent the link to my girlfriend only to find it has been taken down :(
That server is fast, but in case it goes down here's an eMule link: ed2k://|file|Hitchhikersguide.mov|8144493|9DD64CA5 317607F0D2F5994D4D7AE39A|/
for those that haven't already seen it, the first trailer is here http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/hitchhike rsguidetothegalaxy/
and me with a brain the size of a planet, I have to go and pay to see this thing? I guess I'll have to, right? Life, don't tell me about life.
Adams himself wrote the screenplay. [..]
/. article about this movie has one of you out-of-the-loop guys repeating this and getting modded up.
Everything in the movie has Adams' sanction,
NO HE DIDN'T! NO IT DOESN'T!
Every fucking
He wrote A screenplay, not this screenplay. He wrote what HE considered the final draft. And then, he died.
He had been fighting the studio for years to have a screenplay that he liked, and he managed to finally write one that had compromises from both parties, then, he died. And THEN the studio had "changes" made. We can't know what those are, but wanna bet that their compromises suddenly went away?
I'm so fucking tired of seeing your delusion about this being his words modded up. I used to reply with links to the statements of the parties invilved detailing the chronology of the rewrites, but my rebuttals went unnoticed and your wishfull thinking stays modded up. Shit!
You can't take the sky from me...
Looks like Amazon really wasn't ready for primetime. They appear to have quietly taken the video down. So much for that.
I am a fan of the books, and the original low-budget British series. The British version worked in the same way the books did, cheeky, slightly "nod nod wink wink" and so on. The makers of the series were careful to follow not only the plot of the books, but the intent as well.
This new version looks so, so, hollywood-ized (i.e. done for a quick cash-grab)
Ford Prefect...black? I dun think so.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I just noticed that the time arthur woke up was 7:42..
Surprised it was an alarm clock and not his digital watch..
another great English comedy turned into American tripe
I wonder how far down, theoretically, a post can be modded.
Oh, wait a minute -- they didn't mention Ford's race at all in the radio show. Hmm, seems like only a bigot would've assumed he was white.
The US, for some stupid reason, decided to go month/day/year instead of the internationally used day/month/year. But, hey, what'd you expect?
http://dijjer.org/get/http://filebox.vt.edu/users/ jkbrooks/pictures/hitchhikersguide.mov
Actually, I think the world should declare an extra day every 4 years that is inbetween april 1st and april 2nd. We'll call..okay this is genious...april 1 and a half. Or April Fools-Leap. That way such difficult descions about when to release movies too earily or software that isn't quite ready, or when to not take out the trash, will be fully accounted for.
it's been out for months.
"gee. how can i get on slashdot..?"
moron.
All the character names, 'mostly harmless', Sass, hoopy, frood, towels, an aching diode, 'is just this guy', whales and flowerpots 'oh, no... not again', ... if the only geek code you're able to pull out of H2G2 (itself, a geek code) is the number 42, you're not trying hard enough.
I blocked those stupid Amazon Flash movies with the Adblock extension long ago. Unblocking content is a damned annoying process. Well, here I go.
Compare what's on the Amazon site to what you linked to. Two entirely different trailers.
He's a hip-hop artist, not a rapper. There's a big difference. He makes his living talking intricately. I think he can handle a fucking English accent should the director demand it.
He's not the same kind of "artist" you see on MTV with gold teeth and platinum chains and shit, you ignorant fucking dipshit.
Go back and watch the trailer again. His second head appears briefly in like the last 10 seconds of the trailer, popping up from underneath his regular head.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
It looks excellent, and the choice for arthur dent is spot on.
http://www.robotii.co.uk/
You are an ass for naming yourself that and for writing that totally unfunny post. You are almost as funny as Adams, you poor sod.
Is it just me or does the theme music sound very much like the music in Men in Black?
Joby Talbot is clearly stealing from Danny Elfman.
How the fuck is he supposed to pretend to be from Guildford now?
Slashdot: News for Nerds, Stuff that matters only to them
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Don't panic. It ain't worth a coronary.
For the zillionth time, no:
You can't take the sky from me...
He wrote A screenplay, not this screenplay. He wrote what HE considered the final draft. And then, he died.
