Hitchhiker's Guide Film Reports 518
wakaranai writes "The BBC reports that the new "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" movie will star Martin Freeman (Tim from The Office) as Arthur Dent. According to the Internet Movie Database filming starts early 2004, and Marvin's voice will be Stephen Moore, reviving his role from the classic 1981 BBC TV version." If you haven't seen The Office, it takes the subject matter Dilbert has bored us with, and makes it utterly hysterical. This is a good bit of casting. I'm still available to play Zaphod.
Re:Word twisting (Score:5, Informative)
Given that the original was a radio show, which contained one or two words....
The Office is great... (Score:2, Informative)
Adams was a jack-of-all-trades in life and writing (Score:2, Informative)
I wouldn't say that's safe to say at all. The BBC radioplay version of "The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" precedes the novels - and is (at least in my worthless anonymous opinion) easily on par with the novels as far as humor goes.
The Office (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Office is great... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Word twisting (Score:5, Informative)
"after disproving the existance of god, man goes on to prove 1=2, black=white, and gets run over on the next zebra crossing"
It's a joke! (Score:5, Informative)
I think the word you're looking for is "pedantic", not "technical".
You obviously haven't read the books. The fourth and fifth books both have a blurb on the cover that says something like "fourth in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy". It's a joke, very much in keeping with the late author's sense of humor.
It's the guy in the "high noon" graphic (Score:5, Informative)
On a related note, Slartibartfast was originally a working name for the character, which Adams chose just because he didn't like the typist the BBC had assigned for him whilst he was writing the scripts.
Re:Come on... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Movie go'ers who haven't read the book.... (Score:4, Informative)
What are you talking about? The Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything is "What is 6 times 9?"
The answer, of course, is 42.
(For the humor impaired, the joke is that 6*9 is not, actually, 42, implying there's something seriously wrong with the Universe when it can't even answer its own question correctly.)
This has everything to be great (Score:5, Informative)
Anyway, Douglas Adams fans should know that his computer works are now abandonware, and available for free download:
Last Chance to See -- The CD ROM, multimedia version of his book about endangered species [the-underdogs.org]
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy -- the text adventure game adaptation (by Infocom) [the-underdogs.org]
Bureaucracy -- the original text adventure game (by Infocom) [the-underdogs.org]
Cheers.
Memories of Douglas Adams at Apachecon (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, I hope the movie is good.
6 * 9 = "42" (base 13) (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Movie go'ers who haven't read the book.... (Score:2, Informative)
The mice built a computer to find The Answer, which is 42. They then built a much bigger computer to find The Question. That computer is the Earth.
The Googlefrinchan B Ark crashlands on Earth, which essnentially causes a "bug" or "virus" in the Earth-program. Hence when Ford & Arthur attempt to find The Question by pulling Scrable letters from a bag at random, they get a question but it is the wrong; the greatest program ever to run was broken because of the Googlefrinchans.
That is the joke. If you like you can look upon it as a commentary by Douglas Adams about the Earth being "wrong" or the awful consequences of introducing a foriegn species into an ecosystem. Whatever you like. But thats the joke at face value.
Re:WHY is this being entrusted to a newbie directo (Score:2, Informative)
He works for Hammer and Tongs, who produce very innovating videos espically "Coffee and TV" for Blur and "Demons" for Fatboy Slim. The company as a whole does Badly Drawn Boy's videos, all of which are the right style and humour for a HHGTTG film.
The company Hammer and Tongs [tongsville.com]
Re:Movie go'ers who haven't read the book.... (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not quite certain this was the point of the "6x9" joke, given that the program of the computer called Earth was corrupted by the arrival of the Gulgafrincham. OTOH, I do agree about the premise that there is something seriously wrong with the Universe.
Re:Movie go'ers who haven't read the book.... (Score:3, Informative)
From wikipedia:
"In the original radio series, this scene occurs at the end of the first series (Fit the Sixth). On discovering the question, Arthur Dent remarks "I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.". "
Re:Word twisting (Score:5, Informative)
That would be the TV series.
There is also at least one comic book series.
