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Hitchhikers Guide Movie Might Become a Trilogy
Noiser writes "The BBC reports that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie could be turned into a trilogy. I wonder if they mean that it might turn into a trilogy in five parts, just like the book? I wish it did - unlike some people, I liked all of them..."
ok, I think we can start panicking now.
Come on, where's the Dirk Gently movie/TV series? I know, I know, it was a lot like Dr Who (in fact, I can't read DG without picturing Tom Baker in the role) but frankly it was brill and should be done at once.
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (despite having a great title) wasn't so good but the first one (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) was excellent.
I am a leaf on the wind
I just got done watching the movie a few hours ago. Very good I thought. I would very much like to see this keep going, so long as prodution values do not fall. All will be shown in due time (hopefully soon).
Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
Of course, one of the redeeming properties of the movie is that Douglas Adams wrote the script himself, before he passed away.
Unless he personally wrote out the additional scripts, or at least laid out an extensive outline (plot/characters, etc), I don't think any more movies would be as successfull as the first, which couldn't really be considered a blockbuster per se.
Robert Bindler
A Computer Science student's views on technology.
I would stop panicing.
I have freaks! I did something right...
I just can't see mostly harmless as making a very good movie. 'Restaurant At the End of the Universe', 'Life the Universe and Everything' and 'So Long and Thanks for All the Fish' could be very easily made into two movies... they have a kind of natural flow.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
Close, but no cigar. You're looking for the word pentateuch.
While Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" wasn't exactly a classic, it was a tremendously disappointing adaptation of a densely layered and rather subtle work. That "LXG" crap was an abomination.
Oh, and "I, Robot". Couldn't they have made their silly action thriller with SF spray painted on the top without robbing Asimov's grave to do it?
And they're going to fuck up "Watchmen" next. Ugh. Stab stab stabbity...
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I actually thought it was very true to the book, except for a few minor things. I saw it on Saturday and reread the book today. As far as movie adaptations go, I was impressed, several passages were taken word for word from the novel
You should check out Ursula K. LeGuin's website about the Earthsea movies. she hates them more than we do!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Hell, I'll be seeing the movie again...
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
Why is it that people keep talking about the books as the authoritative original source which the films must be measured against? The books, while a good read, lack the immediacy and playfulness of the original radio show: by the time Adams came to write the books, he was, to a certain extent, the victim of his own success. The series became a franchise that was undeservedly bigger than its author (his Dirk Gently books were less pacey, but just as entertaining as the Hitch Hiker titles). For instance, Zaphod and Trillian, if my memory serves, were casually killed off in an episode of the radio show. He had full freedom. When translating the riotous, freewheeling romp through space that was the original radio show into book form, that episode was changed and the characters survived. I feel this change was made to preserve the Hitch Hiker franchise. The last three books in the five-part trilogy were, although quite amusing, increasingly tired attempts to massage some more life out of the original concept and characters, and did not have the same gusto as the radio show or the first two books (which were, I believe, that only ones that were adaptations of the shows).
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
If memory serves correctly he said he was going through a bad patch at the time and this was a reflection of his mood - He hinted towards regretting it afterwards.
As regards sources I can't remember - I may have come across it in an interview or perhaps the Salmon of Doubt
Yes, but Magrathea being the object of Zaphod's desire because of Deep Thought being there? Nope. I liked the movie, independently from the books. And, if we believe what we've heard from those who made the movie, the serious difference in the plot was Adams' own design. If I hadn't read the books, I would have liked the movie. I have read the books, and I liked it, too.
The only joke that they tried to include but destroyed was the leopard joke at the beginning. I can't think of any others that got swallowed like that.
Those two are both MUCH more adaptable to film than any of the Hitchhiker books and were just as good. And personally, I enjoyed Long Dark more than HDA, but they were both some of the more entertaining reads I've had. - Jellisky
Will they make Arthur into a romantic lead again, instead of the hapless bumbler he was meant to be?
