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."
Not just bad (Score:5, Informative)
"vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad"
"bad on a big scale"
"bad on a small scale"
"staggeringly unfunny"
"unfunny, pointless crap"
"an abomination"
"amazingly, mindbogglingly awful"
"a terrible, terrible film"
(And that's from the short review)
Re:Not just bad (Score:5, Funny)
Don't Panic (Score:4, Funny)
(But, don't you think, Marvin should look like Bender?)
Re:Don't Panic (Score:3, Insightful)
This worries me just a tad, the review doesn't help eigther.
Mycroft
It'll all end in tears, I know it. (Score:5, Funny)
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!"
Rape, bestiality and furniphilia. (Score:4, Funny)
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:It'll all end in tears, I know it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It'll all end in tears, I know it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Don't Panic (Score:3, Funny)
Seems a little less farfetched now doesn't it?
Re:Don't Panic (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Don't Panic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Thats the first thing i noticed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thats the first thing i noticed (Score:5, Informative)
If you're desperate for more of that genuine Douglas Adams wit, check out
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, [amazon.com]
The Long Dark Tea time of the Soul, [amazon.com]
The Deeper Meaning of Liff, [amazon.com] and
The Last Chance to See [amazon.com].
They're all very good, but The Last Chance to See has to be at the top of the list, if for no other reason than the idea of Mr. Hitchhiker's Guide getting paid to write a travelogue is so engaging, and the subject matter so brilliant. The Dirk Gently series is spot on as well. While the character archetypes are quite recognizable from the HHGTG, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Also, many people don't know this but the radio scripts diverge pretty far from the books, with entire planets and escapades not present in the texts. They're also worth a read. And the companion book to both gives insight and humor into the whole process, and is required reading for anyone who wants to understand what the heck went on. It includes little DA gems like a sketch about a veteran kamikazee pilot.
The HHGTG videogame also contains a wealth of amazing material not available elsewhere, though you will need to cheat like mad to get through it. Starship Titanic the book wasn't wirtten by DA, but the game was. The game, sadly, isn't very good, though if you're desperate it was better than this movie sounds like it will be. The Parrot in that game was also a gem.
Re:Not just bad (Score:3, Interesting)
On a side note, I thought the BBC-TV series was actually pretty good, but apparently I'm the only one that thinks so. Maybe I have a soft spot for it because I saw it when I was much younger...
Worse than Vogon Poetry (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe Douglas Adams once made a comment about how good humor was a gift to the intelligent - those that weren't intelligent really didn't understand it. Judging from the long review, this movie isn't aimed at an intelligent audience.
I guess I'll wait for it to hit video (maybe late May,) and rent it on a day when I want to punish myself and feel bad.
Re:Worse than Vogon Poetry (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not saying this as flamebait, I'm saying it as an example of precisely what the studios would have been thinking as they tried to figure out what would bring them the largest possible return on their investment. British humor seems to be popular with geeks in the US, but it doesn't appeal to the population at large. And this isn't meant to be a value judgement about which type of humor is better. Americans do great slapstick and physical comedy and that isn't as well appreciated by the British. In fact, Britain has produced a few geniuses in the area of physical comedy who are appreciated everywhere in the world apart from in Britian (eg. Benny Hill).
Re:Worse than Vogon Poetry (Score:5, Interesting)
For those that don't know that book is about how Death takes on an apprentice (Mort). He's pretty crusial to the plot.
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.
Re:Different cultures (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not just bad (Score:4, Funny)
I also really enjoyed the BBC series. Of course, this from someone who also loved "Logans Run" and "Battle Beyond the Stars".
Re:Not just bad (Score:3, Informative)
I have friends that are so far into denial on this they've reached Lake Victoria.
Re:Not just bad (Score:5, Funny)
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: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:Not just bad (Score:5, Informative)
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: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.
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: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:Not just bad (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot the last line... (Score:4, Funny)
Ouch.
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:"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: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.
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)
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: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:Disgusting (Score:5, Funny)
The movie is not 100% accurate? Oh, you mean just like the Guide?
Nonsense! (Score:5, Funny)
Hollywood I trusted you! (Score:4, 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.
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.
Re:Disgusting (Score:4, Funny)
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:Disgusting (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Disgusting (Score:5, Funny)
Ah crap. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nostalgia is a powerful thing and I guess hoping that the movie could bring back some of the feeling I had from reading the first three books and playing the Infocom game was a little unrealistic.
Re:Ah crap. (Score:5, Funny)
Since when would you expect any incarnation of Hitchhiker's to be realistic?
I'm a Sucker (Score:5, Funny)
As long as there's no JarJar, I guess I won't leave too pissed.
Re:I'm a Sucker (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Here we go again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also dialogue, which was (as the reviewer points out) always the best part.
An example he gives:
He gives other examples but I think you get the point. The things that made the story so much fun have been ruthelessly truncated.
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC version used clever animations with a narrator to cover the guide entries.
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here we go again.... (Score:3, Funny)
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 st
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.
Re:American Screenwriter (Score:5, Informative)
Re:American Screenwriter (Score:4, Interesting)
I saw a tv interview a while back with a screenwriter about the process that goes from initial story to what the actors actually say. sometimes the screenwriter is just some guy who does a lot of the actual typing work for ver 0.9beta when it's version 3.7 that hits the screen.
Mycroft
Re:American Screenwriter (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:American Screenwriter (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, it does. The sentence before it didn't parse, though. I think you meant "that". Try to be correct when correcting people.
