# Starsky & Hutch Sucks! \[Spoilers, like it matters\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2004, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027 "2004-03-24T00:34:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/21 "2004-03-24T20:10:17Z")
Soul & Glaser appear at the end to hand over to Stiller & Wilson a replacement “Zebra 3” (the Ford Gran Torino), as the original ends up at the bottom of the ocean. No explanation is given as to who they are, why they have an identical car, why they’re giving it to them and why they are dressed identically to the other two. It’s just a cameo appearance for the sake of an appearance and makes no sense at all. This would be fair enough if it was funny, with a good gag you can get away with practically anything, but it’s not even that. It’s just _odd_. Glaser looks not bad at all for a 60 year old. Soul looks 60. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/22 "2004-03-24T21:15:47Z")
Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/23 "2004-03-24T21:29:25Z")
> [@Toby-T](#): > > Why does Hollywood keep doing this to us? Why has Hollywood creativley dried up so severley that they keep churning out these stupid movies based on one old television series after another? Charlies Angels, Lost in Space, Brady Bunch, Scooby Doo, this movie… …[Bewitched](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374536/combined)… ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/24 "2004-03-24T22:27:46Z")
Well I loved it. 🆒 I was a big fan of the original series, and I thought they captured its spirit perfectly. I haven’t seen any other Stiller/Wilson movies, so I can’t make that comparison, but I thought it was delightfully funny and just as entertaining as the T.V. show. > [@](#): > > Nothing at all like the original. Fair enough, it it wasn’t also nothing like it and bad. I don’t get how you can say it was nothing like the original when it was exactly like the original – same silly seventies attitudes, same pointless plots, same intense relationship between Starsky and Hutch, same ludicrousness of Huggy Bear. I taped the TVLand marathon of the original series and watched it after I saw the movie, and I was amazed by how many small plot details they managed to work in. > [@](#): > > Ben Stiller. Once I was indifferent to him. Then I didn’t think much of him. Now I hate him. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something disturbing about this man. Don’t know about other roles (I did like _Flirting with Disaster_), but I thought he nailed Starsky perfectly. There were times I felt like I was watching Paul Michael Glaser. > [@](#): > > Snoop Doggy Dog. Why didn’t they just put a coat of varnish on the man, and no-one would catch any splinters off this wooden performance? Not wooden, cool, baby, cool. > [@](#): > > The plot. I know the original wasn’t exactly deep, but the plot here was a puddle by comparison. Go back and take a look at the original again – it was a mighty small puddle. > [@](#): > > They swapped the characters around. Starsky was like the original Hutch, Hutch was like the original Starsky. Why? I don’t get this at all. Starksy and Hutch was never a good cop/bad cop show. The two of them were the same, except that one was tall and blonde, and the other was short and dark. I thought that making Starsky more by-the-book was a nice touch, fleshing out the character – it also gave the movie a hook by showing how the two of them first teamed up, something that wasn’t explored in the T.V. show. > [@](#): > > Except they weren’t much like them at all. Hutch robbing stores and dead bodies as a sideline?? That part didn’t really fit, but I think of it as what Hutch was like before he teamed up with Starsky and found his true calling. > [@](#): > > Did Huggy Bear’s character make any sense to anyone? First he’s a local gangland leader likely to kill them both, then he’s a willing informant, then he’s happy to go on an undercover mission in golf slacks? Check out the original Huggy – except that his criminal activity wasn’t quite as obvious, he was just the same, and just as inexplicable. > [@](#): > > It thought it was riotously funny throughout. It wasn’t. I laughed once, about the hand towels. The rest of it just wasn’t that funny. I didn’t think it was riotously funny. I though it was silly and fun. It’s one of the only movies I know of that made me giggle through the entire thing. > [@](#): > > What in the name of Zebra Three was going on with Glaser & Souls’ guest appearance at the end?? Pointless, confusing and a sign of a film that simply didn’t care anymore. Just a cute in joke for those of us who have great affection for the original series and actors. It was a sweet tribute and a chance to see Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul again. It wasn’t my favorite movie ever, but for someone who was such a big fan of the original series, it hit the spot. ---
