#255193 - 03/05/2005 13:27
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: wfaulk]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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Thanks, but this isn't funny to me. I guess there wasn't anything more to get.
Jim
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#255194 - 03/05/2005 15:09
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 21/05/1999
Posts: 5335
Loc: Cambridge UK
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I can't hate this movie because it is far more faithful to classic Douglas Adams than I was expecting, but I also can't get too excited because it has been Americanised (or maybe Hollywoodised) just that bit too much. A lot of the understated British humour is gone and the "more believable explanations" utterly miss the point in most cases.
The TV cast were almost entirely superior to the movie cast, in particular David Dixon as Ford (Mos Def is utterly devoid of acting talent), Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod (although Sam Rockwell is passable), and Alan Rickman just did Alan Rickman and could not live up to Stephen Moore's Marvin. Martin Freeman gave us a slightly different type of Arthur - a good performance ruined by the love interest plot that Hollywood ran away with. Bill Bailey was a pretty good whale, and Stephen Fry can do no wrong (but was no better than Peter Jones, who will always be the definitive Guide).
So, the love interest. NO! This was in no way Adams. I'll bet this is the bit that was holding up production until Adam's untimely demise. The Arthur/Trillian love interest was the main plot line for the movie, and that is just wrong.
I think the fundamental problem is that this material simply doesn't translate well into a 110 minute movie format. There is a certain relaxed pace to the madness in the radio and TV series that has to be sacrificed if the little kiddies are not to become bored (not that kids seemed to think much of it anyway judging from the constant chattering coming from the back of the cinema).
Rob
PS Yes I know it was a British made movie, but only in the same way Star Wars was.
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#255196 - 03/05/2005 22:14
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Roger]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Finally!
A big thank-you to Bitt, Roger & Rob for chiming in with some reason. I thought I was going "completely mental" over the past few days. I imagined they must have been handing out crack at US showings of this film - or at least piping something into the ventilation.
A shopping cart full of beer? That's only more "convenient" for a script writer. WTF was Ford doing running around with a trolley full of beer? It could have been he wanted to take it with him on the Vogon ship - but they gave no indication of that. It was simply to allow the script writer to omit the original dialogue.
I'll watch the movie again, but I'm pretty sure I'll never think it lives up to the books. At this point I'm just hoping it will be bearable to sit through a second time. If memory serves me, there just aren't any redeemable qualities in this movie.
The people that put this movie at number one are likely the same ones who keep the worst POS performers in shows like American Idol. :P
Bruno
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#255197 - 03/05/2005 22:20
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: hybrid8]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
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Quote:
The people that put this movie at number one are likely the same ones who keep the worst POS performers in shows like American Idol.
Namely ... you?
Unless you mean something else by 'the people that put this movie at number one'.
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#255198 - 03/05/2005 22:48
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
WTF was Ford doing running around with a trolley full of beer?
The shopping cart was also full of peanuts. His intent was to drink the beer and eat the peanuts with Arthur. When he arrives, the first thing he starts doing is handing Arthur peanuts and beer and tells him "here drink this, you're going to need it." It's just that in order to distract the construction crew and thus get Arthur's full attention, he has to give up that particular stash and go for the next best thing, the pub down the street.
The book's explanation of why peanuts and beer are important is missing from the movie, though. As was the explanation of how they could get picked up by the Vogons, when the Vogons hate hitchhikers. But they can only cram just so much exposition into one movie. I was fine with those two bits of information deleted.
(For those who never read the book: 1. Peanuts and beer offset the terrible side effects of teleportation, and that's how they got onto the vogon ship was by teleportation. 2. The Vogons weren't the ones to answer the Thumb, it was the ship's cooks, a species called the Dentrassi, who liked to deliberately irritate their Vogon bosses by picking up hitchhikers.)
