I saw a trailer for Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
Anybody hear any hype on the movie.
I see that Ford is a brother.
Do you think this movie is worth getting high, smuggle in some candy, and watching? Or should I wait for the BBC to relase the 1980's TV series on DVD?
Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
I saw a panel on it at WonderCon in SF. It looked great, and the producers seemed really funny. Arthur Dent is going to be Tim from The Office (The funnier, British one). Looked to be some great puppet/animatronics featured for some of the aliens. I'm excited honestly. Don't know about the getting high or the smuggling, but I'm definitely planning to catch this one in the theatres.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
I always smuggle candy into the theater. Always.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I'm looking forward to seeing it. I've seen a few different trailers for it. The one they keep showing on TV (in the US at least) seems typical - a lot of fast images and explosions, and your standard voice-over guy. That one seems geared for your average person who hasn't read the book. One I saw online, though, was written like it was an entry for "movie trailer" in the Guide itself, complete with British voiceover - very funny, and definitely one only people who have read the book would get.
Edit: Go here and select the Trailer #3 to see the latter version.
B.J.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
That's awesome! I can't wait for this movie. Unfortunately I'll be at field school when it comes out... Will have to see it when I get back.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote: complete with British voiceover
That would be Stephen Fry, who does the voiceovers in the film also.
Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :
Mos Def plays Ford.
I wonder if he put any rhymes on the Sndtk.
He didn't for Oceans 12.
Posted by Captain Stark (Member # 70) on :
I saw The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy last night at a sneak preview. The movie is best enjoyed with a towel and in your robe. This movie was very good and Alan Rickman was perfect as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I went to see it Friday. There were quite a few people in the theater with towels, too. It was very good, and I think the effects (especially for the book entries) were done very well considering the low budget they had.
$$$ minor movie spoilers $$$ (If you don't know the story by now, you're an illiterate peasant.)
Anyone else notice the original Marvin from the BBC series in the waiting line? It wasn't just a background face, they made a point of featuring it prominently on the screen.
In the credits, I noticed that they said one of the planets was in the shape of Douglas Adams' head. I missed that, apparently. I'm assuming it was on the "factory floor" somewhere.
My favorite part - and I can't seem to get it out of my head - was when the actual guide itself showed up with the banjo music they used for the BBC TV series and the audio tapes. I don't think many people in the audience "got" that part, but I was pleasantly suprised by that.
B.J.
Posted by Nim' (Member # 205) on :
Haven't seen it yet but I'm pissed off they made Marvin into a kawaii supercute robo-Ewok. I imagined him like a regular humanoid but hunched.
I have to ask, though, how much of the four books are covered in the movie? Just the first one, the first two or all four of them?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
Forgot to mention this, but after I saw the movie, we went to the bookstore and I was skimming through the Starlog magazine which had several articles about Hitchhiker's. One thing I noticed was that the new character (as in not-in-the-book character) played by John Malkovich was added in by Adams himself.
B.J.
Posted by Marauth (Member # 1320) on :
there are five books, and Adams wrote a few chapters of the sixth before he died young. A real tragedy.
I haven't seen it yet but I was more concerned about what looked like the Heart of Gold (at least I think it was given it's prominent place in the trailers) has it been turned into a giant sphere?
Oh and to someone who has seen it are the mice still present? And if so were they done convincingly or as some horrible disney-esque CGI monstrosity of family fun and cuteness?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
The big white sphere is the Heart of Gold, and the small red one is its shuttle. *Everything* on that ship is spherical.
Yes, the mice are there. They're real mice and the only effects done were to animate their mouths when they talked.
B.J.
Posted by Marauth (Member # 1320) on :
Good to hear about the mice, though the news of the HoG's spherical obsession is a bit saddening, I always pictured it as something sleek and graceful, at least from the description in the books that's what I imagined.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
I'm off to see it this week. And I'm not bothered by Marvin's superkewl Japoroboness. I suspect that it will actually enhance the character. Marvin was always suppossed to look ultra hi-tech, but he carried himself poorly. Therefore an ultra hi-tech robot that slouches will actually be closer to Adams original idea.
But we'll see.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
"there are five books, and Adams wrote a few chapters of the sixth before he died young. A real tragedy."
