Hitchhiker's Movie is Bad, says Adams Biographer 925
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."
Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
But to remove Milliways, Disaster Area, and prehistoric Earth completely? Thats just horrible. It is not the same story. They have commited murder here. This movie should be renamed.
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should I care? (Score:1, Insightful)
When there is a general consensus among reviewers that it is bad then... I still won't listen because I want to watch the movie regardless.
Here we go again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair Milliway's and the prehistoric Earth are both from the *second* book, not the original H2G2.
American Screenwriter (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally, with no intention to troll, feel that this is what happens when you let an American write English humour. The writer clearly had no concept of what made that scene funny - in his mind, it was a joke about not being able to find something. The dialogue simpoly went over his head.
The worst opinion you could solicit... (Score:5, Insightful)
In denial (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's face facts, just because the source material is good, doesn't mean the movie is good.
Now unless you trust Ain't It Cool News, you'll have to admit, this baby's looking like a stinker coming to smell up Douglas Adams' good name.
Those are the facts. That's reality.
Did you expect better from Disney? They make kids movies, and the Hitchhiker can't be made into a kids movie. Kids wouldn't appreciate it.
So we've got a movie. A piece of shit movie.That Douglas Adams lost is life over.
Deal with it, fanboyz!
Re:Why should I care? (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Disgusting (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Disgusting (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyhow, there were only 2 things they needed to get right to make the "Doom" movie "Doom", and the folks over in hollywood just couldn't handle it. Does it surprize anyone that they couldn't get it right for something more sophisticated like this?
Sometimes, we get lucky with something like 'Lord of the Rings', but I think that's probably the exception and not the rule.
Disneyfied? To be expected (Score:3, Insightful)
HHGTTG is a Disney movie. The Walt Disney Company is notorious for screwing with the plot lines and leaving out theme-essential elements [losingnemo.com] of stories that it adapts into films.
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's meant to be a book, not a movie... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the humor and entertainment is in the narrative, and that rarely translates into a good movie.
Come on (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you expect a re-telling of all the books you will be disappointed. It is the same way as the books are not a re-telling of the radio series (where are the bird people? or the robot disco?).
I'm not going to read any reviews, because I want to see the movie with an open mind. And I hope I remember to take my towel.
In other artform can you find... (Score:2, Insightful)
A film should be different. There should be new things. It's suppossed to be a retelling of a story, not a carbon copy. I'd be pretty dissapointed if I went to see a film that consisted only of dialogue ripped from the existing novel. I don't see people up in arms when films are produced that transplant Jane Austen into Indian culture (Bride and Prejudice), or reinvent Shakespeare...
Anyone who goes to see a film adapation of a book expecting a word for word and scenario for scenario copy is, in my mind, slightly odd.
Re:Not just bad (Score:5, Insightful)
DON'T PANIC
It's just one review. You know you'll spend your 8 bucks anyway.
Re:Disgusting (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who says... (Score:5, Insightful)
So many unsolvable puzzles. How the hell was I supposed to know that I needed the junk mail. If I had unlimited inventory, I would have picked up everything. It says fucking JUNK in the fucking name. Ha Ha. Really clever! Not fun to play though.
He calls Adams's dialogue "perfect." While it is teriffic, nothing is perfect. This review reeks of idolatry.
I don't know if this movie will be good. I will see it. I am encouraged that the producers appear to have put a great deal of care into the visuals judging by the trailers.
This isn't going to be Adams's work. I'm not expecting something as monumental as the radio series or the book. Even Adams himself lived in the shadow of that book. You don't make a masterpiece every time you paint a picture. I'm just looking for a good time.
Lets be honest (Score:2, Insightful)
Thats the reason that britcoms are usually marginalized to public television stations here alongside Masterpiece Theater and the exciting History of Plywood.
TFA's writer admits that Adams was a dialogue writer and the book reflects that. Trying to bring it to the movies while appeasing the loyal readers/geeks and attracting enough normals to buy tickets to break even on it seems this side of impossible.
Douglas Adams, the BBC Series, etc. (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose I will drag myself over to the local video store and rent the old BBC series for kicks when the movie opens....