Oh, oh! You know how whenever Hollywood is making a romantic comedy, someone thinks, "hey! This movie needs explosions to draw in the boys!", and adds some shit blowing which makes no goddamn sense? No?
Well, then why the fuck did they insert a turgid romance into the middle of a darkly ironic SF comedy of non sequiturs? To wit:
Arthur Dent, as the romantic lead, is playing opposite Trillian. And when the small white mice are about to carve up his head (they left out the "DICED!" line, but that's a minor quibble), he cries out that no question has ever brought him happiness, and that for him there's only been one question ever, and it's "Is she the one?" and the answer is "Yes!---It's always been yes!".
And then he uses his superheroic strength to break through his bonds and smush the small white mice. Slartibartfast smiles. Earth Mark II having been recreated and all the people on it restored, Arthur and Trillian go off in the Heart of Gold, happily ever after.
And that is why I wish to piss in the Cheerios of whoever made the choice to smear that shit on the movie. That's all.
Oh, and when the characters are all waiting in line, keep an eye out for the Marvin from the original BBC television series. He makes a cameo. I thought that was cute.
And the Earth is made whole again and no one's really dead and... ugh. It wasn't true to the spirit of the books, and it didn't even manage to be true to the letter in a lot of places.
And those of us who liked the original work are left sort of gesturing and lamely telling disappointed fellow filmgoers that, really, it wasn't like that at all.
Pfah. Take your sequels and shove 'em.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm outraged! They don't support OGG vorbis or-
wait, what are we talking about? I'm not sure what we're being outraged about today.
I am your father...
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Why does everyone keep saying "This was the same as the book", "This was different" etc. etc.
Surely you all know very well by now that Adams changed the story to suit the medium (and his own fancy). The radio play, books, TV Show and now movie are ALL DIFFERENT.
They share a LOT in common, but why people get all ansy(or is that antsy) about what's different in the films compared to the books is beyond me.
Keep in mind that the book wasn't even true to the book. Or something like that.
Really! The radio plays, the book, the BBC TV series, and the towel all had slightly different and often contradictory story lines. Having the movie differ is just another evolution in the story.
Posted from the wireless couch.
****Movie Spoilers, read at your own risk****
The whole thing that drove the books on was the fact that Arthur was alone and lost in hostile universe, with more and more of his home Earth ceasing to be. At the end of this movie, Earth is restored and Arthur gets the girl. What's the point in continuing? To see Arthur fly around the galaxy sight-seeing, with a great girl by his side, knowing all along he can return to his home whenever he gets sick of it? That's not Hitchhikers.
They'd have to re-blow-up the Earth and set up another love triangle with Trillian or something.
dinner: it's what's for beer
Wow, that would be interesting. But does Terry actually like HHGTTG? I would imagine definitely YES, but it is hard to be sure about these things.
...fire everyone but the artists and Slartibartfast.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
Spoken like... well, like a man who didn't get the joke.
If they're going to do a trilogy, they should make, like, four movies at least...
I suggest you read Slashdot
After reading the review that said most of the humor was missing I was unsure of what to expect, but ended up really enjoying the movie. The movie is not the book, which is different than the radio and TV series. I went with a number of friends, many of whom are also fans of the books and the general consensus is that the movie was well done.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
You might want to check out BBC Radio 4's webpages - the new series of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Quandary Phase) starts Tuesday 3rd May. You can listen online using Real Audio, or wait for the Beeb to sell you a CD later in the year. More info on BBC Radio 4's Hitchhikers pages.
A swell foop? A foop like the noise of a hundred thousand people saying "foop"? A foop like the sound of a departing Krikkit Warship?
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
I thought the movie version was hilarious.
:)
All DA's versions were different, so why not this one?
What DA did with plots in the different media versions must make SF-ST/SW-canon-geeks heads asplode
My girlfriend hadn't read the books before because she thought they were nerdy, but she pissed herself in the movie and will be reading the books as soon as she finishes LOTR.
