Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[raisedbywolves]

I loved it. Possibly more than someone who has read the books, because I had no idea what would happen from one minute to the next, as opposed to someone who is just waiting for the beats and comparing them to the book's. Sam Rockwell's movie-length Dubya impression never stops being funny. A

[Adam!]

Spoilers, obviously.

As someone who puts the books on a pedestal, this movie exceeded my low expectations. However, it did not do so with flying colors.

Absolutely Perfect:
Arthur
Marvin
Slartibartfast
The Vogons
The Guide
Much of the Dialogue
The Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster
Magethera
Deep Thought, The Answer, and The Question
The Improbability Drive
All the Visuals

Good:
Zaphod Beeblebrox for the first 5 minutes he's on screen
Trillian for her first 5 minutes
The Vogsphere*
The Opening Musical Number*
The Point-of-View Gun*

Horrible:
Zaphod's Second Head*
Zaphod for the rest of the movie
The Lemon-Brain-Hat*
The fact that they completely threw away Trillian and Ford's characters*
The Pan-Dimensional 8 year olds*
The Vogon Poetry Session
The thought-activated Face Slappers*
The unexplained towel references

*added/augmented for this movie.


First, I'm surprised that they added a 25 minute segment to a story that was already ridiculously busy, but I also realize that although it seemed like a pointless addition at the time, it actually helps give the characters a good reason to go to Magethera. In the books Zaphod's entire motivation is that he is trying to find the ruler of the universe, but it is presented so complexly that it wouldn't work in a movie.

I can't say enough about how great the Vogons looked. George Lucas, pay attention. CGI is great for spaceships, but not so great for creatures. These are animatronics. They look real.

Also the guide was perfect, as was every piece of narration.

But yeah, Sam Rockwell being over-the-top retarded all the time made me cringe. Every busy scene where he was running around being stupid made me slink down in my chair and feel embarrassed for those around me. It was a performance I'd expect to find in a Farrelly Brother's flick. However, the character and the look was perfect, he just hammed it up too much. Same problem I had with Jim Carrey in A Series of Unfortunate Events: the character and the costumes where great, you get the idea that what you're watching should be right, but instead it's all embarrassing scenery-chewing.

Trillian really wasn't in the books that much, but she was more Uhura than a somewhat-ditzy-generic-love-interest. In the first five minutes they seem to want to go the route of Kate Winslet's Clementine from Eternal Sunshine, but when she shows up again they've replaced her character with the cookie-cutter girl who is in every sci-fi/comedy. Think any love interest from the Men In Black movies, but dimmer.

Ford is gone. It's kind of sad, really, because he was my favorite character on the page. In the books he is so familiar with how the universe works that he takes for granted many things that seem bizarre to Arthur (and the reader), so everything he does and says has this insane yet deliberate feel to it. Mos Def does just as good a job as anybody would do if they just read Ford’s lines at the camera. Also, his love of towels goes unexplained here, where as it is arguably one of the best quirks from the book.

The guide is perfect. I only wish they had included some of the funnier guide entries. But they did a good job with it.

Arthur was perfect. Plus, I love the office.

The improbability drive was great, but they left out the part that explains why the ship picks up Arthur and Ford. Although, I don’t blame them: the explanation in the book is technical mumbo-jumbo.

In summary, if they had kept Trillian, Zaphod and Ford’s characters true to the original I would give it an A. Even if they had only cut Sam Rockwell’s embarrassing ham-fest down to just a Dubya/Clinton impression I’d give it an A-. But they didn’t, so it gets a B+.

[WeaselSlayer]

I was surprised, this movie was actually really really funny. And I loved Sam Rockwell. But Alan Rickman was god damn brilliant, as was the guy who did Slartibartfast. I even think Mos Def did a terrific job. All I can say is, it was better than the BBC tv version of the book. Way better.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Spoilers, obviously.

Horrible:
The thought-activated Face Slappers

Ah, but on a bureacratic planet (Vogsphere), really, what better way to reinforce the horribly soul-deadening humani... excuse me, Vogonitarian outlook, eh?

Lots of little joys in this movie. And some big ones, too.

Vogimps, heh.

[jb]

omg i loved the face-slappers. and i loved how Ford was always using his towel for everything and was very very concerned that Arthur have his towel in order.

i thought they mostly nailed the spirit of the work, which Adams changed each time it migrated to a new medium. That the movie doesn't tow the book line and sinker is to be expected and a completely faithful translation was never ever on the table.

and i have had the biggest crush on zooey deschanel forever. somebody play her some JBB songs immediately, so she'll seek me out and we can frolic.

