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So Long and Thanks For All The Fish!
Hey folks, Harry here... I know I've been delinquent in writing up reviews for a few recent films like AMITYVILLE HORROR remake and more recently HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - but believe it or not - I've been really busy. With the first, I have a great deal of positives and negatives, but with Douglas Adams' HITCHHIKER's GUIDE TO THE GALAXY - I just had a blast. For me, Douglas had always said that each version of HGTTG was a parallel universe take on what was the original book - and for me... I saw this filmed version on a particularly obtuse day, where watching the Vogons waddle made me giggle and I definitely needed the pure unadulterated joy of Dolphins singing on the precipice to mankinds annihilation! There's something blissful about that. And the shovels. And Marvin. And Ford. And Zaphod. And Arthur. And... well you get the idea, I just had a blast with it. And if you did too, perhaps this is something to bring a smile to your face, as it did to mine. I only wish they'd spent the time to do better animation - as the world doesn't really keep up.
Click Here To Sing-A-Long With SO LONG AND THANKS FOR ALL THE FISH!
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But I saw Sin City and it was excellent.
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you're damn right. welcome back you sexy bitch!
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Now I'm one of you idiots! I wasn't even trying.
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It was very entertaining, and I've had that bloody song stuck in my head all weekend. Here's hoping to see the rest on the big screen...
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I saw it and thought it was just aweful. Yes it had some funny parts in it, the special effects were good, Anna Chancellor was good but that was about it. Thought it was a big waste of time and you can wait till it comes out on DVD. Even my friends who read the book just thought it was OK.
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Serves me right!
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I suck.
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I wan't going to go to see this film thanks to the mediocre reviews but now I might. That's just so... nice. First?
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May 02, 2005 9:50:40 AM CDT
Did anyone else feel like it was a little... hacked up?
by big bad clone
Like they had a few bits of dialogue and parts were the Guide would explain that were cut off rather abruptly. I really missed the Man proving God doesn't exist due to the Babel Fish.
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I hope to ride a dolphin up to the stratosphere waving my cowboy hat, like an inverted Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove.
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I'll catch it on DVD
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..."So Long and Thanks for All the Fish" will win for best original song, Oscars 2006. You heard it here first, folks.
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can't wait to see the film
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A sing-a-long on a promotional web site for a movie?
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...your "Cuntlemen" post the other day nearly gave me a hernia. Nice one.
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I thought Hitchikers was enjoyable, although I was perplexed by what John Malkovich was doing in this movie as his character added little to the overall screenplay.
Hammer and Tongs did a wonderful job with the visuals and Marvin is hilarious.
Karey Kirkpatrick made a mess of the screenplay and in the end, was a little confused because they added Slartibarfarst and I cant remember if he was in the first book or not.
I will not repeat not be going to that utter pile of steaming manure called XXX2 the next level.
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I realize that those of us who love the books are very protective of them and would view any changes as bad, but its a movie and those are always different from the book, not to mention every other incarnation of HGTTG. Having said that, the script was just a cut and paste job that left out so much. We see the mice on the ship. How did they get there? The explanation of the towel is such a throw away that you never get a sense of how important a towel really is. Most of Douglas's witty dialogue is gone. Where is the exchange between Ford and the Foreman tearing down Authurs house? How about the talk with the Vogon guard before the airlock? And there are several more. There were 2 inspired moments, first was the Flyswatter scene. Second was Zooey Deschanel. She shot straight to the top of my must have for Xmas list. Damn she is sexy as Trillian.
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and I thought it felt like they had ran the book through a strainer and diluted what made them great. Yes Sam Rockwell was great, Ford Prefect could have been played by anyone the way Mos Def did it. I was actually underimpressed by Martin Freeman. The movie was forgettable, which should not have been the case.
They took all that was British and funny and Americanized it. -
"Complete" with half of his brain missing. Nowhere near as brilliant or subversive as the radio series or the book, but very and enjoyable nontheless. And the completely useless sub-plot and scene with John Malkovich was redeemed by the visit to the Vogon homeworld. I think I'll be the pin-cushion businessman for Halloween. Everyone should go see this so Disney gives Hammer & Tongs more money and less corporate interference to make Restaurant At The End of The Universe. *** One caveat: my favorite Marvin line was cut -- "I've brought the aliens. Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I'm standing?"
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Is anybody else pissed about this? No Milius, no Arnold, no Conan.
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why didn`t this movie have everything exactly the way that it was in the books? and why did they change even the smallest things? and why can`t i have everything exactly the way i think that mr. douglas would have wanted it even though i never met the man and i know nothing about what he would think about it himself. why, why, why? why can`t i just stop being such a whiney, pompous prick, hater? i know, i`ll do myself a favor and just boycot all movies that change the books they`re based on even though that means never, ever, ever, ever watching a book-to-movie kinda movie ever again, and then i can die a happy little know it all cunt.
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I saw this movie on Saturday and it was the most tedius and unfunny load of crap I've seen all year. Counting Netflix rentals, I've seen over 75 movies this year, and this is the worst of the bunch! Poorly cast, poorly acted, Zooey has ZERO charisma, CGI was horrible, jokes fell flat, just a complete disaster. If I wasn't attending with a friend, I would have walked out. Don't waste your time, unless you're one of those people who laugh at every joke just because you're pleased with yourself for leaving the house for the first time in 3 weeks.
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It was entertaining enough. I laughed quite a bit, and the audience I was with seemed to enjoy it. Best new idea for me was Sam Rockwell's George W. Bush-ish interpretation of Zaphod. However, once it was all over, I realized that a big-budget movie version of Hitchhiker's would inevitably miss the point. The reason being that the real joy of the Hitchhiker's series is the wordplay. Sure, it's cool seeing the Vogons in all their glory, and well-done special effects being used to portray the Infinite Improbability Drive, but they don't hold a candle to Adams' witty explanations of them. All the other non-text versions of Hitchhiker's - radio and TV show - were restricted by the limitations of their budget and formats, and lacking the ability to utilize the production values the new movie has, put the emphasis on the dialogue and narration.
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It's not even funny as a "Fark" style clich
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If you haven't read the book you'll be struggling to make sense of some things but definitely one of the most inspired and enjoyable films of the year so far. I would take a hundred flawed Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy over the standard Hollywood crap.
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they wanted a "shaky tv set" effect
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I feel the same as you man, this is the film I always dreamed would happen and it almost did. Now they have taken that dream away and are likely going to piss all over it with some pg 13 shite with will ferrel as conan. FUCK WB.
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...it was called "Conan The Destroyer". And it sucked. Ass.
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May 02, 2005 11:49:47 AM CDT
The two headed Zaphod could use some work, everything else was g
by jimmy_009
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May 02, 2005 11:54:20 AM CDT
I though the title was "So Long and Thanks For All The First!"
by judge doom
HAr de har har, seryously!
