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Hitchhiker's Movie is Bad, says Adams Biographer
Rollerbob writes "MJ Simpson, who has 'been studying and documenting the life and career of Douglas Adams for more than 20 years', has written a very in-depth review and plot analysis of the Hitchhiker's movie. As well as the full review that contains SPOILERS , he has also published a shortened spoiler-free version, as well as a list of things from the radio plays, records, books and TV series that have not been included in the movie. Hitchhiker's fans, prepare to be like Marvin ... very depressed."
"Really bad"
"vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad"
"bad on a big scale"
"bad on a small scale"
"staggeringly unfunny"
"unfunny, pointless crap"
"an abomination"
"amazingly, mindbogglingly awful"
"a terrible, terrible film"
(And that's from the short review)
We all knew they couldnt fit the whole series in one movie. It should have been a trilogy at least.
But to remove Milliways, Disaster Area, and prehistoric Earth completely? Thats just horrible. It is not the same story. They have commited murder here. This movie should be renamed.
If this review is true, then I can't properly convey my disappointment.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing and I guess hoping that the movie could bring back some of the feeling I had from reading the first three books and playing the Infocom game was a little unrealistic.
I'm a big tall mofo.
As the review points out, the radio and play versions are two hours. There's no reason a movie couldn't be.
Sorry, but I guess I liked the Hitchhiker's series enough that I'll go see it anyway. Hell, I sat through the new Star Wars series thus far, and that was punishment enough.
As long as there's no JarJar, I guess I won't leave too pissed.
Lord Of the Hitchhikers, Fellowship of the Galaxy
I remember similar discussions over plot removal in Lord of the Rings... I'll reserve judgement until I actually see the film, as opposed to reading someone's fanboy opinion.
I personally, with no intention to troll, feel that this is what happens when you let an American write English humour. The writer clearly had no concept of what made that scene funny - in his mind, it was a joke about not being able to find something. The dialogue simpoly went over his head.
I'm sorry but these types of reviews are simply the worst on account of the person being so terribly close/obsessed to the orginal source material. Why not ask my ex-wife to give my current girlfriend a review of me?
-_-
The write up understates it, I think. From TFA:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but that's just peanuts to the Hitchhiker's movie.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Here is another review of the movie.
"One thing's for sure... Douglas Adams would be very proud. In the end, that's the greatest success that Robbie Stamp and Spyglass Entertainment and Jay Roach and Touchstone could have hoped for."
Like that underappreciated great "Batman & Robin"...still brings a tear to my eye.
HHGTTG is a Disney movie. The Walt Disney Company is notorious for screwing with the plot lines and leaving out theme-essential elements of stories that it adapts into films.
If this movie is as bad as the review states... It will have a long life in the theaters ;-)
(But, don't you think, Marvin should look like Bender?)
I think the main reason why the book is so well loved (it's one of the few books I've actually re-read) is because of the writing style, not just the plot.
Most of the humor and entertainment is in the narrative, and that rarely translates into a good movie.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
DNA himself knew that the book wouldn't work as a movie, so he wrote a completely new story-line. And if I remember the "interview" with the scriptwriter he tried to add a lot of stuff from the books that had to be cut.
So if you expect a re-telling of all the books you will be disappointed. It is the same way as the books are not a re-telling of the radio series (where are the bird people? or the robot disco?).
I'm not going to read any reviews, because I want to see the movie with an open mind. And I hope I remember to take my towel.
Captain Obvious arrives! You are a little late this morning. Did the Obviousmobile break down or something?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I've heard that this movie is so bad that the audience is urged to view it from the safe distance of thirty-seven miles from the screen in a well-built lightproof bunker, only after their eyes are gouged out. The director is now rumored to be serving eternity dead for "he really pissed off some geeks" reasons.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Now, we're all going to have to go see it just to se if it really is that bad.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
That the Hitchhiker's video game was good should not be trusted to review anything. I love Douglas Adams's work as much as the next person. Hell, I love it a whole hell of a lot more than the next person, but the Hitchhiker's video game was cleverly awful.
So many unsolvable puzzles. How the hell was I supposed to know that I needed the junk mail. If I had unlimited inventory, I would have picked up everything. It says fucking JUNK in the fucking name. Ha Ha. Really clever! Not fun to play though.
He calls Adams's dialogue "perfect." While it is teriffic, nothing is perfect. This review reeks of idolatry.
I don't know if this movie will be good. I will see it. I am encouraged that the producers appear to have put a great deal of care into the visuals judging by the trailers.
This isn't going to be Adams's work. I'm not expecting something as monumental as the radio series or the book. Even Adams himself lived in the shadow of that book. You don't make a masterpiece every time you paint a picture. I'm just looking for a good time.
