The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (merged)
- Thread starter Mark
- Start date
Those little bits where Evil is scrying on the little guys are classic, also. 
spider_minion
First Post
I just got back from seeing Hitchhiker's.
I found it to be a very enjoyable movie. Unlike most comedies, its funny in a strange, subtle sort of way. The film is very loyal to the book, so much so that I knew how many of the scenes would play out (even though its been years since I read it). However, I was plesantly surprised to see top-notch production values. And the raw wierdness of Hitchhiker's paper counterpart remains inteact.
I gave the film a 7--very good, but not great. Ironically, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the books.
Oh, and there is a funny bit midway through the end credits.
EDIT: 100 posts! Playin' in the big leagues now!!!
I found it to be a very enjoyable movie. Unlike most comedies, its funny in a strange, subtle sort of way. The film is very loyal to the book, so much so that I knew how many of the scenes would play out (even though its been years since I read it). However, I was plesantly surprised to see top-notch production values. And the raw wierdness of Hitchhiker's paper counterpart remains inteact.
I gave the film a 7--very good, but not great. Ironically, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read the books.
Oh, and there is a funny bit midway through the end credits.
EDIT: 100 posts! Playin' in the big leagues now!!!
Samnell
Explorer
Well, I was the other kind of viewer. The books came very highly recommended to me years ago and I read the first. Dear me, that was awful. I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but the fascination utterly escapes me to this day. Friends with very similar senses of humor to my own love the things. But I went to the movie with an open mind, thinking that some stuff might translate better on screen and I would catch what I was missing.
I was wrong. I don't mind craziness. I don't mind the surreal. I don't mind clever lines. All of these things, I can enjoy. Well, maybe not the craziness. I had a few very light chuckle moments, just like the books. No better, no worse.
So the Hitchhiker conundrum remains for me. It just doesn't strike me as funny. Worse, as it goes on, it starts to become very tedious. If you loved the books, I'm sure you're glorying in the celluloid, but the books and the movie both lack appeal to me. Still no idea why.
What's more odd is that I've found some of the scraps of Adams' non-HH work I've read elsewhere completely hillarious. He strikes me as a damn funny guy. It's weird.
I was wrong. I don't mind craziness. I don't mind the surreal. I don't mind clever lines. All of these things, I can enjoy. Well, maybe not the craziness. I had a few very light chuckle moments, just like the books. No better, no worse.
So the Hitchhiker conundrum remains for me. It just doesn't strike me as funny. Worse, as it goes on, it starts to become very tedious. If you loved the books, I'm sure you're glorying in the celluloid, but the books and the movie both lack appeal to me. Still no idea why.
What's more odd is that I've found some of the scraps of Adams' non-HH work I've read elsewhere completely hillarious. He strikes me as a damn funny guy. It's weird.
LordVyreth
First Post
[sblock]Waiting in line at the Vogsphere, right? I thought it looked familiar. And apparently the HoG transformed into Douglas Adams' head for a few moments right at the end.[/sblock]Ao the Overkitty said:
Damn, I didn't know about the credits thing. Could somebody post a spoiler for me with what happened?
demiurge1138
Inventor of Super-Toast
The credit cookie is an excerpt from the Guide, taken from the Resturaunt at the End of the Universe, about the perils of speech travelling through time and space and being heard by those it wasn't intended.
Anyway, I did enjoy the movie a lot. It felt more "Hollywood" than I would have liked, what with the semi-coherent plot and the addition of a love story, but the love story was actually pretty good (if unnecessary), a lot of good stuff from the book remained in the movie, a lot of the additions were good, and I loved all the new Vogon stuff. In the books, Vogons are spiteful and malicious creatures who are cruel for no other reason than because they can be. This comes over a bit in the movie, but its Vogons are a lot less evil than just dumb and overly beaurecratic, which works really well. And the production design was great.
I give it a 7. You could do much worse than see this movie, but it's not a classic by any measure. Just entertaining.
Demiurge out.
