Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Reviewed - Bad -Real bad.

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the film adaptation of "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy," focusing on its perceived shortcomings compared to the original material, including the books, radio series, and TV adaptations. Participants express their views on the film's humor, plot coherence, character portrayals, and overall fidelity to Douglas Adams' work.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant argues that the film is "vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad," claiming it lacks the humor and essence of the original story.
  • Another participant questions the purpose of adapting a well-loved story into a film if it is changed to the point of being unrecognizable, suggesting profit motives behind such adaptations.
  • A participant expresses a preference for the BBC TV series and the original book over the film, indicating disappointment with the adaptation.
  • Some participants note that the film's plot is nonsensical and driven by convenience, with characters appearing where they should not logically be.
  • There is a discussion about whether the film's absurdity mirrors the original books, with one participant suggesting that the humor is missing from the film's silliness.
  • Another participant acknowledges that while the book's nonsense is funny, the film lacks the comedic elements that made the original work engaging.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally express dissatisfaction with the film, highlighting multiple competing views on its quality and fidelity to the source material. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the film's merits and its relationship to the original works.

Contextual Notes

Some participants reference the differences in humor and plot coherence between the film and the original works without reaching a consensus on the implications of these differences.

  • #31
infidel said:
Wish I had a recording of the original radio programme.


I've got one better: recordings of Douglas Adams himself, reading the whole series. Oh yes.
 
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  • #32
Here is another review:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4461899.stm

Verdict on the new big-screen version of Douglas Adams' much-loved science-fiction novel.

Don't panic - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is not as bad as I had feared. Then again, it is not as good as I had hoped.

Stuck in development hell for the best part of 26 years, Douglas Adams' book has finally reached the big screen - four years after the author's death.

Adams' deceptively complex novels are crammed full of witty erudition, great gags and lengthy digressions, so it was always going to be a struggle to turn it into a neatly packaged two-hour movie.

Understandably perhaps, huge swathes of the novel have been cut in order to make a consistent, story-led film.

At the same time, director Garth Jennings tries hard to retain the comedic essence that so defined Adams' originals.

Beguiling

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy centres on the hapless Arthur Dent, who awakes one morning to find his best friend is an alien, his planet is about to be destroyed and that he is somehow central to a galactic scientific experiment to determine the meaning of life itself.

What marked the book out as more than a mere comedic romp was the density of ideas that Adams managed to distil in the text - everything from handheld computing to existentialism to musings on cricket and maths.

Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell and Mos Def The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Rockwell (centre) plays Zaphod Beeblebrox, president of the galaxy
The key characters are all present in the film, with Dent played note perfect by The Office's Martin Freeman.

Sam Rockwell does a great turn as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed president of the galaxy; Mos Def is passable as Ford Prefect; while Zooey Deschanel is beguiling as Trillian.

As the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android, Alan Rickman perfectly conveys the character's world-weary disdain, despite being woefully underused.

A lot of effort has gone into keeping the film as faithful to Adams' vision as possible. But somewhere in the production process the crew has lost sight of the fundamental aspect of the books - they were immensely funny.

Truncated

The film burbles along at an amusing canter, occasionally rising to levels worthy of a chuckle. But unlike the books and radio series, it rarely makes you laugh out loud.

Some of the original gags find their way into the film version, but they feel neutered or truncated.

Screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick, who continued the adaptation work started by Adams, has had to make a number of sacrifices to get the text into cinematic form.

Unfortunately, one of the elements sacrificed is sense.

Martin Freeman and Mos Def in The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Martin Freeman (left) plays the befuddled hero, Arthur Dent
Hitchhiker fans will know what is happening, but newcomers will be left scratching their heads at a story that flits from one unpronounceable planet to another - each one populated by equally exotic-sounding characters.

Did I say characters? Hmmm. While Dent is a familiar cipher, audiences will be left clueless by Ford Prefect, bemused by Zaphod Beeblebrox and indifferent to Trillian.