"So we've got a movie. A piece of shit movie.That Douglas Adams lost is life over."
Yes, that's right. The move killed Douglas Adams. Nothing else. It was just that damn movie. Now go back to sleep.
I can take some random crap, but that's a bit too far.
this is what happens when you let an American write English humour. The writer clearly had no concept of what made that scene funny - in his mind, it was a joke about not being able to find something. The dialogue simpoly went over his head.
:P
Or MAYBE, since it's a MOVIE, they don't have time to be true to the dialogue throughout the entire book. If they did that, the movie would be damn 10 hours long and un-released. You honestly think the joke you're quoting could really "go over someone's head"? It's not like it's a complicated or deep joke. It's funny for sure, I love the whole series of books, but you have to understand you just do NOT have time for that kind of dialogue throughout the entire movie. I'm sure there are plenty of scenes that are quite true to the original book. This just happens to be one that's not.
Joseph?
Do you think that your average American moviegoing audience would have appreciated the extremely wry and dry Brit humor of the Hitchhikers guide?
Thats the reason that britcoms are usually marginalized to public television stations here alongside Masterpiece Theater and the exciting History of Plywood.
TFA's writer admits that Adams was a dialogue writer and the book reflects that. Trying to bring it to the movies while appeasing the loyal readers/geeks and attracting enough normals to buy tickets to break even on it seems this side of impossible.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I had a sinking feeling about the movie when I saw a trailer at the theater last month. It felt a bit off. The understated, humourous way in which the novels dealt with "big issues" was joyful to read as a child. The BBC series was low-budget and corny, with a late 70's Dr. Who feel to it, but the material was the star, not the actors or special effects.
I suppose I will drag myself over to the local video store and rent the old BBC series for kicks when the movie opens....
From the list of things that aren't in the film:
* The Guide entry on towels
Those bastards forgot their towel!
for someone who says they spent 20 years studying DA, this person sure is oblivious.
/. crowd: how many of you have done anything other than read the book? {waits for the couple dozen people to raise their hands} So you that are still raising your hands...it was the radio show, right? How different was the radio show versus the books? Almost as different as it was from the TV show, the records, and the video game. How in the HELL is the screenplay, which DOUGLAS ADAMS HIMSELF WROTE, supposed to be exactly like the "radio plays, records, books and TV series" when the "radio plays, records, books and TV series" are very little like each other? Sure the screenplay has been changed a little - always happens. But not much, and it is from Douglas Adams himself you'll find that the screenplay (aka "movie script") is supposed to be different. Movies are a different medium than books, video games, tv shows, and radio shows. Of COURSE it's different.
Why compose a list of things from the "radio plays, records, books and TV series that have not been included in the movie?"
Quick - a show of hands from the
As soon as I heard Disney was involved with this project (especially after Adams' untimely death, so he'd be unable to do anything to save the integrity of the story), I knew it was doomed.
The British wit is what made the HHGG books so great-- but it would soar over the heads of the vast majority of Americans, who are too busy watching reality shows to have ever heard of, much less read, anything Douglas Adams ever put on paper. So it was a foregone conclusion that much of the essence of the book was going to be dumbed down or removed outright and replaced with poopy jokes or some such.
On a positive note, they are making a movie version of The Honeymooners with an all-black cast, and unnecessarily remaking The Bad News Bears this year, too (must they rape EVERY fond memory of my childhood for money???), so HHGG might not be the worst movie this year in terms of offending fans of a cherished American pop-culture institution.
Thanks. Now I know why "Police Academy" was such a dismal flop, and no sequels were made.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
A link that shows that "Police Academy" had sequels???? Captain Obvious, you are busy today! Thakn you SO much. I had no idea!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Maybe if films like that got some geek-cash, then they'd start creating sci-fi films of a similar caliber again (like Gattaca.)
Yes, please. See, I'm not only a sci-fi fan, I am cursed with this terrible insomnia. And anything approaching energy in a film frightens me. When I need entertainment, or sleep, I get out my Gattaca DVD. I'm pretty bored of it by now, though. I guess this is a good thing in a way, but I could sure use another movie or two to be bored by.
Gattaca. Mmm. So sleepy... ZZZZZZZZZZ
Have you actually read the review? I didn't read the shortened version, so I'm not sure what was left out, but the reviewer does actually describe many of the specific problems he found with the film. While many of these have to do with changes from earlier works, most are critical of the movie simply in terms of how it works as a movie. Poorly-written diaglog, ill-constructed plot, bad acting, and lack of funny jokes are chief among the complaints, and although some of these problems are more noticable because the books/radio plays/etc. did them so well, the author says that these problems would exist even if this was the first HHG2G work ever.