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May 02, 2005 12:10:52 PM CDT
Didn't the mice in the book and tv show just have them stop work
by big bad clone
I haven't heard the radio series. Is Earth back the way it was to explain stuff like the book So Long and Thanks for All the Fish or just so people wouldn't be sad (and we wouldn't want that)?
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All the jokes in the scenes seen so far on advertisements in Australia are a) new to the series/not in the book b) not even slightly funny.
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May 02, 2005 12:12:35 PM CDT
Pretty funny. true to tone and character, but deviated from plot
by miserableraingod
Hey gang, I saw the movie. I laughed a lot. The actors are all wonderful, as are the effects and jokes. However, it all happens so fast, not enough is explained as much as it should be. It is not tweaked for someone who hasn't read the books, they won't be confused, but they certainly won't get everything, like how "improbability" works as a space drive or how the mice got on the ship or why Arthur needed beer and salt before he travelled. Stuff like that. The dialogue needed to be tweaked to explain this stuff better, for the newcomers.
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but i loved the movie. very funny stuff. funniest musical number since "springtime for hitler". well, back to normality...
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May 02, 2005 12:48:34 PM CDT
p.s. was that helen mirren as the voice of Deep Thought?
by johngalt2005
i couldn't be sure but i thought so...it never hurts to have the greatest actress alive appear in a movie
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Harry, please stop prefacing your reviews with how busy you have been, and how that's been keeping you from writing reviews. It's amateurish. Just write the review. We're all busy.
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I didn't really care for this adaptation. What made Douglas Adams hilarious was the way he used words, which makes his style most suited to books and radio, where it's all about the text...Without all those brilliant words all we're left with is a choppy story about a one-dimensional guy who gets thrown around the galaxy as weird stuff happens to him and his one-dimensional friends. They tried to keep some of Douglas's words in the movie by using narration, but I thought the narration was more a liability because it didn't give insight into character, it just stopped the story for funny asides. Works great in a book or radio play, not so well in a movie.
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Damn you Garth Jennings!!!
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I saw it with my brothers and we all came out with the same opinion. Boring. While watching it occurred to me that what made the original radio plays work (and the books), was the language and how it was presented. It was far more madcap or slapstick in its original form, but the movie played everything straight. There was no sense of wackiness to the situations. Funny moments were glossed over, making them unfunny. For example, the Vogon poetry scene. You hardly hear the poem at all, and the guys weren't placed in the special chairs to make them "appreciate" the poem. Zaphod is supposed to be the coolest cat in the universe, not some dumbass "W" clone. Zaphod did dumb things in the original, but he was still cool. Malkovich's useless character was simply there for two things; getting rid of Zaphod's annoyed 2nd head, and setting up the completely pointless POV gun (except to deal with the Vogons). Marvin was completely wasted. The love interest plot was useless. And the ending with Earth 2.0 was such a total copout, that felt like a studio note.
A friend of mine enjoyed it (but he also likes the Star Wars prequels) and said all the changes were fine because Douglas made them when he was alive. That's not an excuse. Look what Lucas has done to his films. Are they better now? After the movie, my brothers and I went to lunch and completely forgot about the film until we walk by the theater again to get to the car. That should never have happened. But what does Disney care? It made 21 million dollars this weekend. -
It was good. Most critics agree (63% on the Tomatometer) and the only people complaining about it are those nonfans who just don't get it, and those megafans who wanted it to be a verbatim remake of the radio play or television show but with better effects. YOU WERE NEVER GOING TO GET THAT! They squeezed 4-6 hours of material into 109 minutes, and they did a pretty damn good job of it. I liked it a lot! It wasn't perfect, but it was a great introduction to HHGTTG, and if they go ahead with the sequels, it will be a nice new version of the "trilogy". Personally, I liked that it had a lot of new stuff- It would have been annoying to see all the same things again. They included a lot of moments for long-time fans (the original Arthur as the Magrathean greeter, the original Marvin queued up on Vogsphere, the banjo tune from the radio play, etc.) and they nailed a lot of the book's visuals as I pictured them. It seems like some of you would just be happier if you had gone to a theatre and watched someone read the book to you.
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It was poorly directed, completely unfunny, and based on a uninteresting story. What a waste of 9 bucks. I gave it a chance, but it simply doesn't work on any level.
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it was bad.. god damn it.. if you're a fan of the books, the movie is bad.. otherwise, who cares.
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a decent movie.
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May 02, 2005 2:13:53 PM CDT
well zero_corpse, if a whopping 63% on the Tomatometer says its
by so sorry
then it must be. That's sarcastic, by the way.
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The radio show was brilliant, it worked as a novel, it was great as a tv series. Why then, did it get so changed? I'm sure it wasn't Douglas Adams who added the bland romance and the rotton hollywood human philosophy. Everything new in the movie smelled of hackery and a lack of imagination. A complete waste. Thanks again Hollywood. Maybe someone can remake it in ten years or so when this turd has been forgotten.
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(3:22 / 36.7 MB)
http://bvbp-qt.vitalstream.com/HitchhikersGuide/HG2G_FishSong_1500.mov -
May 02, 2005 2:35:06 PM CDT
I liked it a lot, but still room for improvement. It did well a
by minderbinder
Visuals were great, loved the ship designs and the vogons blew away any of the creatures that have been in recent scifi flicks. All the bits with the Guide itself were brilliant, wish there had been more. The cast was all solid, the script just didn't go far enough. Actually, a LOT of the script is straight from the books, but in many scenes it's cut off before it gets to finish. Arthur has the argument with the bulldozer guy, but he only says the plans were in the basement, not in a basement with no stairs or lights in a locked file cabinet in an unused bathroom with a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard". And Slartibartfast talks about the fjords, but not about how he worked on Africa in the remake and how they give a continent a baroque flavor. Also, the movie wasn't nearly as cynical as the book, it just wasn't as funny without that edge. Hopefully they'll make a sequel and not worry about making it so happy, and not be afraid to leave in more of Adams's loopy dialogue, it's the best stuff. I don't know if I'd blame "hollywood" for making it more happy and safe - suppposedly adams changed his world view quite a bit, the new optimism may have come directly from him.
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I know it'll happen.
It's so obvious that a lot of the scenes were cut short, so why not release an extended edition with how it should have been, but couldn't be in theaters because they need to make more money on the DVD. -
May 02, 2005 2:52:50 PM CDT
Take out all the Malkovich crap, add in more of the book, and (d
by mrboinfoint
...You got a prefect movie! As is, good but not great, which is not good at all.