Her quote:
"Oh, I thought the H2G2 were just for nerds."
I think the movie will make a lot of people read the books for the first time.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
No! Then it would all end in tears! Terry Gilliam can't write a happy ending to save his life. LOL
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
Seriously, the movie feels like bureaucratic Vogons produced, directed and finished the screenplay. There was no understanding of the humor of Douglas Adams.
... locked file cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on it saying 'beware of the leopard'"
I know people have poo-poo'd the often repeated criticism of the change in an early line where Arthur Dent is telling the head of the (human) demoltion team about the trouble of finding the plans for the bypass. But that change says a lot about the movie.
Line from book/tv series:
"It was in the basement
Line in the movie:
"It was in a cellar"
The book showed the level of absurdity that bureaucracy causes. This basis of the joke in the book then continues when the Vogons use similar bureaucracy when telling humans where the plans for the hyperspace bypass are. But with the movie killing the basis of the bureaucracy joke, the Vogon part is far less funny as that joke is no longer built on anything previous.
I am not a "fanboy" wanting an exact word for word duplication of the book. The ridiculousness of bureaucracy could have been shown or stated in several ways in that eary scene, without quoting the book. But the fact that there was no emphasis on ridiculous bureaucracy shows a total lack of understanding of the whole scene. Unfortunately, the entire movie is the same lack of "getting it".
I want a coherent cohesive story that carries jokes forward and understands that humor relies heavily on context. No context means no humor. And the people/Vogons who made this movie clearly had no understanding of the context of Douglas Adams jokes. I hope to god that these same people have nothing to do with any further Hitchhikers movies.
Alas... I've mocked someone for being a dumbass only to be proven a dumbass myself. Truly, this day I am a slashdotter.
I find myself able to enjoy it a bit more now that he's dead, and the Universe has prevented him from writing more books in the series far more thoroughly than the end of Mostly Harmless does.
As a piece of existentialist horror it is unmatched; even the great French philosophers like Satre on his best day couldn't invoke the true horrors of the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash, a direct consequence of the Many Worlds hypothesis (though Many Worlds doesn't imply that you can travel on the "probability axes", the horror, ultimately, is the same).
In some sense, it's his greatest work, but since it is "great" because it confronts consequences of certain surprisingly popular beliefs head-on, it is not always a pleasing sort of "great". If you are a believer in the Many Worlds hypothesis, this book really lays out on the line how existentially horrible it is; the Total Perspective Vortex squared. That can be particularly unsettling.
I do not accept the hypothesis, so I can look at the book with a bit more detachment, but even so, it is truly a stark look at the entire Universe. I'm not sure I can think of anything that is more darkly humorous, and given the somewhat light-heartened tone of the rest of the series (sure, the Earth is destroyed, but that's just an excuse to have a bit of fun, right?), it's a shocker, even after So Long and Thanks for All The Fish sort of warmed you up for it.
If I were going to throw anything he's written at a literary type, it'd be Mostly Harmless. For the same reasons I say that, a casual reader is likely to find it their least favorite. And it is my least favorite too... but I no longer hate it, and I even have a grudging respect for it.
Special edition DvD for the win.
Don't worry, the AC who corrected you got it wrong as well, not realizing that the post you responded to was a rather funny joke as well (and apparently neither did the moderators).
Pentateuch is not the correct name for a series of five books, unless they are the Holy Scripture of God.
KFG
After pulling in $21 million and ranking number one for the weekend I am not surprised that Disney is talking sequels. My largest concern is that the script felt a bit lackluster, though I enjoyed the movie. I just didn't think that many of the actors brought their characters to life. And Trillian's role was reduced to a damsel in distress who lowered her expectations in order to find love since her beau never truly overcame his cowardice.
