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| | |-+  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy..... the movie?!?
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Author Topic: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy..... the movie?!?  (Read 7223 times)
Saucer
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« on: April 23, 2005, 11:01:15 pm »

I must really be out of the loop. I just discovered today - quite by accident - that there is a new Hitchhiker's movie and it's premiering this Friday. This certainly was news (shocking news) to me. I know Hollywood has been threatening to do this for 2 decades now, Douglas Adams-sensei even mentions it in his post-humous collection of miscellany. It just kinda shocked me that it's actually happening. I'm a little afraid to see it, for ph33r that it will suck tremendous amounts of ass. I can almost hear sensei rolling over in his grave now as we speak......
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« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2005, 05:12:06 am »

We all know this story...

It's almost become something like a recipe of sorts...

Step 1 - Find a story with a huge fanbase.

Step 2 - Hire a producer and have him develop the movie.

Step 3 - Hear all the fans of the books tell them that they are doing it all wrong because it is NOTHING like what the original guy wrote it (and there are very few exceptions to the rule, with Lord of the Rings trilogy being one of them)

Step 4 - Read the reviews of the movie hearing how the reviewer said it is not as good as the book.

Step 5 - The movie still makes some money at the box office.

Now, I have not read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at all, but its on my To Do list (which includes, among other things, getting out of college and getting a decent job with good pay).  And chances are that my experiences with the book would be nothing like the movie would portray it.

That's the beauty of a book - the reader is both producer and design manager.  They can decide what each person looks like, how each person talks, how each person perceives how the character feels about other characters.

The problem with movies is that it is very untangible.  It is done with one person's perspective, with one person's idea for the people in the book.  It's very difficult (but definitly not IMpossible) to do and very hard to convince others that it was made with what the original author's thought of how each person should look (especially since he is gone...).

But with the extensive works before this movie...

- all three of his books being on the NY Times bestseller's list and Publisher's Weekly bestseller list

- with a radio show in 1979

- a TV series in 1981 (won Best TV Graphics, Best VTR Editing, and Best Sound)

- a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Video game (?!) in 1985 (which also won an award)

...and the unabridged audio books (that apparenty Douglas Adams read himself) that won an award, and a "Making of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" video in 1993 that won an award, AND the fact that his book was 24th on the Waterstone's Books/Channel Four list (??) of the 100 Greatest Books of the Century, we all knew it was going to happen sooner or later that someone would say, "Hey!  Making a movie after this guy's work might be a good idea!"

Then the vicious cycle begins.
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Or the new and more "convenient" version of PowerDVD (which will NOT let you take a darn picture fo
MrWhat
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« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2005, 10:13:23 pm »

There is a well-written but very discouraging review of the HHG movie here.
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« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2005, 07:41:40 am »

I went to see this movie over the weekend. It wasn't as horrible as the reviews have led me to believe it was, but they could have done so, so much better.

The producers of the film do seem to have been a bit on the schizophrenic side - they seemed so torn between making the movie fan-friendly (there were plenty of references that were clearly intended to make the Douglas Adams devotee smile) and general-audience friendly (hey, did you know that Hitchhikers is actually the story of star-crossed lovers being given a second chance?) that they just ended up making a hash of both ends of the spectrum.

There was too great a deviation from the source material, and the stuff that they added in was so clearly not-as-good as the original material that it was easy to pick out.

On the plus side, the special effects were well done. The Vogons were great, as well - they were done so perfectly, that anytime in the future that I read Hitchhiker's, I'll almost certainly be envisioning the movie versions of the Vogons every time I read them. Pretty much all the cast were very well-cast, though the things that they had that cast do were not always the best. Zaphod was the only main character that really disappointed me.
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« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2005, 10:51:16 am »

I thought the movie was pretty decent myself, though it has been a while since I've read the book, so I can't vouch for how accurate it is. Though the movie did have me laughing and remembering parts of the book, so it has to be at least somewhat accurate :P
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