The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

M

Mex

New member
If you want a laugh, then watch this film. I stress the lack of plurality in that previous sentence, though. Lack of cynicism, wit, intelligence, and anything else that made the book, radio and TV series stand out. Bland "Hollywoodised" tosh. Oh, and a typical one-dimensional love interest story to keep the sappy idiots happy. *barf* Avoid.
 
Just got back from seeing it, and I wasn't too impressed. I never read the books or anything, but I expected it to be better than what it was. It had the occasional joke, but nothing that you could really laugh your head of at. I know it's not meant to be a comedy, but there was no real emotion in the film apart from a love story. The GCI were good, but I think it was let down by the costumes on some of the alien creatures - they look like they belong in Doctor Who, lol..

Ah well..
 
As someone who has been a fan since the first radio series was repeated (ie. the week after the first series ended!), I must say that I absolutely hated this film. Its saying something when a cheapo BBC production from the early 80s can have a better stab at bringing this to the screen than a multimillion dollar movie of 2005. The book cgi graphics were the modern equivalent of Captain Pugwash, the design of the Heart of Gold & Marvin were pathetic, and Zaphod's 2 heaRAB & 3 arms were... barely there. The casting was skewed - Nigh should have been Dent, Freeman should have been Ford, and Rickman Slartibartfast. Trillian was ok but not intelligent enough - she's meant to be an astrophysicist.

I was seriously thinking of walking out half way through. I mean, what was with that stupid slapping in the face stuff on Vogsphere? Time was at a premium on this film - they had to cut out a lot, yet they added this time wasting crap.

So all in all what Gort said - Avoid.

ps. I'm thinking of downloading a pirate of this film (if there is one) just so I can have the pleasure of deleting it. :mad:
 
The love story isn't in the books at all! If you have sky, they are showing the tv series on Paramount 2 this sunday night from 9pm.

The books are great btw!
 
Erm, sorry? The book graphics look rubbish? You don't think they're supposed to look rubbish? I can understand most people's criticisms of the film even if I don't share them, but that one takes the biscuit.
 
The problem with that guy's review(s) is that I get the impression that he hates the film simply because it's different, and his love of one particular previous incarnation - it sounRAB like the TV series - has skewed his view of the film.

For example, he says he's pissed off that Deep Thought has spent the last umpteen million years watching cartoons. In fact, he is particularly vile about this scene. The problem is, if the cartoon-watching incident was in the original TV series and failed to appear in the film instead of the other way around, I get the impression he would have had a fit. We'd no doubt see "I can't believe they cut the fact that Deep Thought - the second greatest computer in the universe - had chosen to occupy himself watching very basic cartoons while the Earth computed its final answer".

He does raise some very good points - that it doesn't matter what bits were written by Douglas Adams, only whether it seems like it was written by Adams, for example - and like him I am a little disappointed that some witty dialogues were cut out or trimmed, but I do feel that he is being harsh either a) for the sake of being harsh, or b) because he cannot let go of a previous incarnation.

I do look forward to the DVD where, hopefully, many of these trims make their way back into the film.
 
So when are they doing the second book?

In the book the frogstar bit happens before they visit Milliways. The book enRAB with Arthur and Ford strandard on prehistoric Earth.

Are they planning to make the five books into five films? The film is more faithful to the book then to the either radio or ty series.

Looking forward to RATEOTU.

David
 
I liked the film. Enough said.

If anyone who saw it later goes on to explore the books and radio plays, then the artistic and intellectual compromises Douglas Adams made to shoe-horn the concept into film format and bring it to a wider audience will have been worthwhile.
 
reminder - the last radio series is currently being broadcast on Radio 4 at 6.30 pm - you can prob download o r listen to yesterday's prog, on the BBC radio player.

series 3 last year was very good- most of the original cast involved

John
 
Just got back from watching it.

I think the film is sooo funny.It's utter crap,but utter brillence.
The jokes were so lame i couldn't stop laughing.

Where did the falling Whale come from? It was great.

Great i would give it 8/10
 
I think i would have ditched half the cast for start off :rolleyes:
It was okay but they made some really big cuts and added a load of other stuff :confused:
Just jumped around too much for my liking. Think i'll be sticking to the radio series ;)

In fact the best thing about it was the Orange~Star Wars crossover ad before the film :p :p
 
I thought the TV version of the Book was much better too. On the TV version theres so much infomation that you got to replay the book bits a few times. The film book is bland by comparsion.

David
 
Maybe you're right there *Duncan*, i'd never thought of it that way but with the film being more confusing than alalzheimer's i'm not sure a lot of the viewers would want to.

Let's hope they don't make "Mostly Harmless" though, that was an awful book and the ending (i know he died before finishing it himslef) felt terribly rushed.
 
IMHO that was the best bit of the whole film. It was straight out of the Radio series, where the two missiles turned into a bowl of putunias and a surprised looking Sperm Whale. I'm so glad they didn't mess with this sequence by cutting it, otherwise it could have been "This is what the whale thought "Oooooh where am I? Whats this big round thing? Ground!" "
 
Finally seen this myself. What a mish-mash!! It tried to be true to the original (books and TV series for me) and have enough new stuff so that it wasn't simply a retread.

And failed spectacularly on both counts.

Sat through half of it going :yawn: "Seen it, know the punchline, oh look they've cut it out" - kinda like watching the BBC1 version of Little Britain.

And the rest of it going "This never happened, that shouldn't be there" - kinda like watching the Special Editions of Star Wars.

I guess I'm too attached to the original to be unbiased. I know the book and TV series diverge wildly as well, but you expect that between books and visual media (cf Lord of the Rings which cut a lot out but still made an awesome movie). For me, I think things would have been better if the movie had just languished in Development Hell for ever... imagining what it could have been like was far better than seeing what it actually was.

Loved the new use for lightsabres though :D
 
Back
Top