Questions about Hitch Hikers Guide.

[wayfriend]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

A Fairly Gleeful Glimpse At THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY!!

[Myste]

Well, it's good to have a second opinion. I guess I'll jump in, be an elitist cow and say that the negative review was much better written than the positive one, and thus, I'm inclined to trust it more.

[Warmark Jay]

The review points out the fact, sad or otherwise, that in order to even get made the film has to appeal to a broad audience. Yes, Adams has millions of fans, but there are millions more who are not familiar with the books. (Those of you hoping, BTW, that the Covenant movies will not suffer a similar fate - I have some ocean front property in Arizona that I'd like to sell you.) Face (sad, definitely) facts - the American moviegoer finds more humor in Adam Sandler than, say, the Coen Brothers or the Pythons.

And keep this in mind: back when it was in development, Jay Roach was at one time attached to direct and write the script - and Mike Myers was being eyed for a major role. So, yes, it could have been much, much worse.

[Variol Farseer]

'The American moviegoer' is not a breed of animal. You can accurately predict the behaviour of a Pekinese or a Persian cat in most instances; not so with humans. Millions of American moviegoers do in fact find humour in Monty Python, which is why their films (and subsequently Terry Gilliam's films) have collectively made immense profits over the last 30 years.

The people who find Adam Sandler funny are largely teenage boys. That, it's true, has been the biggest single demographic element in the moviegoing audience for many years; but that, as Hollywood is finally figuring out, is only because so many movies are narrowly targeted to appeal to that audience. The Passion of the Christ, whatever you think of its artistic merits, demonstrated to the film industry that there are huge untapped audiences out there who would go to the movies if only somebody were making films that they could like.

In any case, adapting HHGG to Adam Sandler's audience is a lost cause. Douglas Adams' forte was caustic social satire under a veneer of Pythonesque humour, propelled along by some of the wittiest dialogue since Oscar Wilde. You can turn that kind of story into a fun ride for the fart-joke kiddies, but only by replacing every element that made the original so successful for so many years. And there is no possible guarantee that the elements you introduce will be as well done as the ones you took away.

As the Dr. Johnson of Blackadder might have said, converting HHGG to slapstick is like fitting wheels to a tomato: time-consuming and completely unnecessary. It would have been far better to fit the wheels to a car, and put the tomato into the chili.

By the way, Moriarty makes much of the fact that Douglas Adams himself made many of the changes to the story. That's no proof of value. Adams came to hate writing as he grew older, and his late works show little of the zany humour that first made him famous. And do remember, when David Lynch made that travesty of Dune back in the eighties, Frank Herbert was actively involved in writing the script.

So I'm not getting my hopes up.

[Warmark Jay]

Well, Variol, money talks. And judging by this summer's lineup, I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing people camping out for days in front of the local art house for the latest Wong Kar-Wai offering.

On that note, I'll bow out of this discussion; I'll go see the film, and if it sucks, believe me, I won't be shy in letting you know. Irony - I'm sure Adams would've found endless amusement over a bunch of disparate folks debating the merits of a movie that none of them had seen. Maybe I'll start a new thread - "Digital Watches: Nifty, or Not?"

[Myste]

I'm sure Adams would've found endless amusement over a bunch of disparate folks debating the merits of a movie that none of them had seen.

Much the same way God must find our search for an explanation of the duck-billed platypus endlessly amusing.

That doesn't mean it's not worth discussing.

[CovenantJr]

By the way, Moriarty makes much of the fact that Douglas Adams himself made many of the changes to the story. That's no proof of value.

I agree. Though the person who made those changes is the same person who originally wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide, he's also the same person who wrote Mostly Harmless.

[Avatar]

...Though the person who made those changes is the same person who originally wrote the Hitchhiker's Guide, he's also the same person who wrote Mostly Harmless.

Enough said.

--A

[Variol Farseer]

I wasn't going to see HHGG, but earlier this evening I got some free movie passes from my parents, who got them from their next-door neighbours, who got them from somebody or other who was leaving town and wouldn't be back before the passes expired (which happens tomorrow). So I rounded up a friend and went to see it for free.

It's not the train wreck I feared; I should describe it as a curate's egg of a film — 'very good in spots'. The Henson works did a splendid job on the Vogons, as I think nearly every reviewer agrees; the Guide entries were brilliantly done, and Stephen Fry was a perfect successor to Peter Jones as the Voice of the Book. Some of the added bits were quite good — the Point of View Gun, for instance, was a conceit worthy of Adams at his best — but the use made of them in the plot seemed rather arbitrary and insufficient.