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Hate to spoil your theory, but the character Malkovich plays was written by Adams himself for the film, so wouldn't it be disrespectful to Adams' writing and intentions to take it out? Don't know why people are so hostile to the film unless a)it's a rule here to slag all over anything that might actually make money or appeal to people outside the cult fanbase or b)the film doesn't include every scene from the book done exactly the way the fanboys would've done it themselves. Reality sux doesn't it? Every medium imposes its own changes, which Adams realized, and I myself love the low-tech CGI which just demonstrates that this is British, not American, sci-fi.
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Hate to spoil your theory, but the character Malkovich plays was written by Adams himself for the film, so wouldn't it be disrespectful to Adams' writing and intentions to take it out? Don't know why people are so hostile to the film unless a)it's a rule here to slag all over anything that might actually make money or appeal to people outside the cult fanbase or b)the film doesn't include every scene from the book done exactly the way the fanboys would've done it themselves. Reality sux doesn't it? Every medium imposes its own changes, which Adams realized, and I myself love the low-tech CGI which just demonstrates that this is British, not American, sci-fi.
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May 02, 2005 3:30:57 PM CDT
Couldn't care less about Adams, never said I did, I'm talkin' ab
by mrboinfoint
The Malkovich stuff slowed the movie down to a crawl. But there's character and dialog moments that are missing from the book/radio series that would make more sense than a subplot about nose worshippers that goes nowhere and isn't even wrapped up by the end of the movie. Twenty minutes wasted just to remove Zaphod's head is a bad idea, no matter who wrote it.
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The movie's moral is "The meaning of life is love," which is pretty antithetical to the book's message of "The meaning of life is utterly unknowable." Despite tons of great work, I think they really missed the nail on the head when trying to distill the essence of the book. Also, if they make a sequel (which the otherwise unresolved Humma Kuvala section of the movie appeared to be setting up), haven't they turned Arthur Dent's character into the exact opposite of his defining characteristic?
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forget about how faithful it was to the book, or what was left out or added....
IT DOESN'T MATTER when the movie sucks, period!
i didn't laugh, the audience rarely laughed (there are always a couple), and my friend fell asleep.
boring and bad. (who said it was only 109 minutes - seemed like 1009) -
I hate this fanboy ranting that I didn't "get it." It's the fucking Hitchiker's Guide, not Ulysses. It's Douglas Adams, not William Faulkner. It's a book that most people read as 12-year-olds. It's Monty Python minus the edge. What is there not to get?
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on behalf of myself and the audience that watched this far from perfect but thoroughly enjoyable and imaginative film not half an hour ago... FUCK OFF. Seriously, stop smacking everyone round the head with your fucking opinion and fuck off. thanks.
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I did read it as a 13 year old actually. I haven't seen the film yet but I'm not too optimistic. As I said in my last post, it's a very hard story to translate to film and with the romantic angle thing I've heard about, I'm, as I said, not too optimistic. But I still hope it makes enough money to warrant "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe".
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May 02, 2005 4:08:09 PM CDT
there is no way on God's green earth that there will be a sequel
by so sorry
the fan base will is not there to support it. And don't you dare try and argue against this point. Its a freaking miracle this movie was made. Seriously. Flame on...
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May 02, 2005 4:08:32 PM CDT
...and the same to Coolhive and the rest of you dicks
by captain katanga
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All narration has got to go, we have a visual medium we don't need to know what the whale is thinking by some dude telling us, the look on the whales face and the way it is "shot" or made in CGi is what should tell us what he/she is thinking. Also the stupid love story crap ruined it completely, learn a lesson from Pearl Harbor for christs sake.
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....yes, it did. It was a bloated, painfully unfunny, American butcher-job of one of my three favorite books of all time. Another thing: Fuck all you who are insisting the changes were great because Adams came up with them. The changes and additions are a window into Adams' waining years and descent into self-delusion. I find the late trend of people who just can't fucking abandon their art for the reason of not fucking up what they have, slightly disturbing. (Witness: George Lucas) The dialogue (the most important thing to the book and any re-telling of the story) was in short: FUCKED! The entire opening was ruined and when Ford's intro was truly screwed by having him not engage in that lovely negotiation with Prosser, but.....bribe everyone with beer?????!?!?!??! Gee, that's an American solution for you. Garth Jennings can flat out go fuck himself. But, I think most offensive was the Humma Kavula shit and cutting out the entrie middle of the book in favor of it. It was stupid. There is a reason why it was throwaway paragraph or two at the beginning of "Restaurant". That reason is that was a momentarily funny joke, funny only when put into the context that Adams presented it. Point of fact, he made a point of pointing how ridiculous these people were.
The movie on the other hand took thsoe two paragraphs, replacing the entire middle section of the novel with this over-wrought bullshit and a CGI effected villain that for intents and purposes might as well not even existed in the film, because he was utterly meaningless after his exit. The Vogon's enlarged role and painfully unfunny "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" in-joke toward the end only went to show how truly humorless this film actually was. Compared to the BBC series, this movie was like a two hour insurance seminar with neat, kinda crappy FX. The movie blew and I'm glad Adams wasn't around to see it, because I can pretty much guarantee he wouldn't have been happy with it. It sounded like it had been written by an American with wholly American sensibilities, aping what British humor is. Also, Zaphod? He was fucking horrible. The CGI exists today to make his two heads, the way they're supposed to be. Why didn't they do this? PURE, UNADULTERATED LAZINESS!!! And, anyone else want to explain why he seemed to be channeling George W. Bush by way of Owen Wilson? The entire Humma Kavula shit seemed to exist only to have him walk around with a fucking juicer on his head for the entire end of the film. The Trillian and Arthur love-story was forced and never seemed natural and franly was painful to watch. Marvin's best lines were replaced by lame and hack-ass refrigerator jokes. Strangely, the only one I didn't seem to have a problem with was Ford, who seemed to misunderstand that this was a bad movie and did a good job. Another thing: If they watched that fucking video where Deep Thought flat out spelled out that it didn't know the correct question that 42 answered, WHY THE FUCK WERE THEY GOING TO ASK DEEP THOUGHT WHAT THE QUESTION WAS?!?!?!? Another thing: An INFINITE IMPROBABILITY DRIVE? Really? Because, it seemed to be more a RANDOM SHIT YOU COULD FIND ON EARTH DRIVE. I cannot even begin to describe how badly I hated this movie and this is coming from someone who has loved every previous incarnation of the material that has come before. The movie was unfunny and when talking about Douglas Adams' work, that's the greatest damage that someone could inflict on it. Then there was that lin at the end. "The Restaurant is at the other end of the universe." WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!??!?! HAD THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THIS STEAMING PIECE OF SHIT EVEN READ THE GODDAMN BOOKS?!??!?!? Fuck this movie. And don't get your hopes up for a sequel. "House of Wax" alone will kill it next weekend, thank fucking God. -
Anyone who thinks the CGI in this turd was flawless hasn't seen a movie since Solarbabies. The whole film looked cheap. Get a grip.
