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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."
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While I wouldn't consider Trillian a minor character, especially later in the series, she doesn't play a very big role in the first H2G2 book. Definitely nowhere near as big a role as Arthur, Ford, and Zaphod... Marvin isn't really a "major" character either, but he's... distinctive, so everyone remembers him and thinks of him as a big part of the book.
Oh that's just part of the problem.
My primary grudge with LoTR was that while it was a good story on its own, it wasn't in any way related to Tolkien's world.
One of the things that made LoTR powerful was the strength of the characters - I find that missing in LoTR. I felt that almost all the characters were trashed and made to appear rather simplistic or even comical.
For instance - both Ghost in the Shell and Sincity weren't bad adaptations, and both held quite true to the spirit of the books.
Then again, maybe it's just me.
The Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy is not a book that was adored and loved by all. i know many people that hate it and dont understand why it is so popular. so it is to be expected that some people would like the movie more than others. I personaly am a big fan of hitchhikers and hope that there is enough positive support for them to continue the series with more movies
godlike
> it wasn't in any way related to Tolkien's world.
What? I thought it was an extremely faithful adaption, given the limitations imposed by trying to compress three fat books into a mere 9 hours (or whatever) of movie. And before you ask, I've read LoTR so many times since my mum bought it for my birthday in 1962 that my original copy has just about fallen apart. Btw, I've never felt that Tolkien's characterisation was all that strong - most of the characters are little better than cardboard cutouts.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Glad someone said it. I really liked the books and movies, but depth of characterization wasn't a priority for Tolkein. Given that his interests were with mythology, that wasn't surprising, but let's not pretend his work was something it wasn't intended to be. Most of the characters were either "white hats" or "black hats." Exceptions were mainly limited to Gondor, where Denethor was plain nuts, Boromir was a good flawed hero, and Faramir was very well rounded.
The treatment of Faramir, actually, was my greatest disappointment with the movie (theater version especially).
In the case of 2001, Arthur C. Clarke was heavily involved with the writing of the script, and the book was always something that was to be done indepently.
That, and Mr. Clarke (like DNA) were already well established book authors before the movies were in production.
This movie did at least have a rough draft of a script from DNA, which at least gave some directions as to where he wanted this project to go. The thing that I have been most impressed with DNA was that he totally understood the concept that the medium changes the message, and that each adaptation to a new medium can substantially change the product.
I hope that when (not if....this is also something inevitable due to the fact that the movie is being produced and soon to be released by a major Hollywood studio) the DVD version of this movie comes out that it does not become a lame MPEG copy of the movie with a bunch of boring stuff thrown on as "extras". I think DNA would have relished the DVD medium as something entirely different and worthy of its own interpretation of the Hitchhiker story. I don't think that will happen, however.
And let's not forget the gratuitous dwarf-tossing jokes in the first two films. Then again, the director of "Dead Alive" and "Meet The Feebles" not adding a little sophomoric humor to LOTR? Did you expect him to hold back? I didn't and wasn't offended.
The beauty of the LOTR movies was that even though they were not faithful to the letter of the book, they were faithful to the spirit of the book. I was not disappointed.
Of course, I would have rather seen Bjork as Arwen. She *looks* like an elf. She wouldn't have even had to play with a different accent...her Icelandic/British accent is pretty damn close to the way they did Elvish anyway.
Also I would have rather heard what Jimmy Page would have done on the soundtrack instead of Howard Shore. I'm a child of the '70s. Reading LOTR with Led Zeppelin on the stereo has inescapably twisted my mind. He's done orchestral scores before...anyone remember the "Death Wish" movies? Yeah, I know, bad example.
Of course, H2G2 has similar synaptic connections in my twisted mind. I still have an animated movie starring the voices of Eric Idle (Ford), Michael Palin (Arthur) and Bill Murray (Zaphod) in my mind, probably never to be erased by the actual movie. The deconstruction of the movie by DNA's biographer kinda had me worried, but I think I might just give this a chance.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
It's opening April 28th - co-incidentally a Thursday - a couple of weeks earlier than Episode III. Some part of me wishes Disney had the guts to release it the same weekend as EpIII, where it should (as part of my wish) then win the box-office-numbers-penis-size-competition. That would be a great way of showing Lucas what the viewing public thinks of him.
OTOH, there must be millions of geeks out there who know Star Wars but don't know HHGTG, so the movie can't win the numbers. Still, it should be a good fun movie for the droves of viewers who will be disappointed by EpIII. (Getting my hopes up, the trailer seems ass-kicking enough.)
