Slashdot Mirror
Telegraph Reviews Hitchhiker Movie, Approves
LPetrazickis writes "The Telegraph has reviewed the movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The review notes that the film is every bit as much a loving tribute to Douglas Adams as it is a joyous comedy. American actors acquit themselves well, and the sense of intelligent wonder transfers well to the technicolour screen. The many incarnations of The Guide are summarized at the end."
I don't have a choice, I must see it to either enjoy it or to hack it to pieces in person with my friends. Not watching it is not an option, no matter how bad it is.
Frylock: "We should have cloned twenties, Jackson wouldn't have given a fuck."
I'm sure it isn't as good as the books were, but either way I'm going to see it. I'll be there opening day, even if everyone in the world tells me it sucks. Why? Because even if it shits on DNA's grave, it's still the Hitchhiker's Guide Movie, damn it, and I'm a Hitchhiker's Guide fan.
Username taken, please choose another one.
Unfortunately, I will not be.
:-)
I've seen the BBC series and it simply rocks.
I've had every other favorite book of mine trashed - Lord of the Rings, Dune, I, Robot and a quintillion others.
I'm not ready to watch the movie and destroy what I've treasured all this while. And most importantly, when I re-read the book, the images from the movie will stick in my mind - something I really do not want to happen.
I'll go with the earlier review -- I'm a purist of sorts in this regard, and I'm fairly certain I'll hate the movie.
Thanks for the link. The whale falling monologue seems to have been reproduced faithfully (slightly cut and rushed, but it was there), which gives me some renewed faith in the film.
I, for one, look forward to the movie. I have confidence that it will incredibly funny, while still staying true to the spirit of the books. I ask all those who demand a carbon copy to please bellyache out of my earshot.
Sounds rather bought-and-paid-for to me. Puff piece. Astroturf, even.
And what's with nonsense like:
Zooey Deschanel as Trillian, a minor character in Adams's book
or
and a towel, a manic-depressive android and a whale falling from the sky all make important appearances.
I'm sorry, Trillian is a "minor character"? Marvin is lumped in with the whale as a character who makes "important appearances"? Important appearances? The reviewer doesn't even give his name? If the movie slashes his role that much, there is serious trouble.
My Joo Janta peril-sensitive sunglasses are strangely opaque. I suspect this movie will suck, and will only do slightly better than if every theater showing it was blanketed in an SEP field.
Has it gotten to the point where we don't even watch a movie to figure out if we like it? How often are critics wrong? Watch the movie for yourself and make up your own mind.
So put that in your pipe and grep it
I've had every other favorite book of mine trashed - Lord of the Rings...
If you think the LOTR movies "trashed" the books, then you would probably not like *any adaptation* of a book. As you said, if you don't want "images from the movie to stick" in your mind, the best bet is to not watch it. So, you don't really need to go with any review -- you seem to have an issue with the visual medium itself.
S
Marshall McLuhan's message: ""The Medium is the Message" is now about 4 decades old. McLuhan is thought by many to be one of the fathers of the age of technology yet posters on /. seem unable to distinguish between two mediums/metaphors as visibly distinguishable as film and book. The experiences are distinctly different enjoy each according to its merits. If you can't distinguish between two diverse experinces perhaps you're too egocentic and tribal, read primitive.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
A positive review, now we can all go see the movie...
Please, as if we weren't going to see it anyway.
I've yet to find a movie critic with whom I agree with often enough to actually avoid a movie based on their review.
See the damn movie, make up your own mind 'eh.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
The point is to not pay for bad movies. If you go to a movie such as this, and it turns out to be bad, well now you know it stinks but they have your $9 now so what do they care?
This is why so many bad movies get churned out over and over again. If you continue to front the cash for them then it's basically the same as saying "shove anything in my face hollywood, because I never learn and I'll continue to pay for whatever trash you deem worthy entertainment" (in my opinion).
So most people rely on movie reviews to make sure their dollars go to supporting entertainment they want to support.
Let's face it - whoever made this movie, whoever produced it, whoever starred in it - it was always, *always* going to be either loved or hated. Such is the sentiment and legacy towards DNA.
As is made clear in just about every item one reads about Douglas (including TFA), he saw each incarnation of H2G2 as a different entity in its own right and felt no compunction to translate perfectly between mediums.
The sad fact is that Douglas is dead. So we can either have no movie ever, or hand it over to someone else. The latter was always the best idea, IMO. Let's stop whining and celebrate the fact that the geek's favourite book has finally made it to film. Films are practically never as good as the books they follow (one or two exceptions like 2001 and, for me, Fear & Loathing (thanks to Johnny Depp, but I digress) spring to mind). H2G2 is the best example of this as it fires the imagination like nothing else.
I, for one, am all too happy to see both negative and positive reviews.
It's indifference I don't like.
Are you being sarcastic? You do realise that the only character who is British is Arthur, right? And Arther has a British accent in the movie.