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May 02, 2005 4:56:48 PM CDT
I think Adams books were all about the ridiculousness and enjoym
by -=shin=-
Honestly though, It was enjoyable and fun to me. As I've gotten older, the books just aren't as funny to me anymore. For me, the movie was like reminiscing about the old days with a friend I haven't seen in years over a beer - realizing we don't have much in common anymore, but damn, was it fun when we were innocent and less jaded about the world ;) Check out the movie, enjoy it for the fun it is and don't make more of it. Adams' stories were never meant to be heavy handed and were always meant to be ridiculous, so all of this seriousness about his fun seems to lose the point.
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If the song is any indication, I'll pass on the movie.
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May 02, 2005 5:56:40 PM CDT
Adams making changes doesn't make a bad change OK. But let's gi
by minderbinder
If you hated the movie, fine. But don't whine about "hollywood" or "american producers" making changes when those changes were likely made by Adams himself. He didn't think it would work as a movie, and made compromises himself.
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Adams wasnt afraid to mess around with the story and see what worked best. unlike possibly any story ever, this tale is free to adapt and change itself to any shape it wants. if you dont like the movie version, then its no big deal, chances are they'll be another version along soon that'll suit you better. in other words its impossible to ruin this story! its the only film where id actually welcome remakes to a certain extent. Douglas always said it was a story with a long beggining and then an end, so obviously if you're gonna make a movie it'll need to be changed. and i think everyone involved did a good job. sure theres a thousand things they could do better/differently/worse, but thats kinda the point. its hitchhickers, its about experimenting with the story like douglas did.
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Many people have already articulated where the filmmakers missed the mark here. I don't think it needed to be totally faithful to the book but they excised so much of the great dialogue it pissed me off -- "kinda like tea" instead of "almost but not quite entirely unlike tea"? Nothing about the Babel Fish disproving the existence of God? Nothing about how Earth's program was screwed up by the arrival of the Golgafrinchans and so the Ultimate Question that everyone's fretting over is cocked-up anyway?
They should have just redone the TV show with better effects -- I'm sure they could've chopped it from 3 hours to two without losing too much. About the only thing they got right was the whale and bowl of petunias. Slartibartfast showing Arthur around Earth II was pretty neat also. -
The Golgafrinchans don't show up till part 2 - the radio play & the book. Anyway to all: I dug it, I don't see the point in nitpicking it to death. Middle act was kinda dodgy, but at least it had the original Marvin in it. And also, Sam Rockwell kicks ass.
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On behalf of myself and the audience that sat in stone silence throught this painfully unfunny comedy, fuck off. I swear you sci fi fanboys have the lowest standards of all film fans.
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im so happy that i live in a time when it is actually possible to argue over how good the hitch hickers guide to the galaxy MOVIE was! ive been waiting yonks for this.
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Tall_Boy sez: "The Golgafrinchans don't show up till part 2 - the radio play & the book."
I was mostly thinking of the TV show and I think that unless you KNOW you're going to get a sequel, ending things back on Earth (*way* back!) would be a good way to end any film version. Kind of a downbeat ending but much truer to Adams' satire than a feel-good promise of another romp through space. -
A score of 59% or less means the movie is classed as "rotten". A score of 63% is more or less skating that edge, isn't it?
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And pretty much everyone loved it. Everyone was laughing at the right moments, people sat down and got into it. Seems the only people that don't like it are people that're close to the book and already have the perfect version in their heads, or simply nitpick too much. As far as films go, this is one of the better mainstream movies in the past years. Effects were great, puppetry awesome, sciprt aside from a couple of holes only I seemed to notice, actually quite good. It's not meant to be laugh-out-loud funny anyway. As for the CGI being crap, do me a fucking favour. Check any of your mainstream releases - a good deal of SFX work and production designers are actually British. Framestore and Cinesite are absolutely bloody huge companies and the work in this was on a par with the majority of recent SFX releases, and obviously pounds to dust movies like Van Helpless and Chronics of Pisspain. Hensons did a wonderful job with the puppets too, and the design was very well made. The Malkovich sequence showcased some great compositing effects work, the Vogons were brilliant, and it was all done on a restricted budget. Other great FX films out of britain? Pretty much all of Burtons recent output, the Harry Potters to name but few. All in all the full cinema I was in appreciated it and it got more reaction than most of the movies I've seen lately. And that's good. RE Rotten Toms, take the criticism as read that you'll either love it or hate it, which is better than most other movies these days. I loved it, so there you go.
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...and mental note to self to check spelling, grammar and info before posting at midnight whilst raging at unfair comments otherwise you end up sounding like a complete raving lunatic. Oops, too late. :-D
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I honestly don't understand why more people haven't torn this very loose adaptation to shreds.
It fails as a movie due to pulling itself in opposite directions - it wants to be fanboy friendly, with its use of cameos and references that only those 'in the know' would get, whilst annoying those kind of fans by leaving out all the punchlines to their favourite jokes.
On the other hand it's trying to desperately grasp for a mainstream by dumbing down the brilliantly written verbal humour into slapstick and dick jokes, and inserting a weak love triangle, (which fails to generate any believable suspense over who Trillian will chose to be with, because in this version Zaphod is one-dimensional cartoon character that no woman in the audience could see as a potential love interest).
Unfortunately, for the latter camp, it leaves out most of the exposition that explains what is actually going on, so we're left with is the weird duality of a movie aiming for a mainstream audience unfamiliar with the books, but which requires that you've read said books to understand what is actually happening. (Which is almost a concept that belongs in a Douglas Adams novel).
I saw the movie with five people who'd never read the books, and an audience full of people who laughed half-heartedly every so often. The big laughs were the singing dolphins (until people realised the sequence was going on for so long), the knitted doll version of the crew and the whale. The only other reactions I noticed were little kids laughing during the 'paddle in the face' sequence, and a large number of women and girls in the audience groaning angrily when the female symbol appeared in the animation for "some more of god's greatest mistakes".
Afterwards, the friends I saw it asked me questions like: "why were they carrying around towels?"; "If they could build a planet that looked like earth at the moment it was blown up why didn't they just move everyone there?"; "What was the point of John Malkovich?".
For those claiming things have to be cut out when translating a book to a movie and there isn't time to tell the whole story, the BBC Television version tells a fairly complete story of the first book in four thirty-minute episodes (2 Hours). The remaining two episodes comprise the 2nd half of the book "The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe". Considering they're extremely slowly paced as per 80's television, it would be easy to fit all the relevant information and jokes into the same running time with modern filmmaking sensibilities.