You should read the rather funny self-interview conducted by the guy who wrote the final screenplay. It's apparent from that interview--without being explicitly stated--that Adams's final draft was never going to be filmed without further modification. That's just the way the movie business works. Even the "final" approved script gets changed during filming because of (A) inspiration of the director to expand a scene, add a new scene, etc., or (B) the discovery that a scene that reads brilliantly on the page just doesn't work when filmed.
Douglas Adams wrote a lot of great stuff, but he couldn't figure out how to structure it to make it work as brilliantly in movie form as it had in book and radio play form. The eventual screenplay consisted largely of reorganizing Adams's own material into a shootable script. Where changes deviating from Adams's own writings had to be made, they deferred to his intentions as much as possible, by referring to his notes, unfinished musings, half-written scenes, etc.
Is there some stuff in the script that wasn't written by Douglas Adams himself? Definitely. Did they likely cut out stuff Adams would have kept? Probably. Did they put back in stuff that Adams had cut? Definitely.
Unfortunately, due to his untimely death, we'll never know what Douglas Adams himself would have thought of this movie. If you'd asked me five years ago if a movie of HHGG could ever be anything other than horrible, I'd have answered with an unequivocal NO. But Peter Jackson's version of The Lord of the Rings has made me change my mind. I think it can be good. Will it? I don't know, but I'll withhold my judgement until I actually see it.
That this wasn't left to George Lucas to create ;)
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
that it's going to suck.
Um, I worked in a theater a decade ago and unless you've got a baby with you their going to wonder what the towel is for.
With out getting into the grissly details, at the theater I worked for a patron liked Linda Hamilton (T2) a little more than is legal in public.
THey messed up the cast for Ford. I refuse to go see this movie even though I loved the book.
Slashdot 1|0 Productivity
when did Ford's thumb become a magic hitchhiking device?!?
Someone down below posted a link to an illegal higher res of the same trailer, and on the bigger, less compressed (fuck you Amazon) trailer you can see that Ford is wearing some sort of thumb-ring device that is the source of the illumination which you refer to as magical in origin.
Zaphod I think is gonna kill me.
When I first saw pictures of Zaphod a couple weeks ago, I was exrtremely annoyed that he had just the one head and two arms. But in the afformentioned higher-res trailer, you can not only see the third arm that was hidden by his presidential robes, but it appears that his second head is under the primary head, and is shown to express a will of it's own and controlls the third arm to engage what I assume is the Infinate Improbability Drive.
You can't take the sky from me...
I'd pay cash money for a recording of the original BBC radio series, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Apple has, as always, excellent quality hi-res trailers on their web site, all distributed by Akamai.
I can't understand why you are punishing yourselves with low-res flash and wmv crap distributed by low-speed slashdotted servers?
Apple Movie Trailers
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Trailer
the burger'n'fries set.
I'd really, really appreciate someone else hosting this for me. Really. In fact, so much that I would happily sacrifice all karma deserved to me for getting around Amazon's bullshit just so that it stays up for long enough for everyone to get it.
That said, here you go.
My apologies for the crappy resolution, but the audio is perfect.
Forget the movie, every trailer so far has mentioned 42 in some way. In case you missed it, re-watch the teaser trailer and look at the cluster of stars in the upper left hand corner at the end.
It says so somewhere in at least one of the books.
I plan on watching it the day it comes out.... Maybe twice.
Anyone else notice what time he woke up?
7:42
Or maybe 4/29/2005 but maybe that's just pushing it....
You have been warned.
Apple only has the teaser up, not the (new) trailer. I wish Apple did have the new trailer up, since the Amazon Flash isn't working for me.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
same beard, same color of hair....2 heads, 3 arms, yep!...the same
Moderation +3
40% Insightful
20% Flamebait
10% Troll
What do the choices in the moderation drop-down boxes mean?
# Troll -- A Troll is similar to Flamebait, but slightly more refined. This is a prank comment intended to provoke indignant (or just confused) responses. A Troll might mix up vital facts or otherwise distort reality, to make other readers react with helpful "corrections." Trolling is the online equivalent of intentionally dialing wrong numbers just to waste other people's time.
