*** Official THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Discussion Thread

I have been dying for this to come out!

Thanks for the review

The suicidal robot should be worth the price of addmission!!! LOL!

From listening to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series while in junior high school, what I recall most vividly was how Ford and Zaphod tried to "out cool" each other. Their absurd affectations intended to make themselves appear hip and suave even in the most dire circumstances was the source of most of the humor.

Their "beatniks to the nth degree" banter contrasted perfectly with poor Arthur Dent, the perpetually clueless earthman who was not savvy enough to know to hide his misgivings.

That core character dynamic was present in the books, the radio series, and the tv miniseries, but it isn't in the film.

Without the characters’ highly comic attempts to out-impress each other, what we are left with are snippets of storyline from Adams’ saga, oftentimes rendered so literally from their past versions as to be utterly boring. I found myself craving something new, something which justified making the story as a film.

I found of bit of that in the one character given any sort of depth: Zooey Deschanel’s Trillian. I was already a fan of Zooey’s work (she played the GenY “Dead Like Me”/”Wonderfalls”-esque lead in the film “Eulogy”) so perhaps I was inclined to enjoy her performance regardless, but I thought she brought some life to the character. Admittedly Trillian hadn’t been particularly 3-dimensional in past tellings, but it was a good move to make her something more than a “scientist-turned-Dale-Bozzio-in-hot-pants” as she’d been in the tv series.

Pity that Arthur didn’t get more than a handful of lines of dialogue in which we could get to know him, too.

The characters were barely there, and frankly that was what was so fun about the original(s). The storyline, which the film adheres to far too strictly, was just a fast-and-loose path on which the characters could tumble down - opportunities for wild banter and philosophical hilarity.

I could praise the film for following the storyline of Adams’ series so closely, and for the way the filmmakers manages to recreate the look and feel of something the BBC might have produced 30 years ago, right down to the use of clayfields for alien planets. But honestly I am not sure it deserves praise. Because we’d already seen it. The BBC produced a tv mini series which had the same look. We’d already heard these lines of dialogue (in better, more “beatnik” form) before. Why make a film if you aren’t ready to take it to a new level, to riff on the material? The books and the radio series and the record albums at least took slightly different routes along the same storyline.

Ironically, by sticking so closely to the original, they did a disservice to it.

Some random observations:

- The decision to make Zaphod a George W. Bush impression was seriously misguided, to the point of ruining the character entirely.

- During the opening scene, I prayed that the recreation of the look of the old tv mini series was itself a joke, and that 10 minutes in to the film the cinematography would suddenly change and we’d find ourselves in a whole new vision of the Galaxy.

- I watched the film in a packed but mostly silent auditorium (devoid of anything more than the occasional titter of amusement).

- I liked the cameo appearance of a certain tin friend, and the familiar faces that popped up now and then.

- The soundalike they got for the voice of the book did a spot-on impression.

- The guy who plays Arthur did a good job with what little he was given.

- The guy who played Ford didn't.

I just got back from the 5:00 showing. I have never heard the radio series but I read the books about once every other year so I'm very familiar with the plot and dialogue. I have to say I am sadly disappointed with what's been done with the story. In my opinion the director totally screwed the pooch with this one. A good bit of dialogue (which helps to explain the story) was completely cut and the few jokes left in the script were altered so that the humor was completely lost. The pacing was erratic at best and Zaphod was a total mess.

This one had so much potential but, as is often seen with books or comics made into movies, the director goes egomaniacal on us and rewrites 3/4 of the story.

I love the book, but I have to give the movie a big .

The bit with the Babblefish being left out really got me But, I didn't see this as creatively better or even really different in a positive way then the wonderful BBC miniseries. Some elements worked, but the bit with John Malkovich just seemed tacked on and weird when they left out so many things that I thought could have fleshed out the characters.

But it's a cute film, and it was worth the price of admission, despite my reservations.