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
Re:Or maybe, since it's a movie.... (Score:5, Informative)
The worst opinion you could solicit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The worst opinion you could solicit... (Score:4, Informative)
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
Re:In other artform can you find... (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess you're talking about Romeo + Juliet [imdb.com], which in my opinion is the best adaption of Shakespeare I've ever seen. It transported the story to a 'modern' stage, yet conserved the timelessness of the original by doing so in a rather abstract way, using visually and metaphorically *very* rich imagery. It does a very good job of telling the story, and while I think that Leo di Caprio is one of the worst actors around, Shakespeare's brilliant dialogs brought out some nice acting I'd never have expected from him, ever.
I might be sounding like a fanboy, but actually I've seen *so many* interpretations of R+J, most of them either terrible or simply not getting the spirit of the original, that the movie to me really stood out. I hadn't seen it when it came out because I found the trailers so horrible (plus, or rather minus, it starred Leo), but a few years later a girl-friend took me out to watch it without telling me beforehand. (A sinister plan as she knew *exactly* why I hadn't seen it.) I left the cinema pleasantly surprised.
Mind to share your criticism of the movie? I greatly admire Shakespeare's works, and if more people decide to do such intelligent adaptions of material which is that old, more power to them. I might even bear watching some hours of JLo or Ben Affleck or whomever.
Much worse than bad (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Good morning, Captain (Score:5, Funny)
Captain Obvious arrives! You are a little late this morning. Did the Obviousmobile break down or something?
Another review (Score:5, Informative)
"One thing's for sure... Douglas Adams would be very proud. In the end, that's the greatest success that Robbie Stamp and Spyglass Entertainment and Jay Roach and Touchstone could have hoped for."
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: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'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.
Re:It's meant to be a book, not a movie... (Score:5, Informative)
Now you'd think that adapting a radio program to a movie would be cake...just add visuals. Apparently that is not the case.
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.
This movie is SO bad... (Score:5, Funny)
Viral marketing ploy. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Viral marketing ploy. (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh come on! How many people weren't planning on seeing it but have changed their minds based on a bad review? Sure most of us will go despite the review but no-one's going to see it because of the review.
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.
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:Anyone who says... (Score:4, Informative)
"wear gown"
"put all in thing"
"put thing in gown"
unlimited inventory.
and the guy's douglas adams' fucking biographer [planetmagrathea.com] for christsakes. of course his review smacks of idolatry. i'd be amazed if it didn't so smack.
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....
They forgot... (Score:5, Funny)
* The Guide entry on towels
Those bastards forgot their towel!
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.
about spoilers (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Funny, his wife thinks it's good. (Score:3, Interesting)
The proof will be in the pudding. We will all just have to see it and make up our own minds. Taking the word of someone who's life is so boring that he spends all of his time writing about other people's isn't what I would call a good bet.
Want a good review instead? (Score:5, Interesting)
4 stars (out of 5) and the quickie write up says:
Mostly harmless. A very British, very funny sci-fi misadventure that's guaranteed to win converts. Want to go to The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe now, please.
They admit it's not perfect, but their review's a damn sight more positive than the linked one.
As we said, those hardcore Hitchhikers out there have little to worry about. Although they should be warned that the movie's faithfulness means all its best jokes will be very familiar. For them, it's more a case of basking comfortably in the nostalgia than laughing out loud. But if you're new to all this, and have no idea about the significance of towels, or what a whale and a bowl of petunias have in common, then, boy, are you in for a treat...
Mark
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
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".
Re:Set Up Us The Bomb (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In denial (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:In denial (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Thanks (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks. Now I know why "Police Academy" was such a dismal flop, and no sequels were made.
Captain! (Score:3, Funny)
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: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:Lets be honest (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you think they should at least be given a chance?
Re:Great Hollywood Arkleseizure (Score:4, Interesting)
1.) Don't even bother to do it live action. Animation. 2D classical drawn animation. No CGI crap...humans still don't look right in CGI, and H2G2 was very humanoid-centric. Get someone with a cartoony sense to do the character design. Andreas Deja would be perfect. Then get a "dream team" of animators from both sides of the Pacific to work on it. This could have been Touchstone Pictures' triumphant return to animation. "Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit?!"
2.) If you animate the movie, you don't have to get people to portray the roles who are exactly the right age to play them. For instance, you could have Michael Palin as Arthur, Eric Idle as Ford, Bill Murray as Zaphod and Jennifer Saunders as Trillian. Never mind that they would be the absolute PERFECT cast, they would be too old to portray them live action. But as voices for animated characters...badabingbadabangbadaboom! They would have been perfect.
3.) Be as faithful to the materials Douglas Adams left behind for the movie as possible. And when in doubt, consult those materials + the books + the radio show + the TV show. If the people who did this H2G2 movie gave Adams as much propers as Robert Rodriguez did Frank Miller with Sin City it would have rocked rather sucked as badly as it seems to according to this review.
The big problem with such a plan, though? Americans think that cartoons=kid stuff. It takes a Pixar or a "Shrek" to get adults into theatres to watch animation. Great animation for grownups like The Triplets of Belleville, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' On Heaven's Door and Innocence: Ghost In The Shell II gets lost. (Yeah, they all were put out domestically by Sony Pictures. They have no idea of what to do with their animated properties.) If the two Matrix sequels were as ripping good as the Animatrix shorts, they would be artistic successes but box-office failures. The current state of affairs sucks, dammit.