Well, The Salmon of Doubt was actually being written as a Dirk Gently book, but I believe he determined that the reason it wasn't working was because the story he had should really have been a Hitchhiker's Guide book. So, if he had lived, that's probably what it would have ended up being. But, the chapters that exist are about DG.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
quote: Good to hear about the mice, though the news of the HoG's spherical obsession is a bit saddening, I always pictured it as something sleek and graceful, at least from the description in the books that's what I imagined.
TPTB did experiment with ships that looked like 20-inch-heel shoes or flattened sneakers, but ultimately they decided they wanted a flying porcelain teapot. Which is sort of appropriate, considering the nature of the propulsion mechanism.
I can't believe how spot-on the main casting appears to be! Although I hear they have taken a few liberties with the backstories of both Trillian and Zaphod...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Trillian's backstory was hardly the most consistent or in-depth anyway though.
Posted by Nim' (Member # 205) on :
So I ask again, how much of the bloody books are in the movie? Does it go all the way up to the cricket games and Arthur's daughter? Or what?
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
It's just the first book. At the end, they go off looking for something to eat. "I hear there's a restaurant at the end of the universe." So there's actually a lot of things left unanswered, but it still works in my opinion. Gotta leave room for a sequel!
B.J.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
...or four.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
So is the general consensus that the movie is good or not? It's ranked at 7/10 over at the IMDb, but most of my friends that have seen it have been complaining about it to varying degrees.
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
It's a good movie, but it's got the same curse every book made into a movie has - you can't fit everything into two hours, nor will you make everyone happy. I'd still recommend seeing it, though.
B.J.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
But it wasn't a book made into a movie. It was a radio show made into a book made into a TV show made into a movie made into a towel. Or something.
quote:Originally posted by B.J.: It's a good movie, but it's got the same curse every book made into a movie has - you can't fit everything into two hours, nor will you make everyone happy. I'd still recommend seeing it, though.
B.J.
Just what I was gonna say! As movies go, it's OK. As HHGTTG (am I the only one that hates H2G2?) it's not as good.
$$ SPOILERS $$ allbeit very mild ones.
The relationship that seems to be bubbling between Trillian and Arthur is rather cringe worthy, but I did lean towards the idea that Douglas Addams always wanted them to have more of a dynamic than we (that is all those who have heard of the Great Ursor Minor Publishing Corporation) have seen thus far.
Watch the movie. Then buy the book. Then throw the book at the neighbours cat as it creaps into your garden looking for somewhere to crap un-noticed, and listen to the radio show on CD. The BBC have now fineshed transforming the books into radio plays (doesn't quite work as well as the other way around) but it's still great.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Haven't seen the movie yet, though I don't hope they go for the full five books. The last two get pretty random and eccentric to the extreme. Isn't at least one of the books technically thrown out of the continuit altogether? It depends on who gets eaten by the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal...
Mark
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Go see the movie. Although it was hardly perfect -- as was already stated, they couldn't fit everything into two hours -- I would say that the producers ended up quite faithfully transferring Adams' vision to the cinema format. It's best to approach the movie as more of a "reimagining" by the original author in a different medium rather than a direct transposition of every detail.
For example (mild spoilers unless you've seen the trailers), the scene where the characters are getting slapped in the face by giant fly swatters is hilarious (and one of those scenes that Adams himself wrote specifically for the movie before he died) because it makes effective use of visual (dare I say "slapstick"?) humor, something that almost certainly could not have been accomplished in a textual medium.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Ginger Beacon: The BBC have now fineshed transforming the books into radio plays (doesn't quite work as well as the other way around) but it's still great.
Didn't they finish doing that back in the mid-80s? Or have they done the remaining three books?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
The older shows only handled the first two books. Sorta.
They aired the 6-part radio version of book 3 (or in their words, The Tertiary Phase) last summer and they've aired two episodes of the remaining two books which have been adapted to an 8-part batch, IIRC.
Of course these shows have to fit the continuity of the books a bit better since they don't have Douglas Adams around and they would be harder books to adapt anyways, but I'm still quite enjoying it.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
PBS was showing the BBC miniseries tonight: I only caught the last ten minutes or so of it though.