**Author:** ![Beauty\_Personified](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e480ec/32.png) [@Beauty\_Personified](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beauty_Personified)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/25 "2004-03-24T22:37:19Z")
> [@Jeff Olsen](#): > > …[Bewitched](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374536/combined)… Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell! Who’d a thunk it? On the subject of **Starsky & Hutch** , it wasn’t great by any means, but I had no problem wasting five bucks Canadian on it (“cheap night”). I had low expectations going in, so wasn’t disappointed by any means. Nothing in particular was knee-slappingly funny, yet nothing in particular ruined it for me. And, I rather enjoyed the ending. Amazingly, jumping a car onto a boat is now an action film cliche. Despite that, and based on how the rest of the movie played, I wasn’t annoyed to see that about to happen in **S&H**. When the car totally missed, I was grinning. And the fact that Huggy Bear saved the day was great as well. Anyhoo… ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/26 "2004-03-25T00:06:35Z")
> [@SpoilerVirgin](#): > > I don’t get this at all. Starksy and Hutch was never a good cop/bad cop show. The two of them were the same, except that one was tall and blonde, and the other was short and dark. I thought that making Starsky more by-the-book was a nice touch, fleshing out the character – it also gave the movie a hook by showing how the two of them first teamed up, something that wasn’t explored in the T.V. show. Granted, there wasn’t a whole lot of difference between them in the original. But Hutch was always the more serious one, Starsky more happy-go-lucky. This film reversed that. > [@](#): > > Check out the original Huggy – except that his criminal activity wasn’t quite as obvious, he was just the same, and just as inexplicable. The original Huggy was always small-time, literally the man on the street. Why else did he inform on the side? He wasn’t the big-shot with a staff of gun-totting henchmen this film portrayed at the start. So why was he also an informer?? Wasn’t his relationship with Hutch to do with him staging armed robberies? And why did Huggy have more muscle to back him up that the real bad guy, who seemed to be running an entire multi-million dollar drug smuggling enterprise with one pilot, a lawer and a girlfriend? Is any of this adding up at all? Why do I begin to worry I’m over analysing this piece of fluff? 🙂 > [@](#): > > Just a cute in joke for those of us who have great affection for the original series and actors. It was a sweet tribute and a chance to see Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul again. An in-joke that absolutely everyone is in on? This was the kind of in-joke that stands on your toes and screams in your face “DO YOU SEE WHAT WE’RE DOING HERE?? DO YOU SEE?? IT’S LIKE THERE’S TWO OF THEM!!” Besides, I’ve seen both Glaser & Soul within the last year acting in proper stuff. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/27 "2004-03-25T14:17:37Z")
> [@](#): > > He wasn’t the big-shot with a staff of gun-totting henchmen this film portrayed at the start. So why was he also an informer?? Well, we know he owned a club and probably wasn’t heavily into the drug trade. He didn’t really look a serious big-shot to me. > [@](#): > > Wasn’t his relationship with Hutch to do with him staging armed robberies? Nope. That was Hutch’s sideline. > [@](#): > > And why did Huggy have more muscle to back him up that the real bad guy, who seemed to be running an entire multi-million dollar drug smuggling enterprise with one pilot, a lawer and a girlfriend? Is any of this adding up at all? That guy didn’t need six gun-toting ex-cons. That would have looked really suspicious. He did well by staying off the radar. ---
**Author:** ![Mauvaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mauvaise/32/11084_2.png) [@Mauvaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mauvaise)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/28 "2004-03-26T00:19:58Z")
> [@TOTBP](#): > > Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell! Who’d a thunk it? Hi-jack: I read a rumor the other day that Michael Caine will be Maurice 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027/29 "2004-03-26T05:08:52Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > I[li]Ben Stiller. Once I was indifferent to him. Then I didn’t think much of him. Now I hate him. I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something disturbing about this man.[/li] He’s sleazy. Or at least he always plays sleazy characters. He’s “stars” in a ton of those movies that derive their humor solely from “booger” humor (any thing that is yucky and gagworthy, like snot, barf, toilets overflowing etc, must be funny, rrrrriiiiHiiight?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/starsky-hutch-sucks-spoilers-like-it-matters/236027.md?page=1)