On the whole, the dialogue was pretty good; but that's less than one ought to expect from a Douglas Adams script. Several scenes lost a great deal of their effect because of inept cutting. In general, when they cut down some of the bits of comic repartee, they managed to keep the punchlines intact (or replace them with something almost equally clever); but a few bits of buildup just led to anticlimaxes. The scene with the bulldozers, I thought, was almost entirely spoiled because of this. And the first scene with Deep Thought was weakened by the matter-of-fact way in which the waiting time for the Answer was announced. You just couldn't top this:

Deep Thought: The program will take me a little while to run.

Fook (or Lunkwill): How long?

Deep Thought: Seven and a half . . .

Lunkwill (or Fook): What, not till next week?

Deep Thought: . . . MILLION . . . YEARS!

And they didn't even try to match it. Deep Thought just announced the number, and nobody thought anything of it. A sad loss, and it only saved about five seconds of screen time.

I didn't feel that any of the new characters quite came to life, and some (Ford in particular) lost a lot of the life they used to have. There is one exception, though. The jewelled crab that greeted Arthur & Co. as they landed on Vogsphere was a really first-rate creation, and while I was sorry to see what happened to it, it was certainly the funniest fate it could have suffered. — But I won't spoil that bit.

I think I'd have felt slightly shortchanged if I had paid the full price of admission, but it's definitely worth watching in the cheap second-run theatres. And that's not something I say about very many movies.

Verdict: Like the Earth, it's not bad for a Mark II, but it would have been better with more fjords.

[[Syl]]

I saw it last night. There were a couple aspects that made me wince (the last line, in particular), but overall, I enjoyed it. They did a lot of it right (I figure if I could quote the movie before they said it on the first time through...), and most of what they added was good.

The love story bit... meh. And what's up with Trillian being called "Tricia" or "Trill" ninety percent of the time? I didn't get what was going on with Zaphod, and I just didn't like him (not that most people would, but I always liked him in the books). Marvin was perfect, but I don't recall him ever saying "Brain the size of a planet..."

Spoiler

Ok, and Earth II. How did they get all the people back on it? Let's say they could restore it as part of the program... well, that's kind of forgetting the ship that crashes into Earth and messes everything up.

[Warmark Jay]

Saw it last night as well. I'd give it a "B"; not great, but amusing enough. I think the biggest problem was the direction - watching some of the classic bits ("Should we lie down on the floor, put bags on our heads?""Yes, if you'd like..."), the problem was in the delivery - very few pauses for effect; either because of poor timing on the actors' part or over-editing. (Variol - best example was Deep Thought, I agree; the use of dramatic pause in the book made the scene hysterical: "....though I don't think you're going to like it." and so forth). I found Alan Rickman to be somewhat stale and forced as Marvin (but I didn't like the Marvin of the TV show either).

What I did like: Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast. Sam Rockwell as Zaphod (yes, he is as stupid and obnoxious in the books, and the Thinking Cap was a funny addition). The Improbability Drive. Magrathea's Factory Floor. The Vogons. The use of towels. The Guide itself (Stephen Fry is perfect, and the Guide entries are the best part of the movie).

I'd still recommend it, though. I saw it in a theater that seemed to have an equal amout of fans and people who'd never read the books, and everyone had a good time. As someone who thinks that the second book is the best in the series, I'm looking forward to the next movie.[/spoiler]

[CovenantJr]

Marvin was perfect, but I don't recall him ever saying "Brain the size of a planet..."

Not even "Brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper"?!

[Warmark Jay]

Referenced in both the movie and the book.

[[Syl]]

Must've missed it, then (in the movie, of course)

[Warmark Jay]

Must've missed it, then (in the movie, of course)

Y'know, that was part of what bothered me about the direction - a lot of the good lines were there, but kind of buried in the goings-on. This was Garth Jennings' first movie, and that inexperience with actors and dialogue shows in a few places.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Alright, I'll go see it...

[Myste]

I think I'll take VF's advice and see it on the second run. Though if the Magrathea Factory floor is worth seeing, it's probably worth seeing in stadium seating....

Hmmmm.

(OT--Oh, and I thought of something else that's worth $9 and two hours--two thirds of a trip from Boston to NYC on a discounted Greyhound bus ticket. )

[Warmark Jay]

I think I'll take VF's advice and see it on the second run. Though if the Magrathea Factory floor is worth seeing, it's probably worth seeing in stadium seating....

Hmmmm.

I probably liked it a bit more than Variol, but I agree with his assessment. For me, part of the fun - and the problem - was seeing how the jokes and wit would translate to the big screen. The problem, of course, being that the material has been around for a couple of decades - and are old jokes ever as funny the second, third, fourth, fifth time around? So I found myself smiling at most of the funny stuff, occasionally laughing out loud. Still, I wasn't disappointed; in a good way, it reminded me of everything I loved about the books.