One of the greatest skills you can ever develop in your life is the ability to make up your own mind.
:)
If you go through life accepting other people's judgements, your experiences will be sadly lacking.
Go see the damn movie
Well, I guess it's just a matter of opinion. Peter Jackson's movie was well made as a fantasy movie, just not LoTR.
It's not the compressed part that got to me, but the fact that he changed a lot of things that need not have been changed - making Gimli into a comical character, portraying Faramir as someone who gives into temptation, horrible portrayal of Lady Galadriel, Aragorn and a lot of others. Not to mention tonnes of inconsistencies (Glorifendel's role, for instance) and such.
PJ did not have to make these changes, yet he did - that is what irritated me.
To me, it just seemed more like Jackson than Tolkien. A lot has been changed, some quite important things, and some things for no apparent reason. For example, in the movie, when Gandalf enters the Shire with fireworks he lets some off for the children. In the book he just doesn't do that.
I'm not a big fan of the books, but the movies just didn't quite seem to fit to me.
When I came out of the first Lord Of The Rings screening, I actually heard a pack of hardcore nerdlingers arguing over the way some of the characters sat down to eat and how it wasn't portrayed in the film.
If you're that tied up that you cannot live with a story being adapted as best possible to suit the film media, please don't ever leave your house again. The rest of us cinema-goers don't want you there.
The story may not follow the book to the letter, but can't you see a little beyond that and maybe judge it on its own merits? For fucks sake...
One of the things that made LoTR powerful was the strength of the characters
From the typical viewpoint of "characters are people", then the LOTR books had hardly any characterization. The members of the fellowship were hardly more than stereotypes.
Only if you look at it in context and understand that those stereotypes were new inventions (at that time) can you grasp why the series had such acclaim. In a way, the entire races and cultures of elves, dwarves, orcs and hobbits were characters of themselves.
Readers born after the 1970s will barely recognize that fact, because the ideas have been copied so broadly through D&D, World of Warcraft, etc.
When the hell people would understand that book is what characters THINK, and movie is what your characters SPEAK!!
Writer writes a book, not script/screenplay of a movie. So, a movie based on the book can not be SAME AS THE BOOK EVER!!! It is a completely different medium - to tell the same story.
A book leaves it to the reader to imagine how characters, places look. Hence it is a very personalized product for the reader. Movie leaves little left to imagination (in this context). It can not be as personal as the book might have been.
That is the reason why most of the movies based on very popular/cult books have been largely disappointing to the fanboys - just because it is not what THEY imagined/visualized it. And they are never going to be satisfied with the movie based on their favorite book. If one can not figure how great (and also faithful) LOTR movies have been to the book, well, H2G2 is a far cry.
*sigh*
Bistromathematics... six times nine... hello?
Could someone who's actually read the books mod the parent as funny please?
Eh, Tolkein didn't so much flesh out characterizations of individuals, as family lines. For example, it's not necessarily what Aragorn has done (most of his actual story is in the apendices), but WHO he is (is descended from).
I will agree that Faramir was unsettling (although I understand why they did it), and I felt they nailed Boromir as a good -but too proud- man.
To be fair, Denethor wasn't "plain nuts", Sauron drove him to it (and oh, how I wanted to see that in the extended cut) via the palantir.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
The review says Trillian will be a romantic interest of Arthur Dent. If anything, this convinces me they did something seriously wrong with the movie. A romantic interest is for heroes, or at least for guys with something going for them. Arthur Dent is a notorious failure, a complete nobody in the universe, and he is driven, at least in the first three books, mainly by a quest to find a decent cup of tea. Is he going to "save the girl" now? Shocking.
OH NO THEY ARE RAPING DOUGLAS ADAMS' CORPSE111111 **** OK, if you say that but also say how good the BBC TV series was...well...jeeze, people. Just...jeeze.
***
3) Lots of people do it and you all look like totally unoriginal hackish dorks.
Don't take the towel. A packet of peanuts would be acceptable.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
If you think the LOTR movies "trashed" the books, then you would probably not like *any adaptation* of a book.
Jackson did trash Two Towers, which ought to have been much more suited to the screen than Fellowship. Look at how badly Theoden's character got screwed -- converted from probably the most sympathetic human character in the novel into an arrogant, cowardly fool. Not only did Jackson and his screenwriters turn that character into cardboard, he rewrote things so that holding the Hornburg was the safe and stupid action rather than a brave last stand that would be the one hope for the country. In so doing, he takes one of the two great battles of the novel and drops it into a context where it is made to feel wrong and pointless. Then Jackson compounds the fuckup by cutting out the final confrontation with Saruman and pushing forward the Shelob encounter to RotK; with those three key elements gone, the entire movie winds up being pretty pointless too.
Maybe saying that Jackson and his screenwriters trashed LOTR is too harsh, but they really did fuck up Two Towers.