<b>A</b>

[mkilly]

blah blah whiny

Oh, whatever. They had to adapt it for the screen. It isn't a damn book anymore. Evaluate it on its film merits.

On its film merits I give it a strong A. I don't really have much to say otherwise, except that most people I talk to are really overcritical.

[Bjam]

I liked it. They showed some of the TV show on PBS last night so it was all fresh in my mind. They left some stuff out, and added some stuff, but overall I liked it. Not amazing, but still pretty damn good. A-ish.

[Adam!]

blah blah whiny

Oh, whatever. They had to adapt it for the screen. It isn't a damn book anymore. Evaluate it on its film merits.

I concede that Mos Def's acting wouldn't have bothered me if I hadn't read the book. Other than that none of my complaints were about dissimilarities between the two versions. All the other things I mentioned would have bugged me even if I hadn't read the books (and heard the radio play, and watched the BBC series, and played the... etc, etc, etc).

At least I'm not like my friend who complained bitterly that the Vogon ships weren't yellow (as they were in the book).

[mico saudad]

Saw this opening night here with some free tickets. Awesome #1.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. Awesome #2. (Amazing, and even moreso that if it were a songfight title I would never enter it)

The yarn animation effect of the improbability drive. Awesome #3.

The mushroom cloud as the whale hits the ground. Awesome #4.

Alan Rickman. Awesome #5. I will watch Robin Hood with Kevin Costner's awful horrible ridiculous English accent attempt just for Alan Rickman's part ('cause it'll hurt more').

John Malkovich going from funny to creepy and eerie. Awesome #6

I had a crapload of fun, and the only real thing that bothered me was Zaphod's second head, and to a lesser degree how the plot sort of fell apart near the end.

I loved some of the underlying messages that I took away:

1.) Zaphod sounded like George Bush in parts. I'll bet $10 this wasn't unintentional. And his whole 'piggity-pow!' over the top acting job just delighted me because everyone was really looking at George Bush and thinking, "What a stupid a-hole" . And Malkovich's line about image succeeding over intelligence and the ability to govern capped the whole point of Zaphod's character.

2.) The inherent silliness of religion.

3.) The inherent cluelessness of humans.

4.) Don't panic. And try to enjoy yourself while you're here.

[HeuristicsInc]

man, i forgot what date this was coming out. now that i'm back in the country i gotta get out and see it. luckily michelle's a fan too, so that might not be too hard to convince her.
-bill

[Jim of Seattle]

Sorry to throw a damp towel on the love-fest here, but I really hated this movie. And I enjoyed the books 20 years ago. (I have pretty much forgotten the books since it's been so long.)

There were plenty of fun little moments, and some clever visual ideas, but the whole thing felt very unfocused, and the actors for the most part flailed around trying to whip up some energy but didn't seem to have a grasp of their characters or what each scene was trying to accomplish. Consequently, without a cohesive narrative or cohesive conflicts for the characters to play, the wacky non-sequitir humor didn't have a context with which to be truly funny.

D+

[mico saudad]

There were plenty of fun little moments, and some clever visual ideas, but the whole thing felt very unfocused, and the actors for the most part flailed around trying to whip up some energy but didn't seem to have a grasp of their characters or what each scene was trying to accomplish.

I think Adams would say, "Strange, those are some of the exact points I was trying to make about life."

[Kapitano]

I just watched it, and wrote up some notes for my blog. These are they:
-------------------------
I am extremely full of popcorn. This is because I ate far too much of it while watching The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy film with H. We both expected to be disappointed by a limp, unfunny, dumbed down americanised version of the story. Instead, we both rather enjoyed it.

Every time Hitch Hiker is told in a new medium - radio drama, computer game, TV serial, book - it's content changes significantly. The film is likewise recognisably the same but different, in plot and mood.

It was always implicit in Hitch Hiker that the politics of other worlds are those of small town, petty minded beaurocracy, but writ large. Here the implication is fully explicit, with the Vogons depicted as mindless dusty beaurocrats obsessed with habit and procedure.

The vogon face slapping machine, on it's own, would be puerile slapstick. Here, being activated by original thought, it's a good metaphor for the stultifying human culture that the vogon's satirise.

Do you remember the film of Pink Floyd's The Wall? It featured animated creatures with enormous bulky bodies, piglike faces, and long thin arms. In what must be deliberate homage, these creatures are reincarnated as animatronic Vogons.

It's also a nice touch that the voices were done by The League Of Gentlemen - who of course have their own film coming soon.

Other parts of the film impress less. The love affair between Arthur and Trillian is useful as a plot device, but trite and shallow.