Basically, I think that this movie is probably very bad, in the way that many movies are very bad, and makes many of their common mistakes. The fact that it was based on radio plays and a book that many people enjoyed isn't really relevent, in the end it's a bad movie that will be disliked by HHG2G fans and non-fans alike.
At least, that's what the review suggests. If you try reading it, perhaps you will gain some isight.
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
So we've got a movie. A piece of shit movie.That Douglas Adams lost his life over.
I know he died a few years back, but I didn't know that was his cause of death.
If bad movies could kill, then the premier of Phantom Menace would have looked like Jonestown, post-Kool Aid.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
The Guide is ALWAYS perfectly accurate. Reality might get things wrong sometimes. :)
If you've read the book, you already know the story, so how can the movie be spoiled? Of course I'm sure there are many people that went to see The Passion of the Christ and said, "Don't tell me how it ends!"
"This is a terrible, terrible film and it makes me want to weep."
Ouch.
I agree that it's not meant to be the same as the book/tv series/radio, but appear to have:
- took out almost all reference to the Guide itself
- Removed most of the funny parts, which were mostly in the narration and asides rather than the main storyline. No towels? No convincing prosser to replace dent in front of the bulldozer? Not even a cup of tea AFAICS.
- Unnecessarily changed extremely funny lines to be less funny. The best example from the review being the whale monologue: ending the speech with "I wonder if it will be friends with me? *splat*" is much, much funnier than "I wonder if it will be friends with me? Hello, ground. *splat*". The trailing thought left by the first version is much funnier than the unnecessary repetition of something from earlier in the speech (I think I'll call it ground).
If the reviewer is accurate, (and I have no reason to doubt it,) this movie is nothing like Mr. Adams would have wanted.
I believe Douglas Adams once made a comment about how good humor was a gift to the intelligent - those that weren't intelligent really didn't understand it. Judging from the long review, this movie isn't aimed at an intelligent audience.
I guess I'll wait for it to hit video (maybe late May,) and rent it on a day when I want to punish myself and feel bad.
Because for crying out loud - just compare the original radio play, the books, the new radio play, the tv series..
Douglas Adams was a sensible person, you don't go out and carbon copy what works sublimely as a radio play, and sell it as a book - you reinterpret, you cut bits you didn't like etc. etc.
From what I've seen, the movie looks sod all like the other interpretations, but it retains the spirit of the work - H2G2 doesn't work if you do a straight translation to film, just try and imagine it. You also have to deal with the largely chaotic nature of the original, the episodic framework, and the fact that in the play it's ok to stop a couple of times per episode to have the Guide explain what the hell is going on with Milliways for example.
Douglas Adams was barely faithful in transition.
The new radio series is totally disconnected from the first two, and that worked out great.
This guy knows so much about Douglas Adams? He should certainly know that. It was even a running gag - in cases where the Guide is innacurate, it is always reality that has it wrong.
So, Don't Panic, for crying out loud.
fortune -o
To be fair, the guide also looked like that in 1981 (back when the whole GUI was created using traditional animation techniques!)... so if anything it is ST:TNG that stole the look and feel from the Guide....
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
God, now they're going to rape "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". I can hear the "high concept" on this one: "Harry Potter meets that Hobbit movie, with Talking Animals! We've "sexed up" the magic and the fighting!"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I don't trust most movie critics because honestly most wouldn't know a good movie if it bit them on the butt. And just because you're writing someone's biography it doesn't mean you understand them, or even -Like- them!
The proof will be in the pudding. We will all just have to see it and make up our own minds. Taking the word of someone who's life is so boring that he spends all of his time writing about other people's isn't what I would call a good bet.
Dude, not only is the reviewer Douglas Adams' feckin' biographer (which could, like, mean that he read some of his works), he also plainly states that
a) he knows his stuff (duh) and
b) that this is a complaint with the original material as well.
That doesn't mean he's right when he says the movie sucks badly, of course. Still: I've heard of not RingTFA, but that is ridiculous.
Firstly, I do agree that while Americans can of course appreciate English humour, they're not very good at recreating it. Most Englishmen in Hollywood movies seem to be stereotyped versions of Lorded upper class types, although movies such as "Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels is changing that". Apart from that American humour, especially American Hollywood humour is usually based on extremely overdone gags, possibly because the producers feel they need to dumb the movie down enough so that vast audiences will understand it. Subtlety is not one of Hollywood's strengths.
In other words, this movie would probably never have worked out in the first place. Hollywood is not capable of subtlety, especially in humour, and good English humour involves subtlety.
I'm grateful for the review and all the spoilers. I won't be going to watch this film, although, to be honest, I knew that when I saw the trailer.
