Hitchhikers Guide

Minkle · May 19, 2005

Hay all,

Anyone seen the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie? I saw it a couple days ago and really can't make my mind up. The only point of reference I have aside from the book(s) is the Beebs TV series, which I loved. Ok, so I can live with the American accents (sorry guys but originally they were Brits) and Ford Prefect being a cool black guy as opposed to a bumbling, white accountant type but the movie just seemed to be to...kinda abridged. Marvin was very good, Alan Rickman has the perfect voice for the part and Deep Thought having a female voýce was a suprising stroke of genius.

Dunno, just dunno. Deffo worth watching if just for 2 hours of giggles.

Love you all, peace.

RELAYER · May 19, 2005

it was an ok movie i saw it last week. i wasnt too crazy about the book though either

Apples+Oranjes · May 19, 2005

My boyfriend wants to go see that, and I'm apprehensive... It just doesn't look appealing to me, I guess.

Dude · May 19, 2005

is it out already, i tought it would be released much later

Bhaskar · May 21, 2005

It was very disappointing. The plot was changed considerably, which is fine, but it didnt have enough detail and it just was not funny enough. Sad.

John221 · May 21, 2005

Bhaskar said:

It was very disappointing. The plot was changed considerably, which is fine, but it didnt have enough detail and it just was not funny enough. Sad.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think a lot of the humour and the timing was really off. Not as bad as I expected though, but it doesn't come close to being as good as the book or the TV series.

Blinkandimgone · May 21, 2005

Would you recommend watching it then?

matty mcfatty · May 21, 2005

yes!!! look up my old hichhikers thread there are a lot better reviews from nerds like me that saw it the day it came out!!

Bhaskar · May 21, 2005

As a huge fan, i was muchly disappointed... but watch if you must...

DoktorAtomik · May 23, 2005

To quote myself from another thread:

Frankly, the movie sucked hairy goat testicles. It was bad, bad, bad. It had its moments, but it was essentially a sad bastardisation of HHGTTG. I was left with the impression that the director had made a huge effort to familiarise himself with the source material and stay true to it, but unfortunately, he just didn't 'get it'.

Where was Marvin? You could've removed him from the film and nobody would've noticed.

Why were they going to Magrathea? Nobody ever bothered to explain that in the movie.

Why the fuck was there a gate to Deep Thought on Magrathea? Just coz it was a bit handy for the 'plot'?

Magrathea's been closed for an awfully long time. Did anyone mention this? Any sense of mystery, like in the book? Helloooooooo??? Christ, the BBC managed a more atmospheric Magrathea on a shoestring.

And no mention of the Drenassi. Why the fuck did the Vogons pich up Ford and Arthur??? Only the Drenassi make sense of that, but they were cut.

Huma Kaluva. Can anyone explain what, in god's name, was the fucking POINT of this whole subplot? Considering the amount of material that they seem to have deemed it necessary to hatchet from the original story, why the fuck are they wasting screen time with this pointless diversion???

Speaking of cuts, the original book was based on four half-hour radio episodes. That's two hours, for any Americans that might be reading. Why then, with two hours of source material, did they need to make any damn cuts to start with? It's not Lord of the Rings, for fuck's sake.

And what about the guide entry on Earth? "Mostly Harmless"? I mean, for fuck's sake, it's only like one of the most defining moments of the whole fucking story and one of the most iconic fucking lines that define the whole bloody book!!!!

And speaking of the guide, where the fuck is it? It hardly gets a mention, considering it's the whole point of the fucking story.

Oh yeah, and no mention that the Earth was destroyed five minutes before completion of its program. Which raises another interesting point - why are the mice so in need of Arthur's brain. In the original, the Magratheans were building Earth Mk II from scratch, so it would've been a primordial swamp. In the movie, they're restoring it from a backup, complete with all its inhabitants at the point of destruction. Which would presumably include, if they wished, a replacement Arthur Dent. So why the fuck do the mice need his brain?!?!?!?!? It's this kind of unforgivable, sloppy plotting that makes the movie so bad. I could maybe live with it if there even appeared to be any point behind the changes made to the story, but it seems like they make changes just for the hell of it and fuck the story up in the process. I mean, why does Earth Mk II need to be a duplicate of the destroyed Earth? What purpose does that change serve other than stopping the story making any kind of sense?!?!?

And where were the talking doors on the Heart of Gold? Eddie's backup personality? An explanation of the improbability drive? An explanation for why the Heart of Gold picks up Arthur and Ford? Southend pier? The Vogon guard? The jump to Barnard's star and the brilliant joke about being drunk?

As a closer, try this for size. Arthur's conversation with Mr Prosser:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the Display Department."
"With a torch."
"The lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But you found the plans, didn't you?"
"Oh yes, they were 'on display' in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'"

Movie version:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"But you found the plans, didn't you?"

The alterations made to the story by the movie seem mostly consist of taking the bits out that made it funny. What a waste of fucking time.

1. Why did the Vogons pick up Ford and Arthur if they hate hithchikers?

2. Why did the Heart of Gold just happen to be around when Ford and Arthur were ejected into space, and why did it pick them up?

3. Why did Zaphod need to steal the Heart of Gold to get to Magrathea?

4. Why did Hula wotsit need to use Zaphod to get the perspective gun? Why didn't he just go and get it himself?

5. Why did there happen to be a perspective gun lying around in the bowels of Deep Thought and how did Hula know it was there?

6. Why was there a gateway to Deep Thought on Magrathea?

7. Why did the mice need Arthur's brain when the Magrathean's could just make another one?

8. Why was Zaphod going to Magrathea in the first place? There was never any indication that he knew it was conveniently connected with Deep Thought.

And that's just off the top of my head. In the book, all of this made sense. In the film, they've fucked it up so there's no coherent logic. Basically, it's shit.
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Bhaskar · May 24, 2005

Sad, but true.

hairybuckeye · May 25, 2005

I think in genral man it was just to watered down and it seemed like it was just thrown togather. It didn't flow very well either. I have to add I'v never read the book but I'm deffentlly gonna now. It left me with the feeling that there's alot of good material it just wasn't utlized in the movie.

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