This is a book that needed the BBC schlocky low-budget type treatment to be really appreciated (IMHO). I know that sounds weird, but the BBC's low budget version seemed to really nail the casting, and get the gist of the books. I was most dissapointed with the handling of Zaphod and Trillian.. the tone change between Trillian in the book/BBC/Radio and this version wasn't appreciated.

Still, I'd give it a /

One interesting note:

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Okay, how many people spotted:

(1) the guy who played the original Arthur in the radio and TV series as the 3-D spokesman for Magrathea?

(2) the out-of-foucs face of Douglas Adams? This is Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

(3) the squashed deer armchair of the chief Vogon? If you haven't read the books in a while, the reference probably will escape you.

There's a huge number of neat in-jokes throughout the movie for the observant who are familiar with the books, the radio series and the TV series.

And I think that's the trouble - the movie is a reasonable enough waste of a couple of hours if you are unfamiliar with the Hitchhiker's Guide and have a charitable disposition. It's really only likely truly to entertain the existing fanbase. Of those, inevitably we will get the hardcore element bleating about every supposed inaccuracy (in Shakespeare's time, there were probably nerds bleating about how he'd ruined the original plot of Romeo and Juliet, etc).

Personally, I found it bitty, but having said that, I thought the same about the radio and TV versions. Douglas Adams has often been compared with Lewis Carroll, and with good reason - neither of them could really string together a coherent plot. Instead they provided the flimsiest of pretexts to throw a huge array of brilliant individual ideas at you. I think the best way of approaching this movie is to see it as a collection of successive short movies - some are so-so, others very entertaining.

Overall, I'd say it's worth seeing, but don't expect belly laughs.

I took my wife to see this over the weekend. We shouldn't have watched it. We've never read the book and went into this expecting some Monty Pythonish humor and belly-aching laughs. Not once in the movie did we find anything funny - the humor felt like it was forced or it was trying too hard. Sad to say, this had to be the worst movie I've seen this year - so far.

out of

- Colton

Just read Bill's review over at the Bits. I don't think I have ever disagreed with something as much as that review. He asks those of us who feel differently from him (I guess those of us who would have preferred some semblance of loyalty to the books) if we have even read the books, which is a little insulting. Well, I prefer to have alot of the jokes from the books present in the film instead of the tepid new material that takes their place.

He also goes on to call Malkovich's cameo as "brilliant", which is probably the biggest exaggeration of the mundane/mediocre that I have ever read. A useless role that could have been acted by anyone is hardly qualifiable as "brilliant".

He calls the completely out of place (and downright insulting to the source material) romance plot awkward, but not due to it's absurdity or uselessness; more because of apparently how "British" the two are, whatever that means, despite the fact that Trillian in the film is most American in origin.

I greatly respect Bill, his site, and his contribution to the DVD cause, but that review was plain ridiculous!

I went to see this on Saturday with no idea whatsoever what it was about...I'd heard enough people suggest it that I gave it a shot. I found bits and pieces of the movie to be funny but other parts were just a bit too off the wall for me. However, 1 hour into the movie the theater lost all power! They were unable to get it back online and so we were all kicked out but were given 2 free movie passes. Not sure if I'll go back to see the ending or not....

Yeah I have to wonder if he'll still that way about the film tomorrow. Can someone create an official discussion thread for this film though? This is the review thread.

I must say that I am very surprised by some of the complaints in this thread. I though the film was highly enjoyable, and it seemed to be warmly recieved by the audience.

B+/A- from me!

Well, I've no idea what film I saw last night - because I thought it was great. It's never going to be the most earth-shattering (no pun intended) film of all time, but I had a ball.

And never having read the book, I suppose I'd better get to it. It may be much better than the movie (and probably is), but that doesn't take away from the fact that I really enjoyed the movie.

out of

JohnTRU--

What make the books special (and count me among those who thoroughly enjoyed the movie) was Douglas Adams's sly use of language and imagery, which isn't easily translatable to a visual medium.