Re:Not just bad (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Maybe geeks should consider spending their 8 bucks on a film that isn't science fiction, if the science fiction films that come out stink. There's Nobody Knows, [imdb.com] an excellent film from Japanese director Kore-eda, that is making the rounds. No aliens, no hackers, no special effects, no cheap closure. Maybe if films like that got some geek-cash, then they'd start creating sci-fi films of a similar caliber again (like Gattaca.)
Re:Disneyfied? To be expected (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, the creative decisions that Disney makes have no bearing on the creative decisions that Touchstone makes.
it is SUPOSED to be different (Score:2, Insightful)
Why compose a list of things from the "radio plays, records, books and TV series that have not been included in the movie?"
Quick - a show of hands from the
Great book - Brit wit + lame crap = Disney movie (Score:3, Insightful)
The British wit is what made the HHGG books so great-- but it would soar over the heads of the vast majority of Americans, who are too busy watching reality shows to have ever heard of, much less read, anything Douglas Adams ever put on paper. So it was a foregone conclusion that much of the essence of the book was going to be dumbed down or removed outright and replaced with poopy jokes or some such.
On a positive note, they are making a movie version of The Honeymooners with an all-black cast, and unnecessarily remaking The Bad News Bears this year, too (must they rape EVERY fond memory of my childhood for money???), so HHGG might not be the worst movie this year in terms of offending fans of a cherished American pop-culture institution.
Re:Don't Panic (Score:3, Insightful)
This worries me just a tad, the review doesn't help eigther.
Mycroft
Re:Anyone who says... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the HHGTTG game was deviously trcky, but text adventures often are.
Try playing Bureaucracy some time.
When playing the game you got to act out bits of the books, and you also got to enjoy (or not enjoy) a nice text adventure.
If you don't enjoy difficult text adventures you wont enjoy the game. It was nota game made for fans of the books, something to be played through in a couple of idle hours. It was a game made for fans of text adventures using funny material from funny books.
Re:Or maybe, since it's a movie.... (Score:2, Insightful)
When you cut a film you're supposed to cut out scenes, not leave pointless bits of dialog floating around.
Re:Not just bad (Score:2, Insightful)
Not as long as Bit Torrent is still around, I won't.
Re:'Things that aren't in the film' (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:"Bad film" or "poorly written" (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically, I think that this movie is probably very bad, in the way that many movies are very bad, and makes many of their common mistakes. The fact that it was based on radio plays and a book that many people enjoyed isn't really relevent, in the end it's a bad movie that will be disliked by HHG2G fans and non-fans alike.
At least, that's what the review suggests. If you try reading it, perhaps you will gain some isight.
Re:American Screenwriter (Score:3, Insightful)
I can see why that scene is funny, and I live less than 100 miles from dead center of the lower 48. Now admittedly it's only mild chuckle funny and not rotflmao funny to me, but I still 'get' it.
Damn hollywood is making us all look bad.
Re:Not just bad (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I won't. I'll read the long review, which goes iinto more than enough detail to let me understand that the reviewer knows what he's talking about. I'm not going to pay 8 bucks for a movie just because it's called "Hitchhikers Guide". The reviewer provides extensive examples to justify his claim that the makers of the movie did not understand what made Hithhikers worthwhile.
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course it'll be crap... (Score:5, Insightful)
- took out almost all reference to the Guide itself
- Removed most of the funny parts, which were mostly in the narration and asides rather than the main storyline. No towels? No convincing prosser to replace dent in front of the bulldozer? Not even a cup of tea AFAICS.
- Unnecessarily changed extremely funny lines to be less funny. The best example from the review being the whale monologue: ending the speech with "I wonder if it will be friends with me? *splat*" is much, much funnier than "I wonder if it will be friends with me? Hello, ground. *splat*". The trailing thought left by the first version is much funnier than the unnecessary repetition of something from earlier in the speech (I think I'll call it ground).
Re:The worst opinion you could solicit... (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything I've read so far regarding this movie and its early screenings have been fairly positive, but none of the writers who wrote those pieces (the guardian had a favorable piece I recall) were DNA's biographer, thus the lack of severe bias and hysterics.
My real concern is that its always been difficult to sell an absurdist comedy or even just British comedy to American audiences. This kind of thing is seen as too high-brow or "intellectual" and does poorly. Its not a big surprise DNA and the others decided not to be faithful to the books at all for the sake of making a good movie.
