Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Cafe Society
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I’m not saying this is the case for the posters here, but what I’ve mostly seen about HHGTTG fans is that they don’t think the movie was a good rendition of the books (in an extreme version, on another forum, me and a few others had to inform the poster that the books weren’t even the original formulation of the story). Someone told me that the movie was a good rendition of the ‘story’ (and of course every rendition of the story has to be somewhat different :D).

Frankly, I’ll reiterate that I liked it. One of the things about the dialogue in the books, is that it may not have translated so well to the big screen very well with people who hadn’t read the books. I liked the sperm whale, petunia gag was in, but the people I was with who hadn’t read the books wondered what in the Hell was that.

FWIW, I loved the scenes on Vogsphere. Getting the Presidental Pardon Form in order to release Trillian was great stuff :D.

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Saw it a few hours ago. Much the same reaction as everyone else here re: dialogue and plot. Beyond that:

—Some of the changes were necessary to keep it from seeming dated. I mean, it’s been twenty-five years, give or take, and the line about digital watches seeming like a pretty neat idea, and Trillian’s explanation that with a degree in astrophysics, it was either hook up with Zaphod or back to the dole queue again on Monday, would fall flat today. So I was okay with those omissions. I would have liked to have heard the line about hyperspace being like being drunk, and to have seen Zaphod being more than willing to sacrifice Arthur (“We could program it to say things like ‘What?’ and ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘Where’s the tea?’ and nobody’d know the difference!”). But you can’t have everything.

—One change that I thought was a great improvement. I did not particularly care for Simon Jones’ portrayal of Arthur, and in fact, I wasn’t crazy about the way he was portrayed in the book, either. He always seemed like a John Cleese character: stiff-necked, barely able to function outside of his comfort zone, prone to outbursts at the slightest frustration. Martin Freeman portrayed him as much more of a Joe Packetabiscuits (Brit counterpart to Joe Baggadonuts), and I thought that was much more appropriate.

—Mr. Rilch asked me afterwards if it was, for me, the “Bakshi version” or the “Peter Jackson version”. I said, after a moment’s thought, that I didn’t go in with expectations as high as he’d had for LOTR. Tolkien put years of his life into LOTR, whereas DNA was a guy whose most famous as-himself quote was “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go whizzing past.” He started with a radio series where actors were often handed new pages just minutes before they went on the air, and later cobbled the scripts into books, where he had to deal with stuff like Slartibartfast’s name having been chosen because it would aggravate his typist. Someone said way upthread that DNA was satisfied with the changes in the movie script that he was aware of, and I can believe that; I’m not fully convinced that the books were a finished product.

—And I was delighted to hear Thomas Lennon, late of Viva Variety!, as Eddie!

:::crickets:::

Yeah, well. I’m glad he’s working.

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Psst… not sure if you mean you couldn’t find any remixes of “Marvin, I Love You”, but I’ve been trying to track the original song down for years upon years… and I found it a moment ago, here…

If that’s not what you were talking about, well, d’oh! :smack:

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Rilcham, here’s some info on Thomas Lennon’s other job.

FTR, I’m an old school Guide head and I liked it a lot. *** (three stars). I actually enjoyed it better the second time I saw it because I wasn’t checking items off of my mental checklist and was able to sit back and enjoy the movie on its own terms.

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Yes, that’s what I meant. Thanks for the link, you hoopy frood! :smiley:

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The movie theatre wasn’t selling swedish fish, which disappointed me greatly, although I did wear a decade old sweat-shirt I sometimes use as a nightgown. (With pants, of course!) No towel, because I didn’t want to embarrass my mom, whom I took to the movie for Mother’s Day. (Yup, totally unselfish of me, right?) The rest of the audience was two sets of grandparents and grandkids, plus a teenager or two and a whole family. I was the only one who laughed at a couple of the jokes, which made me wonder if there just weren’t any other fans in the crowd because it was Mother’s Day, or because it was a week after it came out. My mom enjoyed it, but I had to explain a lot of background to her.

For the most part, I was satisfied with the movie. I loved Alan Rickman’s voice as Marvin, the Thanks for All the Fish Song (I was still singing it when I left), and Trillian. Zaphod, especially with the Texan accent, was funny the first couple of times, although by the end of the movie I was left with the distinct impression that he was an idiot, not just an extremely self-absorbed glory seeker.

One detail that annoyed me a lot was the lack of explanation about the towel. When Ford did explain it, it was rushed, and I doubt anyone who hadn’t read the books had any idea why he was constantly clutching his towel. As FordPrefect said, Ford came off as a little spineless. Mos Def did an okay job other than that though.

I really liked Trillian, but the “I’m already a woman” line confused me, although I got the joke (mainly because it was commissioned by housewives.) Trillian was hot, man. I think she was portrayed really well.

All in all, I liked the movie better than I thought I would, mostly because I have an aunt who called me up just to talk about the movie, and said that I’ll probably like it, but it was mediocre. I didn’t think the movie was horrible, just medium, and definitely not as low-quality as her tone of voice made it sound.