The Adams / Lucas hypocrisy is an interesting point. -
I liked it because when it was good it was awesome. However the ending was terrible, Zooey Deschanel brought nothing, the bits straight out of the book were overbearing, Ford didn't have much personality and Zaphod, a guy who is "too cool for his pelvis" was kind of a moron who is lobotomized for the last half of the movie. Still, the Vogons, Magrathea, Slartibartfast, Marvin, and the Guide made up for it. I liked it but I can't recommend it to anyone not already familar with the books. And based on the tepid box office I doubt we'll be seeing "Restaurant at the End of the Universe" anytime soon.
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just enjoy the movie , or ignore the movie! pick one!
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It was ok. Funny at times. True(-ish) to the tone of the book. I'm glad I saw it, but not so much I want to see it again. Full review here:
http://thefount.blogspot.com/2005/05/dont-panic.html -
The stink you wienerdogs are passing from your blowholes is exactly the sort of crap Adams found so laughable. Thank you for giving him (and many of us) more fodder to make fun of you.
Sincerely,
The Cynics -
You gotta love that guy. I enjoyed the movie and loved the tip of the hat to the BBC series with the banjo introduction to the Guide. Quite cool. Singing dolphins?
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I just went and saw the film out of a grim sense of obligation. The trailers did not look good ... Yes, it was quite bad (in my opinion). What was wrong was not that they changed it, those of us who don't like it have always gotten that every incarnation has been different. The problem is that most of the changes are NOT VERY GOOD OR WORSE. Also, when existing material is used, it is frequently executed poorly. Eg: Deep Thought, Magrathea (looked good, dialogue/description a mess). It's like they took a lot of stuff from the book/prior incarnations and threw it in a blender before hurling the results on the screen.
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Come one and all, man and mammal?
Uh, last I checked man IS a mammal. -
They kept the theme music from the previous incarnations. The Vogon Constructor Fleet was very well done and the continual cutting back with a dramatic note that just kept going - I liked that. The actual detonation was well done too. The hits to the head on Vogsphere, I liked that sequence as well as the rendition of the assembly line in Magrathea.
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Well, the dialogue was always good in the book but many scenes were truncated. This is relatively minor compared to the fact that I thought the new stuff was very boring. The whole Humma Kavula then trip to Vogsphere detour was a complete waste of time - and yes I get that Douglas Adams created that part for the screenplay. Couldn't they have at least cut the part where Trillian was kidnapped and they had to rescue her from Vogsphere? It looked great but it was otherwise pointless. ------------------------Where they used existing material .... well with Deep Thought, it worked better with dramatic pauses ... "You're not going to like it" .... "Hurry up and tell us the answer etc". Here, Helen Mirren just delivers the entirity of Deep Thought's lines in one big monologue - words are the same but it just doesn't work. Magrathea ... same thing. No mention of Earth being 5 minutes away from the answer - most of the other dialogue about Earth - delivered in a big jumble. As Legowombat said ... the movie is curious in that it's for people who haven't read the books but I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on without having read them.------------------The whole rejigging of Arthur and Trillian - enough already said, too much time spent on it and it displaced a lot of other stuff. ----------------------------I could go on but no-one probably cares much anyway ... The BBC TV series was far from perfect but if they just did a scene for scene remake a la Gus Van Sant's Psycho, it would have worked better as a movie, in my opinion ...
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They just put Earth back? I know they do eventually in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish (and the dolphins did it) but it's part of the point of Arthur continuing on in space. Why would he leave Earth otherwise in Life, The Universe and Everything? ... By the way ... Never heard the radio series (but I must get it) - Loved the First 3 books and hated the last 2. Just so everyone knows my stand on these things. Also, if you can get "Last Chance to See" (his non fiction book), it's well worth it.
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...it was fun and funny and entertaining. I liked the cast, I liked the characters, it looked cool and I had a fun ride for an hour and a half. And I haven't read the books, or seen/heard the previous adaptations, so call me an un-informed moron, but I didn't have anything to compare it to, and be disappointed, so it worked well on its own merits. A mix of Monty Python in space with a Disney-fied happy ending. And sure, not every joke worked, but name a comedy that works all the time on EVERY joke; besides, humor's subjective: people laughed in my theater and even applauded at the end. And for the record, Zooey Deschanel's a real cutie. I dug her and the rest of the cast, especially Sam Rockwell. I liked the SFX, too. The tour of the planetary factory floor was very cool! I hope they do make more sequels. As to what Douglas would have wanted, isn't his name on the screenplay? Surely he must have had some input in the final product...
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The reason George Lucas's reputation has gone in the toilet over his revisions is because the originals are NO LONGER AVAILABLE. He pretends as though they don't exist, which is incredibly frustrating to people who prefer the originals the way they were. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is available in it's original radioplay form, it's original book form, and it's original BBC television form. Not so with Star Wars.
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As a fact totally separate from this film and the debate as to whether it is any good or not, surely we all know by now that the screenwriter is usually at the bottom (or near it) of the movie making process. Whatever they write can at the time be ordered changed during production or even after it has started (look at the Cursed/Exorcist debacle). Furthermore, regardless of whether the script was changed a lot or a little, how something is visually interpreted on the screen (as determined by the director and actors amongst others ...) you can create all sorts of different impressions of a film vs script/original book depending on which way you take it. Case in point, Clockwork Orange - another the Korean Film "The Quiet Family" and Takashi Miike's retelling "Happiness of the Katakuri's". The point? ... Well anything written by Douglas Adams would have to be 4 years old or more by now (I still find it so hard to believe he's been gone so long) and undoubtedly has ungone "some" changes at least. You'd have to think so surely.
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May 03, 2005 12:33:38 AM CDT
the difference between lucas and adams in regards to changing th
by metsrulein2k
it isn't damn near impossible to find the original Hitchiker's guide. To find the original star wars, without the episode 4 in front of the opening crawl requires a treasure hunt that would send Nick Cage into a fetal position for 19 hours.
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On a rough countback (so possibly not completely accurate) ... comments are 14 mostly positive, 3 Lukewarm to mildly positive and 19 negative comments about this film. That would seem to suggest that overall, the reception to this film by us talkbackers has been "mixed".
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I still find it hard to believe Douglas Adams is gone at all, let alone for almost 4 years now ...