It may not even be very good, but I doubt its a disaster like this article claims it is. I have a feeling it might turn out to be Spaceballs with a touch of DNA, which wouldnt be bad, but it wouldnt be great. The positive buzz would probably mean a new generation turned onto the H2G2 trilogy and they can enjoy the books for themselves, without going through the hollywood filter.
Re:Not just bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, unless you read the same person's reviews all the time and know that they have the same taste as you what is the point?
As an aside there have been a few bad reviews for Sin City. I thought that movie was amazing.
This guy knows so much about BopAd? (Score:5, Insightful)
Douglas Adams was a sensible person, you don't go out and carbon copy what works sublimely as a radio play, and sell it as a book - you reinterpret, you cut bits you didn't like etc. etc.
From what I've seen, the movie looks sod all like the other interpretations, but it retains the spirit of the work - H2G2 doesn't work if you do a straight translation to film, just try and imagine it. You also have to deal with the largely chaotic nature of the original, the episodic framework, and the fact that in the play it's ok to stop a couple of times per episode to have the Guide explain what the hell is going on with Milliways for example.
Douglas Adams was barely faithful in transition.
The new radio series is totally disconnected from the first two, and that worked out great.
This guy knows so much about Douglas Adams? He should certainly know that. It was even a running gag - in cases where the Guide is innacurate, it is always reality that has it wrong.
So, Don't Panic, for crying out loud.
Re:After seeing the commercials... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the guide also looked like that [bbc.co.uk] in 1981 (back when the whole GUI was created using traditional animation techniques!)... so if anything it is ST:TNG that stole the look and feel from the Guide....
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people complaining about parts of the book that have been cut in the film version are forgetting a key difference: film is a visual medium, whereas radio, book and text based games are primarily lingual in nature.
Therefore, in the case of some books that have a very visual style to them (a la Fight Club), they translate very well and relatively literally into movies. HOWEVER, when the book is as complex linguistically as the H2G2 series (and all of Douglas Adams' wonderful writing - he really was a wordsmith in the best sense of the word), you are forced to make more cuts and changes because of the difference in media.
Don't believe me? Re-listen to the radio play, and attempt to visualize it as scenes from a movie. I defy you to do so without it being a mind-numblingly slow paced film.
Re:Not just bad (Score:2, Insightful)
If you are expecting the book, you will be disappointed. (For this movie and for every other movie based on a book you like.)
Re:hmmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
a) he knows his stuff (duh) and
b) that this is a complaint with the original material as well.
That doesn't mean he's right when he says the movie sucks badly, of course. Still: I've heard of not RingTFA, but that is ridiculous.
Re:I'm a Sucker (Score:3, Insightful)
Going to see Hitchhiker's if it's a stinker is even worse - you're rewarding a bunch of worthless freeloaders who don't have any right to lay claim to the Hitchhiker's universe with oodles of cash.
(ps - Han shot first.)
Re:Not just bad (Score:2, Insightful)
I think HHGTTG just won't really go with being made into any sort of visual feature. It relies a lot on the descriptions, that if they were made into film it would be too easy not to notice...
Re:Lets be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you think they should at least be given a chance?
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC version used clever animations with a narrator to cover the guide entries.
Re:I'm a Sucker (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks, mate.
People like you are the reason that Hollywood doesn't need to bother making good films any more.
Hollywood I trusted you! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's fine for opinions... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a detailed examination of the long-awaited film adaptation of a much-loved science-fiction book by an individual who knows the material, loves the material, and feels deeply that what made the story worth making into a movie has not been represented.
I know the story, and that's what I want to know. Did they fuck up.
That's all I want to know when I read any movie review. If I have an opinion, I want a review to match. If it's "New Movie Du Jour", I could care less, even go without a review - like Sin City.
From what I understand, Sin City is a triumph in regards to "telling the tale". HHG is exactly the opposite.
Re:infer is correct... (Score:1, Insightful)
"That's glory for you."
Re:Lets be honest (Score:3, Insightful)
Would the average American get the Brit jokes? Probably not enough to make it profitable. Don't forget that in addition to your average American, you have many many immigrants where English is not their first language. A lot of British humour (yes, that was on purpose) require a better command of the English language than a lot of Americans (includin immigrants) do not possess. Hence the sentencing of britcoms to the backwaters of PBS.
