Hitchhiker's Movie is Bad, says Adams Biographer

Rollerbob writes "MJ Simpson, who has 'been studying and documenting the life and career of Douglas Adams for more than 20 years', has written a very in-depth review and plot analysis of the Hitchhiker's movie. As well as the full review that contains SPOILERS , he has also published a shortened spoiler-free version, as well as a list of things from the radio plays, records, books and TV series that have not been included in the movie. Hitchhiker's fans, prepare to be like Marvin ... very depressed."

I'm a Sucker

[Alcimedes]

Sorry, but I guess I liked the Hitchhiker's series enough that I'll go see it anyway. Hell, I sat through the new Star Wars series thus far, and that was punishment enough.

As long as there's no JarJar, I guess I won't leave too pissed.

The should have got that Peter Jackson guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Lord Of the Hitchhikers, Fellowship of the Galaxy

Re:Disgusting

[cpghost]

The movie is not 100% accurate? Oh, you mean just like the Guide?

Re:Not just bad

[g2ek]

sounds like good old marvin ;)

Much worse than bad

[Raul654]

The write up understates it, I think. From TFA:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just won't believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original popular - but that's just peanuts to the Hitchhiker's movie.

Re:Not just bad

[quantaman]

I know, one of the things I've always found hardest to understand about Movie Reviewers was their habit of continuously stating and repeating the very very obvious, as in "It's a comedy", or "It's a very long movie", or "Oh dear they've adapted this movie from a book and made it really really bad".

Re:Ah crap.

[tehshen]

playing the Infocom game was a little unrealistic

Since when would you expect any incarnation of Hitchhiker's to be realistic?

Re:Set Up Us The Bomb

[lxt]

Like that underappreciated great "Batman & Robin"...still brings a tear to my eye.

Don't Panic

[ericof]

If this movie is as bad as the review states... It will have a long life in the theaters ;-)

(But, don't you think, Marvin should look like Bender?)

Re:American Screenwriter

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it takes an Oxford education to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of Benny Hill.

Or maybe bad writing is just bad writing.

Good morning, Captain

[AtariAmarok]

"Is it me or that reads like an entry in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? "

Captain Obvious arrives! You are a little late this morning. Did the Obviousmobile break down or something?

This movie is SO bad...

[AtariAmarok]

I've heard that this movie is so bad that the audience is urged to view it from the safe distance of thirty-seven miles from the screen in a well-built lightproof bunker, only after their eyes are gouged out. The director is now rumored to be serving eternity dead for "he really pissed off some geeks" reasons.

Viral marketing ploy.

[darkonc]

Now, we're all going to have to go see it just to se if it really is that bad.

Re:Disgusting

[lurch_mojoff]

It should have been a trilogy at least.

A trilogy of five, to be precise. ^__^

Re:In denial

[lxt]

"So we've got a movie. A piece of shit movie.That Douglas Adams lost is life over."

Yes, that's right. The move killed Douglas Adams. Nothing else. It was just that damn movie. Now go back to sleep.

I can take some random crap, but that's a bit too far.

They forgot...

[ari_j]

From the list of things that aren't in the film:
* The Guide entry on towels

Those bastards forgot their towel!

Thanks

[AtariAmarok]

"It's because Americans prefer humor that doesn't involve rampant stupidity, "

Thanks. Now I know why "Police Academy" was such a dismal flop, and no sequels were made.

Re:American Screenwriter

[back_pages]

I personally, with no intention to troll, feel that this is what happens when you let an American write English humour.

This sentence does not parse.

First, let's put that dependent clause where it belongs.

I personally feel, with no intention to troll, that this is what happens when you let an American write English humour.

Second, there is no coherent relationship between "I personally feel" and "with no intention to troll". What does "without intention to troll" actually mean? Perhaps you meant "without intention of trolling" or "without intending to troll"? I'll choose the latter. That resolved, what does it mean to feel, personally or otherwise, without intending to troll? Perhaps you meant, "I opine, without intending to troll". Now it is clear that you are publicly offering your opinion without intending to troll rather than thinking to yourself without intending to troll.

I opine, without intending to troll, that this is what happens when you let an American write English humour.

Brilliant!

I opine that this is what happens when you let an Englishman write English.

Kindest regards, an American.

Captain!

[AtariAmarok]

A link that shows that "Police Academy" had sequels???? Captain Obvious, you are busy today! Thakn you SO much. I had no idea!

Re:Not just bad, way worse than Gattaca

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if films like that got some geek-cash, then they'd start creating sci-fi films of a similar caliber again (like Gattaca.)