Internet troll
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
An internet troll is a person who sends duplicitous messages hoping to get angry responses, or a message sent by such a person. The term derives from the phrase "trolling for newbies" and ultimately from trolling for fish; it first appeared on Usenet. The term is frequently abused to slander opponents in heated debates and is frequently misapplied to those who are ignorant of etiquette
# Flamebait -- Flamebait refers to comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage. If someone is not-so-subtly picking a fight (racial insults are a dead giveaway), it's Flamebait.
Flamebait
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Flamebait (aka TrollBait) is a message posted to an Internet discussion group, such as a newsgroup or a mailing list, with the intent of provoking an angry response (a "flame").
You can't take the sky from me...
the inofeensive terminology dejour is manufactured housing
tornado humor ranks right up there with gay jokes and dead Chris Reeves walking zombie tentacle rapist expositions.
I mentioned this on my Web site after midnight.
I assume this leaked version (QT required) is similiar to Amazon's SWF copy (not loading the trailer for me).
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I recently purchased the DVD version of the BBC's television production of HHGTTG. I would say to anyone who loved the books and intends to see this new film, be prepared for changes. Adams liked to tweak things, and according to what I saw on the DVD, the books have been revised and changed over time as Adams fiddled with bits here and there to refine them.
The background information about the making of the series, and about Douglas Adams is fascinating. It reveals some of Adams' manic-depressive personality. It talks about how Adams was not one to write a book and then want to translate that 100% to another format; he welcomed change and refinement with the TV series, and based on what I saw in the interviews, I think he enjoyed the opportunity to revise and rewrite HHGTTG yet again on the big screen.
Adams' only problem, according to the interviews and behind the scenes information, was an awful writer's block at the start of any project. The infamous line about loving deadlines, especially the sound they make as they go whooshing by, was very true for Adams personally.
Adams was a performer; he didn't really want to be a writer. He started out performing, acting, doing live comedy. At least with writing, his particular quirky sense of humor reached many thousands of people who revere him for what he accomplished, personal foibles aside.
If you saw the BBC series, Adams was featured in two different spots. One, he was in a suit counting money while walking out of the bank. The other, he was throwing his money away and walking into the water naked.
I'll bite, where in the book does it say what colour Ford Prefect is?
I have, for reasons I can't fanthom, misplaced that book (I have the other 4, where the helll id no1 go?), so I can't quote.
But I seem to remember a mention of his skin turning black when he becomes a penguin while onboard the Heart Of Gold. Maybe it was a comment from Arthur in the TV show or the radio series...
Anyway: Did he sound like an American rapper in the original radio show? No.
What did he look like in the TV series? It's not as though there is no source material for his appearance that was created with the direct involvment of the author.
Hey, maybe Mos Def is gonna do a kick-ass job. One thing is clear: Casting a black guy for that role is a deviation from the established appearance of the character. No matter how unable you are to recall a specific mention of skin tone in the book.
P.S. I've been defending the choice of Michael Clark Duncan for King Pin in Daredevil on the basis that the definening visual characteristics for Kingpin are size and baldness. I can't think of one actor with a better morphology for that role than Duncan, therefore the change in skin colour is unimportant. But for Ford: It's not as though they're running out of gangly, wild eyed actors. Casting him is a CLEAR case of tokenism, make no mistake about it. When you release a movie in the states, you HAVE to have a black actor, otherwise, you're a racist! The irony of this escapes most people, but that is usually the case.
You can't take the sky from me...
Zaphod's second head simply hasn't been created in CG yet.
Funny, I wonder what that thing coming out from under Zaphod's chin in the trailer is then... the with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, etc.
You can't take the sky from me...
Large movie trialer available here
Zeig Heil, 'eh?
I always thought that although HHGTTG was a damned good series of books, the two Dirk Gently books were slightly more intelligent and more fun for grown-ups.
It seems to me that "Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency" and "The long dark tea time of the soul" would be more suitable for a movie. More dialogue, less need for a narrator, better developed characters. Not a MIB-type Hollywood action movie, but a nice film nonetheless.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Here you go :
http://dicion.net/hhg.avi
my parent post does not fit any description of a flamebait post, yet, it's "-1 flamebait".
/. needs a written exam before giving away mod points, that way we could weed out those who are too ignorant or stupid to use them right.