Re:Thats the first thing i noticed (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two theories why this movie is going to suck eggs:
1. DA didn't have anyone looking over his shoulder
2. It has been completely Americanized and most of the humor that made the books has been ripped out.
Re:Not just bad (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have to have the same taste at all. They need to have a consistent and recognizable taste. Look, I don't agree with everything Roger Ebert says, but I can tell by his review of a film how likely I am to enjoy it.
Also, I don't know Simpson's tastes except that he (or she, as the case may be) likes Douglas Adams' work. However, the first paragraph of the short review, which all fans should recognize as an homage to the Guide entry on space, gives me a pretty good indication that Simpson is probably approaching the film from a position similar to mine.
But if I was still skeptical, this early example in the long review tells me everything I need to know:We are kindred spirits, MJ Simpson and I, and we are hurting.
Re:Viral marketing ploy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Has no one considered that this review is just the sort of marketing ploy Adams would have found amusing?
Reviewers will be the first bastards up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Besides, I think you miss the point -- He's the "comic book guy" precisely because he's written a biography of Douglas Adams. I don't see how he can be objective about the film as a film, rather than as a slavishly faithful adaptation.
I've seen it. It's not rubbish. (Score:5, Insightful)
(Disclaimer: I've been a hitchhiker fan for longer than I care to remember, and was lucky enough to work with Douglas for a few years at The Digital Village [tdv.com], and have been peripherally involved with some of the publicity material for the film, so you can deduce whatever bias you like from that.)
Today I saw the movie for the second time, and once again I find myself coming to the conclusion that I must have been shown a different movie to the one that MJ Simpson saw. Having twice been in a cinema full of people who were laughing all the way through at the movie (and these are British people, for crying out loud!), and then reading that the movie is "staggeringly unfunny" leaves me somewhat confused. Partly because I heard all those people laughing myself with my own ears, but mainly because I loved the film.
For any hitchhiker fan, there will be moments in the film that you feel are not what you expected, or that bits were left out that you wish weren't. This is inevitable, no matter how good the movie was. This is just a fact of life when adapting a book - you're never going to capture everyone's imaginings and commit them to film. It's just part of the compromise you go through when you adapt a verbal medium to a visual medium. Neither are you going to 'get everything in'.
For me, the clearest indication of this is Simpson's laundry list of stuff that isn't in the film, that presumably he feels should be. Suffice it to say that if all that stuff was in the film, I don't think it would be a film I would want to watch. Pointing out that the description of the Vogon ships hanging in the air "in exactly the same way that bricks don't" is not in the film shows a stunning lack of understanding of what makes a good film. I can find a lot of descriptive prose in the books that didn't make it into the film - and you can probably guess why.
I mean, how was that going to work? Was Arthur going to say something like "See that spaceship Ford? Have you noticed the way it hangs in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't?" I'm sure that would have been the beginnings of a cracking screenplay.
The simple fact is, which most people seem not to grasp, is that, yes, you could have put, e.g. the full conversation between Arthur and Mr Prosser into the movie, and it might only have taken an extra 30 seconds, but in, say, a 90 minute movie, you only have a limited number of 30 second chunks. If you remained faithful to every piece of dialogue in the source material, you'd over-run by at least an hour. At least.
Also included in that list is a load of stuff from the 2nd book, when the film makers have repeatedly stated that this film is based on the first book only (and not on all the books as some posters seem to believe). I mean, if it was based on all the books, how much stuff would they have to have left out then?
I've seen moans that the Guide entry on towels is not in the movie, how could it be left out, etc. conveniently forgetting that this entry didn't even appear in the first radio series. Also, if you think towels don't feature in the movie, think again.
As for the movie that I actually watched - as I said, I loved it. The acting was great - far from finding Arthur to be 'an annoying little prat', I thought Martin Freeman's portrayal was very funny and accurate. Even when Martin changes the 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays' line, it still sounds natural - so natural that I didn't even notice the change until the second screening. Sam Rockwell's performance as the unceasingly presidential Zaphod is a joy to watch. The Vogons and their unflinching bureaucracy is captured perfectly via some new jokes and situations that I'm certainly not going to spoil here - I recommend seeing the movie yourself.