I sat through the 6-part TV series and got (at least some measureable amount of) enjoyment out of it. I'll be impressed if the movie is less entertaining.
According to the review, what you mean by "finished off" is "taken out behind the woodshed and shot, several times, in the face."
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
Seriously, when I started seeing action packed advertisements with a real lack of british accents for a series of books I had always considered to be prime examples of that uniquely British brand of satrical absurdity, I knew something was probably very wrong.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Because it's not an opinion of a movie.
It is a detailed examination of the long-awaited film adaptation of a much-loved science-fiction book by an individual who knows the material, loves the material, and feels deeply that what made the story worth making into a movie has not been represented.
I know the story, and that's what I want to know. Did they fuck up.
That's all I want to know when I read any movie review. If I have an opinion, I want a review to match. If it's "New Movie Du Jour", I could care less, even go without a review - like Sin City.
From what I understand, Sin City is a triumph in regards to "telling the tale". HHG is exactly the opposite.
Any man who studies the life of another man for 20 frickin' years, will probably die alone!
Here's what I personally would have liked to see happen:
1.) Don't even bother to do it live action. Animation. 2D classical drawn animation. No CGI crap...humans still don't look right in CGI, and H2G2 was very humanoid-centric. Get someone with a cartoony sense to do the character design. Andreas Deja would be perfect. Then get a "dream team" of animators from both sides of the Pacific to work on it. This could have been Touchstone Pictures' triumphant return to animation. "Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?!"
2.) If you animate the movie, you don't have to get people to portray the roles who are exactly the right age to play them. For instance, you could have Michael Palin as Arthur, Eric Idle as Ford, Bill Murray as Zaphod and Jennifer Saunders as Trillian. Never mind that they would be the absolute PERFECT cast, they would be too old to portray them live action. But as voices for animated characters...badabingbadabangbadaboom! They would have been perfect.
3.) Be as faithful to the materials Douglas Adams left behind for the movie as possible. And when in doubt, consult those materials + the books + the radio show + the TV show. If the people who did this H2G2 movie gave Adams as much propers as Robert Rodriguez did Frank Miller with Sin City it would have rocked rather sucked as badly as it seems to according to this review.
The big problem with such a plan, though? Americans think that cartoons=kid stuff. It takes a Pixar or a "Shrek" to get adults into theatres to watch animation. Great animation for grownups like The Triplets of Belleville, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door and Innocence: Ghost In The Shell II gets lost. (Yeah, they all were put out domestically by Sony Pictures. They have no idea of what to do with their animated properties.) If the two Matrix sequels were as ripping good as the Animatrix shorts, they would be artistic successes but box-office failures. The current state of affairs sucks, dammit.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
From what I have heard Douglas Adam's is one of those people who wrote best while other watched over his shoulder. This was said about both the radio show as well as the books and computer game.
There are two theories why this movie is going to suck eggs:
1. DA didn't have anyone looking over his shoulder
2. It has been completely Americanized and most of the humor that made the books has been ripped out.
The former: targetted at children, and unrecognizable when compared with the original.
Try Empire, a British film magazine that has been panicking over the Hitchhiker's movie since it was first announced, and has now released their full review.
4 stars (out of 5) and the quickie write up says:
Mostly harmless. A very British, very funny sci-fi misadventure that's guaranteed to win converts. Want to go to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe now, please.
They admit it's not perfect, but their review's a damn sight more positive than the linked one.
As we said, those hardcore Hitchhikers out there have little to worry about. Although they should be warned that the movie's faithfulness means all its best jokes will be very familiar. For them, it's more a case of basking comfortably in the nostalgia than laughing out loud. But if you're new to all this, and have no idea about the significance of towels, or what a whale and a bowl of petunias have in common, then, boy, are you in for a treat...
Mark
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(Disclaimer: I've been a hitchhiker fan for longer than I care to remember, and was lucky enough to work with Douglas for a few years at The Digital Village, and have been peripherally involved with some of the publicity material for the film, so you can deduce whatever bias you like from that.)
Today I saw the movie for the second time, and once again I find myself coming to the conclusion that I must have been shown a different movie to the one that MJ Simpson saw. Having twice been in a cinema full of people who were laughing all the way through at the movie (and these are British people, for crying out loud!), and then reading that the movie is "staggeringly unfunny" leaves me somewhat confused. Partly because I heard all those people laughing myself with my own ears, but mainly because I loved the film.
For any hitchhiker fan, there will be moments in the film that you feel are not what you expected, or that bits were left out that you wish weren't. This is inevitable, no matter how good the movie was. This is just a fact of life when adapting a book - you're never going to capture everyone's imaginings and commit them to film. It's just part of the compromise you go through when you adapt a verbal medium to a visual medium. Neither are you going to 'get everything in'.