Despite outstanding production design and some fantastic visual effects, overall the film is a bit of a mess. A charming mess, maybe, but a mess all the same.

Did the script veer too far away from the source material or tie itself in knots trying to keep faith with it?

Bizarrely, I think the answer is both.
 
  • #33
I have a dream:
That John Cleese, Michael Palin and the other old buddies of Douglas Adams get together and make a movie worthy of his masterpiece.
I don't think anyone but a university-educated Brit can pull off this story successfully.
 
  • #34
*moves Hitchhikers Guide.. from list of movies to see to list of movies to rent when the come out on video* Thanks for the review. That sounds dreadful to set up a joke and then leave out the punchline!
 
  • #35
Having glanced at IMBD, where the movie has gotten 8/10 (for 284 reviews) and rootentomatoes.com, it seems that the movie might be good after all, even if there are major plot changes.
Perhaps it is a good movie, however the damning review from planetmagrathea remains rather discouraging.
I have just discovered something, though:
The author at planetmagrathea claims that he saw this 31st March; if he wrote his piece the following day, can the whole review have been one of the most cruel April fool's jokes ever concocted??
 
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  • #36
arildno said:
I have just discovered something, though:
The author at planetmagrathea claims that he saw this 31st March; if he wrote his piece the following day, can the whole review have been one of the most cruel April fool's jokes ever concocted??

Ahh, never thought of that! I am still going to see it this weekend. Going into a movie with low expectations is always better then high.
 
  • #37
Just been to see it. I'm glad I did.

The acting was mostly piss-poor, much of the casting dire, and the screenplay dubious at best. As with any film, details of the book have been missed out, but so have large chunks of plot which a HHGG virgin might otherwise appreciate. Some of the best gags have been modified so slightly so as not to make a pragmatic difference, but so that they just lose their effect, and it's hard to see why this has been done.

However, the special effects were rather nicely done (particularly the shop floor scenes on Magrathea), and a small few of the characters (notably Alan Rickman as Marvin, and Zooey Deschanel as Trillian) played their parts true to the book, and with some degree of sympathy for the previous works. The original radio/TV series theme tune has at least been included, and there are some nice new ideas worked into the film. There's also a cracking dolphin song...


I walked in with low expectations, and came out slightly relieved that they hadn't ruined it as much as they could have done. My non-HHGG affiliated friends seemed to enjoy it, though found the plot different to follow at times. Did I mention the dolphin song?
 
  • #38
All right:
So, does it suffice if I imbibe a couple of pints (of beer, that is) before I watch the movie, or should I drink 3?
 
  • #39
arildno said:
All right:
So, does it suffice if I imbibe a couple of pints (of beer, that is) before I watch the movie, or should I drink 3?


3 should be ok, avoid piss breaks unless you fancy missing a few chapters of the book. Don't forget your towel...
 
  • #40
I saw the movie today. Its been years and years since I've read the books but I've always been a big fan. The movie wasn't that bad. I suspected it would be much worse. I wasn't rolling on the floor like I did reading the books (cause that would be gross in a movie theater), but I did enjoy it. If I wasn't a fan of the books I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much. I did get a few good chuckles out of it.
 
  • #41
Huckleberry said:
I saw the movie today. Its been years and years since I've read the books but I've always been a big fan. The movie wasn't that bad. I suspected it would be much worse. I wasn't rolling on the floor like I did reading the books (cause that would be gross in a movie theater), but I did enjoy it. If I wasn't a fan of the books I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it as much. I did get a few good chuckles out of it.
Finally someone says the truth. It wasn't a bad movie, the special effects were great, and it got *** 1/2 stars.
 