Anyway, I did enjoy the movie a lot. It felt more "Hollywood" than I would have liked, what with the semi-coherent plot and the addition of a love story, but the love story was actually pretty good (if unnecessary), a lot of good stuff from the book remained in the movie, a lot of the additions were good, and I loved all the new Vogon stuff. In the books, Vogons are spiteful and malicious creatures who are cruel for no other reason than because they can be. This comes over a bit in the movie, but its Vogons are a lot less evil than just dumb and overly beaurecratic, which works really well. And the production design was great.
I give it a 7. You could do much worse than see this movie, but it's not a classic by any measure. Just entertaining.
Demiurge out.
Chain Lightning
First Post
Trillian (played by Zooey Deschanel) is really cute. 
Kanegrundar
Explorer
My fiance and i saw it last night. It's a pretty good movie. It's a pretty faithful adaptation overall, granted I don't remember a lot from the book since I read it 14 years ago! It's a very funny and intelligent sci-comedy. There are some slow spots, but overall it's very good.
8/10
Kane
8/10
Kane
Here's my review, which has already appeared on Usenet and the mailing lists for my groups. Warning: it does contain a few mild spoilers.
[sblock]Don't panic. "That review" was wrong.
Not as badly wrong as I'd hoped, but a lot more wrong than I'd feared.
The movie is smart, funny, and true to the spirit of Douglas Adams'
novels and radio plays. It's well worth seeing for any fan of Adams'
work and would make a good introduction as well, though ultimately you
still can't be a proper geek without reading the novels.
I'll get the bad out of the way first. It's true that one of my favorite
parts, the conversation with Prosser near the beginning, got massacred.
(In fact, the beginning as a whole moves rather too fast.) I don't care
how badly you need to squeeze the plot into the time available, you do
NOT cut the line "On display? They were on display in the bottom of a
locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door
saying 'Beware the leopard'."
It's also true that the whole movie is held together by improbable
coincidences. But it's The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy for
heaven's sake. Criticizing it for being disjointed is like complaining
that the ocean is too wet. To me, that's always been a big part of what
it's *about*. Besides, the characters are zipping around the galaxy in a
ship powered by *what* again? It seems to me that a number of people who
were perfectly accepting of that element of the radio plays and the
books (where there wasn't always such a good excuse available) are
suddenly surprised to find exactly the same thing in the movie (where
there is).
Trillian is a disappointment. Her intellectual achievements from the
books are neither mentioned nor otherwise in evidence. Indeed, I would
have to say she's an entirely different character, and one that I wasn't
as keen on as her predecessor. She gets relegated to the getting-rescued
role in one of the new plotlines and to a gender stereotype (though a
pretty funny one) in the other.
And the new parts of the plot, while much more in the spirit of the
original than I had feared, nevertheless tended to be among the weaker
parts of the film. I think something like them was needed in order for
the pacing to be right for a movie, and they certainly were not the huge
disappointment I was worried about, but when I think of my favorite
parts of the movie, they aren't what jumps to mind (though I did like
Arthur and Zaphod's improbable team-up in navigating the Vogon
bureaucracy). And what one of the two new characters is doing following
Jeltz around is never explained, since you would think from her position
and what her motives turn out to be that this is the last thing she
would want to do.
So what did I like? First and foremost, Alan Rickman as the voice of
Marvin. Brilliant. It's like the role was written with him in mind all
along. I must be the only Hitch-Hiker's fan in the world who was never
really sold on the Paranoid Android in the previous versions. Rickman
gave me a new appreciation for the character (with some help from
Warwick Davis, who manages to convey a lot more expression than you
would think that costume would allow). In fact, lines that didn't seem
funny to me before are *much* better if I imagine Rickman delivering
them, as I discovered when I found myself quoting one over dinner
afterward.
While in some cases, beloved sequences and lines have been jettisoned to
the movie's detriment, in other cases I think it was a help. In
particular, the over-long and rather sub-par sequence just after Ford
and Arthur get picked up by the Heart of Gold - which is in ALL the
previous versions - has been replaced with a single line that's *MUCH*
funnier than anything in the original (though the infinite monkeys are
somewhat missed).