The design and aesthetics of the Heart of Gold are nothing short of fantastic, in the face of which the natural fan's reaction to observe that the HOG doesn
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
[OT philisophical waxing] Perhaps this very issue is what drives many to watch so much anime. One of the features which drives some Americans away from Japanese 'cartoons' is that they don't have great animation. In fact, the animation is quite minimal. While this may have been done from budgetary necessity early on, some recent successful anime have been just as minimalist. Lack of sophistication in animation technique forces the viewer to concentrate on other aspects of the show, like plot and character. Ask anyone who's into Cowboy Bebop or GITS why they like it. Heck, even .hack//SIGN had a half-decent story with believable characters. If these elements don't stand, you end up with a crappy product. Alas, even the Japanese anime industry sometimes sacrifices plot for explosions. For an example, see Dragonball Z. Don't get me wrong, sometimes I like spacing out and watching mutated muscle-men blow each other up. I just want to have alternatives. [wax off]
Who knows, maybe this Hitchhiker movie will be a success. But I've resigned myself to expect very little from it.
Re:Not just bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've got it! (Score:1, Insightful)
Americans love stupid movies. Most American movies are stupid.
When discussing British humor such as Monty Python or Hitchhiker's Guide, I would not call it stupid. Instead, I would call it intelligent silliness.
Most American's don't like intelligent humor because it would require them to think.
Obviously, this does not apply to the Slashdot minority.
Re:To me, the issue is not about plot removal (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm hardly fat, I don't think I'm particularly dumb (although that might be the problem!) and I don't even own a TV. I first read LOTR when I was ten or eleven, and I think it's a wonderful piece of work.
But equally, I enjoy movies. Not just big hollywood ones, but movies as a whole. As a movie, the LOTR trilogy works well. Yes, it doesn't have the richness or depth of the source material. But neither did the BBC radio production, and it was damned good too - for a radio play. For my money, the films were much better than I expected and I enjoyed them a lot. As somebody who has followed Peter Jackson since his early movies I was extremely relieved he'd managed to recover from his attack of studio-movie production with the Frighteners to make a movie that was really very impressive as a stand-alone piece of work.
I thought it was a fine achievement. OK, it wasn't the book. But the book isn't the movie either, and I sincerely doubt that Tolkein could have made a better one given the same tools and resources. Peter Jackson is a filmmaker, and he's very good at what he does.
And yes, I could have lived without Sauron looking like something from Power Rangers and the giagantic homo-erotic love-in that was the ending of the last movie - but on balance, I thought the other postive aspects outweighed the cheese. I'd just like to point out that from a movie-movie perspective, I know people who haven't read the books who found the movies insufferably boring and over-long - far from ultra-escapist pap, they were just lost. These are not dumb people, either. So on balance, I think they did a fine job.
Re:American Screenwriter (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember seeing Chicken Run, a UK claymation comedy, in a movie theater [Cinema to we in the UK] when visiting the US. I laughed out loud when the US audience didn't, and quite frequently, the US audience members laughed and I didn't.
It's damn hard to please audiences round the world, hence Hollywood's reliance on special effects, fast action and big explosions.
How about YOU take a bit more control of your life: go join your local drama group or amateur theatrics club, get a camcorder, make your own movies, do something creative rather than passively soak up what the world throws at you!
Re:It'll all end in tears, I know it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just another hollywood doesn't get it story. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not in any specific order but Star Trek has been going to hell and is nothing like what made the original or even the sequel so loved by its fans. I don't exactly know what it is about DS9 or Enterprise that makes me so totally unintrested in them but something is missing from them that made the originals worth watching.
George Lucas showed with The Phantom Menance that he did not understand what made the original Star Wars so well loved. You can say that new movies are still commercial successes but that is missing something vital. Star Wars: A New Hope has a place in film history, Phantom Menace does not. In 20 yrs time the childeren of today will not give a toss about the new movies. What was missing? Well no Han Solo, no chewbacca, no millenium falcon. Star Wars was a slightly dirty universe with pirates. The prequels are bright shiny places with big palaces.
We have other beloved "stories" wich "hollywood" just doesn't seem to get. Mario brothers movie. How could it be so wrong. Why do allmost all game movies suck? Why does the new Doom movie take the doom out of the movie?
Red Dwarf was adapted for the american market and the result was so amazingly bad that even americans realized it. Don't know if this is true but Valva was approached for a Half-life movie but lost intresest when "hollywood" wanted to a add a love interest for Gordon Freeman.