Attention purists: Paraphrasing: "The Vogon ship hung there in the sky in exactly the same fashion as bricks don't." My sons, my wife, and I all got the biggest giggles over that sentence in the early pages of the book. That joyful writing style is throughout.

That is a great line. So is the Guide's entry about Earth being 'harmless', or actually 'mostly harmless', but that one sadly is NOT included in the film. I think it boils down to the fact that a feature length is not at all long enough to properly tell the story.

I also remember this computer game. I think I played it on my old Commodore 64 computer. It was pretty good back then but imagine how good it could be now using todays technology? Maybe a re-issue is in order?

I've been a Hitch-hikers fan since the very beginning (I listened to the radio series when it was originally broadcast in the UK, (I was 11) read all the books, have the TV version on DVD etc.) and I enjoyed the movie very much.

Sure there were favorite lines missing (I would have liked to have seen them arguing with the Vogon guard "I LIKE orders", the bit in the airlock... Arthur: "Its times like these I wished I had listened to what my mother said when I was little" Ford: "Why what did she say?" Arthur: "I don't know, I wasn't listening" and I love the "lucky escape for Arsenal" line in the pub too). But you can't have everything you like from a book show up in a movie.

What did make the transition from previous versions to the movie was very well done IMO, I laughed frequently during the movie. The Vogons were just fantastic, very well done. Zaphod was done quite well I thought, he even got a few "Heyyys" in. Trillian and Arthur were fine, but I thought Ford Prefect wasn't quite right (but wasn't too bad). I did think the romance sub plot was out of place and dragged in places.

I really enjoyed the little tid bits thrown in from the Radio/TV series, e.g the original Arthur as the Magrathean hologram, the TV Marvin in line on the Vogon planet and the original theme tune having a main title cameo.

Overall I would give it a solid B+ (although I still think Terry Gilliam should have made this film).

You are spot on.

Some people are criticizing the movie for not being faithful enough to the book(s). I went into it expecting it to be different since ever other version that Adams put out differed from the others if only slightly in some cases.

I also believe that Adams had lost some zeal for doing the movie since it took him so long to do as much as he did for it. I firmly believe it would have been a better movie had he lived long enough to see it through production.

YMMV

My kids and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie; though I agree it wasn't perfect. We've been walking around the house since Saturday singing (with imaginary tophat and canes) "So long and thanks for all the fish; too bad it had to come to this ...". So that was worth the price of admission right there. The fact that this behavior drives my wife batty is just icing on the cake. Can't wait for the DVD.

Now, when do we get the Dirk Gently movie?

Both Gilliam and Adams deal in quirky worlds/alternative realities, but that is where the similarity ends. Adams essentially dealt in a world of whimsy which is something uniquely English. He is solidly in the tradition of great English whimsical writers such as Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne, and P.G. Wodehouse. IMHO Gilliam doesn't begin to have the deftness of touch required.

And in any case, for all the superficial black humour of Hitchhiker's, underneath it is soft-centred. I doubt if Gilliam could resist arguing for the uselessness of resistance against fate (as in 12 Monkeys, Brazil, etc). And this of course utterly misses the point.


Had DA lived, we'd probably still be waiting for a working script. He was the most procrastinating writer ever. The tale about him being locked in the house of an exasperated publisher until he finished a book, although slightly embroidered, is basically true.

Better still - when is anyone going to start doing live action films of the Terry Pratchett discworold series? The cartoons are a complete travesty IMHO.

My wife would be all over that. Her favorite author ever.

Course, we still don't have a Good Omens film, and it looks like the deal he made with Dreamworks to do a 3D animated version of the Bromeliad series seems to have gone nowhere.

Jason

More than any other film in recent memory, it seems as though 'Hitchhiker's' is a really "audience-dependent" film. I saw this on opening night with a theater full to the gills with both long-time fans (who all seemed to like to finish their favorite lines) and teens just out at the movies on a Friday night. Right from the opening musical number, everybody was laughing up a storm, and with only a few lulls, they kept it up for the whole film.