For me, the clearest indication of this is Simpson's laundry list of stuff that isn't in the film, that presumably he feels should be. Suffice it to say that if all that stuff was in the film, I don't think it would be a film I would want to watch. Pointing out that the description of the Vogon ships hanging in the air "in exactly the same way that bricks don't" is not in the film shows a stunning lack of understanding of what makes a good film. I can find a lot of descriptive prose in the books that didn't make it into the film - and you can probably guess why.
I mean, how was that going to work? Was Arthur going to say something like "See that spaceship Ford? Have you noticed the way it hangs in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't?" I'm sure that would have been the beginnings of a cracking screenplay.
The simple fact is, which most people seem not to grasp, is that, yes, you could have put, e.g. the full conversation between Arthur and Mr Prosser into the movie, and it might only have taken an extra 30 seconds, but in, say, a 90 minute movie, you only have a limited number of 30 second chunks. If you remained faithful to every piece of dialogue in the source material, you'd over-run by at least an hour. At least.
Also included in that list is a load of stuff from the 2nd book, when the film makers have repeatedly stated that this film is based on the first book only (and not on all the books as some posters seem to believe). I mean, if it was based on all the books, how much stuff would they have to have left out then?
I've seen moans that the Guide entry on towels is not in the movie, how could it be left out, etc. conveniently forgetting that this entry didn't even appear in the first radio series. Also, if you think towels don't feature in the movie, think again.
As for the movie that I actually watched - as I said, I loved it. The acting was great - far from finding Arthur to be 'an annoying little prat', I thought Martin Freeman's portrayal was very funny and accurate. Even when Martin changes the 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays' line, it still sounds natural - so natural that I didn't even notice the change until the second screening. Sam Rockwell's performance as the unceasingly presidential Zaphod is a joy to watch. The Vogons and their unflinching bureaucracy is captured perfectly via some new jokes and situations that I'm certainly not going to spoil here - I recommend seeing the movie yourself.
The design and aesthetics of the Heart of Gold are nothing short of fantastic, in the face of which the natural fan's reaction to observe that the HOG doesn
Not in any specific order but Star Trek has been going to hell and is nothing like what made the original or even the sequel so loved by its fans. I don't exactly know what it is about DS9 or Enterprise that makes me so totally unintrested in them but something is missing from them that made the originals worth watching.
George Lucas showed with The Phantom Menance that he did not understand what made the original Star Wars so well loved. You can say that new movies are still commercial successes but that is missing something vital. Star Wars: A New Hope has a place in film history, Phantom Menace does not. In 20 yrs time the childeren of today will not give a toss about the new movies. What was missing? Well no Han Solo, no chewbacca, no millenium falcon. Star Wars was a slightly dirty universe with pirates. The prequels are bright shiny places with big palaces.
We have other beloved "stories" wich "hollywood" just doesn't seem to get. Mario brothers movie. How could it be so wrong. Why do allmost all game movies suck? Why does the new Doom movie take the doom out of the movie?
Red Dwarf was adapted for the american market and the result was so amazingly bad that even americans realized it. Don't know if this is true but Valva was approached for a Half-life movie but lost intresest when "hollywood" wanted to a add a love interest for Gordon Freeman.
If the review of the HHGTG movie is accurate then it sounds like a typical case of hollywood just not getting the source material. Some people seem to excuse this in this case by pointing out that you can't do bookstuff in movies since it would be boring. These "americans" don't get that the guide has been a radio play, a book, an album, a computer game, a tv series and a stage play. All of them managed to be very guide like even if they had massive differences in them. The tv series and the stage play especially should proof that it isn't impossible to turn the guide into a movie.
I think that just as in the previous mentioned examples the people involved in making the movie just didn't get it OR are so convinced of their own capabilities that they think they can improve upon the source material.
Paramount, fire everyone involved with star trek and hire the writers for the originals series. George Lucas, let the remaining three movies be made by other people. Just do the production. Doom movie crew, doom is on mars with marines and a invasion from hell. That is it.
Will they listen? Of course not. This is hollywood trying to get "geek" culture.
And that is the real problem. Hollywood by definition is hip and happening and cool beautifull people being intresting. Star Trek, Star Wars, Doom, computer games, the guide are the domain of nerds. Silicon valley has proven that they can make excellent Star Trek and Star Wars and Hitchhiker guide games. Because game makers are nerds and so understand geek culture. Hollywood will not and cannot get "it".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
reinvent Shakespeare
I guess you're talking about Romeo + Juliet, which in my opinion is the best adaption of Shakespeare I've ever seen. It transported the story to a 'modern' stage, yet conserved the timelessness of the original by doing so in a rather abstract way, using visually and metaphorically *very* rich imagery. It does a very good job of telling the story, and while I think that Leo di Caprio is one of the worst actors around, Shakespeare's brilliant dialogs brought out some nice acting I'd never have expected from him, ever.
