Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

As opposed to...a martian actor? Venusian, maybe?

 

zaphod is cute. extra arms mean extra hands aye aye:H

 

Douglas would approve I think, the director is a longtime devoted fan of HH and not some highflyin director who thinks he knows how it should be, he's actually a follower of Adams work which is encouraging.

Also i think that everyone has a different idea of what the characters should look like.
for me, Ford Prefect in the series is EXACTLY how i imagined him...so i dunno how i'm gonna come to terms with him being played by Mos Def... its different for everyone though, if the film finds new fans for Hitchhiker then it can only be good!

while Douglas was writing the 5 books he always dreamt about doing it on big screen, the 'magical medium' as he put it, so i think its a good thing.

 

I bought the audio cassettes of the entire series.
The box has ''DON'T PANIC'' written all over it.
There's nothing better than putting the stereo
headphones on, switching off the lights and
drifting off to the mad stereo noises and voices
of the characters. Far better than watching the
actual programme on TV as your imagination runs
wild with it.

 

I agree, I really looked forward to listening to the radio shows before bed

 

Part-way through the book as we speak (I have all 5 in one big volume).

I heard that Adams actually worked on the screenplay for the movie until his death, and then whathisname (I forget, whoever else was wokring on it) took over, carrying on in the spirit Adams had started.

 

I'm off to see it tomorrow

 

Hmm.

They changed a lot. All within reason, though...they had to give the film a proper ending rather than leaving it all hanging like in the book.

Look out for human, robotic and musical cameos That's all I'm gonna say. I don't want to spoil the film by revealing a bit plot point, like how Slartibartfast dies.












Oops.

 

what a wanker!.... *shoots you with her slimy green goo gun*

 

Hah, don't worry, it's cool, Slartibartfast, despite the compelling argument for shooting him on the basis of such a stupid name, can never die! After all, who would build all the fjords (also a stupid word) in the universe?

 

Haha, you're on the ball Sal . Slartibartfast does, indeed, live to make planets again. Looks like you're not as gullible as I thought.

You realise that means I have to take your Silver Cheesegrater back, don't you?

 

i knooow saaaal, i just wanted an excuse to shoot someone with my new shiney goo gun.. !!! mwahahaa... i know to take what he says with a pinch of salt and a shot of goo!

i seeing it soon, me hopes!

 

So, that guy from Nickleback, how did he land the part of Zaphod?

Can I have it back now?

Also, whatever happened to Zaphod Beetlebrox (he spelt it wrong, and was horrified when I revealed the truth to him) who used to post on the forums? Jaz, do you know where he got to?

 

no... i don't...
why would i know?

oh yeah i know whyi would know... i knew him in real life didn't i...
i'll see if i can find him maybe he's under the sofa.

i'm actually VERY pleased about what i know about the movie so far, considering i'm like, a HHGTG freak... they're using the music they used in the radio series... the Hitchhiker theme music!! in the film!! oh yeeeeeeeaH!!
that made my smile...they're doing something right.
Haz.
Haz?
Jaz, more like

 

The dolphin sequence was great

Did you catch all the cameos from past stars of the TV show?

 

I saw it on Saturday and I loved it! I went with no hope of enjoying it (because my friends had told me it was a pile of pap) so I was really happy when it was better than I'd prepared for! Jonny actually cried when Marvin got shot, weirdo!

I want Trillian's outfit...

 

You call that a proper ending?

They could have easily kept to the proper story rather than introduce all that new stuff. They also seemed to miss out integral parts of the story as if they assumed you already knew them.

I think that the British casting was great .. but Americans just can't do British humour properly ... I reckon we could have done better with an English Ford Prefect ... he just didn't fit his supposed Guildford identity. A British Trillian would have been better too ... but Zaphod wasn't bad.

I was a bit disappointed overall, it came across as far too tacky, uneccessarily changed and even the layout of the guide looked really primitive.

 

Well, I agree he wasn't bad, but he sure as fuck wasn't the same Zaphod that was in the books. The Zaphod in the books was meant to be the coolest guy in the universe. Movie Zaphod was just a twat.

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.

 

Seeing as how there probably won't be a sequel, they needed the closure. Notice how Zaphod was simply looking for the question to the answer 42 rather than the entire twisty pretty plot in the book?

Talking about integral parts of the story missed out as if it was assumed the audience already knew them...did anyone catch Zaphod calling Ford "Ix"?

I prefer the TV series to the movie. Simon Jones was a great Arthur Martin Freeman was okay, but...but...well, here's another point. Some of the best jokes from the book (the few they kept in) got bugger all laughs. I think it was partly the audience, and partly that some of the lines just aren't done too well. When Arthur is introduced to Zaphod and he says "We've met" he sounds cheerful. "Oh hello there, mr bigshot multi-headed alien who stole a chick I was trying to get off with, pleased to see you again". Doesn't fit, and it's only made worse by Arthur's expression before that where he does look a bit pissed off at meeting Zaphod again. To paraphrase a great Ford Prefect line that they took out; "This is Arthur Dent from HHGTTG, not Mr Bloody Bean from that other show!"

 

Speaking of the TV series, it's on BBC2 tomorrow