And the radio play is the original, though there came a point where multiple versions were being made simultaneously, then more radio episodes to finish out the book adaptions, and only now a movie.
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" has almost as many adaptions as has "The War of the Worlds". I wonder if they'll come out with an arcade game version next (Cinematronics did TWotW as an arcade game). Or pinball?
Re:Sequel (Score:2, Informative)
That's not to say that it wasn't funny...it's just so hard not to be a pedantic bitch.
Also, the HHGTTH is officially called a trilogy. It's funny. Ha ha.
Re:6 * 9 = "42" (base 13) (Score:5, Informative)
And again here, more blatently: Now that's bloody Informative!
Re:Word twisting (Score:4, Informative)
For instance, instead of just cupping your robe in front of the Babel Fish vending machine (because they are too slippery to catch and the vending machine shoots them out at high speed for no particular reason), you have to hang your robe on a hook, put a towel over a drain, move a bag over a door, and pile mail on the bag to get the fish and advance the storyline. Garrgh!
Re:Poor Synopsis (Score:4, Informative)
Also, not on a hysterical note, your sympathy for Brent grows more and more towards the end of the series (last 2 included), including the amazing scene where he is fired and then stands up to reveal his costume :)
What it's really like... (Score:3, Informative)
The Office is hilarious but you'll need some time to get through it on DVD -- it's hard to watch more than one episode at a single sitting.
I'm excited -- Martin Freeman's beleagured Tim bodes well for a great Arthur Dent.
Re:WHY is this being entrusted to a newbie directo (Score:3, Informative)
Short films have always been a good starting point for young filmmakers, and music videos are easily the most popular kind of short film. Besides, there are several ways of thinking about music vids; either, as you say, meaningless eye candy, or as a chance to squeeze some brilliantly original film-making into a meagre three minutes while managing often-pitiful budgets, release schedules and pop star divas. (To me, much of H&T's work falls in the latter category)
I trust Garth Jennings, but that's mainly because <EGO ALERT>I was privileged to meet him (and Nick Goldsmith, his partner in H&T shortly after he got the HHG job and chat to him about it. He's a big fan from way back and he's not going to mindlessly Hollywoodise it. (If it helps reassure you, he's English) Sure, some of the casting decisions are going to raise eyebrows but you cannot please all of the fans at once, especially if you want to keep the studio (who are the ones writing the cheques, remember) happy as well.</EGO>
A whole load of work has gone into this film project for many years now, much of it by Douglas himself (who turned out several new scripts just before he died), much of it by people who love his work, Garth and Nick among them. They're not just going to throw it all away.
Re:Word twisting (Score:2, Informative)
'Belgium' (I'm so sorry!!!) was in the Radio Series, season 2, Fit The Tenth (In which our heroes have some close encounters with others and themselves), uttered, in total desperation, by Zaphod as he hangs from the lip of the Nutrimatic Cup, thirteen miles above the surface of Brontitall ("There's nothing out there Ford, like no Ground! Some cat's taken the ground away!") and tries to persuade Ford to rescue him instead of discussing the origins and applications of the phrase "Holy Zarquon's singing fish" ("I don't want to be interested, I don't want to be stimulated or have my horizons broadened. I just want to be rescued, Ford, I just want to be swutting well rescued").
When Ford refuses, Zaphod utters the unmentionable imprecation; Ford relents and goes to fetch his towel.
Frankly, the interactions of the series, the TV show, the stage plays and the books is one whole joojooflop situation already before we try and retcon a film into the mix.
Re:6 * 9 = "42" (base 13) (Score:3, Informative)
We're talking Douglas Adams here, not Alex Trebek. It would be perfect for him to have the Ultimate Question not even be in the form of a question.
And it explains the answer: the answer itself is meaningless, a number pulled out to provide the initial seed value for the Universe.
It also matches what he did in "Mostly Harmless" wrt Stavromula Beta: at the end of chapter 4, there's mention that Alpha was Stavro's original club in New York, now run by his brother Karl, and there being little love lost between Stavro and Karl Mueller, and if you were quick enough to figure it out on the first read, you thus knew then about Stavro Mueller's Beta.
You notice more on the rereadings of the 5-book trilogy than on the first.