I think
Here's a hint: Use of profanity does not automatically euqate an act of flamebaiting. It can be used as a genuine expression of frustration and exasperation.
You can't take the sky from me...
It works for other things, too, besides Sci-Fi. Green Day's recent video for Boulevard of Broken Dreams is a good example. Everything was done on 35mm film, and they used rear projection to set up a backdrop, treadmills to have the guys walking along, and props on casters being pulled across the stage by ropes. The end result is a very retro-looking bit of cinematography. Oh, and the scratches and cigarette burns on the film are also real.
www.wavefront-av.com
Here are two direct links,
One to the HUGE trailer
One to the SMALL trailer.
Quicktime format. See the site for the in-between ones and read the source code on the pop-up.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
Note that these are the older trailers, if you want the newest ones you gotta use the flash...
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
The Amazon link is a.) overwhelmed, and b.) flash. Eww!
s html
t chhikersguide.mov
Enjoy the following mirrors:
-http://216.69.167.204/hitchhikersguide-1.mov
-http://www.waxy.org/archive/2005/02/16/hitchhik.
-http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jkbrooks/pictures/hi
Just from the preview I "think" (*wince*) its going to suck.
listen to the words... and the tone of the announcer....
not a good sign, they are sensationalizing it. Most people want to see this because they know the book, most people dont want to see this because it is a movie(im sure there are some, but that is few)...
Also, mos def wasnt british sounding enough, I expect a british author to have very british sounding people in the movie. (esp. Arthur and Trillian)
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
This must be Thursday. On thursday we decide to go see MPAA fare.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Ok, first off, my opinion of you: Unintelligent, unable to grasps concepts that differ from the standard labels.
Now that that is out of the way, the meat of the discussion:
So, since being qualified isn't enough... what exactly does a black actor have to do to NOT be the 'token' ?
Hmm... maybe the criteria I NAMED IN MY FIRST POST IN THIS THREAD? Maybe?
Michael Clark Duncan as Kingpin: The only actor around that has the character's stature. He looked the part better than anyone, even with a different skin colour. Or playing a part that hasn't been established as being of a different colour before, or having a part that isn't basically showing up, looking black, then being dismissed while the actual characters with something to do and things to say do their thing.
But, you were unable to understand this the first time I explained it, so I don't expect you to understand this very simple concept this time around. you keep your binary "racist / politically correct" train of thought.
You can't take the sky from me...
Apple's Quicktime website had this trailer available months ago in better quality! http://www.apple.com/trailers/touchstone/hitchhike rsguidetothegalaxy/
This is going to be a catastrophe.
The Vogons are all wrong, the ships are supposed to be uglier and yellower, the voice more menacingly metallic and vicious..
In what way does the Heart of Gold resemble a sneaker?
The Guide is wrong, too fragile..
I have no problem with the casting, strangely, I can understand 'Phil' being a smarmy American, in fact IIRC in the original BBC TV series his accent was a mildly butchered American accent.
This just looks terrible. And don't get me started on Marvin.
They'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
but i'm 35 and have been a fan since i first saw the series on PBS in the 80's, and I can't WAIT to see this. it looks great, and i'm excited to see a new interpretation. if you've got a problem with it, you need to either (a) grow up, or (b) take a frikken antidepressent or something.
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
Zinda! His face black, his eyes red!
The key difference between a Programmer and a Senior Programmer is that one of them is Mexican.
No. Marvin actually had a brain the size of a planet. He just didn't carry it all around in his head. How smart is that?
The story, in fact, is NOT about Arthur Dent, but rather, about The Hitchhiker's Guide itself.
:P
just a thought..
Did you know that "FTW" ("for the win") is a direct translation of "Sieg Heil"?
can't wait. nothing in the world is perfect, and no movie dealing with this book could meet everyone's expectations
What about Ford Perfect?
see the quicktime trailer
here
You know . Like, show up.
get a liff :)
... is that, while it has probably been bastardized a bit, I am intending to go see it.
This is praise indeed, because there are an enormous lot of films about that recycle stuff I am very fond of, and few of them have been able to persuade me that I should see them.
Both versions of the Punisher fail to grasp the basic concept that Frank is a soldier. I expect this sort of sloppy behaviour in a Dolph movie, but John, what were you thinking?
