# 'Hitchhiker's Guide' -- How bad is the movie going to be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 11, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797 "2005-04-11T15:46:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/1 "2005-04-11T15:46:54Z")
The thread asking [What books had the best story and worst writing?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=311221) reminded me of my greatest worry about the upcoming filmed version of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe,_ which is that, while Douglas Adams was a terrifically clever writer, he had trouble plotting his way out of a wet brown paper bag and there is only the thinnest thread of a story under all of the terrifically clever writing and Hollywood doesn’t do well when all they have is terrifically clever writing. Previous incarnations showed its limitations. The radio series and subsequent books were most effective because you could luxuriate in the language and not worry that it wasn’t taking you anywhere in particular. The TV series was far less effective because so much of the terrifically cleverest language that had been narration was now made flesh in a primarily visual medium and lost all of its cleverness. Now Hollywood has made an effects-laden extravaganza and effects-laden extravaganzas are **never** clever and it will need to either fall back on the story, which wasn’t really there in the first place, or be given a new story. Granted, by the time Adams wrote the screenplay he had learned how to plot, more or less, but will the film bear any relationship to the radio series and book? CAN it, and not be a bunch of loosely connected episodes? And what about sequels, when the other four books of the trilogy had less plot than the first? I fear this will not be good. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/2 "2005-04-11T16:00:56Z")
I too am seriously worried for the movie. I think viewers will fal into one of two camps: 1. The millions who have loved the books and will cringe at the watering down/changes Hollywood inevitably does to things like this thus ruining what the real charm was. Fans won’t care about dazzling special effects. (At least the television and radio series were pretty faithful to the source material) 2. The millions who have never had any interest in the whacky sci-fi universe Adams created. Some may still be lured in by dazzling special effects but the movie will likely lose its impact on those in the population who do not understand references to an infinite number of monkeys wanting Arthur to read over a script to Hamlet they just worked up. I predict a big fizzle (due to low faith in Hollywood) but will try and keep an open mind and will of course see the movie no matter what. ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/3 "2005-04-11T16:02:09Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > effects-laden extravaganzas are **never** clever _Men In Black._ > [@](#): > > it will need to either fall back on the story, which wasn’t really there in the first place, You say. I expect much of Adams’s language will be preserved in narration by “the guide.” And anyway, even if there was no conventional story, the books still had some wonderfully funny situations which should translate quite well to the screen, like the scene in the Restaurant where the cow tried to talk Arthur into eating her. Does it make you feel good about yourself to come in here and rip down a movie you haven’t seen yet? ---
**Author:** ![Ithaka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Ithaka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ithaka)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/4 "2005-04-11T16:12:52Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > (At least the television and radio series were pretty faithful to the source material) The radio series is the source material, isn’t it. It came before the books. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/5 "2005-04-11T16:16:11Z")
Have you seen [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=311233)? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/6 "2005-04-11T16:16:13Z")
> [@Fiver](#): > > Does it make you feel good about yourself to come in here and rip down a movie you haven’t seen yet? Yes, it does. I am able to hop on the bandwagon early enough to appear prescient to anybody except the most obsessive fanboys (who I assume have been ripping on it for years) and it saves me eight bucks. Perhaps these grapes are not sour, but since so many previous bunches were the smart fox would assume these are, too, though Stephen Fry was born to play the Guide and Alan Rickman IS Marvin. _MIB_ may have been Hollywood clever but it was not fantastically clever. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/7 "2005-04-11T16:20:22Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Have you seen [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=311233)? Obviously not or I wouldn’t have started this thread. Wiseass newbies! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/8 "2005-04-11T16:28:27Z")
Okay, since this thread is duplicated in an earlier one I should’ve noticed maybe I should reframe it as a discussion of good writers who are bad storytellers or just start another one. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/9 "2005-04-11T16:31:21Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Obviously not or I wouldn’t have started this thread. > > Wiseass newbies! 😉 Heh heh. Me, I’m not going to read any reviews. Will reserve judgment till after I see the film. Anyway, just thought you might want to know that somebody else thought it was Really, Really Bad ™. But I hope you’re both wrong 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shades\_of\_Pale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Shades\_of\_Pale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shades_of_Pale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/10 "2005-04-11T16:46:14Z")