[The author of "that review" *says* he understands that concessions have
to be made to the length and expectations of a movie, but he doesn't. He
*says* he's not criticizing things just for being different, but he is.
Okay, okay, I promise I'll stop mentioning him.]
Speaking of the Heart of Gold and its Improbability Drive, the effects
of it are, at least to me, *MUCH* better done than in any previous
version. There are lots of good gags, most of them visual, around it
that are found in no previous version.
The Vogons are better used than in any previous version.
Creepy, creepy (and somewhat underused) John Malkovich as one of the new
characters. He does his part really well, even if it wasn't a favorite
sequence on the whole.
Suitably sequel-hunting ending.
And lastly, there is the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself.
Stephen Fry, who was the voice of the book in all the previous versions
{ADDED ON EDIT: This error of mine has since been corrected by Nik
Landauer on Usenet. My apologies in particular to Peter Jones, the original
voice of the book} as well, is as wry as ever, and some of the animations
that go with the Guide entries... definitely something else. (Personal favorite:
Vogons.) By the end I was about ready to cheer whenever a Guide entry
started up. And contrary to what you may have heard, there are quite a few
of them, including at least one entirely new one and a personal favorite that
was in the radio plays but not in the books or TV series. In some we see the
animated Guide entry (quite different from the ones in the TV series),
others are voice-overs in scenes that we don't really need (or want, in
the case of the Vogon poetry session) the sound for anyway.
The majority of the Guide entries must have been added back in *after*
some of the preview screenings we've seen reviews of, because there were
far more of them than the early reviews made it sound like
(especially... oops, I said I wouldn't mention him again). They also
explain nearly all the things I've seen those reviewers worry that
newcomers wouldn't understand, if that helps reassure anyone.
There were a few other minor things I found that I preferred to previous
versions as well. Zaphod's extra head - while I'm no happier than anyone
else with the pez-dispenser implementation - is there for a better
reason and plays a much bigger role in the plot than before. And some of
the characters actually meet Deep Thought, which I always thought would
have been nice.
On the whole, this is an enjoyable interpretation of Adams' work. For
every scene or line that's been dropped or reduced in importance, a
throwaway line has been turned into a genuine plot element, or at least
a better gag than it was the first time around. In fact, I was impressed
with the attention to the details of the previous versions that the
filmmakers showed, even if the significance of some of those details has
changed. Get off your butt and go see it already.
[/sblock]
[sblock]Don't panic. "That review" was wrong.
Not as badly wrong as I'd hoped, but a lot more wrong than I'd feared.
The movie is smart, funny, and true to the spirit of Douglas Adams'
novels and radio plays. It's well worth seeing for any fan of Adams'
work and would make a good introduction as well, though ultimately you
still can't be a proper geek without reading the novels.
I'll get the bad out of the way first. It's true that one of my favorite
parts, the conversation with Prosser near the beginning, got massacred.
(In fact, the beginning as a whole moves rather too fast.) I don't care
how badly you need to squeeze the plot into the time available, you do
NOT cut the line "On display? They were on display in the bottom of a
locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door
saying 'Beware the leopard'."
It's also true that the whole movie is held together by improbable
coincidences. But it's The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy for
heaven's sake. Criticizing it for being disjointed is like complaining
that the ocean is too wet. To me, that's always been a big part of what
it's *about*. Besides, the characters are zipping around the galaxy in a
ship powered by *what* again? It seems to me that a number of people who
were perfectly accepting of that element of the radio plays and the
books (where there wasn't always such a good excuse available) are
suddenly surprised to find exactly the same thing in the movie (where
there is).
Trillian is a disappointment. Her intellectual achievements from the
books are neither mentioned nor otherwise in evidence. Indeed, I would
have to say she's an entirely different character, and one that I wasn't
as keen on as her predecessor. She gets relegated to the getting-rescued
role in one of the new plotlines and to a gender stereotype (though a
pretty funny one) in the other.