I went to see Ep I, and it is only watchable because there is 5 minutes in it where you see a Sith/Jedi who isn't old/disabled/old and disabled.
Electra is clearly a steaming pile of crap.
Constantine is apparently so bad that Neo's acting is one of it's few redeeming features (?!?!?)
LoEG has had Tom Sayer forced up it's arse in order to make USAians go see it.
FF doesn't do Ben with CGI.
In the Avengers, in the scene introducing Steed, when the orignal theme played, all I could think of was how incredibly cool Patrick MacNee is. Luckily I was quicky distracted by how fucking ridiculous that bowler hat looked. Also: Uma, my dear, you are very very hot indeed, but nobody in the world is as hot as Diana Rigg was in the 60s. I mean, I must (reluctantly) admit that I think that Cher is not a bad singer, but when she did a Roy Orbison cover it was just embarassing. Know your limits!
Thunderbirds did the ships OK, maybe I should watch it and put a bag over my head during the character bits.
I am thankful that I have bought every Flaming Carrot comic I have ever seen, and so was absolved from having to see Mysterymen because I've already paid my dues to Bob Burden.
The Magic Roundabout will be cited in my defence when I am charged with burning my local cinema down.
I all of this, I can only give praise to one:
Hellboy was quite good.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Flash is not a movie format - more likely the jerks are trying to hide format and source of the real trailer.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Really, I would have expected that Battlestar Galactica would have demonstrated that changing things can be good. On one hand, everyone seems jaded with the lack of originality in media, but on the other raise a fuss when someone tries something different.
If it's even remotely good, enjoy it. If not, shrug, and life will go on.
sig fault
No it fucking can't, you bullshitting bastard.
THAT is flamebait.
Notice the lack of any content aside from insults? The randomness of it all? Take notes now!
You can't take the sky from me...
Is it just me, or is this not the same trailer that has been on Quicktime's trailer site for damn near two months?
Shouldn't it say at the beginning of the trailer that it's "Based on the celebrated radio series, novel, LPs [now there's a blast from the past], TV series and towel"? My daughter (5) listenes to episodes from the radio series every night when she goes to bed. Boy is she going to be as stoked as me about seeing the movie!
"...we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that." B.Spears 2003
Are you just one of those people who refuses to ever concede *anything*?
w anttocallMosDef'srace-looking alien from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Beetlegeuse.
No, you are, because FORD WASN'T BLACK BEFORE! Sheesh, stop trying to nitpick your way into justifying the absurb possibility that they had miscast him the first time around.
He was a caucasian-looking alien from a small planet somewhere in the vicinity of Beetlegeuse, now he's a black/african-american/negroid/whateverthefuckyou
You have people upset at this because it's an unnecessary change to a well known and visually documented story whom the producers of the big-screen adaptation refer to as being followed as closely as possible, you have others who don't like it because they don't like rappers, and others because they simply don't like black people.
I point out the unnecessary change, I get fucktards and loosers calling "teh rac1st!1!!". Which is an easy troll, therefore to be expected.
There are others somehow desperate to DEFEND the change by pretending that it isn't a change at all, which is dumb.
You want to start on the penguin thing? Ok: Arthur faces Ford turning into a penguin, he mentions a colour change. Penguins are black and white, their ventral feathers being the white ones. Since he's facing Arthur, a colour change that would be most noticeable would be the sudden apparation of a snow-white patch, not the slight darkening of his skin. I get some delusional person going "but penguin black is blacker than human black", and frankly, that's wanker talk.
You can't take the sky from me...
While not at all relevant, I'm taking this opportunity to ask anyone if they've got a recording of Moore's EPs recorded as Marvin, "Metal Man" and "Marvin, I Love You".
Does anyone have Moore's EPs recorded as Marvin, "Metal Man" and "Marvin, I Love You"?
I make mistakes. Don't we all?
1. Why is Zaphod played by Chad Kroeger?
2. Why isn't Bill Bailey playing Ford? http://www.bill-bailey.co.uk/
3. Who thinks dullard Martin Freeman is funny even in the slightest?
4. Why isn't the guy playing Ford not twitchy and mad enough?
5. Why has a comedy been turned into an action flick?
42. Why wasnt the Beeb version good enough?
I mean DNA's dead, why can't they just let the idea go, or do they have to strain every last dollar out the guy...