If the review of the HHGTG movie is accurate then it sounds like a typical case of hollywood just not getting the source material. Some people seem to excuse this in this case by pointing out that you can't do bookstuff in movies since it would be boring. These "americans" don't get that the guide has been a radio play, a book, an album, a computer game, a tv series and a stage play. All of them managed to be very guide like even if they had massive differences in them. The tv series and the stage play especially should proof that it isn't impossible to turn the guide into a movie.
I think that just as in the previous mentioned examples the people involved in making the movie just didn't get it OR are so convinced of their own capabilities that they think they can improve upon the source material.
Paramount, fire everyone involved with star trek and hire the writers for the originals series. George Lucas, let the remaining three movies be made by other people. Just do the production. Doom movie crew, doom is on mars with marines and a invasion from hell. That is it.
Will they listen? Of course not. This is hollywood trying to get "geek" culture.
And that is the real problem. Hollywood by definition is hip and happening and cool beautifull people being intresting. Star Trek, Star Wars, Doom, computer games, the guide are the domain of nerds. Silicon valley has proven that they can make excellent Star Trek and Star Wars and Hitchhiker guide games. Because game makers are nerds and so understand geek culture. Hollywood will not and cannot get "it".
Different cultures (Score:5, Insightful)
The most well known is Red Dwarf. A classic BBC sci-fi comedy that was well received all over the world. Well all over the world by geeks and nerds. For reasons unknown some americans wanted to make an american version of it but altered for american tastes. They made a pilot wich at times can be found on P2P networks. It is so bad that it never saw the light of day on american tv.
Why was it so bad? Somehow the american producers who obviously must have seen the original just didn't seem to get it. They changed all the characters that just clicked in the original into versions that just didn't work. The original crew is a bunch of loosers. Nobodies thrown together and never winning. The american version makes them more hollywood. Lister less of a slob. Rimmer likable. For some reason the american producers never seemed to have gotten what made the british original work and become so loved.
It is not on its own. The british comedy classic "doing porridge" was adapted for american tv as well and bombed. Where the original was a comedy set in prison where there was humor in a non-humorous setting, a classic ep has just the two actors talking during the night confinement in their cell, the american version came closer to a regular light hearted sitcom.
It is not all one way however. The american "who's the boss" has a british version as well but missing all the chemistry. It is cold, sensible british and misses the italian fire that tony danza and whats her name brought to the original.
The biggest problem I think in making an adoptation of something is in that you are making an adoptation. Red Dwarf, Doing porridge, Who's the boss ALL did well in their original country AND in other parts of the world. So why then try to chance it? Because you want to reach an even bigger market? How can you possibly achieve this? Only by making your version more bland and less likely to upset the tastes of your expanded audience. Remove the slobbness from lister, remove the harsh reality of doing time from a jail comedy, remove lenghty dialog from the guide.
Some saying goes something like this, the translator is a traitor. I think this is very true when trying to translate a story to a new audience. These people who made the guide movie did not try to make a movie for guide fans. They made on for the "hollywood" audience. In doing so they had to loose elements that were to "geeky" or to "nerdy" like the guide itself and replace it with slapstick.
This movie is simply not aimed at us guide fans. For every popular story there is a porn version. Complaining that these porn versions are not fatefull to the original is just as pointless as complaining these hollywood versions are not faithfull. They have an audience to please that does not know or care about the originals.
If there is going to be a guide movie then it can only really come from the BBC. Just take the tv eps and watch them in one sitting with stale popcorn and an overpriced coke.
Yes, the same Douglas Adams... (Score:3, Insightful)
Never send a fanboy to write a review (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at his CV in the Google Cache [66.102.7.104] (since the original site's down), the guy looks more like a fanboy than an objective biographer: one of those people who becomes the "guy everyone ends up interviewing" in the fan community, but who doesn't have any real connection to Adams beyond his fandom.
Of course the review is going to be bad. He's devoted far too much of his life to a belief in the genius of one man. To believe that anyone else could match that man's vision by bringing Adams' work to the screen in his absence would be far too much cognitive dissonance for him to handle.
Plenty of links to positive reviews have been posted in other threads - I'll wait for the Rotten Tomatoes verdict [rottentomatoes.com], I think.