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I met a fella at a party in England once in the seventies. We peed in a field and argued over whether "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Milky Way" was a better title. He thought not... Said I was a telepathic bastard in fact, but that's water out back of the comet now. Point: All I want is a PDA with all the video and movies and radio cross-ref'd with the Texts, with the words "Don't Panic" on its cover. Counterpoint: After all this time, is that too much to ask of Western Civilization? Tesserapoint: Or, at least, of an anonymous yet literate electronics factory in Taiwan?
I think Piers Anthony took the whole concept to an entirely new level, turning his Xanth 'trilogy' into... what is it now, 27 books? I still get a chuckle out of that. And for those who haven't read it already, I highly recommend the series.
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I've noticed at least a few changes between the UK and US prints of the books.
Examples include:
UK : US
Mindbuggering : Mindboggling - in description of the Vogon Fleet
Fuck : Belgium - the most gratuitous use of the word **** in a serious screenplay
Does anyone know of a full list of these changes? I'd be interested to know just how many alterations were made.
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All Your Fish Are Belong To Us
Unlikely, because it has to live up to the BBC DVD of the TV series... (Which Amazon seems to think is not out yet, but I've had it over a year).
Special features include:
So you get lots of information about the making of the radio series, a 'retrospective' documentary with some of the actors in character, information about how the effects were done, and much much more.
Oh, and the slightly naff BBC TV series, which people inexplicably didn't watch
Mark
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Douglas Adams wrote the screenplay
Correction, he was working on the screen play. Then he died. He also had voiced dissatisfaction with some of it. Go read the Douglas Adams forums (what remains of them, anyway).
This is simply a botch job intended to rake in millions at the expense of a world full of fans.
One of the "cool" bits of DNA lore include his slashdot interview This is an absolutely priceless bit of history for /. itself, and goes on to show what typical interviews of DNA were like.
If you can get ahold of the radio scripts (compiled into book form), there is also a bit of an autobiography of DNA included in them, as well as some biographical information that is floating around on various web sites. h2g2.com also has some information about DNA as well. As has been pointed out, there are also several biographies of this man's life available on Amazon.
about the difference between fantasy and conventional literature. It has to do about how they model psychology.
The conventional literary complaint about fantasy is that it doesn't hany any model of psychology at all -- that characters are flat and have no internal life. Therefore fantasy is mere entertainment, and can't have any kind of relevance other than escapism.
The key to understanding how this works, in my opinion, is that there is truly only one character in fantasy -- each character represent a different part of the reader, and as such have no internal structure. Psychological struggles are uncovered in fantasy and myth, by making the forces behind those struggles manifest, then playing out the results of each decision before our eyes, as it were. In the fairy tale, the impulse of pride is represented by the elder brothers who pass strange little man on the road and treat him with contempt, and the impulse of compassion is represented by the virtuous younger brother who stops and aid the little man, and in turn is aided. No more psychological machinery is required, this is perfect in itself. These are impulses which arise in ourselves and do battle on a daily basis; we don't know where they come from.
Very few fantasy works have the scope to demonstrate this fully, but LotR does. Every signficant character has his opposite: Gandalf/Sarauman, Theoden/Denethor, and Frodo/Gollum. Boromir is paird both with Faramier and Aragorn, who are in many ways the same character. So I would disagree that characterization is a weakness for Tolkien. He just uses what for literary critics are unfamiliar devices.
In any case, the reason the movie Faramir character was so unsuccessful is that he clearly doesn't belong here. The script writers had a major task in converting a mythological book into the dramatic medium. This involved a great deal of difficult compromise, and by in large they were sucessful by giving the archetypal characters dramatic shadings, if you will. They succeeded for the most part in keeping their drama instincts in check. Faramir is the one instance where they felt free to completely recast a Tolkien character to fit more of a theatrical/conventional literary mold. Probably the only one they dared to, as he is relatively minor. It isn't that one is ill-inclined to this character, he's just a melodramatic fish out of water..
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The Hitchhikker's Guide has always been a multi-format story, all incarnations of which differ from each other in very unique ways. First came the radio show, then the print trilogy, then the BBC TV Series, then the fourth book, then the Infocom game, and finally the last book. I enjoy all of the formats, and I'd be bored with the series by now if all of these were direct adaptations. I think judging this movie (particularly before you have seen it) is completely against the spirit of the series. The main reason I'll go see it is for the casting. I love Martin Freeman, and I love Mos Def. I've been re-reading the books, and I can already picture these two in the roles. And to those who expect the film to be bad: see it, but don't forget your towel.