If they do more, I'd want to see more sarcasm and wit brought into the dialog. I'd like to see Ford be less of a tree hugger and more of a pithy saw with his comments. Zaphod and Ford were far too kind to Arthur in this version, IMO...
The Splintered Mind - Overcoming
If you're looking for commentary on the madness of bureaucracy, look no further than the scene on Vogsphere, when Arthur was trying to get Trillian released. It was a fairly brilliant sequence, IMO. Also note the cameo by the original Marvin the Paranoid Android in the queue.
Overall, I thought the movie was quite good. It's not a classic for the ages, but it was an enjoyable movie, and I hope they at least make the first three books into movies. The fourth and fifth are dodgier, and I wouldn't lose any sleep if they didn't do them.
Oh hush. I'm an avid fan of Douglas' work, and even though they removed some of his dialog, the stuff they replaced it with was suitably funny, and there was enough stuff changed and added that I was laughing throughout much of the movie, instead of mildly chuckling as each of Douglas jokes in the book is repeated verbatim.
Christ, even Douglas himself said that there was no such thing as the official Hitchhiker story. This movie is just another take on the whole Hitchiker idea.
It wasn't perfect. But it was a hell of a lot better than I expected it to be. And defeniatly a lot better than that godawful BBC miniseries.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
One of the things I really liked about the movie was that it was nice and cheery unlike the last book in the series. The magic of HG2G is in the lighthearted humor and fun style if they try and copy the depressing last book it would ruin the movies even more than it did the books.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Yeah, I noticed that too. I totally can't understand it. I hated it, and I left the theater assuming that all the talk on the internet would be about all the not-laughing that had been done at this movie. Strangely, it seems split 50/50.
Not so in the theater I was at, though. I think there were maybe 2 or 3 (I'm not exaggerating!) parts where *anyone* laughed, out of 60-70 people. The door squishing the crab got, hands down, the most laughter of anything. Sad.
I've read the books and seen parts of the mini-series. While watching the movie I kept seeing them start really good jokes, sitting there in eager anticipation for their hilarious conclusion... only to have them omit the punch line. It's not that I don't "get" British humor--I enjoyed the books, plus the parts of the miniseries that I saw, and I like Monty Python, and Father Ted (OK, it's Irish, whatever) is one of my favorite TV shows of all time, etc, etc. It was just totally unfunny. The timing was consistantly bad throughout, along with the aforementioned omission of the 2nd half of many of the jokes.
I was embarassed on DNA's behalf, actually, because I knew that none of the people in the theater with me who had not already read the books would ever want to, after seeing that.
Also, the acting was some of the worst I've seen. EVER. Period. And I go out of my way to see nototiously bad movies, when the mood strikes me. We're talking worse than the kids in the 1st Harry Potter movie. Yes, that bad.
But, again, opinion seems split down the middle. Weird.
...and it was the only movie I've walked out on in recent memory. I lasted about 45 minutes, most of them excruciating. Even if they did include some of Adams' funnier bits, they seemed to have abridged them in just the right way to lose the punchline, or curtail them when they started getting truly absurd (and absurdism, I thought, was the whole point of Adams' stuff). I couldn't figure out what the rest of the people in the theater were laughing at. Groupthink? Honestly, I'd compare the experience to watching a big-budget, Hollywood remake of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Why on Earth would I subject myself to such a thing? (Well, as I mentioned... I didn't.)
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the movie was actually much better than I realized, and the subtlety of it was just lost on me until now. Adams, in writing the screenplay, was subjecting the audience to a kind of protracted version of a Vogon poetry reading! It was life imitating art...
Breakfast served all day!
"Why make a sequal?"
Because a lot of people liked it and we're alloweed to have differing opinions?
"Derp de derp."
"I don't see this as being a big money maker like the Lotr or Matrix series."
It doesn't need to be. It only needs to make a profit. It had a budget of $45 million and in 3 days it made half that. That's ONLY in the US.
"Derp de derp."