Does that mean we can’t reply to this thread? It’s going to be heinous, I know that. I actually will probably end up seeing it, though why I would torture myself that way I honestly don’t know. As I watched the trailer and heard the dialogue, I noticed it lacked all the humour, though it appeared to have action and good effects. What the hell is the point of Hitchhikers without the humour?? The plot alone wasn’t good enough to carry a book, movie, or anything else. The review confirms it in the first segment with two bits of dialogue, one from the book (hilarious) and one from the film, shortened to two lines and missing all the, you know, jokes: > [@](#): > > Can you spot what has been removed from this scene, gentle reader, in order to shorten it? That’s right. The jokes. The jokes have gone. The funny bits, the wit, the humour. The clever stuff that made it worth including in the first place. More than that I heard the way the characters were talking. Ford was saying things Ford never would have said. They may manage to bring some tiny bit of the character to the screen, but they’re going to lose everything we ever gave a crap about in any of them. Whatever, maybe I really won’t see this garbage. A great cast will not make up for shredding the books and setting them on fire just to get a Hollywood-style piece of crap. ---
**Author:** ![Shades\_of\_Pale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Shades\_of\_Pale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shades_of_Pale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hitchhikers-guide-how-bad-is-the-movie-going-to-be/298797/11 "2005-04-11T17:02:02Z")
Does that mean we can’t reply to this thread? It’s going to be heinous, I know that. I actually will probably end up seeing it, though why I would torture myself that way I honestly don’t know. As I watched the trailer and heard the dialogue, I noticed it lacked all the humour, though it appeared to have action and good effects. What the hell is the point of Hitchhikers without the humour?? The plot alone wasn’t good enough to carry a book, movie, or anything else. The review confirms it in the first segment with two bits of dialogue, one from the book (hilarious) and one from the film, shortened to two lines and missing all the, you know, jokes: > [@](#): > > Can you spot what has been removed from this scene, gentle reader, in order to shorten it? That’s right. The jokes. The jokes have gone. The funny bits, the wit, the humour. The clever stuff that made it worth including in the first place. More than that I heard the way the characters were talking. Ford was saying things Ford never would have said. They may manage to bring some tiny bit of the character to the screen, but I could tell from the stupid bits of dialogue I’ve seen that it loses the characters, which again ruins the point. Whatever, maybe I really won’t see this garbage. A great cast will not make up for shredding the books and setting them on fire just to get a Hollywood-style piece of crap. > [@](#): > > Throughout the movie, wherever there are recognisable scenes, they have been severely shortened. This not only doesn’t work, it also shows an amazing lack of understanding of what made Hitchhiker’s so good in the first place. Here’s a clue: it’s not the story. Douglas Adams had no real idea of how to string a long-form narrative together - that’s why the plot is so fluid. It’s the ideas and - let’s be quite clear about this - the use of language which make Hitchhiker’s so enjoyable and so perennially popular. Douglas was a comedy sketch writer. His forte was brilliant dialogue in intricately constructed little three-minute bursts and all the best bits of the story, like Mr Prosser’s scene, are self-contained sketches. Douglas worked and worked at each line of dialogue (or monologue, as the case may be) until it was absolutely perfect…That’s why there are so many wonderfully quotable lines in Hitchhiker’s Guide, most of which are notable by their absence from the film. And it can’t be pretended that this does not translate to film, because it does. A single viewing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail proves that. > [@](#): > > Great chunks of familiar, much-loved and (crucially) funny material has been replaced or dispensed with entirely…(examples)…Yet, while all this great stuff is absent, room has been found for some real clunkers of new lines That’s exactly what it looked like, and exactly what I prayed they wouldn’t do. Naturally the narration was also imperially hilarious, and it can’t all be translated to film, but there was enough else funny that could have been brought to film, even losing much of the narration. Forget it. If they ever do a good version, I’m there. I love books being made into movies, so long as they retain what was wonderful about the book (a good example is Cuckoo’s Nest, which while there are some major differences, including McMurphy being a _very_ different character, still manages to get the core feel of the book across. So long as they don’t cut the heart out, it’s great. Sacrificing everything, the humor, the characters, AND the narration is too much. Simply using the same names and setting it in space doesn’t cut it.