I might be sounding like a fanboy, but actually I've seen *so many* interpretations of R+J, most of them either terrible or simply not getting the spirit of the original, that the movie to me really stood out. I hadn't seen it when it came out because I found the trailers so horrible (plus, or rather minus, it starred Leo), but a few years later a girl-friend took me out to watch it without telling me beforehand. (A sinister plan as she knew *exactly* why I hadn't seen it.) I left the cinema pleasantly surprised.
Mind to share your criticism of the movie? I greatly admire Shakespeare's works, and if more people decide to do such intelligent adaptions of material which is that old, more power to them. I might even bear watching some hours of JLo or Ben Affleck or whomever.
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
The most well known is Red Dwarf. A classic BBC sci-fi comedy that was well received all over the world. Well all over the world by geeks and nerds. For reasons unknown some americans wanted to make an american version of it but altered for american tastes. They made a pilot wich at times can be found on P2P networks. It is so bad that it never saw the light of day on american tv.
Why was it so bad? Somehow the american producers who obviously must have seen the original just didn't seem to get it. They changed all the characters that just clicked in the original into versions that just didn't work. The original crew is a bunch of loosers. Nobodies thrown together and never winning. The american version makes them more hollywood. Lister less of a slob. Rimmer likable. For some reason the american producers never seemed to have gotten what made the british original work and become so loved.
It is not on its own. The british comedy classic "doing porridge" was adapted for american tv as well and bombed. Where the original was a comedy set in prison where there was humor in a non-humorous setting, a classic ep has just the two actors talking during the night confinement in their cell, the american version came closer to a regular light hearted sitcom.
It is not all one way however. The american "who's the boss" has a british version as well but missing all the chemistry. It is cold, sensible british and misses the italian fire that tony danza and whats her name brought to the original.
The biggest problem I think in making an adoptation of something is in that you are making an adoptation. Red Dwarf, Doing porridge, Who's the boss ALL did well in their original country AND in other parts of the world. So why then try to chance it? Because you want to reach an even bigger market? How can you possibly achieve this? Only by making your version more bland and less likely to upset the tastes of your expanded audience. Remove the slobbness from lister, remove the harsh reality of doing time from a jail comedy, remove lenghty dialog from the guide.
Some saying goes something like this, the translator is a traitor. I think this is very true when trying to translate a story to a new audience. These people who made the guide movie did not try to make a movie for guide fans. They made on for the "hollywood" audience. In doing so they had to loose elements that were to "geeky" or to "nerdy" like the guide itself and replace it with slapstick.
This movie is simply not aimed at us guide fans. For every popular story there is a porn version. Complaining that these porn versions are not fatefull to the original is just as pointless as complaining these hollywood versions are not faithfull. They have an audience to please that does not know or care about the originals.
If there is going to be a guide movie then it can only really come from the BBC. Just take the tv eps and watch them in one sitting with stale popcorn and an overpriced coke.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It appears that the original pages have suddenly turned into error pages, a rather confused-looking sperm whale, and a bowl of petunias. Anyone have a mirror?
There is a rather detailed self-interview with script writer Karey Kirkpatrick here: http:http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/movienews/in terview.html
It is not new but sheds some insight what was done to HHGG and why
...but I really have a hard time believing that by "rather different from the TV version" he meant "absent of the type of humour that is normally associated with the Hitchhiker series". I could be wrong, though, since I am not a clairvoyant.
I love these threads because it's always so amusing to see what mistakes are made in the pedantic responses.
"...although parentheses or dashes would have been made it clearer..."
Would have been made it clearer, indeed.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Here is a man, who for some reason or another, seems to have devoted a large proportion of the last twenty years of his life to the veneration of the works of Douglas Adams.
Look at his CV in the Google Cache (since the original site's down), the guy looks more like a fanboy than an objective biographer: one of those people who becomes the "guy everyone ends up interviewing" in the fan community, but who doesn't have any real connection to Adams beyond his fandom.
Of course the review is going to be bad. He's devoted far too much of his life to a belief in the genius of one man. To believe that anyone else could match that man's vision by bringing Adams' work to the screen in his absence would be far too much cognitive dissonance for him to handle.
Plenty of links to positive reviews have been posted in other threads - I'll wait for the Rotten Tomatoes verdict, I think.