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#255199 - 04/05/2005 00:29
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: RobotCaleb]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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No, I got my money back at the box-office on the way out. And purposefully screened the film at a small theater that doesn't get counted toward the box-office totals anyway.  I'm in Canada - our ticket sales don't count toward US box-office totals. I don't know which movie ranked #1 this past week in this country. I can tell you that the seats weren't even half filled for HHGTTG though. Bruno
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#255200 - 04/05/2005 00:52
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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You're too forgiving Tony. A cart full of beer? Still doesn't make any sense except as a contrived plot device ensuring he'd have enough for the entire construction crew. This was not something that had to be changed from the book to have that scene work effectively in the movie. In fact the book lends itself to a two hour movie fairly well - if one wants to take the time to do it right.
On the brighter side of things, I see that a Wallace and Gromit feature-length production will be released later this year. And neither Wallace nor Gromit have been replaced by American actors it seems. There were rumors that Paul Walker might play Wallace and Gromit's role would be given to the dog from Air Bud. Though Walker has the personality of a motionless plasticine figurine, I just don't think he could capture the depth of the lovable animated character.
Should we start taking bets now on whether Hotblack will do an animated song and dance in the next movie? With what they changed in this movie they might as well of not had an English Arthur. And they could have had the movie start from his apartment in L.A. or something. But I suppose that's what you get when you have someone that's never read the books nor had any HHGTTG experience write a new screenplay. And then hand off direction duties to a couple of guys that are one step above McG on the totem. And it's all as if they had George Lucas make final approvals. Makes me wonder where marvin's Jamaican accent was.
Bruno
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#255201 - 04/05/2005 02:21
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
A cart full of beer? Still doesn't make any sense except as a contrived plot device ensuring he'd have enough for the entire construction crew.
Perhaps he was in a hurry, didn't know what kind Arthur would like just to drink then, and filled the cart from the beer aisle. Money was no object of course, as it was going to be all worthless in a matter of minutes.
Quote:
This was not something that had to be changed from the book to have that scene work effectively in the movie.
I think it did need to be changed.
In the book, Ford's conversational tactic was weak at best. And I never bought that Arthur would have walked away from his house just because Ford temporarily confused Prosser. Yes it was a clever little conversation, yes it was classic Douglas Adams, but it was one of those things that works better in print than on the screen.
It's just better on film to *see* something happening than it is to watch to people have a clever conversation.
Don't get me wrong, I like clever conversations. Almost all of Kevin Smith's films are clever conversations. But they aren't action sci-fi movies either.
I enjoyed the clever conversation when it was in the book. Okay, so I saw and enjoyed that joke the way Douglas wrote it the first time. Now I can see an enjoy a completely different joke at that point in the story because the delivery context is different. I don't see a problem with that.
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#255202 - 04/05/2005 05:44
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5549
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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It's just better on film to *see* something happening than it is to watch to people have a clever conversation.
Throughout all this discussion, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the audiobook as a bridge between the written book and the movie.
Having neither read the original book, nor seen the movie, I'm not really in a position to judge, but having listened to my audiobook multiple times, I can see where it might well be the best of both worlds, retaining the cleverness of the writing, and at the same time capturing the essence of the movie experience, substituting imagination for the filmmakers visuals.
For those of you who have not listened to the audiobook, it is not a straight read of the book; rather, it is a performance of the book, with different folks reading the different characters, sound effects, etc.
I think, after the audiobook, the movie could only be a disappointment to me.
tanstaafl.
_________________________
"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"
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#255203 - 04/05/2005 06:36
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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The sequel started on BBC4 yesterday and is available worldwide on BBC Radio player for the next seven days - I haven't actually listened myself.
Forgive me if someone's already pointed that out, but I thought that I wouldn't read this thread in detail, 'till I've seen the film, so that I don't start with a prejudice!
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#255204 - 04/05/2005 07:16
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Throughout all this discussion, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the audiobook as a bridge between the written book and the movie.
Having neither read the original book...
Unless I'm much mistaken, your "audiobook" is the original radio series, from which the subsequent books, records, stage shows, towel, computer game, and film were derived. A lot of stuff ("He only had the one head and the two arms and called himself Phil") worked IMO better as throwaway radio jokes than as visual jokes with all the mechanism that entailed. It's like Seagoon paying Moriarty with fifty thousand hussars and receiving twenty thousand hussars as change: seeing it is less funny than imagining it.