Is that how the movie ends (with the guys stranded bcak millions of years in Earth's past, teaching cavemen to play scrabble)?
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I believe someone already mentioned that the movie ends with them heading off to the restaurant at the end of the universe. I don't think the Scrabble thing happened until the beginning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Posted by The Ginger Beacon (Member # 1585) on :
The radio show, produced by the BBC in 1978 (also known as the primary phase) is where the Hitchikers Guide began (although if you have an older copy of the book you can read about it in the forward). DNA then made the second phase for radio and wrote the first book.
Although the book largly stuck to the radio serial, there are a number of differences. DNA then went on to write the second and third book after the production of the second radio show.
The second book, loosley covers parts of the first and the second series, although with alot of changes. It is prety much at the end of the first book that they split and everything becomes confusing (well more confusing).
Sometime during the eighties, they made the TV miniseries, covering the the same material as the fist radio show (although Geoffrey McGivern, who played Ford on the radio, was replaced with Simon Jones in the TV show. This is alegedly because poor old Geoffrey looked too 'normal').
Wait several years, and the BBC made a radio serial (this time based on the third book) about late 2003(?). They have now made radio shows out of the other two books, although these are only just being aired (I think the 3rd episode is next Tuesday).
Now is that clear? Posted by Nim (Member # 205) on :
Well, I saw it, and as I haven't found any other thread with comments of it, I will comment on it.
- I found the background score to be way too emotional and bombastic, kind of like MiB meets "Home Alone 2: Christmas Tinkling". Haven't let it sink in yet, of course.
- The dolphin intro went on a bit long but that's not a major gripe.
- I thought I'd be more bothered by Zaphod's plopping head but I guess it was ok and it cut down on costs of having that head on the shoulder all the time.
- The destruction of earth was tasteful and I thought Heart of Gold was very intricate, if not the "Futurama's 'Planet Express'-ship in gold" that I was hoping for.
- I was surprised by the Arthur/Trillian story that seemed to have taken over all the momentum of the story after she got kidnapped, which I'm not sure happened in the book.
- I liked Bill Nighy muchly, he made a lot out of a very small role (may have been bigger in the book but he was just there for 10 minutes in the film).
Kuestion: The two mice, when they were squished, were shown as the same two hyperintelligent beings that built the supercomputer. Was this in the book? I thought the mice were just, mice. Not those two guys. In fact, I thought those people that asked the Computer and got "42" and "Earth will calculate the question for you" were lynched in the book. Maybe this was an alteration made by Adams prior to his death?
I really do hope they make the next one, and I do hope the decision doesn't ride entirely on this movie's success at the box office. Might be a close save, if so. Does anyone know how it has fared? Anyway, my bro's gf liked it and she usually hates everything I like. I don't know what that says about her or me but still, there it is.
I hope Trillian doesn't replace Fenchurch in the movie-story, not only because I find the story of Arthur's and Fenchurch's meeting (on the rainy highway and later on the train station) to be deeply touching, as well as their brief time of flying and being happy. It's also because I thought Trillian was good as the more "unattainable" and human person she is in the book.
Honestly, it has taken me a long time to accept and appreciate the more drastic plot turns that happened in the latter books, such as the fate of Fenchurch and the ultimate ending, "putting on some soft music instead", so much so that I wonder if that would even fly in a movie...
I was going to start a poll over this matter, comparing the HHGTtG-ending with another similar one, but as it has been disabled in Gen. Sci-Fi for some reason, I have to ask you directly;
Did you feel the ending of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" worked for you? - A simple yes or no will do.
(Did I sound pretentious just now? I'd very well say so! If you felt that, though, this next one will really bake your noodle)
Discuss.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The people who actually built Deep Thought were long dead by the time it came up with "42". Their descendants were the ones who received the answer, and then commissioned the Earth to be built to find the question. As far as I know, those people were long dead by the time of the book, and the mice were even further descendants. So, no, the mice in the book were not the selfsame ones who built the computer, but they were members of the same higher-dimensional race.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
IMDb puts its budget at 50 million dollars, and combining their most recent figures for U.S. and U.K. ticket sales gives us $70,021,092. And the U.K. figure is much older than the most recent U.S. one. So anyway, it apparently made a profit.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)