  • #42
I'm currently reading the books, but I've only read about three chapters. Despite that, I went to see the movie. I thought it was spectacular. Perhaps, because people already read the book, they feel it doesn't do the movie justice and have a predisposed view of it. I hadn't read LOTR before I saw the movie, and some people say the LOTR movies were bad. I've only read the Fellowship of the Ring atm, but I thought the movie was better. Tolkien's excessive imagery was meant for a movie rather than a book.

Basically, I think the movie deserves more recognition.
 
  • #43
I just don't understand how or why they intentionally made it less funny than the TV series. Oh well.
 
  • #44
I don't think most people in the U.S. would appreciate the type of humor in the original television series. Die hard fans would love all the inside jokes and cheesy humor, but the filmakers are trying to appeal to a wider audience. They don't want to exclude children from that list, and the finer points of the humor of Douglas Adams gets left out of the movie. I still think they did a pretty good job keeping in some of the funnier bits.
 
  • #45
I saw the movie last night. I was dying laughing through the opening song and through most of the first part of the movie. I saw it late at night and was tired so I got a little bored in the middle, but I consistently laughed out loud.

I wish they would have done more anti-god stuff :-)
 
  • #46
I saw it last night as well. I was very thoroughly unimpressed. Although there wasn't any toilet humor or anything, the jokes seemed like something a 15 year-old science geek might find funny. The dolphin song was just stupid. I'm not going to say the movie was terrible, but it did seem rather pointless. I've never read the book and my girlfriend (who has read it) told me that it was just meant to be clever and not have much in the way of plot or character development, but given that the movie really wasn't all that clever (I'd say I laughed at about half the jokes and rolled my eyes at the other half), a little bit of a storyline that an average viewer might actually care about would have been nice.
 
  • #47
Adams' writing doesn't transfer to film very well I don't think, though I have never seen the original movie or TV series. I'd say the guys from Monty Python probably would have done a better job but the humour would not have gone over well with most Americans.
I thought it was pretty good. In regards to the quality of the acting I thought that the majority of the characters were portraid rather well, even if portraying them well made the acting seem piss poor. I especially enjoyed the way Ford/Mos Def was always doing something with his towel and Zooey makes a damn fine Trillain.
 
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  • #48
I always enjoy Alan Rickman. He even makes Die Hard and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves watchable.
 
  • #49
Yeah so it's been a month since it came out and I was finally bored with $6 in my pocket with a few hours to kill right next to a theatre. That's what it took to get me in there. Unimpressed. Zooey is a good Trillian, Alan Rikman is a good Marvin - although Marvin looks really stupid, who ever heard of a fat robot? Did anyone else feel they should have used Dave Chappelle as Ford? :biggrin:
 
  • #50
Today, more than any other day, I've seen a lot of threads resurected
 
  • #51
Must not be much else interesting to talk about right now :devil:
 
  • #52
My family and I enjoyed it. We are now shopping for a copy so my daughter can read it. I read it years ago and think I understood more of the general idea of the story better then when I read the book.
 
  • #53
Yeah. Now that I've seen it I have to go re-read the book because the movie confused my memory of the story. I KNEW I should have just played video games at the arcade for those 2 hours I was waiting for my truck...
 
  • #54
I just saw it and it was so-so. I laughed at a few points. What made me laugh the most was watching my wife and other family members try to get their minds around the improbability drive. They were thoroughly confused. They liked "so long and thanks for all the fish" in the opening tune. What will I do with them?
 
  • #55
A trip to Sea World may be in order.
 
  • #56
There are a couple of good songs on the sound track that I would like to download if I could but I don't think I would spend the money for the whole CD.
 
  • #57
Huckleberry said:
..but the filmakers are trying to appeal to a wider audience. They don't want to exclude children from that list
That certainly seems true. My 11-year-old sister, who's never read any of the books and is into Neopets(.com), cats, and similar things, was laughing through most of the movie, especially around the part about the sperm whale suddenly being called into existence over an alien planet =)
 
  • #58
So what's the verdict? Should I rent it?
 
  • #59
Yes...rent it
 

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