I re-read the book when the movie came out and, yes, Bombadil bored me shitless. In fact, in many areas Tolkien just went on and on and on with no apparent sense of direction. He needed good editor.
I haven't read the LOTR trilogy in over 20 years (coming up on 25 years since I read it, at this point). One of the reasons I haven't been in a big hurry to re-read it is the memory of the horribly boring parts. Tom Bombadil's part just completely flummoxed me when I read FOTR, and the endless elven songs and poems that go on for pages and pages just bored the snot out of me. Even the descriptions of the physical locations could drag on for pages.
I have the extended DVDs of all three movies, and I remember on one of the documentaries, they talked about moving Shelob's Lair from TTT to ROTK. They described how Tolkien pretty much abandoned Frodo and Sam for the first half of ROTK, and how that worked in the book, but you could never get away with that in a movie.
Well, I'm here to say that it pissed me off when I read the books. I couldn't believe Tolkien was wasting so much time on other stuff when Frodo and Sam were SO CLOSE to Mount Doom. By the time I got to the end of ROTK, I was relieved to be done with the trilogy, not excited about the greatness of what I'd read. Tolkien definitely needed some editing, and that's what Peter Jackson & Co. did. I thought their results were terrific. Anybody who wants the unvarnished, original Tolkien can still go buy the books.
> And while I haven't watched the TV series,
> I recall people saying that Ford was black in
> that as well.
Those people don't seem to have seen it as well,
because no, he definitely was not black.
Even the most superficial googling reveals that.
http://www.floor42.com/Gallery/HHG_TV_Series/
I'd say we start listening to you an this matter ;-)
when you've learned to distinguish Ford and Zaphod
This looks to be another I Robot-like fiasco where original story is blatantly disregarded for cinematographic eye candy.
Help.
(Long live the BBC teleseries.)
Welcome our new hoopy frood overlords. (It had to be done, sorry)
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
If this movie has been ruined beyond a shadow of a doubt (not saying that it has, just that the trailer hints towards that), and tries to trash my beloved books, radio, and t.v sieries, then this is proof once and for all in the non-existance of god. Hear me out:
God:" I refuse to prove I exist, for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
Me: Ah, but you see, by ruining the 'Hitchhikers guide', beyond the tamperings of mere mortals should be able to achieve, you proved you do in fact exist. Therfore you do not. QED.
God: "Oh no, I did no thing of that" and promptly vanishes in a poof of logic.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
"I seem to be having this tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle. As soon as I reach some kind of definite policy about what is my kind of radio show and my kind of book, and my kind of tv series, people start blowing up my kind of movie and throwing me out of their kind of movie theatres. It's so hard to build up anything coherent. Well, I'm sorry, all this must sound rather fatuous to you."
What is a Hrung, anyways?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
I watched the wrong one - I just followed the link and somehow saw the stupid old trailer again.
Later, someone happened to link me to the Amazon trailer... and to my surprise it looks like a pretty fun film! I love Martin Freeman from The Office, he was my favourite character and is terrific to watch.
you had me at #!
You.
Are.
Unable.
To understand.
My point.
Therefore: You are stupid (or a troll, which is the same). Because it's a simple point, and I've explained it repeatedly.
I make the stupid call thusly: can't understand something simple after repeated explanation and multiple examples? Stupid.
I'm not calling you names to piss you off, or to get you to respond, I'm explaining to you that you are apparently not very smart.
Either prove to me that you aren't stupid, or live with your dumbness. I'm often surrounded by persons of lesser intellect, I'm used to it by now, but I can see how you would be in denial about it.
You care a lot that Ford should be caucasian. I don't. I think it's irrelevant.
Completely off.
Your whole argument is based on erroneous foundations.
And you obviously don't think it's irrelevant, you're here arguing, obviously giving a damn. I think, in fact, that you are racist, you are happy that he's black, and you are defensive because I have a very valid reason why he shouldn't be. That would make you a racist hypocrite instead of an idiot. Which would explain your demonstrated ability to type words. You could simply be a troll, your behaviour, with the insults and the repeated baiting, is certainly troll-like. Hard to tell if you're attacking me with unfounded claims of racism because you're a troll or because you're projecting.