Charles
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
Saw it this morning, actually, for the second time - first was a 95% complete cut similar to the one Simpson saw, the second was the final edit. I went along with my friends Tim Browse (his review) and Sean Sollé (his review) - all of us worked with Douglas at The Digital Village, a company we joined mainly because we were already massive Hitchhiker's fans. (If you need further credentials for me, look here.
We've been involved with the film at various stages. Thus, the disclaimer. However, please also be aware that none of us would be defending a film that crapped all over Douglas's work, especially since it was such a fundamental part of our youth.
Most (though not all) of the spoilers that Simpson reveals in his review are true. Yes, the lying-in-front-of-a-bulldozer dialogue has been cut short. Yes, several key Guide entries are missing. Yes, some of the dialogue isn't as funny as it could have been, and a couple of the gags are corny rather than sharp. (Note: I said a couple. It's nearly two hours of film, there are still tons of good lines in there.)
It's at this point that Simpson's opinion of the movie and mine diverge rather radically, because he seems to think that you can judge the film's merits almost purely on what's missing, in combination with things that don't appear as quite as he'd have liked them. Personally, I loved it to bits. It's not perfect, certainly, and I agree with a couple of his criticisms (though with about 5% of his severity). But I fundamentally feel that it's true to the spirit of Hitchhiker's in so many ways, not just through the storyline and script (which is far, far better than MJ would have you believe) but also through visuals and design that are utter genius, reimagining Douglas's creations in totally new ways that still seem completely in keeping with his intentions. It wears its Britishness in a far more open and interesting way than any previous version of the story - the Vogons, in particular, are a satire of traditional English bureaucracy that borders on Hogarthian.
I could go through MJ's review point-by-point and debunk all the stuff - and there's plenty of it - which he's blown wildly out of proportion, or which is based on utterly blinkered thinking, or which is just plain wrong. But then, that would be succumbing to exactly the kind of checklist mentality that he has, and god, how I hate that. He seems to just want the radio and TV series again, on a bigger budget, thus completely misunderstanding the demands that the different media have. His review reads like he went in with a notepad and took score through the film, subtracting ten points every time a line from the original went astray, and based his final opinion on that. As others have said in this thread, it's exactly the same kind of fanboy nonsense that had LoTR fans doomsaying before its release, and it's just bullshit.
If you're the kind of fan who works that way, who demands pure fidelity to the original and nothing but, then you won't like this movie. However, given that every incarnation of Hitchhiker's has been pretty different (and this movie is staunchly in the same tradition), I'd say that you're a fan who's utterly missing the point. Simpson, in loudly complaining that the film's plot veers wildly all over the place, makes me wonder which "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" he's a fan of, 'cos it certainly isn't one I've ever seen. His review is also the only negative one I've read from a major fan - contrast it with this review from Jens Kellenberg, who runs one of the biggest HHGTTG
God, now they're going to rape "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".
Raping a witch is evil (she might be a witch but she's still a person); raping a lion is perverse (even- or especially- one that talks and is a metaphor for the Christian deity).
But as for raping a wardrobe, I'm not sure I can visualise that at all. You have some damn strange fetishes.
Slashdotters are weird.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
You have to know that the original person attached to the script was "Mr Ghostbusters" Ivan Reitman. Douglas Adams hated this choice, as he felt Reitman lacked any of the subtleties or wit necessary to do the film (see also Meatballs, Kindergarden Cop, and Evolution). But the studio refused to back down. However, while Douglas was under contractual obligation to deliver a script, the contract didn't specify when. So Douglas sat on it. and sat on it. and sat on it. and basically refused to finish it unless another person was attached to the project. I believe that is where it stood when he died... material he had started writing twenty years prior and had intentionally never finished got finished by someone else and squished into a movie.
If you're desperate for more of that genuine Douglas Adams wit, check out
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency,
The Long Dark Tea time of the Soul,
The Deeper Meaning of Liff, and
The Last Chance to See.
They're all very good, but The Last Chance to See has to be at the top of the list, if for no other reason than the idea of Mr. Hitchhiker's Guide getting paid to write a travelogue is so engaging, and the subject matter so brilliant. The Dirk Gently series is spot on as well. While the character archetypes are quite recognizable from the HHGTG, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, many people don't know this but the radio scripts diverge pretty far from the books, with entire planets and escapades not present in the texts. They're also worth a read. And the companion book to both gives insight and humor into the whole process, and is required reading for anyone who wants to understand what the heck went on. It includes little DA gems like a sketch about a veteran kamikazee pilot.
The HHGTG videogame also contains a wealth of amazing material not available elsewhere, though you will need to cheat like mad to get through it. Starship Titanic the book wasn't wirtten by DA, but the game was. The game, sadly, isn't very good, though if you're desperate it was better than this movie sounds like it will be. The Parrot in that game was also a gem.