Peter
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#255205 - 04/05/2005 07:39
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: peter]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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Quote:
seeing it is less funny than imagining it.
A very succinct expression of a common argument that I make about radio programmes: Particularly true, in my opinion, not just here, but in "Little Britain" and "Dead Ringers", two series in recent history which worked much better on the radio. Your analogy with the Goons is particularly apposite: Just not a possibility, visually!
In the last couple of months, I've gone forward and backwards, technologically: I'm convinced that music programmes sound better on my Revox, even if they technically don't: I'm sure that it's watching the reels going round! I'm also sure that moving from a bedside radio to a bedside notebook PC is the way to enjoy the wealth of, particularly spoken word, material from BBC 4/7, I get much better value out of the BBC than following the timetables.
_________________________
Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#255206 - 04/05/2005 12:10
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
I'm currently on a mission to find some sort of version of the song online, and learn the words and music to sing at a gathering two weeks from now. Anyone got any ideas?
http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/games/dolphin.html
So long and thanks for all the fish,
So sad that it should come to this,
We tried to warn you all oh dear,
You may not share our intellect,
Which may explain your disrespect,
For all the natural wonders that grow around you,
So long, so long and thanks for all the fish,
The worlds about to be destroyed,
There’s no point getting all annoyed,
Sit back and let the planet dissolve around you,
Despite those nets of tuna fleets
We thought that most of you were sweet,
Especially tiny tots and your pregnant women,
So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
So long, So long, and thanks for all the fish,
If I had just one last wish,
I would like a tasty fish.
If we could just change one thing,
We would all have learned to sing.
Come One and All,
Man and Mammal,
Side by side in life’s great gene pool.
So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
So long, So long, So long, So long, So long,
So long, So long, and thanks for all the fish.
_________________________
Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#255207 - 04/05/2005 13:33
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: boxer]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Meanwhile Amazon's synopsis seems to indicate that the fifth radio series doesn't stick very closely to the book... Peter
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#255208 - 04/05/2005 13:34
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Wow, cool, I didn't think to look at their own web site!!  Thanks! That's an exceedingly bad little flash animation, but it DOES have the song in there. I could use TotalRecorder to get a rewindable audio file out of it, but does anyone have a more direct way of editing the audio track out of a flash file?
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#255209 - 04/05/2005 15:31
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Was I the only one who thought that song was wildly irritating?
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#255210 - 04/05/2005 16:37
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 18/01/2000
Posts: 5683
Loc: London, UK
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Quote:
Was I the only one who thought that song was wildly irritating?
No, you're not the only one.
_________________________
-- roger
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#255211 - 04/05/2005 17:27
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Quote:
Unless I'm much mistaken, your "audiobook" is the original radio series, from which the subsequent books, ... were derived.
Yeah, the audiobook I have and am currently listening to in the car is Douglas Adams reading the book. He does an ok job with differing the vocies, but it is definitly all done by him alone.
Relistening to the book, I am seeing the jokes that did indeed get cut short in the movie. Some wern't all that critical to have the full version (like the whale identifying more then just his tail), but other jokes definitly needed to be left alone for them to be really funny.
In any case, I enjoyed the movie enough not to shun it out of existance. Though this might be due to my experiece with Douglas's works somewhat limited. I've only read/heard the first book, never read any of the others yet. I've never seen the older film, nor heard the radio show. I have played Starship Titanic (and am looking for a copy, my disk 2 is scratched badly), and read that book.
If anything, the movie has reminded me of his works, and has me wanting to read the other 3 books.
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#255212 - 04/05/2005 17:39
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: drakino]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Quote:
and has me wanting to read the other 3 books.
FYI, that's actually 4 more books for the hitchikers series. And I don't know what others think, but I enjoyed the Dirk Gently books a lot.
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#255213 - 04/05/2005 19:24
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: JeffS]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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Well I liked it.......
Having not never read the book, listened to the radio series or watched the TV series I found it most enjoyable. There were very few things I disliked about it, maybe I'm easy to please.
