H2G2 Cast Finalized, Starts Shooting in April 541
akahige writes "According to The Hollywood Reporter, Martin Freeman (The Office, Love Actually), Mos Def (Showtime, The Italian Job), and Zooey Deschanel (Big Trouble, Elf) have signed on to play Arthur, Ford, and Trillian, respectively. Stephen Moore is once again doing the voice of Marvin. No word on who's playing Zaphod (but wouldn't Eddie Izzard be great?). It worries me when they say things like, "Adams adapted his own novel for the screen. After his death, Karey Kirkpatrick came aboard for a rewrite." But it's Disney, so what do you expect? Shooting begins in April."
Disney? Might be good .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What to expect.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be one of the worst things that could happen to a kid, literarily. Douglas Adams was a memorable portion of my adolescence escape.
I've got low hopes (Score:3, Insightful)
It always seems like they spend less time poking fun at things like how major motion picture studios do product placement and regurgitate the same old shit and spend more time doing product placement and regurgitating the same old shit.
But I don't know. Maybe I'm just being cynical. After all, it's Disney! The people who brought us Brother Bear and, uh...yeah, Brother Bear!
Re:What to expect.. (Score:4, Insightful)
So true. I'd love to know the stats of the people which paid to see the LotR trilogy multiple times, bought the various DVD editions, plastic cups from some fast-food dive but haven't read the books and have no intention of doing so.
I'm not knocking Jackson or the movies, I think he did as good a job as could have been done, but no amount of CGI can beat the infinite movie screen of the imagination when fueled by a good book.
Re:What to expect.. (Score:2, Insightful)
I once had a lady ask me if the most important part of her kid's Kids Meal was in there as I handed her food out the Drive-Thru window. I asked her what the most important part was, and she said, "The Toy of course!" Kids dont care about the food, its all about the toy. Just my $.2
zaphod actor (Score:4, Insightful)
H2G2: It changes every time!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series is all about change. If the movie is 100% faithful to the books, I'll be very disappointed. I want them to switch it around a little bit, give us some of the stuff we love, but also some new stuff too.
I want to see the wonderful spirit of H2G2 and the sense of humor of Douglas Adams accurately reflected in these movies. If that's done, I don't care if Ford is black, if Arthur Dent is Latino, if Trillian is played by Queen Latifah or if Fenchurch is played by Harvey Fierstein.
Re:Strange castng decisions? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Hollywood" Re-Write of H2G2 Scares Me... (Score:5, Insightful)
My great fear of this is that the wit, sarcasm and anti-religious rage will be written out and instead, we'll get...Spy Kids in Space. The anti-religious part will be the first to go, otherwise Pat Robertson will be ranting and railing on Fox News about a horrible, blasephemous film coming from that esteemed home of children's entertainment, Disney. But it's a part of 'The Guide' and should stay in. Otherwise, it becomes...something else.
On the other hand, I suppose Disney should be given a little benefit of the doubt, after all, Pirates of the Caribbean was a highly entertaining film.
It will interesting to see what happens with this. I was hoping secretly Peter Jackson would handle the director's chair, given the respect he gave LOTR as literature. To me, Hitchhiker's Guide is a classic and should not be "messed with."
Re:Mos Def (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What to expect.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's your stats:
Total: 0.
Margin of error: Not enough to worry about.
People who have not read the books tend to see them each once at the theater, and come out saying "a pretty good action flick, but kinda slow at times."
The psycho-fans who are buying little Gollum statues and set pieces off eBay are people who read The Silmarillion twice (but claim to have read it three times.)
Re:What to expect.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one am PUMPED to see what the mighty Mos Def can do for this film. He's an incredibly talented rhymer with a very distinct vocal style. His flow will match well with Davis' dialog. I'm already imagining him dropping great lines like "Muscle relaxant. You'll need it for hyperspace, it's unpleasantly like being drunk." "What's wrong with being drunk" "Ask a glass of water."
Re:Strange castng decisions? (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, given that it was a radio series first, I'll go with your first but not your second point.
To expand a little. Yes Ford can be what ever colour you like, NAP. But Douglas Adams was a _very_ English writer, and if he wrote Ford with an English accent (witness accents on original BBC Radio4 series: mostly, but not entirely, English accents), I'd prefer it to stay that way.
That said, without DNA to keep the director/movie corp in line, I'm re-jigging my expectations for the film.
Disney doing subtle mixed with off-beat English humour <shudder>.
I don't see Hollywood succeeding in this... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd like to be surprised though.
Re:Disney? Might be good .... (Score:4, Insightful)
On the subject of a Hollywood rewrite.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't have drinking to excess (even if it is with peanuts to help offset matter transfer and hyperspace) in a teenager film, so that's out.. It'll have to be Coca-Cola/Pepsi and Doritos instead.
The mid-western 13-18 male demographic wont understand probability, so the infinite improbability drive is out. It must be the particle of the month, just like Star Trek.
Satire isn't funny enough. Eddie the ship board computer will have to be smutty and/or throw custard pies. Marvin will be the cheery, slapstic C3PO look-alike.
I'll just go and drink a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (tm) (c)Zaphod Beeblebrox, (available at a seedy space ranger's bar near you) and drown my sorrows. (Oh, and that'll be canned as well!)
Re:What to expect.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Someone explain to the non-Hitchhiker educated. (Score:2, Insightful)
Sometimes, the movie is better (Score:4, Insightful)
Bah.
Look at the credits for LotR. We're talking about 100s of professional dreamers, all channeling their combined skills into one magnificent creative act.
They beat me. Their world was more brilliantly imagined, more consistently detailed than my lone brain could come up with reading those books as a kid.
I think this is lazy-speak for another phenomemon. When you read a book, you are triggering fundamentally different feelings than you get watching a movie. There is a pleasure in reading that you don't get from film (and, I think, the converse is true).