I don't care that he'd be caucasian. I care that he'd be like he has always been, which happens to be caucasian. There is a subtle difference. But, that seems to be some kind of abstract concept the likes of which escapes most mortals... or just a vocal minority of very dense people.
Do you understand that part? Can you understand THAT part? That I don't care that Ford be white, I care that the casting director of the "faithfull" movie cast his actors according to the established look of said characters if they are going to claim faithfullness?
Is this too complicated?
Maybe some pseudocode:
if (!theSame) {!faithfull;}
which is different from what you "understood", which was "if (!white) {bad;}".
So you're saying because your first experience of HG2G is the TV series, in which Ford was played by a white actor, that it's a deviation for him to be played by a black one?
No.
You're wrong a lot, especially when you go "you are saying that". For a brit, you sure have a hard time understanding the english language.
I'm saying that it's FUCKING RETARDED (oh no! bad words and capitals, oh my) to pretend that he has never been described since I can show you pictures and an animated line drawing of him that comes from a production that directly involved the author while he was alive.
You, and others, have a hardcore quasi-religious need to have the description in black and white (now, why didn't I just say "words"?), on paper. Well toots, the story is also in audio, and in audio-visual format. Accept it.
I find it tremendously idiotic to selectively ignore the visual information available to you when discussing how the character look. Therefore, I pass the following judgement on people who act that way: They must be stupid to do something so stupid.
I like the idea of him obliviously using an american accent for years without realizing he was the only one.
You... do know he doesn't actually speak english, right? I mean... There was a passage in the books, something about fishes (they were yellow, BTW, you seem to care a lot about colours that are specifically mentioned in writing)...
You can't take the sky from me...
When you read this description, you sense the frustration that people have when they meet Ford Prefect. He acts and looks just ever so slightly different from his fellow Britons.
If he were black, it would have been mentioned right away. After all, being black would signal that his ancestors were not native Britons, which Ford was assumed to be.
If Ford were meant to be black, I am sure Douglas Adams would have offered it as a possible reason of his strangeness, with another sentence tacked on to the end of the quote I've given above.
Of course, there are more obvious reasons too. Don't black people have curly hair, not wiry? Don't black people usually have black hair, not ginger?
Besides, reread the quote starting at "His skin seemed to be pulled backwards from the nose" with a black person in mind. Don't these sentences now sound racist, as if Douglas Adams was describing black physiology as something freakish?
Just because I was flamed doesn't mean I was baiting for it.
From TFFAQ:
Flamebait refers to comments whose sole purpose is to insult and enrage. If someone is not-so-subtly picking a fight (racial insults are a dead giveaway), it's Flamebait.
You can't take the sky from me...
Never forget to bring a towel!
I could explain to you what that means, but forget it. Poor reasoners don't want help. So instead, I'm going to fight fire with fire, and make the same claim to ethnic knowledge you did, yet end up with the exact opposite conclusion. And I'm going to do it better than you too. Watch and learn:
"Both ethnic groups" you say, parent poster? Well, I happen to live in the City of Toronto, home to eighty ethnic groups and speakers of a hundred different languages.
This is a city where I hear Swahili on the subway, Mandarin and Cantonese on the radio, and Dutch at work. My Wal-Mart sells died beans, both in West Indies and East Indies styles. I happened to be the only person in my 400-unit apartment building to actually have been born in the city I live in. No wonder the United Nations has designated Toronto as the World's "most ethnically-diverse city" five times in a row.
Now, even with my day-to-day exposure to a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural experience, my brain screamed but.. but.. Ford Prefect is white! when I saw the movie trailer.
Face it. You can work, shop, play, and learn among people from all over the world and still believe that Ford Prefect is white.
Bow to my superior argumentation skills, parent poster!
And why exactly do you put one work of fiction above the other?
I'd watch it!
(Of course, wouldn't that make Jim Carrey the token loon?)
Will bars start serving a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster?
My guess is yes, well, if the movie does well. I suspect it will do quite well.
Arther is played by the (only) cool guy, Tim (aka Martin Freeman), in the series "The Office".
:D
Yeah!