Yes, please. See, I'm not only a sci-fi fan, I am cursed with this terrible insomnia. And anything approaching energy in a film frightens me. When I need entertainment, or sleep, I get out my Gattaca DVD. I'm pretty bored of it by now, though. I guess this is a good thing in a way, but I could sure use another movie or two to be bored by.

Gattaca. Mmm. So sleepy... ZZZZZZZZZZ

Re:American Screenwriter

[Anonymous Coward]

http://imdb.com/name/nm0000416/ Terry Gilliam, born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Where is that, West Midlands?

Haha! Talk about proving a point about damaged senses of humour...

Re:In denial

[dr_dank]

So we've got a movie. A piece of shit movie.That Douglas Adams lost his life over.

I know he died a few years back, but I didn't know that was his cause of death.

If bad movies could kill, then the premier of Phantom Menace would have looked like Jonestown, post-Kool Aid.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

This is hysterical, and probably the only proper reply to a post that unsuccessfully tries to infer generalizations where they do not exist.

For Christ's sake, it was IMPLYING the generalizations.

Re:Not just bad

[Anonymous Coward]

You know you'll spend your 8 bucks anyway.

Speak for yourself. I'll tell my rich geek-wannabe friend what a great movie it is and convince him to come and see it with me, then when we get to the theatre I'll realize I left my wallet at home... Pay for a movie, hah! What's next? Pay for an 80GB disk when I can convince my friends that they should upgrade to a 160GB one which is twice as fast?

Nonsense!

[ggvaidya]

The Guide is ALWAYS perfectly accurate. Reality might get things wrong sometimes. :)

about spoilers

[coaxial]

If you've read the book, you already know the story, so how can the movie be spoiled? Of course I'm sure there are many people that went to see The Passion of the Christ and said, "Don't tell me how it ends!"

You forgot the last line...

[katharsis83]

"This is a terrible, terrible film and it makes me want to weep."

Ouch.

Po faced???

[Anonymous Coward]

Do tell what that means. Is it what you look like after reading "The Raven" poem in one sitting? Here's Po [bbc.co.uk], if you are referring to his face.

Re:Disgusting

[Jerf]

LOTR wasn't Hollywood. Sure, Hollywood did the distro and their names are thus on it, but Peter Jackson was on the other side of the world, using local work as much as possible, and it shows. I don't think you can credit Hollywood, rather, it shows what can be done if they give money to good people, but don't demand to "Hollywood up" the resulting picture.

Having seen the Trilogy, it can be quite difficult to remember how bad it could have been; this HHGTTG movie review should serve as a reminder.

"We don't get this whole 'elf' thing; shouldn't they be singing, dancing, and drunk the whole movie?"

"Gandalf is a wizard, why doesn't he cast more spells? Oh, wouldn't it be cool if he took over the mind of the orc chieftan and made him slay his companions? And maybe he can teleport people, but only elves or something, or they get turned inside out. And..."

"OK, get this... what if when the hobbits are fleeing from the Black Rider, we make it a car chase? We could get sponserships from Ford and Chevy! Awe$ome!"

"People aren't going to understand this 'Ring' thing. Can we just do away with the Ring entirely? We'll turn the quest into one to stab the Eye of Sauron with a sharp, pointy stick. Uh, of magic."

"Shouldn't the orcs have a Jamaican accent and be sort of bumbling? Lots of slapstick there..."

"What if we get Samuel Jackson to play Frodo?"

(OK, that last one is kind of interesting, though probably not in a way that would make a good movie... get your hands off my ring, motherfucker!!!!)

Re:American Screenwriter

[Tango42]

This sentence does not parse.

Yes, it does. The sentence before it didn't parse, though. I think you meant "that". Try to be correct when correcting people.

It'll all end in tears, I know it.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I could have told you this a year ago.

God, now they're going to rape "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". I can hear the "high concept" on this one: "Harry Potter meets that Hobbit movie, with Talking Animals! We've "sexed up" the magic and the fighting!"

Re:Not just bad

[Sebastopol]

Of course, "Don't Panic" was one of the useless, unncessary and redundant phrases cut from the movie.

Re:Here we go again....

[Jardine]

Failure to include the scouring of the Shire missed another key point in the book, that evil touches everything, even the most innocent of places and things. Between this and the preceeding point, it's clear that the writers had little literary understanding of Tolkien's work.

How would you have liked them to include this in the film? People complained enough about how many endings there were after the climax of the movie. If the Scouring had been included, by the time the movie reached that part of the story, everyone in the theatre would be saying "What the fuck? The ring is destroyed, I have to pee, Frodo and Sam are alive, I'm still not sure why they didn't just have one of those big-ass eagles drop the ring in the volcano, and now they're starting another storyline that's going to take another hour?"