By my own admission I don't read many books (manuals, specs and RFCs aren't really books are they) in particular, fiction. For some reason I've never got on with it.
Now here's the really sad question, would I be branded uber-geek by naming my next linux box DeepThought?
_________________________
Cheers,
Andy M
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#255214 - 04/05/2005 23:37
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andym]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
Now here's the really sad question, would I be branded uber-geek by naming my next linux box DeepThought?
No, but the "cleverness" window on that one closed decades ago.
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#255215 - 05/05/2005 01:02
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
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Good name for an empeg though . . .
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
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#255216 - 05/05/2005 01:33
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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You could name your box Jack Handy and pick up the double reference points. In the forward to "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" compendium Adams explains the complete history of the radio show, TV shows, books and movie. The first paragraphy pretty much sums it up, Adams-style: Quote:
The history of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is now so complicated that every time I tell it I contradict myself, and whenever I do get it right I'm misquoted. So the publication of this omnibus edition seemed like a good opportuinty to set the record straight- or at least firmly crooked. Anything that is put down wrong here is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong for good.
This book is prominently displayed at most big bookstores to promote the movie, so take a minute and read the whole introduction if you have the chance.
-Zeke
_________________________
WWFSMD?
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#255217 - 10/05/2005 17:03
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Ezekiel]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 16/04/2002
Posts: 2011
Loc: Yorkshire UK
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Sorry Gang, I thought it was trash!!!
It never seemed to decide whether it wanted to be a blockbuster or to satisfy Hitchhiker geeks. "Should we have a love interest, well we'd better play it down, so we don't upset anybody"
Mrs. Boxer fell asleep, although that may have been the chinese feast and booze we had on the way to the cinema, rather than boredom; The boxette, presumably representing the target audience and having not even heard of hitchhikers until a week or so ago, couldn't get anything out of it and I, having been through radio and TV series, just found it very disappointing - if I wanted to be constructive, it worked better serialised, half an hour at a time. That's my opinion, for what it's worth!
_________________________
Politics and Ideology: Not my bag
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#255218 - 10/05/2005 17:43
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 27/06/1999
Posts: 7058
Loc: Pittsburgh, PA
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The movie was better than I expected, but less than I'd hoped for. I've read all 5.01 trilogy books, and seen all but one or two of the TV episodes. Of course, there were disappointments, but those were all explainable by the fact that the movie all of the hardcore h2g2 fans really wanted would have gone straight to video in around the time it took for the sperm whale to come to terms with his mortality. They needed to "dumb it down" a little, pass on a lot of the subtle humor, and change the emphasis of various plot points in order to get fannies in the seats in a time of $10 tickets and extreme fickleness in the moviegoing population.
There aren't many franchises like Star Wars that can shit on a plate and have millions eat it up regardless, and we all know H2G2 isn't in that league. So, if the compromises made on this movie means I'll see a Restaurant at the End of the Universe film that's at least as good as this one, I'll be pleased.
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#255219 - 11/05/2005 07:37
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tonyc]
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old hand
Registered: 14/08/2001
Posts: 886
Loc: London, UK
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I really enjoyed it. A pretty decent adaptation of the radio show.
And Zooey Deschanel has just the most amazing eyes
_________________________
Mk2a RioCar 120Gb - now sold to the owner of my old car
Rio Karma - now on ebay...
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#255220 - 11/05/2005 16:45
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: furtive]
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veteran
Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
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Quote:
And Zooey Deschanel has just the most amazing eyes
Yes! That was part of the reason I wanted to see the movie. Though, when her eyes were on screen it was hard to do anything but stare and get lost in them, and I think I missed a bunch of the movie because of that. 
_________________________
Donato MkII/080000565 MkIIa/010101253 ricin.us
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#255222 - 11/05/2005 20:09
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: furtive]
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veteran
Registered: 19/06/2000
Posts: 1495
Loc: US: CA
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You have an obsession with eyes too?
_________________________
Donato MkII/080000565 MkIIa/010101253 ricin.us
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