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You have said what I've been struggling to say myself for days after seeing the dreck that was "HHG: the Disney-fied Trainwreck." Not that it was all bad; there were some enjoyable bits... but the stuff I loved the most was the stuff closest to DNA's original stuff. To those kvetching about the Adams rewrite: it's one thing for Adams to revise his work, but it's been widely admitted that the script was "worked on"/worked over by Karey Kirkpatrick... so maybe you shouldn't be so quick to eviscerate a man who's been dead, i.e. detached from the project, for some time. ~~~~~~~ It seemed like all the original, witty satire was chopped up and rushed through-- and for what? Humma Kavula brought nothing to the table. His plotline went unresolved, and the excuse that it sets things up for a sequel just doesn't cut it. I didn't mind Mos Def as Ford, though I think he could have punched it up a bit. (Lovely stage business with the towel, though. At least he tried.) Zaphod... never mind "character assassination," try character *annihalation.* Sure, ZB was always a selfish, party-boy blowhard, but he was never such an oblivious moron. Rewriting him into being responsible for destroying the Earth-- what did that do, besides giving Trillian an excuse to dump him for Arthur? And the romance... all WRONG. That is so NOT what the books were about... the whole plot felt much like some heartwarming Drew Barrymore-type chick-flick movie (ick)... NOT HHG! The "point of view gun" sounded like DNA, but wound up becoming just another plot device to bluster conveniently through an all-too-typical lots-of-guns-and-explosions climax... too conveniently, I think. I'm smart enough to know that no good idea gets through Hollyworst unscathed. But damn, I had truly hoped, given the loud, unceasing declarations of just how *much* the people behind this film *loved* Douglas Adams and had such *respect* for his work... I'd hoped for better. I was stupid, I let them snow me. Never again. ~~~~~~~ And yes, I'm a devotee, a fangrrrl, so maybe that does affect my viewpoint. My guy loved the movie, and he never read the book or watched the series. He might now, though, which is probably the only saving grace of this movie... that more people will turn to the original, and realize what they have missed. Those of us who followed HHG... we knew enough to expect more, and we didn't get it. Those of you who bash us for expecting more... tough tacos to you. ~~~~~~~ And I too wouldn't be so angry at Lucas if he'd allow the originals to be available. A film is a document of its time, damn it, and while I can see clearing up a boom mike shadow here or cleaning the negative there... what he's done to those movies is the equivalent of using white-out on the Declaration of Independence. Adams' rewrite isn't *quite* the same thing... though I would seriously love to see his final draft *before* Kirkpatrick got his mitts on it. I'd bet good money that it was a hell of a lot better than what hit the screen.
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a lot of the negativity was spent on other threads. mark me down for "it was a mess".
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We have 21 negatives. Just looking at the books at the moment and did anyone else actually note that during the course of the 5 books, Arthur and Trillian are actually rather indifferent to each other. Arthur expressed an interest in the first book when they first met as he described it but after that, never really showed any further interest. Just because they happened to show up in the same place in extraordinary circumstances didn't mean they even had to like each other much. The last book especially drove home that point. Which for me made what they constructed in the film even more pointless to watch ... I mean, we've seen it so many times before in a film ... guy meets girl etc
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The Wagga Wagga City Library has the entire radio series available on CD in two volumes. It's a cheap way of hearing it. If you haven't seen the BBC TV Series they also have it available on DVD.
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I should actually go and do a few things in Wagga Wagga, shouldn't I? Currently in Sydney at the moment having done 10 days on nights, where I was just eating sleeping and being paid to surf aicn at night. I have seen the TV series as unfortunately, I am old was around when it was broadcast.
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I have seen the TV series as unfortunately, I am old AND I was around when it was broadcast on TV. Did you find it remarkable that the TV series did some things better than the big budget movie adaption, like the guide description of how Arthur's offhand remarks started a war and then an attack on Earth? (This was in the credits of the movie).
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i'm the hugest hitchhikers guide fan ever..haha...no, but seriously, I'm a fan...I've actually READ the books...and the only crappy part was the vogsphere bit, and everything else was a great interpretation of what I consider a classic novel and everyone else needs to shut the fuck up and stop being such huge annoying internet geeks...
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I taped the series when it was originally on tv when I was 10, so I doubt i'm much younger than you (34 here). I still have the tape - I dug it out recently to show some younger friends since they love Futurama, but they couldn't get past the cheapness of it and slow pace. I grew up on the Goodies and Doctor Who instead of CGI, so I can suspend disbelief, whereas they were wondering why the most advanced spaceship in the universe had a Commodore 64 keyboard and office chairs. To explain Trillian's look to them I had to drag out old episodes of The Kenny Everett Video Show and point out the Hot Gossip dancers so they understood that's what people considered sexy back in 1981. I took them to see the movie thinking they might finally read the books, but they weren't impressed and are now convinced the books are unworthy of their time, which underlines the movie's failure to me. I heard the "I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle" section was in the credits before I saw it, but the people I was with were bored and out the door the moment the movie ended. The BBC version if actually better in my opinion, as cheap as it is. I mean, how can the movie fail to get the phrase "Mostly harmless" into the story? For all the supposed large budget of this new version, Planet Vogosphere seemed to be a combination the same cheap old rock quarry Doctor Who always ended up in, and "The Crimson Permanent Assurance".
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... but not by much. The Goodies were in town recently and I got to see them on stage in Sydney. No surprises that the vast bulk of the audience were 25+ but it was a great night. As for the TV Series, I thought it did very well for the shoestring budget it had. I actually thought The Guide was done better in the TV Series. Especially The Babelfish.
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Stuff that didn't need a big budget. If I remember it correctly, they might have briefly shown the party and someone WHOSE FACE YOU DON"T SEE takes Trillian (who I'm not sure if you see either) away at the party. That way, the audience can be surprised, Arthur can be surprised and Ford can be surprised not unlike it was written. In the movie, Arthur had already told Ford. It all just sucked, really. Also, the ending with Earth II in the movie, well doesn't that now just totally stuff up the whole point made about the futility of the Golgafilcham's ultimate destiny and existence ...
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It was actually kind of dramatic in the BBC version with Arthur finally going "What would happen if I pushed this button" ... after several hair raising missile evasions etc. Not what we ended up getting. It also had the part with the "Someone gets a bruise on their right upper arm but it's not important who". Just discussing some plot points here with Legowombat by the way, not doing a checklist of everything I didn't like with the movie adaptation.
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The only thing I really thought that was creative in this film were those little Hitchhiker Guide animations which I thought were kind of funny. The rest of it just bored me to tears.
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Hitch-Hikers Guide is just a rip-off of Alice In Wonderland, with an innocent protaganist being led from one baffling situation to another. It has no charecters that are worth caring about, is largely plot-free and for every amusing idea there pages of badly written smuggery that appeal only to spotty teenagers who have never kissed a girl., ie you lot.
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Went to see the movie last night with a friend and i wanted to leave about half way through. The performances were just cringe worthy and some of the better/funnier parts of the book were clipped. Is it the biggest piece of shit to be shown on cinema screens this year? Hardly, but it's very fucking close. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour and read the book instead.
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Thoroughly enjoyed it. Not the best film I have ever seen. Not as brilliant as it could have been. Will almost definitely add it to my collection on DVD and I hope we get to see Resteraunt At The End Of The Universe with the same cast.