The portrayal of Slartibartfast by Bill Nye is far too apologetic and 'together'. The character is supposed to be a lovable but bumbling technical nerd, trying to appear wise and serene.

The politician played by John Malkovitch was slight, and his subplot pointless. It's as though this part of the film were a fragment of a different replotting of Hitch Hiker, that got let in by accident.

Martin Freedman's Arthur Dent is an small town american 'ordinary joe' who happens to have a brit accent. He has no real characterisation.

Sam Rockwell's Zaphod Beeblebrox was presumably a satire on Bush Jr's vapidity, with elements of Ronald Regan's 'cowboy' attitude. Unfortunately it had all the sublety and charm of Michael Moore.

The voice and lines of Marvin were, I thought, very effective. This isn't a clinically depressed robot, it's a world weary superhuman. But the rounded bulbous design of the robot's body didn't fit. And the way he would save the day was obvious minutes in advance.

Incidentally, the original body of Marvin - from the BBC serialisation - got a cameo role. Which was then repeated twice just in case we were too dumb to notice the first time. Simon Jones (Arthur dent from the radio and TV serials) got a welcome and unobtrusive cameo as the magrathean answering machine.

On the plus side, Stephen Fry was suitably untextbooklike and baffled as the voice of the book. He managed to avoid camping it up, and equally avoided impersonating Peter Jones (the original voice). The book animation was imaginative and I think it was a good idea to not make it look like a computer display.

Initially, I thought Mos Def, as a stylish black Ford Prefect, was a bizarre choice by some casting director who hadn't read the books. But it works - he is intriguingly alien.

The set design has the 'huge and grimy' look of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Overblown, as is the current fashion in science fiction visuals, but effective.

So, overall. The plot is just as lumpy as in all versions of Hitch Hiker, being essentially a stream of set comic pieces, which have a more pythonlike feel than Adams' solo work. But I don't think this is a problem.

Lots of reservations, but after all of them, I'm glad I watched it. It's a footnote to the Hitch Hiker cannon, not part of it.

[j$]

It was OK. The book is still the best version, unsurprisingly. I liked the proper Marvin appearance in the queue on Vogsphere, especially as the new one looked so rubbish.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainmen ... 509721.stm

Oh, the irony

j$

[JonPorobil]

I didn't hate it. I was annoyed at how they played up the love story aspect of it (and I don't think they made it awkward enough, considering...), but most of the other changes were okay by me. I didn't like how they handled Zaphod's extra head, and I wish the third arm had gotten more screen time, but oh well.

I also really loved how they did the guide itself, but considering how much of the books was based solely on the guide, I really wish there'd been more of that stuff in the movie. Particularly the part about towels. I felt like what was a major plot point in the books was reduced to just a recurring in-joke in the films, because most of the audience hasn't been told just how important a towel really is.

Still, I laughed. A lot. And the special effects were cool.

B.

[JonPorobil]

Oh, hey, was anyone else bugged by the fact that they got Warwick Davis to play Marvin, and then used forced perspective to make him look bigger? It hurt my eyes on most of his shots, when they could have used a bigger actor or animatronics.

[Hoblit]

somebody at work told me "it sucked"

but most of ya'll are saying it was good. I'm trying not to read all of the posts that are potential 'spoilers'.

However, I wanna know whether I should go see it tonight or wait for the video. I've read the books.

advice?

[roymond]

However, I wanna know whether I should go see it tonight or wait for the video. I've read the books.

advice?

Any movie with "Galaxy" in its title deserves to be seen on the big screen.

[Calfborg]

Any movie with "Galaxy" in its title deserves to be seen on the big screen.

I'll just assume you're making an exception for Galaxy Quest.

[Hoblit]

Any movie with "Galaxy" in its title deserves to be seen on the big screen.

I'll just assume you're making an exception for Galaxy Quest.

Galexy Quest is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I effing love that movie.

[Kapitano]

Galexy Quest is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I effing love that movie.

Ah, I see. Well, if you enjoyed the look of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, the humour of Monty Python's Holy Grail, and the gentle parody of Galaxy Quest, you'll like the Hitch Hiker movie.

If you think any of the Star Treks have a serious message, you won't.

[Hoblit]

Galexy Quest is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I effing love that movie.

Ah, I see. Well, if you enjoyed the look of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, the humour of Monty Python's Holy Grail, and the gentle parody of Galaxy Quest, you'll like the Hitch Hiker movie.

If you think any of the Star Treks have a serious message, you won't.

Ha, cool, then I'll go see it.