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Hitchhiker's Guide Reviewed
me at werk writes "The Register has posted it's review of h2g2. 'The radio series, that became a book, that became a TV series, has finally made it to the silver screen. The film version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is faithful to author Douglas Adams' legacy. The trouble is it's simply not especially funny.'"
Well I don't think they do. It's got so much crap to carry round to live up to that you just can't begin to know if you'll like it.
I hope to see it this weekend and, as long as it's about as good as the TV version (which I wasn't a fan of), I'll be happy I guess.
Of course, if it's slapstick city I may have real trouble taking it and will feel cheated of my tenner!
One of the main things I enjoy about Douglas Adams works is the humor
To be faithfull to his legacy i would say that you need to capture the "Funny" parts aswell as the other aspects , and the humor is pretty much one of the main aspects .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
the problem i think is so many people have read the book and have their own idea of how things will look, everyones will be different, which is why it's so hard to please everyone when you adapt a popular book to tv/movie
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
And to be honest its not to bad at all. Yes some of the British comedy tone was toned down, but it was still rather funny. It managed to get a good couple of belly laughs from the audiance, including me.
:P). The extended usage of the vogons was quite amusing and they made great bad guys. There are some bits that will make the geek in you go "ooh ooh ooh!" and point excitedly although I wont go into detail as to spoil it.
Good points, marvin was spectacular and outdid the original TV series' version. Zaphod Beeblebrox was outstanding and the true extent of his ego bleeds off the screen (flamebait comment, to be honest I think only an American could pull off the cheesy grin and un-abashed ego... sorry
Bad points are I'm a bit hmmmm about Ford, Trillian and Arthur though. Ford really didnt create any sort of major screen prescence and as such became a rather minor character with a penchant for towels. Trillian, whilst great at the start of the film, seamed to get relegeted to damsel in distress/love interest (standard hollywood crap). And Arthur... well hes was quite good for most of the film but I suppose I miss the orginal TV version which sticks in my mind as the definative Arthur Dent.
I suppose the worst aspect of the film is that yes, some of the great witty dialogue is missing. Its not all gone but a lot of the classic lines are trimmed. I quite missed the original lines regarding the babel fish proveing that god did not exist and the very funny bit about the plans being on display (the shortend "I had to go downstairs", made no sense on screen).
In all I would recommend people go see it, it gets a bit shakey before the middle but still provides a good homage to Adams' legacy.
The major problem I had with the movie is that it adds angst and sentimentality to the plot. Note, this is very stereotypical *Hollywood* angst and sentimentality and you can practically predict the lines so it's not particularly good angst and sentimentality either. Note I am a girl and I devour trashy romance novels and love chick flicks. However, there are situations where putting this sort of stuff in just simply doesn't really work (esp. when it is so badly written). Basically you sit through the movie. Funny scene. Laugh. Angst, romance, talking (all badly done) get bored. Funny scene - laugh. Angst, romance, talking - bored. Oh let me predict what lines they are going to say next. Wow, I got it right. How amazing (sarcasm). Funny scene - laugh. Etc. etc. Though I suspect the funny scenes were funny because I already read the book as they do seem to cut a lot of stuff out...
:)
The other problem is Ford Prefect, Mr. Sarcasm in the originals is practically a non-entity and not especially funny when he does exist.
I loved Zaphod though
Agreed. The magic of this story was always in the dialogue... using great special effects to add a sense of wonder (like the Magrathean construction floor) doesn't do much for the story. Looks cool... but zooming by planets just makes the audience go "oooh" and "ahhh" and that time should have been spent making them laugh their butts off.
I thought the movie was actually pretty good. What many people keep forgetting is that the book itself falls flat in the last half. Seriously, how long has it been since you read the book? Go back and read it again and you'll discover that once they get to Megrathea it really isn't that funny, amusing yes, but hardly *funny* the way some of the earlier bits are.
As for the movie itself, it really is quite good. The casting is wonderful, especially the man they got to play Zaphod. And the bits where the Guide is used are truly great.
The movie wasn't really all that funny towards the end, but neither was the book so I can't complain on that note.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Personally, I thought it was very well adapted.
As expected, I didn't see ALL the gags from the book, but I'm happy to say at least they cut the less funny ones instead of the good ones. You can't really expect everything from the book to be in the movie. As you know, I'm sure, a great deal of the book's charm is in the wording of the narration. Converting the narration's humour to movie format without over narrating is definitely hard, and I for one think they did a great job.
I will agree, however, that I didn't expect Marvin to look that way. I also didn't expect Zaphod to look that way either, but his character was great!
Also, in the credits, the BBC is thanked for providing the original Marvin suit from the TV series. I haven't watched the series yet, but is that how Marvin looked? That could be a good explanation.
Anyway.. there were differences from the book, but they were well done. For example, Ford showing up at the beginning with a cart full of beer. At first I was worried the pub scene would be cut, but it wasn't, and it tied in well! I actually preferred how this scene played out.
Sadly, they DID cut out the Narrator's explanation of how Ford picked his name.. BUT they still managed to fit in how Ford thought cars were the dominant species of earth. Precious!
Overall, the movie is pretty damn close to the book. The changes are warranted, and still pretty damn funny. On the down side, I can see how a lot of the plot and humour would be harder to catch if you hadn't read the book(s).
I still give it 3 thumbs up.
I just pooped your party.
believe it or not, but there are some people who did not grow up reading books.
As there has always been.
there are a generation or two, or three, of people who do not read books.
No. If anything, books seem to be on a rebound. Twenty years ago outside of big cities the only bookstore one would likely find would be a Waldenbooks mostly selling Garfield comics. Now you can hardly throw a stone and not hit a Borders or a Barnes and Noble. And they really sell some stuff for literati -- stuff like the Loeb and I Tatti Libraries can actually be found in the sticks these days. And of course there's the bookseller Amazon.com. practically the only dot-com that didn't go belly up...
Hm. The only thing I could find was this:
i got kicked out of barnes and noble once for moving all the bibles into the fiction section
I'd be pissed and kick him out too. Do you know how much extra work that makes for the employees, who have better shit to do than clean up after someone trying to be "clever"?
I had to go and search for myself, because your version sounded highly unlikely. In most bookstores, Bibles get their very own (rather large) section - there's no way an employee could accidentally put them in fiction any more than they could accidentally put a dictionary in fiction.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.