Sure the hardcore fans would have stuck around to watch the Scouring, but the movie was already close to 4 hours long. The Scouring of the Shire would have added at least another half hour to the length of the film and make people wonder how much longer this thing was going to go on.

Re:Don't Panic

[webrunner]

Three words: SIRIUS CYBERNETICS CORPORATION

Seems a little less farfetched now doesn't it?

Re:American Screenwriter

[Anonymous Coward]

I see. So if you were to say "Here in this country, we speak the language properly," a valid reply would be "WHAT?! I am confused. 'This' is a sentence, not a country! I think you meant 'that.' I am awesome."

Re:Thats the first thing i noticed

[tuba_dude]

According to the review, what you mean by "finished off" is "taken out behind the woodshed and shot, several times, in the face."

Re:Disgusting

[Anonymous Coward]

At least they didn't think "Why don't we make Legolas surf down some steps on a tower shield?"

Here's a SPOILER for you

[BallyHigh]

Any man who studies the life of another man for 20 frickin' years, will probably die alone!

Re:Don't Panic

[EngMedic]

Marvin has been turned into an iBot! At least alan rickman is doing the voice.

Re:Not just bad

[tylernt]

"I thought the BBC-TV series was actually pretty good, but apparently I'm the only one that thinks so"

I also really enjoyed the BBC series. Of course, this from someone who also loved "Logans Run" and "Battle Beyond the Stars".

Re:Here we go again....

[Anonymous Coward]

He gives other examples but I think you get the point. The things that made the story so much fun have been ruthelessly truncated.

Original entry in Hitchhiker's Guide for the movie "(Disney's) Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy":

Ruthlessly truncated.

Updated entry in a future version after Disney bought the actual HHTG business with the profits from the movie, and that fell through a wormhole back in time:

Truncated.

Re:American Screenwriter

[pyrotic]

A lot of what makes me laugh about English humour is it's view of petty bureacracy. Think Monty Python (Life of Brian guy with clipboard directing crucifictions) , HHG2TG (above), The Office (performance reviews!), Dr Strangelove (trying to borrow a quarter from a vending machine that is property of the Coca Cola Corporation of America in order to avert World War 3), Ali G (da movie). I wonder why so few nations find their bureacrats funny.

Re:This movie is SO bad...

[jcuervo]

I've heard that this movie is so bad that the audience is urged to view it from the safe distance of thirty-seven miles from the screen in a well-built lightproof bunker

...whilst the projectionist starts the movie by remote control from a heavily insulated spaceship which stays in orbit around the planet -- or, more frequently, around a completely different planet.

Re:Another review

[UserGoogol]

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Hitchhiker's Guide movie is about and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Re:bad as in

[Anonymous Coward]

The former: targetted at children, and unrecognizable when compared with the original.

Re:Disgusting

[DG]

What, you mean Like This [tolkiensociety.org]?

Featuring such hit songs as

• "Don't Cry For Me Minas Tirith" and
  
  
• "Osgelliath, OK!" and
  
  
• "Ding Dong the Ring is Dead" and
  
  
• "Climb Every Mount Doom" and
  
  
• "Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Ringwraith?"
  
  

Be very, very afraid.

DG

Re:Disgusting

[G-funk]

Only on slashdot, can a nerd make a post about Lord of the Rings, in a thread about The Guide, and not get marked off-topic for an anti-lucas rant.

I wonder what the Guide has to say about /.ing

[geekzapoppin]

It appears that the original pages have suddenly turned into error pages, a rather confused-looking sperm whale, and a bowl of petunias. Anyone have a mirror?

I love these threads...

[David Rolfe]

I love these threads because it's always so amusing to see what mistakes are made in the pedantic responses.

"...although parentheses or dashes would have been made it clearer..."

Would have been made it clearer, indeed.

Rape, bestiality and furniphilia.

[Dogtanian]

God, now they're going to rape "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

Raping a witch is evil (she might be a witch but she's still a person); raping a lion is perverse (even- or especially- one that talks and is a metaphor for the Christian deity).

But as for raping a wardrobe, I'm not sure I can visualise that at all. You have some damn strange fetishes.

Slashdotters are weird.

Re:Not just bad

[killjoe]

"Look, if people are willing to pay for bad movies (when there are very many good movies produced independently), why should they bother making good ones?"

Raise your hands if you went to see episode I even after you heard what a horrible film ir was. Rais eyour hands if you saw episode II even though you knew it was going to suck. Raise your hands if you plan on waiting in line for episode III.

Now take that raised hand and slap yourself with it.

Re:Sounds like you still don't get it

[Tim Browse]

Ok, so 10 out of 10 for smugness, but minus several million for missing the PG Wodehouse reference, yeah?