Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy
 

Looks good. 'Star Wars' on acid. Even while watching the trailer, the audience at the theater was laughing out loud (LOL). Anyone else planning on seeing it?

Seeing it in roughly 3 hours.

Was gonna see it this morning but sadly I had a crap load of stuff to do. Might see it monday so I can get in really cheap.

Can't see it this weekend, so I'm probably going to go Monday night.

I'll probably see it sometime this weekend. I'm not going expecting it to be anything like the book, since if I do it'll be disappointing.

A reviewer talking about it today, and a review I read online, mentions the severe lack of Guide-narrated little lulls in the plot. That's to be expected. You can't have a film interpersed with hilarious, but utterly irrelevant to the narrative, anecdotes.

I wonder if I took my daughters to it, if it would be too much for them...

Saw it,. Loved it. Sam Rockwell is easily one of my favorite actors currently.

Well the screenplay was written in large by Adams himself before he died. It's faithful, though different (new characters created by Adams for the movie) to the book in my opinion.

The reviews I've heard stated it's very close to the book.

Thing i,s books and movies are two different mediums. It's unfair to complain that one doesn't match the other exactly.

Yep that's why I always I always look at the book and the movie as being two alternate universes so to speak, different ways of telling the same story. Only time I have a hard time doing that is when they completely basterdize the original source material, completely destroying it.

It's not unfair, it's just that made the book so good wasn't the plot, but the situations and the ideas, and realistically no movie would ever be able to include those. It's not that I am complaining, but that it will inevitably be disappointing.

The example used by the reviewer I heard today is that when Arthur is given the Babel Fish, apparently the Guide's explanation of how a book used the Babel fish as proof of why God cannot exist, because it proves he must exist is completely gone from the film.

I really don't remember the god part but maybe I missed it, they do occasionaly break from the "plot" for quotes from the book and the awesome scene where the missiles get turned into a bowl of petunias and a whale is in the movie as well.

Is it a literal translation of the book? No, but at very least it is Adams vision of a new telling for the story.

I meant to say that part was gone from the film.

Anyway, I'm agreeing with you. I'll be trying to watch this as a new medium, trying not to compare it to the old radio and TV series, and most of all the books.

Yeah, I really want to see this. It looks hot, but I'm trying not to expect an exact clone of the book, as usually is the case when it comes to literature-to-movie format.

Ahhh, good, tought I was going crazy and missed that or something heh. Yeah now that you mention it that was one of my favorite bits in the book.

Yeah, we pretty much are just saying the exact same thing heh. I just wanted to make it clear that this is not a case where the film does not resemble the book at all.

So Lara, what's your thought of kids under 11 seeing it?

I'd say it's fine the rating is PG, not even 14A. Only one real problematic scene, where we get an off screen sawing off of a head, you hear a saw and stuff but not really any blood or anything, but it's clear what happened other than that and really gross looking Jim Henso created Puppet Aliens, I'd say it's fine. Just IMO of course.

Keep in mind this is Lara, Queen of the slasher flicks. :$

Yes but in this case the rating system tends to agree as it is only rated PG, G even in Quebec and BC

I...it was a joke. :$ I would have settled for a simple Kane Knight ":p" response. :$

LOL

":p"

That's the one. :love:

Oh I know it was a joke. I have a bad habit of trying to be "funny" by being litteral, it quite often fails.

:y:

Just saw it, good stuff here.

I have to say, I agree with ECG's assessment of new media.

That is, if new media refers to bad delivery, weak acting, and a cheesey romance plot that puts this movie about on par with the rest of the summer lot. Oh look! Mopey starcrossed lovers! All they needed was a few kung fu moves, and they could have had the Matrix.

Oh for sure, afterall since it is based on a prior medium, it has to have a certain amount of tie in, but people that dissect a movie because of it's 'lack ofs' aren't being completely fair... but yes, it must have linear connections.

I didnt really like the film. It wasnt a bad film, just wasnt a very good film. Its cgi couldnt carry it throughout the whole movie. Most critiques I have read said that if you havent read the book, then you wont relate to the movie and I agree with this.

I liked the film, it's just that it was mediocre.

The main selling point is its basis on a popular and well-written book series, and there was no way this could live up to that. Seperate, it doesn't have the same potential, and from what I've heard from friends today, most of them back up your "if you haven't read the book" assessment.

So you are saying is that without reading the book, the movie won't make sence?

No no, the movie makes perfect sense, except for a few things that obviously made no sense (what the hell is with the towel thing? I never read the book).

What I meant by it is that you just dont have the same appeal to it as people who read the book and were going into the movie saying "I read this book so I already relate to this movie before it even starts" type of thing.

I went in thinking it was going to be one way and came out with a different perspective on the movie.

The towel bit is explained in the book in terms of not only usefulness, but psychological value as well. I won't go into the long-ass exerpt on it, but it's only going to make sense to fans of the book as is.

It's pretty good... if you're into it. Definitely a lot of British humor and inside jokes. A personally totally ignorant of the series will probably be confused.

Though Marvin totally stole the show.

"Incredible. It's even worse than I imagined."

I saw it on Sunday night. It started off well, aside from the fancy dress party inexplicably becoming "the night before" rather than 6 months earlier. No real reason for that to be done.

In fact, the whole Humma Kavula thing was very unnecessary (Douglas Adams wrote him into the screenplay, for whatever reason I don't know), and Trillian's character was reduced to a love interest, a damsel-in-distress.

I liked the parts with the book, the way they treated Magrathea. I just think they wasted a whole lot of time on an unnecessary diversion to the Vogon planet, when the original story could easily have filled the same time, and been as perilous.

I forgot to add: they could have lost some of the middle parts and devoted more time to the start of the film. It was very rushed.

Most of the complaints actually come from this too.

I've read a ton of reviews online that complained that so much of the movie was designed such that you only got the jokes or references if you already knew the series.

Or they could have deleted the intro musical number, which was a tiresome joke about 12 seconds in.

saw it the other day, it was alright just nothing really that special

The sad thing is I liked the BBC one better. And people might say it's because it was faiyhful to the book, but it really wasn't all that faithful. However, I felt the actors portrayed the feel a lot better. The rushed delivery of so many of Ford and Arthur's lines in the beginning of this one was quite a turnoff, and I wasn't HUGE on the casting. Though I must say. MARVIN. WAS. AWESOME. BEYOND. ALL. BELIEF.

It was OK. Sam Rockwell was great and that depressed robot was pretty funny, but other than that, meh.