But, yes, I admit it. the combined talents of all the creative folk on LotR bested my imagination.
Kudos to them. And good luck to the H2G2 crew, they have a big job ahead of them.
Re:Someone explain to the non-Hitchhiker educated. (Score:4, Insightful)
Read the first three books first, in order (*Hitchiker's Guide*, *Restaurant at the End of the Universe*, and *Life the Universe, and Everything*). Then listen to the radio shows (it is vitally important that you listen to the radio shows and read the books BEFORE you watch the BBC television series). I'd suggest the books first because they are the highest quality, even if the radio series is the fons et origo. Note that there are important differences in the organization of the books and the radio series: but you'll be able to see how DNA reworked the material for the books, and will hear the actors rather than seeing them.
After that, watch the BBC series. The BBC cast used mostly the folks from the radio cast. Thing is, they're radio actors, and they act like radio actors - their movement, blocking, etc. are all a little stiff, even if their voices are superb. Also, the budget was very tight, and the production quality (special effects, sets, wardrobe, and especially the prosthetic head) leaves much to be desired.
Next, read two stories that appear in *The Salmon of Doubt*. The first is "Young Zaphod Plays it Safe* - the version in *Salmon of Doubt* is uncensored in the US, while the on in the *Ultimate Hitchiker's Guide* and the other omnibus editions are censored in the US so that the ending leaves you a little confused (the last line is dropped). The second (though probably the oldest story of all, though I never checked on it) is "The Private Life of Ghenghis Khan".
After you've read those, it's time to read *So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish*. Enjoy. This one is a little more surreal than anything else, but it's still pretty damned funny (the biscuit story, which is absolutely realistic, is funny as hell).
Now, wait until some time when you're in such a good mood that nothing, not enough universal apocalypse, will make you sad. Get your favorite blanky out of the attic, and call up your significant other and ask him/her/shim/sher to remain on standby for a call. You are now prepared to read the last book, *Mostly Harmless*. The whole book is very, very dark, even though it is still quite funny. A lot of people hated it because the ending is rather depressing, and there's some retroactive continuity that's stretched a bit thin, but if you're over 30 you'll get it right away (if not, I've got terrible news for you: this is what life is like).
Then go out and get yourself a nice glass of orange juice and a breakfast sandwich. It will cheer you up.
My .02 (Score:3, Insightful)
This movie treatment deserves to be something special/spectacular.
also
DNA narrated all of his books for Dove audio, and added (again) something special.
It would be lovely if they would his voiceover for narration or for the guide itself.
Re:A Black Arthur Dent?! (Score:1, Insightful)
Mike
Zaphod... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes, the movie is better (Score:3, Insightful)
1. A movie has to be everything to all people, and this necessitates many trade-offs. My hypothetical best story is different from yours, and there are more people out there who would be happy with some lasers and rocket engines than would be happy Adams' superlative wit, just like there were more people who thought the Scouring of the Shire was an unnecessary add-on to the story than thought, like the author did, that it was an essential closing. With Lord of the Rings, this means that a whole bunch of people now consider these actors to be the definitive visual representations of these actors, and despite the fact that I generally liked the movies, I think that's a great shame.
2. The modifier "professional" implies that someone can dream authoritatively. They cannot. In fact, I have a pretty low opinion of these people, for missing forests due to trees, looking at fine details while missing points. The people in the industry who most often connect words like "dream" with words like "profit" are Disney themselves, and despite a number of animated features, these days they tend to get it wrong more often than right.
3. A movie is the work of hundreds of people, but some people are more important than others. Peter Jackson was much more important to the production than all the costume designers put together. If Jackson messes up, no one can make up for that deficiency.
And a special case for this production:
We're talking about DOUGLAS NOEL FREAKING ADAMS, for heaven's sake, a man I have always imagined as wit personified. These are not ordinary stories. I have never read anything else that zany and inventive, and I have no idea how the people making it can believe they can do it justice. Is Disney going to leave in Oolon Colluphid's philosophy books? Eccentricia Gallumbits? "Oh no, not again?"
On a lesser, but related, note, I've always been more taken with the awesome, chest-bursting humor of Hitchhiker's than the story itself, which meanders from place to place, not always with a good reason. I think this fits the story nicely, very nicely indeed in fact, but I can't help but think that Disney will try to "improve" it. Doing so may well damage the humor.
Anyway, sorry to disagree, sometimes the movie *is* better than the novel but I think this time it's impossible.
Re:H2G2: It changes every time!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
This kind of self depreciation is not American, and certainly not hollywood. If Arthur suddenly becomes a noble person, or there is grief over the loss of the planet, or, god forbid, it becomes Arthur's duty to redeem Ford and Zaphod, or even worse he gets Trillian, then the whole things falls apart.
If this was mirimax, I might be more hopeful. But it is disney. Disney is all about the conventional status quo. It is why they have to have Pixar do their animation, even though Disney was once the greatest animation studio in the world. It is why they might lose Pixar, unless Eisner crawls to Jobs on his hand and knees.
I hope is does change. I have mentioned some changes I would like. But I don't want to see this movie as another example where the studio bought the rights only to use the familiar name to sell tickets, while ignoring the fundamentals of the story.
Re:What to expect.. (Score:2, Insightful)
He considered himself a script writer and was happier writing mostly for radio and televison (doctor who anyone?)
Saying he was meant to be read is just silly. The guiy loved technology and media in all its forms (the web, games, books, radio, tv), i think douglas just _was_
New meaning of the word Finalized. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet the Article says that Zaphod is still to be cast!!!!
Hmmmmmmm
Writing (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, i'm looking forward to seeing the movie provided the producers put their imaginations into it.