What... you mean The Hitchhikers Guide isn't the word of God? Damn... after all these years...
Hi. I'm Jenn... and I'm addicted to poppy seeds. Now give me my damn everything bagel with creamy cheesy!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, absurd humor is only half of what gives the novels and the radio series their charm. The other half is the witty, irreverant, biting commentary on the nature of humanity, which the movies did away with entirely--probably so as not to "offend" anyone.
...ok, I'd watch them anyway.
Eddie was great, though. Even if they were terrible, I'd watch the rest of the movies just for him. >8)
I thought that Mos Def nailed Ford Prefect in about ten seconds. I liked Zaphod as well. Arthur was great, and Trillian was, well, around way too much. I could really have done without the love story, although Zooey Deschanel is easy to look at.
I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I didn't think for a moment that they'd do the sperm whale joke, but they did. I was happy.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
So far, even the people who disliked the movie have said that it was pretty true to the book insomuch as the jokes and Guide entries, so what are you all whining about?
/.ers have been whining about since the movie's hype started.
I saw the movie, and, quite frankly, I didn't really care that they added in a "Hello, Ground!" to the Sperm whale bit or took out the Guide's entry on towels (especially since, in the radio series, it would have fallen into the Restaurant Fits) or hid Zaphod's head and third arm or even made Marvin into a robot iPod with a gigantic head, all of which are the only complaints that
The problems start when they change Zaphod from someone who should have been so cool you could keep a side of meat in him for a month into someone whose brain is fueled by lemons, or when the dolphins' final message to humankind becomes an aggravating Broadway-sounding number that will make you absolutely sick of the words "So long, and thanks for all the fish!" by the time the movie is over.
I especially liked seeing the Guide's entries animated, and all the jokes were straight on with the radio series and the books, but the real problem is that the whole thing just smacks of Disney-fication, from the romance twixt Arthur and Trillian to the ending, which reminds me very strongly of Bambi for sheer happiness.
You're forgetting opportunity cost -- it needs to not just make a profit, but make more profit than (whatever other movie the people involved could be working on instead). I don't think any studio wants to spend several hundred man-years of their time just to break even...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
*********SPOILERS***************
:D
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They left the earth intact at the end of the movie. This, to mean, implies that they've given themselves a perfect opportunity to take after the original radio show and destroy the earth in every single installation of the movie trilogy, in a different way. I hope they take it
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I saw it on opening night in Madison WI. People laughed a lot and there was even some appplause at the end.
I liked it more than I expected, but given the reviews here I wasn't expecting much. I think it has a different *type* of humor than the previous installments, more visual. Some of the effects were *very* funny. The inexcusable bobbling of the Prosser incident (if they were going to do it that badly they should have left it out) and the lame underplaying of Ford were disappointing but the casting and performance of Zaphod and Trillian were so brilliant I very much forgive them.
I will forever think of W as President Beeblebrox from now on, which alone was not only worth the price of admission but somehow softens the pain of actually seeing the man.
I think this is an important movie in the history of silly movies actually, the first where big budget effects were played as comedy.
mt
I saw the movie Saturday, and afterward, I realized this:
The movie was okay. I mean, it wasn't terrible, and it wasn't great. It was just okay.
"Why?" I wondered. I didn't feel that the dialog was outrageously different from the books. There were a few deviations, but I actually welcomed them so I'd have something interesting to watch the movie for, instead of just mouthing the words along with the characters ("lunchtime, doubly so").
I then realized why I love the books, but I've never really been interested in the BBC series or in the radio show. The reason is because it's DNA's fiendish love of garden path sentences, of long and garish lines of prose that make the reader stop and parse the same sentence several times, popping words off their mental stack in different orders each time, before they find the one that makes sense, that make the books so hilarious. It's the short and witty lines that work beautifully in book form, but fail to make me even chuckle when presented in a theater ("exactly the way that bricks don't").