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I really liked the movie, surprisingly. I say surprisingly because I can't believe Disney didn't fuck it up. My biggest gripes were the casting of Ford (although I thought Mos Def did an admirable job of it) and the really lame love story between Arthur and Trillion. This was so obviously forced...even to some who I went to see the flick with who hadn't read the books. That bit at the end where Arthur's talking about true love and "the one" to the mice was almost unbearable. That said though, I thought the film was remarkably faithful to the overall scope of Adams books. I was very pleased. P.S. I hope I don't get a shovel in the face for saying this, but did HITCHHIKERS the movie remind anyone else of the FIFTH ELEMENT in regards to the overall design and style of the film? Note that this isn't a knock for me...I actually really like FIFTH ELEMENT. Reduce Chris Tucker's role by about 75% and you have a disarmingly entertaining picture. Loads of fun.
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Actually..... The more I think about it, the more I want to go and see it again.
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May 03, 2005 8:53:27 AM CDT
"it's one thing for Adams to revise his work, but it's been wide
by minderbinder
Let's see. Humma? Adams. Point of View gun? Adams. Needs to be structured more like a regular movie? Adams. To hear KK tell the story, he did mostly editing and reorganization. If the filmmakers are to believed, (as well as some quotes from Adams himslef before he died) any new characters and major scenes came from Adams - KK only added minor transitional stuff. In fact, KK has said that Adams's draft was TOO different from the book and he reinserted a number of classic passages that Adams had cut. Whether you like the movie or not, I don't think there's any question that the book is better. But that's probably because the filmmakers tried to follow adams's wishes TOO closely. They should have ignored his middle age mellowing out and mainstream pandering and just stuck with the source material (whether that be radio or book).
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Totally agree with you guys.
Terribly disappointed, I was really looking forward to the movie especially after the Zaphod for President video clip which was pretty good.
To "make it a proper movie" Disney added a romance, a last minute rescue and a big gun. -
May 03, 2005 11:38:32 AM CDT
I would encourage anybody who views Adams as a writer great in s
by barry egan
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He's like 6 feet 5 you know ...
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I saw it. It was a nice diversion for a Sunday afternoon. The cinematagrophy of the Dolphins was breath-taking. The movie seemed very short. It felt like a readers digest of the books. Too much material to fit into one film. Honestly, I did not laugh once. It seemed to be missing a Monty Python element. It was OK for what it was. The theater was not packed, so I fear there may be no Resteraunt at the end of the universe. The love tri-angle thing did not work for me. The Volgan's were excellent to watch.
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First of all, a chimp could get masters in business and second; this masters in business didn't stop him from running three businesses that were handed to him into the ground.
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All you damn dissapointed nerds need to realize that while the book is a fun one, it's totally unadaptable in that form, plus, the characters needed a bit of tweaking to make them likable and non-flat. This was a fun time, and audiences seem to be liking it pretty well. I wonder if this is the kind of movie that will garner a growing fanbase...
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and it's safe to say that the movie version is infinitely better than the tv. I dont know what you old fanboys are raving about. Oh, and Mos Def > Ron Weasely.
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This movie is so sweet, i love the books and i love how adams constructed the movie to be seperate from the book, or the radio plays. Sure it wasn't as good as the book or the radio play but what is, Sin City compared to the comics blows, HGTG is not just a book but a way of life. Also having the BBC Marvin in the movie was awesome, i laughed so hard at that shit.
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and they were all sad when he got shot!
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Because. . .I went into the movie with zero expectations it didn't have anything it needed to live up to, now I'm sure that it was differnt than the book in several respects (i.e. Zaphod's second head. . .the location thereof.) But. . .I though it was a funny movie, if ya didn't like it. . .tough, deal with it and quit pissin' and moanin'
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Honest. Even after I told the theatre manager they STILL would'nt refund my money. Bastards.
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Exactly how I felt. It just wasn't British enough. The humor was so whacky and undeniably British, but it just seemed wrong coming from all those American actors (the only one I really liked in his role was Mos Def, ironically).
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How cheap can you be, seriously. I hate people who are willing to punish employees at a place like that over a few freaking dollars. It's not their fault that the movie was crappy, if you don't like it contact the studio and tell them to never let shit like that get made again.
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Fuck Hitchhiker's Guide. It is smug humour for spotty nerds. Throughout high school you could tell who was a cunt if there was ever a discussion about the meaning of life and some tit said "42". It is a book for teenagers. Spotty ones who play Games Workshop and Dungeon Keeper.
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Because it's a good book.
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May 04, 2005 6:37:54 AM CDT
I had always hoped that of all the geeky sub groups and categori
by silver_joo
Shame on you guys for not having fun with a film that is just that - fun. Just like the radio show was fun and the TV show was fun and the book was fun ... it's not a leap guys. Jesus.
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I thought the bits that were straight from the book - the few lines, most of the guide bits, a few of the situations - were great. Even some of the tweaks to existing scenes (the symbols on the God Trilogy books, the paper bags in the pub, the Magrethia factory floor) were very good.
Once we got into the 'new' stuff - Vogsphere, Humma, the romance... It just wasn't funny. They didn't add anything to it. They just didn't work. ------------------ Listen to the radio series, read the books, and watch the TV series. There's lots of variations, additions, changes, omissions all over the place. Some bits work, some don't. But most of the stuff works. They were 'evolving', 'refining'... The movie seemed to make changes just for the sake of time and budget restrictions. ------------------ I feel they didn't explain enough of the basic concepts sufficiently - the whole Deep Thought bit with Majikthizs and Groomfondle, the concept of Infinite Improbability (they stopped at finite improbability, and only mentioned using it to move undergarments), they never explained the importance of towels, and they never said _anything_ about how the Vogons made it to Magretheia (I thought Zaphod got the corrdinates from Humma). They never explained quite why Deep Thought was on Magrethia, either. ------------------ The changes to the characters bothered me, too. In each of the previous incarnations, Ford is just out to have a good time. That's all he cares about. Good food, good drinks, at a good party, and he's happy. This Ford never had that sort of attitude. ------------------ Zaphod was supposed to be self centered and fairly dumb, and perhaps condecending, but this guy was flat out mean and incredibly stupid. ------------------ Trillian was always an underused character, and her new role wasn't bad, IMO. ------------------ Arthur did fairly well, but I don't think he panicked enough. ------------------ All in all, I liked enough of it to like it overall. -
May 04, 2005 10:50:24 PM CDT
I read the book just one week before the film's premiere...
