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FF:QLD Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Discussion in 'Oceania Discussion Boards' started by kahli, Mar 6, 2005.

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  1. GoobaFish

    GoobaFish Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 15, 2002
    It seems the book is unavailable in most shops...people must be getting the book to read it before the movie.
    Just what I'm planning on doing, but couldn't the bookshops/distributors we aware of this and stock extra copies of the novel?
    Sheesh.
     
  2. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Well I doubt that the film will have anything in common to the book. About the only common thread to both will be the main characters nd the start of the story I would guess. Apart from that anything goes, as the radio drama, the book, and the BBC television series do differ quite a bit from each other story wise and I assume the movie will be the same.
     
  3. GoobaFish

    GoobaFish Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 15, 2002
    So should I go for the classic novel, or the movie adapted novel, assuming one is written?
     
  4. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Well if you are purist then the original novel. If you don't care either way however then the decision is yours to make and only yours ;)
     
  5. kahli

    kahli Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 1, 2000
    I think you'll find the movie one is just the original book with a new cover (hte cover reads, oddly enough, 'DON'T PANIC')

    If the LOTR movie tie in novels had been an adaptation of the movies then I'd've read them, but they weren't.

    Studios are lazy and tight.
     
  6. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Well why rewrite something when there is no need :p
     
  7. GoobaFish

    GoobaFish Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 15, 2002
    Money of course.

    People who own (and love) the novel will get the Movie novel, people who walk out of the movie will get the movie novel, then maybe the original.
    Money money money.
     
  8. kahli

    kahli Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 1, 2000
    Early review:

    prepare for a big read. (this doesn?t have any plot spoilers though)

    MJ Simpson, who has ?been studying and documenting the life and career
    of Douglas Adams for more than 20 years?, has written a very in-depth
    review and plot analysis of the Hitchhiker?s movie.


    The Hitchhiker?s Guide to the Galaxy movie is bad. Really bad. You just
    won?t believe how vastly, staggeringly, jaw-droppingly bad it is. I
    mean, you might think that The Phantom Menace was a hopelessly misguided
    attempt to reinvent a much-loved franchise by people who, though
    well-intentioned, completely failed to understand what made the original
    popular - but that?s just peanuts to the Hitchhiker?s movie. Listen.

    And so on...

    It?s bad on a big scale because enormous swathes of the story have been
    dispensed with - most of the Guide entries, whole scenes - or changed
    beyond all recognition. And it is bad on a small scale because many,
    many wonderful lines have been cut or in some cases actually rewritten
    to make them less funny. Whatever your favourite line from Hitchhiker?s,
    there?s a good chance that it won?t be in the film. Even if it?s really
    well-known, widely-quoted, much-loved, very funny - it will probably be
    absent from the movie. Or if it is there, it might have been changed.

    Douglas Adams was a dialogue writer. That was his skill - writing great
    dialogue. And when he had written it, he would rewrite it again and
    again and again, changing a word here or there because he knew that good
    comedy writing is like poetry. It has a meter to it and when you get the
    right words in the right order it just sounds right and nothing else
    will do. Douglas? dialogue was perfect. However, the makers of this
    film, despite all their talk of being faithful to Douglas? intentions
    and ideals, have seen fit to piss about with his carefully crafted,
    wonderfully quotable lines.
    -
    The dialogue between Arthur and Prosser, which was written for a sketch
    in a Cambridge Footlights revue in October 1973, is a terrific example
    of Douglas? clever way with - and love of - language:

    ?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.??

    Or, as the movie version has it:

    ?I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.?
    ?But you found the plans, didn?t you??
    -

    To put it bluntly, they have cut most of the jokes out. I?m not being
    metaphorical here, they really have, in a very literal sense, removed
    the jokes from the story. There are scenes where all we?re left with is
    the set-up dialogue, there are jokes where we get the feed-line but not
    the punchline. It?s astounding. Occasionally, the filmmakers have
    actually bothered replacing the jokes but they have replaced them with
    really, really pisspoor, unfunny jokes; they have replaced them with
    stupid playground humour and pointless slapstick.

    As well as being staggeringly unfunny - and Hitchhiker?s Guide really is
    one of the least funny comedy films ever made - the film also suffers by
    having an entirely nonsensical plot. It is driven by convenience and
    unexplained happenings. Characters just happen to be where they need to
    be and have what they need to have, even if it makes no sense for them
    to be there or to have that. Maybe it did make sense at one stage, but
    the film looks like it has had some heavy re-editing from the version
    seen in early previews and test screenings.


    With a plot that makes no sense, and most of the explanatory Guide
    entries either missing or so heavily cut that they might as well be
    missing, I fail to see how anyone who wasn?t already completely familiar
    with Hitchhiker?s Guide could possibly follow what is going on. And
    those of us familiar with the story will
     
  9. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Well, are we still up for it after reading that?
     
  10. Nyder

    Nyder Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 27, 2002
    I've missed out on seeing a lot of film's theatrical runs because of what some critics said. And sometimes I decided to see the film and give it a chance only to find out I quite enjoyed it. For example; Bride of Chucky.
     
  11. GoobaFish

    GoobaFish Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 15, 2002
    I'm nonplussed now.




    But still getting the book.
     
  12. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Well I saw the trailer today... Meh
     
  13. GoobaFish

    GoobaFish Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 15, 2002
    I enjoyed the trailer.

    But that review...makes it sound like it's just not cricket.
     
  14. NeecH

    NeecH Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 14, 2003
    Nyder... Any Chucky movie (bar the origina) will never get a good review from any major critic if only so that they can keep their reputation.
     
  15. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    On a presonal note I didn't even like the original, so...
     
  16. DarthOpus

    DarthOpus Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2002
    Used to have the radio show on record....

    Think that will come back on CD because of the movie?
     
  17. Kahlan72

    Kahlan72 Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 27, 2000
    Tell him he's dreamin
     
  18. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Of what? The Pink Elephant parade?
     
  19. Nyder

    Nyder Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 27, 2002
    What have you been taking, Grieyls? :p Are you having a Dumbo-acid trip? :p
     
  20. Grieyls

    Grieyls Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 2, 2000
    Nothing, this is the normal me :D
     
  21. DarthOpus

    DarthOpus Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2002
    Then pass the juice, I think you got the elephant portion.
     
  22. DarthOpus

    DarthOpus Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2002
    Seen the trailer.... Saw Zaphod's 3rd arm.. But where is his 2nd head?
     
  23. Lozza

    Lozza Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 8, 2005
    I haven't actually since the trailer but a friend tells me that it looks pretty good. *shrugs* I'll go see it in spite of the bad reviews... The critics don't always get it right.
     
  24. kahli

    kahli Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Dec 1, 2000
    It's in one of the trailers

    (boom boom)


    In his neck or chest, you only get a glimpse in the trailer
     
  25. DarthOpus

    DarthOpus Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2002
    Then how the F*&^% is he supposed to wear a bird cage over it in a party????

    I guess I will have to wait till a monday to go see it as a matinee and save a few bucks.
     
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