The books were hilarious not because of the storyline, or the clever plot, or even the funny jokes--they were hilarious because of DNA's writing style. And that writing style, sadly enough, just doesn't carry over into the Hollywood scene, regardless of how much freedom he had to make the movie exactly how he wanted it. Unfortunately, taking a hilarious writing style and making a movie where a British accent reads paragraphs in that writing style does not a hilarious movie make.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
There were two ideas that seemed slightly adapted from later books (having to do with Trillian and the Earth at the end -- those who have seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about), but the storyline did only cover events in the first book. More or less, anyway; some events in the movie weren't anywhere in the books.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I saw the movie Saturday, too. Previous warnings had calibrated my expectations sufficiently downward that I was able to enjoy the movie.
Low point: Don't even think about them, because that would take away the enjoyment I did get out of it.
High point: The Magrathea factory floor really benefited from a big special effects budget. Of course we won't say anything about whether or not that was central to the movie.
****SPOILER****
Really Good Point: When Trillian picks up the tiny light sabre with the 6 inch blade, and slices her bread into toast with it. One brief scene skewers the Great Weapon of Star Wars, trivializing it in a toss-off gag.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I saw the Hitchhiker's Guide movie this past friday. I enjoyed it, and here's why.... You know how geeks like us walk around making jokes that refer to hitchhiker's guide, monty python, blazing saddles, etc? Well, that's what the movie felt like: two hours of references to the book.
So, yeah, I enjoyed it... but did the movie have any purpose? Did it enhance the experience of the book? No, I don't think so. And I truly feel sorry for the people who see the movie without having read the book first. What a pointless excersize that would be.
Do yourself a favor -- go read all the books and don't worry about the movie(s).
Personally, I liked the movie. I went in with absolutely no expectations, or delusions of grandeur - and I feel that that is the single largest mistake most people made. How often do we see that, no matter how good the book was, the movie is less? Every time. EX: LOTR was a great series of books; The movies were good as well; The movies and the books are similar, but different. It's the same with H2G2.
We see the converse of this where movies have been adapted to book form. The books don't follow the movie, has a different flow of events, and is usually written in a new perspective. Most are bad, some are good - it depends on the writer.
Personally, I'd like to see a five part trilogy - I think it would be great. I don't, however, have any expectation that it would, or even should, follow the books with a faithfulness of more than using the ideas in them, and building anew. With the proper writers, script editors, etc.., a series of movies could be great. It also brings me to another point - if the movies were to be close followings of the books, don't you think it would get monotones? Do we really want our own visions of what we think it should be, of how we picture it on our own minds, shattered by something that strives to be an exact copy? I wouldn't. I'd want something that I could watch, and maybe see the story from a new angle, not the same old thing regurgitated in a visual form.
Anyway, just my two cents worth.
http://www.accelerateglobalwarming.com
I admit, this isn't the ideal movie that it could have been; I would have actually rather seen it made by the Farscape producers, as I think they could have better hit the style (and it could still have those Henson Creature Shop creations in it). But all in all, I think the good exceeds the bad. And I can sit here and go on for a few hours about the parts they got wrong. Arthur was great; Ford was hit and miss; Zaphod was good, but it felt to me like he was occasionally pulling off a bad George W impersonation; Trillian was fairly far from the mark; Marvin was done damn near perfect; and the Vogons where better than I had imagined.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Terry Gilliam would have been perfect to make this movie.
I love that the greatest Terrorist the "Brazil" the movie, is a repairman.
The terrorists life is saved by a smashed fly. The wrong person is executed and because his family doesn't except the "compensation", it drives the rest of the movie with a bureaucratic tailspin.
That the name "Brazil" sounds exotic and forrested, and nothing in the movie has not been paved over by industry.
Terry gets the irony and absurdity of Douglas Adams. More than anyone else I can think of. I always thought that "Time Bandits" had a similiar mood/creative sensibility to the "Hitchhiker's Guide".
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