The ______ Agenda
As a result, most of the people at my company are going to go see the movie so that they can learn where my last name came from.
It will be freaking embarressing if they all go and then come back saying that the movie sucked! I couldn't bring myself to read the article because I'm going to go see it no matter what (I'll be the one at the San Francisco Metreon wearing a bathrobe with a towel embroidered with "42" on it).
Dumbing down movies "for the Americans" is just a crock of shit. It's a crock of shit that "too smart for you" Hollywood types seem to, for the most part, sincerely believe in. It's not necessarily true. The Lord of The Rings movies by Peter Jackson did not recreate the books 100%, but did recreate a "faithful" version. It did pretty well in the box office last I heard. You can satisfy the geeks (the fans) and have your broad audience, too.
Boycott Sony
I'm minoring in linguistics, but I guess the movie does rather cater for my CS side. That said, I didn't totally understand it on my first pass, either, I'll rewatch it and hope to be better off.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Several of the criticisms made in the review may be a bit extreme, but the reviewer made one important observation which unfortunately seems to be confirmed by your reply.
I'm talking about his opinion (which I share) that what truly made Hitchhiker's classic was Adams' use of language. Nothing else. Some of his imagery was a great bonus, the plots were interesting enough, and the character development wasn't too bad, but what really brought it home was his finely crafted use of language.
And the observation made by the reviewer was that the creator's of the movie just did not "get" this. His very very long (tediously so, to be honest) review gives many examples where this greatest aspect of Adams' work was expunged from the screenplay.
The reviewers complaints about the plot making no sense are minor compared to this. I could forgive almost anything as long as the hallmark use of language were still present. But in your reply you basically said that it would be impossible to squeeze the language into a motion picture.
You may be right, though I think the TV series did a nice enough job with its use of narration. I'm not sure why that approach couldn't work in a big budget movie as well. But who knows, if you are right, maybe Hitchhiker's just should never have been made into a movie. Maybe it just doesn't fit. Perhaps Adams just didn't have the sense to realize this himself.... but actually I think he could have found a way (perhaps through the use of narration).
I concur that in most adaptations of books, it really doesn't matter much if the exact words find their way into the screenplay. The imagery and plot and characters make the movie. But in this case the words really do matter. Its not the situations, its not the imagery, its not the characters. Its the words. And if you don't agree with that, then I side with the reviewer: you just don't get it.
That said, I'll almost certainly see the movie, and I'll probably enjoy it. Even if it doesn't match up to what I think it could have been, it'll probably still be funnier than most movies, and the eye candy you refer to may, at least, be interesting to watch.
I agree with you. I recently had the fortune to see Robbie Stamp (producer) in person at a presentation he did at Valhalla Cinema in Sydney, Australia, and I left feeling very confident about this film (I haven't seen it yet).
Robbie was a personal friend of Douglas and knows full well that his reputation is invested in this movie. They have tried to give fans of the previous works their dues whilst also incorporating new stuff, which fits in with Douglas Adams' view that the HHGG was a constantly evolving work in progress. The amount of care and attention to unseen details was amazing and I for one believe that it will be a huge success.
Robbie also explained why Zaphod's second head was done the way it was (MIB2 "stole" the idea from the original series so they wanted to remain fresh by doing it in a new way) and many other details that the true fans will appreciate.
Give the movie a chance guys and don't succumb to one shitty review.
Visceral Psyche Films
However, while Douglas was under contractual obligation to deliver a script, the contract didn't specify when. So Douglas sat on it. and sat on it. and sat on it. and basically refused to finish it unless another person was attached to the project. I believe that is where it stood when he died...
No, this is incorrect. What happened was Douglas eventually decided it was going nowhere and bought back the rights with his own money. After that he tried setting it up with Mike Nesmith before eventually teaming up with Spyglass Entertainment and Jay Roach. He spent the last few years of his life working on a new screenplay for the movie, and even moved to Santa Barbara to make working on the movie easier.
That's ok.
Curious. I checked this, and you're right - it is near the beginning of the second episode.
Er, the second episode of the second radio series, that is - it's in Fit the Eighth, where Zaphod is asking Roosta if there's any food, and Roosta offers him his towel.
No need - I just checked it from my rip of the CDs of the complete radio series, and checked in the Radio Scripts book.
The only thing I can think of is that you have an oddly edited version - I've not heard the 'LP' versions of Hitchhiker that were done, so maybe they changed stuff around in those..?
Or they've edited the radio series CDs, and then updated the radio scripts book to match it, which seems...improbable.