Charles
Re:That's fine for opinions... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not true. It depends on the amount of deviation, thr actual quality of the movie, and how far it differs in some unknown quality called spirit.
I managed to enjoy MOST of LoTR, excluding The Two Towers, which completely failed to encompass the scope and character of the book.
The Sci-Fi channel Dune movies were actually quite a good adaptation of the books. While the David Lynch/Laurentis version was HIDEOUS. Though it could stand on it's own two feet as an unrelated movie.
Ditto with Ridely Scott's Bladerunner, which failed to cover the book at all, but still somehow managed to capture the essence of the book. Though I still hate the directors cut, and despise that fact that the original version is completely lost. Shame that verges on censorship, since PKD liked the ORIGINAL cut, and never had anything to do with the cut. Sadly every other Dick translation was an abomination that never should have been tried. Hopefully aSD isn't.
You see, I can be CRITICAL of movies based on books I love, but can still enjoy them on their own merits, as long as they capture something good from the book.
I've seen the film, and Simpson's talking crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Saw it this morning, actually, for the second time - first was a 95% complete cut similar to the one Simpson saw, the second was the final edit. I went along with my friends Tim Browse (his review [slashdot.org]) and Sean Sollé (his review [douglasadams.se]) - all of us worked with Douglas at The Digital Village [tdv.com], a company we joined mainly because we were already massive Hitchhiker's fans. (If you need further credentials for me, look here [douglasadams.com].
We've been involved with the film at various stages [google.com]. Thus, the disclaimer. However, please also be aware that none of us would be defending a film that crapped all over Douglas's work, especially since it was such a fundamental part of our youth.
Most (though not all) of the spoilers that Simpson reveals in his review are true. Yes, the lying-in-front-of-a-bulldozer dialogue has been cut short. Yes, several key Guide entries are missing. Yes, some of the dialogue isn't as funny as it could have been, and a couple of the gags are corny rather than sharp. (Note: I said a couple. It's nearly two hours of film, there are still tons of good lines in there.)
It's at this point that Simpson's opinion of the movie and mine diverge rather radically, because he seems to think that you can judge the film's merits almost purely on what's missing, in combination with things that don't appear as quite as he'd have liked them. Personally, I loved it to bits. It's not perfect, certainly, and I agree with a couple of his criticisms (though with about 5% of his severity). But I fundamentally feel that it's true to the spirit of Hitchhiker's in so many ways, not just through the storyline and script (which is far, far better than MJ would have you believe) but also through visuals and design that are utter genius, reimagining Douglas's creations in totally new ways that still seem completely in keeping with his intentions. It wears its Britishness in a far more open and interesting way than any previous version of the story - the Vogons, in particular, are a satire of traditional English bureaucracy that borders on Hogarthian.
I could go through MJ's review point-by-point and debunk all the stuff - and there's plenty of it - which he's blown wildly out of proportion, or which is based on utterly blinkered thinking, or which is just plain wrong. But then, that would be succumbing to exactly the kind of checklist mentality that he has, and god, how I hate that. He seems to just want the radio and TV series again, on a bigger budget, thus completely misunderstanding the demands that the different media have. His review reads like he went in with a notepad and took score through the film, subtracting ten points every time a line from the original went astray, and based his final opinion on that. As others have said in this thread, it's exactly the same kind of fanboy nonsense that had LoTR fans doomsaying before its release, and it's just bullshit.
If you're the kind of fan who works that way, who demands pure fidelity to the original and nothing but, then you won't like this movie. However, given that every incarnation of Hitchhiker's has been pretty different (and this movie is staunchly in the same tradition), I'd say that you're a fan who's utterly missing the point. Simpson, in loudly complaining that the film's plot veers wildly all over the place, makes me wonder which "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" he's a fan of, 'cos it certainly isn't one I've ever seen. His review is also the only negative one I've read from a major fan - contrast it with this review from Jens Kellenberg [douglasadams.se], who runs one of the biggest HHGTTG [douglasadams.se]
Re:Not just bad (Score:3, Insightful)
If this reviewer is to be believed, that is exactly what is wrong with this movie. The important bits have been taken out back and beaten with a shovel. We are all aware that The Guide has changed in it's various incarnations, but the important stuff, the core ideas and elements were still there.
I mean, how the hell can it be The Guide if it never mentions the importance of a towel?