And the new parts of the plot, while much more in the spirit of the
original than I had feared, nevertheless tended to be among the weaker
parts of the film. I think something like them was needed in order for
the pacing to be right for a movie, and they certainly were not the huge
disappointment I was worried about, but when I think of my favorite
parts of the movie, they aren't what jumps to mind (though I did like
Arthur and Zaphod's improbable team-up in navigating the Vogon
bureaucracy). And what one of the two new characters is doing following
Jeltz around is never explained, since you would think from her position
and what her motives turn out to be that this is the last thing she
would want to do.
So what did I like? First and foremost, Alan Rickman as the voice of
Marvin. Brilliant. It's like the role was written with him in mind all
along. I must be the only Hitch-Hiker's fan in the world who was never
really sold on the Paranoid Android in the previous versions. Rickman
gave me a new appreciation for the character (with some help from
Warwick Davis, who manages to convey a lot more expression than you
would think that costume would allow). In fact, lines that didn't seem
funny to me before are *much* better if I imagine Rickman delivering
them, as I discovered when I found myself quoting one over dinner
afterward.
While in some cases, beloved sequences and lines have been jettisoned to
the movie's detriment, in other cases I think it was a help. In
particular, the over-long and rather sub-par sequence just after Ford
and Arthur get picked up by the Heart of Gold - which is in ALL the
previous versions - has been replaced with a single line that's *MUCH*
funnier than anything in the original (though the infinite monkeys are
somewhat missed).
[The author of "that review" *says* he understands that concessions have
to be made to the length and expectations of a movie, but he doesn't. He
*says* he's not criticizing things just for being different, but he is.
Okay, okay, I promise I'll stop mentioning him.]
Speaking of the Heart of Gold and its Improbability Drive, the effects
of it are, at least to me, *MUCH* better done than in any previous
version. There are lots of good gags, most of them visual, around it
that are found in no previous version.
The Vogons are better used than in any previous version.
Creepy, creepy (and somewhat underused) John Malkovich as one of the new
characters. He does his part really well, even if it wasn't a favorite
sequence on the whole.
Suitably sequel-hunting ending.
And lastly, there is the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself.
Stephen Fry, who was the voice of the book in all the previous versions
{ADDED ON EDIT: This error of mine has since been corrected by Nik
Landauer on Usenet. My apologies in particular to Peter Jones, the original
voice of the book} as well, is as wry as ever, and some of the animations
that go with the Guide entries... definitely something else. (Personal favorite:
Vogons.) By the end I was about ready to cheer whenever a Guide entry
started up. And contrary to what you may have heard, there are quite a few
of them, including at least one entirely new one and a personal favorite that
was in the radio plays but not in the books or TV series. In some we see the
animated Guide entry (quite different from the ones in the TV series),
others are voice-overs in scenes that we don't really need (or want, in
the case of the Vogon poetry session) the sound for anyway.
The majority of the Guide entries must have been added back in *after*
some of the preview screenings we've seen reviews of, because there were
far more of them than the early reviews made it sound like
(especially... oops, I said I wouldn't mention him again). They also
explain nearly all the things I've seen those reviewers worry that
newcomers wouldn't understand, if that helps reassure anyone.
There were a few other minor things I found that I preferred to previous
versions as well. Zaphod's extra head - while I'm no happier than anyone
else with the pez-dispenser implementation - is there for a better
reason and plays a much bigger role in the plot than before. And some of
the characters actually meet Deep Thought, which I always thought would
have been nice.
On the whole, this is an enjoyable interpretation of Adams' work. For
every scene or line that's been dropped or reduced in importance, a
throwaway line has been turned into a genuine plot element, or at least
a better gag than it was the first time around. In fact, I was impressed
with the attention to the details of the previous versions that the
filmmakers showed, even if the significance of some of those details has
changed. Get off your butt and go see it already.
[/sblock]
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