by waylayer
...so I really didn't have a built up "literary" bias from years past. The book itself, while erratically zany and quirky, had little or nothing in terms of actual characterization/arcs, story flow, or descriptive action. In my opinion, the film makers did a pretty good job piecing together a film from a book that was not structured as a typical narrative, and ignored many conventions of story telling. *friendswithbenefits.com*
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Minderbinder, your argument only holds water *IF* KK&co are telling the truth about what was and wasn't changed, and how much. I've noticed they're being very coy about not saying exactly what was original vs. what was later rewritten. And since Douglas Adams isn't alive to give us his side of the story, IMHO, it's a cheap shot to blame him without more info. You may be right, you may be wrong, but considering how brilliant his other versions (radio play, books, etc.) were, and how choppy and incoherent the movie is... it doesn't sound like *Adams'* work was the problem to me. ~~~~~~~ And it never fails to amuse me how certain TalkBackers respond to reasonable opinions by with abuse like "nerdy teenagers with spots who've never kissed a girl." Gee, those who saw the BBC series live are too old to be teenagers, spotty or otherwise, and while I've never kissed a girl, it's probably because I am one. Glad to know that despite being "too cool" to hang with the rest of us, you still spend your time slingin' words around in our forums and watching the same movies we do... what could that possibly mean??? :^D I'd say something snarkier, but honestly, it just isn't worth the time and trouble. "Just keep bangin' the rocks together, guys!" (Not that they'll get the reference, but I enjoyed it.)
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Even if I'd never listened to and read the story times before, I'd have been painfully aware of the dangerously sagging middle third of the movie. It's only my opinion, but I'm certain I would have been shifting uncomfortably as the pacing almost ground to a halt for a good half hour. I did however enjoy the beginning and end (Slartibartfast's tour of the factory floor was sublime). However, I'm familiar enough with the source material to know exactly what had been altered and we can all repeat to ourselves "film is a different medium with it's own requirements" and "Adams' universe has always altered across the different formats" until the cows come home, but my inescapable conclusion (only my own of course) is that the major changes made didn't do the film any favours unfortunately. I can only assume that Disney had a desire for a very routine damsel in distress subplot to hammer home the forced romance and Kavula (or whatever) was slotted in for some pretty unnecessary added character motivation? (Speaking of which, the whole grand joke of Zaphod's essentially cosmetic 2nd head was obviously lost). It's a bit of a problem, but worse when you realise how much of the existing script (WHICH IS WHAT MAKES THE STORY SPECIAL IN THE FIRST PLACE AFTERALL!) has been chopped down, or cut entirely in order to make room for the unwieldy and unwelcome middle. The unfortunate upshot for the plot is that it gets rushed and some of the lines that need a bit of air to breath are suffocated as they're belted out as quicly as possible - stillborn if you like. The Deepthought sequence suffers particularly. The revelations that the answer is going to take 7 million years to compute and then 7 million years later that "you're really not going to like it" completely lost their impact. (Deepthought didn't even say "you're not going to like it" if memory serves). Then again, the POV gun was quite a nice Adamsesque joke (possibly recovered from his harddrive?), although one of the additions to the tv show - Zaphod's shades, that turn completely black at the merest hint of danger to prevent the wearer from seeing anything that may cause alarm, would have worked very well here). Anyway, I don't need to nitpick really, as the problem with it runs more deeply than that.
I'm glad people like it though and while I'm somewhat disappointed if not bewildered by some of the decisions made, I don't exactly hate the result. The whale and the bowl of petunias are there as are the works of Oolon Coluphid (probably mispealt) although I missed the mention of Eccentrica Gollumbits, the triple breasted whore of Eroticon 6! haha... Any fan of the material would make a different film I guess.
As for the cast, I can tell that they did a pretty admirable job, but unfortunately my objectivity's buggered by having grown up with the radio and tv cast, so nobody could really replace Simon Jones and Mark Wing Davey for me...but that's my problem and not the film's.
I'd say that the movie is a fairly good starting point for newcomers, but I'd recommend that they do themselves a favour and look it up in one of it's other forms too. The tv series is back on at the moment on Tuesday evenings on BBC2 I think for a start...happy hitchhiking. -
May 05, 2005 11:43:56 AM CDT
Why would the producers lie about what Adams wrote? Adams himse
by minderbinder
What don't you believe? You don't think
Adams created Humma and the point of view gun? " I've noticed they're being very coy about not saying exactly what was original vs. what was later rewritten." They're not being THAT coy, they *have* given credit to Adams for a number of new ideas, they just haven't given a detailed list. I wouldn't be surprised if they give more detail now that the movie is out, maybe on DVD commentary. Can''t say I blame them, if they had done that before the movie was released, fanboys would be claiming to love all the Adams ideas and bashing the stuff they did. "t's a cheap shot to blame him without more info" To be honest, I think it's cheap to blame ANYONE without more info. Personally, when considering Adams's work as reference, it seems MORE likely that he created the bits that people don't like. Have you read the fourth and fifth books in the series? They're crap. Adams lost touch with the h2g2 universe in his later books, he got sappy and revisionist. To be honest I think the movie is FAR better than the later books. Any way, I hope the truth comes out, I just think it's stupid to make assumptions (especially when those assumptions entail accusations of lying, even when those "lies" are consistent with what Adams himself said before he died). -
To be honest, I don't personally know how much of the new material is Adam's work? Or how much of what is, was specifically written for a big screen version? Or how much was taken from his harddrive post-humously and perhaps wasn't intended for this purpose? Or perhaps how much of it were ideas he'd rejected, but have been used anyway? Or how much was written by somebody else? I could perhaps do the research, but I don't think it's really the issue. I didn't enjoy The Humma whatsit and Vogsphere part of the film, for the reasons stated above, no matter who actually wrote them. I love much of Adams' work, but he was human afterall and as the post above states, he didn't have a spotless record, which he openly admitted. I've never believed that great cinema needs flash bang wollup! at the expense of great dialogue to be a success, science fiction or not. I suspect Disney's bosses would disagree though.
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I'm not really saying anyone's lying... just not telling us the whole truth, maybe. Why? Because, as you say, the fanbois and fangrrls might disapprove of the revisions... or so it's harder to portion out the blame if the movie tanks. Sure, Humma and the Vogsphere might have been Adams' ideas. But who's to say that what we see on the screen is exactly what he wrote??? Sorry, but after Hollyworst telling us for so many years that the crap they shovel is really gold... I've gotten more skeptical. Maybe that's wrong, maybe not. But I sure would love to know the truth. I don't think we'll ever get it, but I'd love to know.
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You eloquently posted: 'Fuck Hitchhiker's Guide. It is smug humour for spotty nerds. Throughout high school you could tell who was a cunt if there was ever a discussion about the meaning of life and some tit said "42". It is a book for teenagers. Spotty ones who play Games Workshop and Dungeon Keeper.' This begs the question; why are you wasting your time on this forum? I could target forums of everything I personally disliked too, but the grave's not getting any further way is it? You are probably mildly amusing UK readers with your ID though. Are you aware that you're effectively calling yourself 'Ladyboy'? haha, oh dear ;-)
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