Re:It'll all end in tears, I know it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Different cultures (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not just bad (Score:3, Insightful)
The HHGG isn't a book they are turning into a movie, it is a radio show they are turning into a movie. The line works fine when delivered properly.
Sounds like you still don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm talking about his opinion (which I share) that what truly made Hitchhiker's classic was Adams' use of language. Nothing else. Some of his imagery was a great bonus, the plots were interesting enough, and the character development wasn't too bad, but what really brought it home was his finely crafted use of language.
And the observation made by the reviewer was that the creator's of the movie just did not "get" this. His very very long (tediously so, to be honest) review gives many examples where this greatest aspect of Adams' work was expunged from the screenplay.
The reviewers complaints about the plot making no sense are minor compared to this. I could forgive almost anything as long as the hallmark use of language were still present. But in your reply you basically said that it would be impossible to squeeze the language into a motion picture.
You may be right, though I think the TV series did a nice enough job with its use of narration. I'm not sure why that approach couldn't work in a big budget movie as well. But who knows, if you are right, maybe Hitchhiker's just should never have been made into a movie. Maybe it just doesn't fit. Perhaps Adams just didn't have the sense to realize this himself.... but actually I think he could have found a way (perhaps through the use of narration).
I concur that in most adaptations of books, it really doesn't matter much if the exact words find their way into the screenplay. The imagery and plot and characters make the movie. But in this case the words really do matter. Its not the situations, its not the imagery, its not the characters. Its the words. And if you don't agree with that, then I side with the reviewer: you just don't get it.
That said, I'll almost certainly see the movie, and I'll probably enjoy it. Even if it doesn't match up to what I think it could have been, it'll probably still be funnier than most movies, and the eye candy you refer to may, at least, be interesting to watch.
Re:Sounds like you still don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
I have to say that I disagree with you in one important respect; while the language of DA's books are the source of a lot of comedy, the problem with a movie version is that most of said comedy occurs BETWEEN the spoken lines. I'd say a good 80% of the comedy in the books is in the prose and narrative, not the dialogue. Remember that a movie is two things primarily; visual and dialogue. These two must be used to move forward a story, you really do lack the ability to include prose and narrative in a movie.
Now, I will be the first to admit that the radio and TV series found a unique way of dealing with the limitations of the visual medium, which was why DA created the "Guide" in the first place (and he says so in several interviews given before his unforunate demise). It was there to include as much narrative and prose as was possible without destroying the essential flow of the story.
Now, I also realize that the movie creators could have gone this same route and essentially created a big-screen rendition of the TV series. If you look at the flow of the TV series, the first book took up 4 of the 6 episodes, or two hours of screen time. Perfect? No. The TV series is viewed by many to be sub-par when compared to the other media (and I admit in many ways it is), and as such it is almost a requirement to completely reengineer the story for a big-screen venue.
We also fall into a little bit of a trap when moving to the new medium; the fact that we must adapt something like HHGTTG in order to more widely appeal to the target audience. Despite some people's hopes the movie is NOT targeted at Guide fans; it's targeted at a demographic. Specifically I'd say it's targeted at the demographic I fall into; mid twenties to mid thirties, employed, probably married, middle class suburbanite with moderate income for location. That's a BIG demographic and as such the movie has been changed from the source material to better appeal to a larger target. Targeting the movie only at Guide fans would be financial suicide. How much of the US population has original Guide fans in it? I'm a fan of the Guide, and at my workplace I know of two other people who even know what it is!
If you're a rabid fan of the Guide, don't see the movie. I personally will with my wife sometime within a week or so of opening day. I'll watch it and I'll just enjoy it for its entertainment value as an independent entertainment, not as a half-assed translation of a "treasured memory" as the reviewer seems to have done.
Re:It'll all end in tears, I know it. (Score:3, Insightful)
He came to his faith late in life, and did so through a deep examination of himself and what he could ascertain of the devine. He was not a hypocrite - some thing which cased him a world of pain to endure, and about which he wrote at length.
Screwtape is a work of quiet genius - wheather you are Christian or not. It picks apart the subtle self-deceptions and hidden selfishness common to each of us, and in it they are exposed to an almost Holmsian examination. A Jungian agnostic or a Zen Bhuddist would recognize and appreciate the things Lewis found through examining first himself.
It is through the things I insist are "me", that the devils find their entry...