He does have a second head and it is clearly displayed in the trailer, albiet only in two instances and only for a split second each. I managed to grab a snapshot of the first time it is shown:
http://homepage.mac.com/kiddailey/images/zaphods_
As you can see, the head is popping out from underneath his first one.
Oh, I dunno... I think DNA mispronounced a number of names (i.e. "Zay-fod" instead of "Zahfud") in his own book... but he was a brit and they speak american funny :)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
The trailer is also available on apple.com/trailers (bit late, I know)
If he's any good, we'll notice. If he isn't, we'll notice.
Apparently he is good, as was noticed by the fucking Emmy committee, who has a lot more credibility than your sorry ass will ever have. Take your troll somewhere else. I wasn't over-endulging his abilities at all, I was simply stating commonly known fact.
Bow to my superior argumentation skills, parent poster!
Read the post you're replying to, child poster. I mentioned that I'd dated other ethnic groups because I was asked if I'd ever met a black person.
That particular line you quoted then goes on to say:
But really I just wanted to clear away the aspertions on my social exposure. Who I am or where I live have nothing to do with the validity of my arguments one way or another. They stand on their own so please focus on them.
And if you really want to discuss reasoned arguments, this would not have been an "Appeal to Authority" as I referred only to myself. It might have been an appeal to actual experience however.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The Director of the Incredibles was on the Radio last night and mentioned that the reason why animated films are often so good is because you can't muck about with the script after you've started because every frame is so expensive.
After rendering begins, yes -- but before the animators and the geeks hit the computers, The Incredibles went through a number of significant changes as well. Check out The Art of the Incredibles for some of these. Two examples:
1. Bob and Lucious' late-night heroics was originally intended to be a night at a bar -- after Bob tore down an abandoned building for a workout.
2. Syndrone was originally a minor second-rate villian killed after the first act.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
That wasn't flamebait either.
The parent of that post, however, was a troll.
You can't take the sky from me...
Well, it's the next day, I consider the breath taken.
Re-read the thread of posts and try and view them as if they were someone else's. See the bit where you begin your post with "Ok, first off, my opinion of you: Unintelligent, unable to grasps concepts that differ from the standard labels." This is in response to a fairly mild question.
Firstly: El-Spectre said "So, since being qualified isn't enough... what exactly does a black actor have to do to NOT be the 'token' ?"
That question:
And was followed with an accusation of racism. Them's fighting words, you know.
Let's ask webster.com what they have to say on the subject of tokens:
And more specifically, of tokenism:
The token black guy phenomenon is real. It is a practice common in Hollywood to include an underused character, usually dispatched as quickly as possible, of east-african ancestry. In this instance, instead of including a black character and killing him in the first reel, they simply cast a black guy in the role of a formely white main character. Saves the trouble of writing the token a few lines before killing him off, and it serves as a surprisingly effective act of subterfuge to disguise the tokenism.
It is less... half-assed, but it's still a token black guy in the movie: It is the inclusion, for the sake of inclusion, of a black guy. He is not the most logical choice for that role because he does not look like the previous casting choice for the role, unlike all the other actors who do look like the previous actors in their roles looked.
Now, what do I mean by this? You, and that asshole El-Spectre decided to be prejudiced and instead of attempting to understand my point, went the lazy way and interpreted this as hstility towards black people.
You are mistaken.
I had explained myself to what I considered a satisfactory level of clarity in the previous posts. Therefore, his brainless reaction to these posts, not to mention his hostile question based on a false premise, led me to an obvious conclusion: he ain't smart.
I'll give you a chance, because you do not appear to be that dumb. I know I've said otherwise in the heated discussion, but I feel now that the lack of intelligence displayed in your posts was not due to a permanent lack of mental faculties on your part, but to an emotional response on the subject. You mig
You can't take the sky from me...
They are going to start making 2 movies per book.
Since no one mentioned it, I'm glad to report that there was indeed towel footage!! Though I think one would be hard-pressed to say they were ready for anything at that particular moment.
What do you get when you cross a mountain-climber with a mosquito? Nothing! You can't cross a scaler with a vector.
http://bvim-qt.vitalstream.com/HitchhikersGuide/HG 2G_Trailer2_0197_3000.mov