One bit which got a great reaction was the flash-cut pullback up the whole height of a Vogon ship that just...kept...going, with appropriately over-the-top music hits. With every cut, more and more of the audience started laughing, until the whole theater was in hysterics. It was infectious. When the Guide made its entrance immediately afterward, people applauded.

A couple days later, I talked with a friend who'd seen it and didn't like it. Neither of us were religious followers of the franchise, so our experience going in was roughly equal. I asked him specifically about that scene, and he said he didn't find it funny at all. Our senses of humor are slightly different, but I suspect more that the audience he saw it with just didn't have that same reaction. I think I just lucked into a great crowd which was diverse enough to get big laughs for everything, from the sly British humor to the in-jokes to the all-out slapstick.

So, that said, I got a big kick out of it! In spite of some freneticism which cropped up in the second half, I enjoyed the cast and the wild twists and turns in the plotline. And I REALLY enjoyed the visuals...the old-school effects (particularly the Jim Henson creatures) were nicely whimsical, and the "factory floor" sequence was worth the price of admission alone. Truly awe-inspiring moment there...

Dear God, if I could just get a film version of "Small Gods" one of (IMHO) the funniest books ever written..

Anyway, my wife & I went back through the BBC Miniseries tonight of "HitchHikers" and while the graphics are bad, etc. it manages to "sell" the goofiness in a way that is very hard for the big screen version to do.. in part because of the polish.

I'd originally thought the tv mini series sets were bad, but someone must have though we "fans" liked it that way becayse the new film spent such attention recreating the general look of the Heart of Gold and the general look of Arthur's home and pub. I don't mean they recreated them inch by inch nail by nail, but they created the same sort of look & feel, and used the same pedestrian kind of cinematography of them as well.

Except in the film they actually knock down the house instead of just the garden gate. Which shows you what an extra 50 mil can do.

I'd rather they'd just abandoned the old BBC feel entirely rather than try so hard to recreate it.


All in all, tv mini series versus the film: I like the tv mini series better.

See, and I thought that whole sequence was a waste of time that could have been better used developing characters. I mean, I saw the earth being blown up in the trailers. I don't need to see them take about 2-3 minutes to do it here.

I thought it was a decent enough movie, and plotwise it works, but most of the comedy gets killed either by lack of chemistry, or lack of comic timing. It was disappointing to see Zaphod basically disappear for the second half of the film. I liked the way they handled him up to that point. Ford is basically a blank slate throught the film.

I'll take the tone of most of the reviews: it wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that great either.

Jason

Saw the film last night, bought the score CD this afternoon.

I've only read the first two books and that was about six years ago, so I guess you could call me a casual Hitchhiker's fan.

I wasn't sure what to expect since my memory was hazy on the particulars, but I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The actors (Rockwell and Rickman in particular) were great fun and Joby Talbot's score fit the film perfectly. (The combination of score and source music makes for a pretty satisfying CD experience. The Zaphod election song is very, very funny.)

I was under the impression that the budget was about $100 million, perhaps that was going to be the cost when Jay Roach was in the director's chair five years ago. At a $50 million price tag, I'd bet that Restaurant at the End of the Universe isn't too far out of the realm of improbability after worldwide box office and DVD totals come in.

I got the soundtrack yesterday. I don't think the Zaphod election song is funny, but it is fun to listen and sing along to, and that goes for "So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish" as well.

Yep. (I could just see them doing that number on the Oscars next year... maybe not.) I get a kick out of the (almost) hair-metal ballad vibe that "Vote Zaphod" gives off. Hell, even the Stephen Fry rap about Marvin doesn't assault my eardrums as bad as some reviews made it seem like it was going to.

I'd have to say the film easily surpassed my lowered expectations. Love triangle aside, I thought it was a decent homage to the BBC TV miniseries.

I played the original Infocom game on my Apple II. You can play that version online here:

http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html

You can play an illustrated version here, which includes the all-important ability to save and restore your game:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml