Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Caravan Ray · Post by **Caravan Ray** » Sun May 08, 2005 7:54 am

Saw it today - pretty disappointed - it really didn't add anything to the books/radio programmes/TV show we have already.

The bloke playing Ford Prefect was very ordinary. The Zaphod Beeblebrox bloke was alright - but he looked silly with only one head. Generally there were too many Americans (aren't there always). Hated that whole Trillian love-interest thing. And Arthur was pretty much just Tim from The Office in space (which is fair enough I suppose - that's all that Arthur needed to be)

Sure a lot of the visuals were impressive - but it's not really a visual sort of story. The beauty of it comes from the wisdom of The Guide. the radio programmes worked better than this movie.

After the last few years of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies - I'd become used to seeing my favourite books be turned into big-budget movies which were worthwhile and enjoyable pieces of art in themselves. This one fell short of the mark.

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BTW: Are there any other word's in the english language besides "hitchhiker" that have a double "H"?

tonetripper · Post by **tonetripper** » Sun May 08, 2005 5:16 pm

Ya, I hear you on the movie Ray. I felt the same way about it. I think the issue with the translation of the radio versus the book to a movie format is that they tried to utilize those narrative points in the movie. I felt that it detracted something awful from the flow of the film and took away some of the suspense. I think they should have ditched those moments in favour of rewriting to make sense in a movie format. Whenever they came up I was feeling like it was a commercial break and that is the wrong feeling to be left with while watching a feature film.

I thought "Tim" was alright, but he was pretty much the same character as he was in the office. I also felt that there was no real chemistry between Trilliam and him. I thought Mos Def did alright as Ford Prefect and I'm generally a fan of the guy who played Zaphod Beeblebrox. The cameos were cool with Alan Rickman as the robot and John Malcovitch as Zaphod's competition for Pres. Being of an english background, as I am a first born Canadian in the family, I also think that the characters should have been filled with British actors. It's just how I imagined it as I read it.

Generally the imagination that the books fulfill in a reader is way better than the movie. I remember laughing my ass off reading the first one of the four on a crowded subway and everyone in that car looking at me funny. I was almost in tears at points. I never once felt that way watching the movie.

CGI is wonderful for pushing the imagination of fantasy books and the like in a movie format, but I have to agree that it's not enough to carry this movie. These days with entertainment desensitizing our imagination at the the theatre you still need a good script with good direction and good acting with chemistry to sell the special effects. This translation just didn't make that happen. Too bad cuz I was hoping good things from it. I actually think the BBC produced version was better for performance.

Rabid Garfunkel · Post by **Rabid Garfunkel** » Mon May 09, 2005 9:58 pm

Caravan Ray wrote:BTW: Are there any other word's in the english language besides "hitchhiker" that have a double "H"?

You, sir, are evil. This is having the same effect on my worknight that a request for a proper cup of tea had on a certain white running-shoe shaped starship.

Ooh, there's got to be a Scrabble dictionary online...

EDIT: No such luck. Though the substring search at http://www.lexfn.com/ came up with:

uhh
shh
ahh
nahhas pasha
bathhouse
withhold
eichhornia crassipes
eichhornia spesiosa
eichhornia
mashhad
withholding tax
withholding
withheld
buchholz
fishhook
washhouse
eichhorst
lochhead
buchholtz
beachhead
hitchhike
roughhewn
hitchhiking
hitchhiker
kirchhoff
beachheads
reichhold
reichhold's
munchhausen
hitchhiker's
kirchhoff's
hitchhiker:
sleuthhound
smoothhound
smoothhound shark
gleichheit
underwithheld
underwithhold
genus eichhornia
gustav kirchhoff
morarji ranchhodji desai
florida smoothhound
mustafa al- nahhas pasha
gustav robert kirchhoff
karl friedrich hieronymus munchhausen
baron von karl friedrich hieronymus munchhausen

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Tue May 10, 2005 3:14 am

Rabid Garfunkel wrote:Scrabble...

baron von karl friedrich hieronymus munchhausen

What kind of modifier do you get if your word uses every letter in the bag and stretches across 3 boards? Double? Triple?

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Tue May 10, 2005 6:22 am

well, spaces aren't allowed...
but if you could use all the letters in the bag in one legal word i'd let you win.
-bill

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Tue May 10, 2005 8:15 pm

HeuristicsInc wrote:well, spaces aren't allowed...
but if you could use all the letters in the bag in one legal word i'd let you win.
-bill

more than spaces, proper nouns aren't allowed.

j$ · Post by j$ » Wed May 11, 2005 2:27 am

And also you're only allowed 8 tiles. Unless this is space scrabble we're talking about ....

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Wed May 11, 2005 8:01 am

Puce wrote:What kind of modifier do you get if your word uses every letter in the bag and stretches across 3 boards? Double? Triple?

Also you're not allowed to use three boards. Puce, you sure don't know how to play scrabble.