Hitchhiker's Guide

[St-Dumas]

GOTTA SEE IT! GOTTA SEE IT! GOTTA SEE IT!

Who agrees? Looks so awesome!

[Canada Maestro]

I don't know if I "GOTTA SEE IT" but I am kinda looking forward to it. I decided recently to read the books first. After reading the first 2 I was really looking forward to the movie. After reading the next two books and half of the fifth my eagerness has wavered a bit.

[Socko]

As long as it shows the whale falling to the planet...



"Whats that?....

I wonder if it will be my friend..."

[x 35]

RULE NUMBER ONE DON'T PANIC NUMBER TWO IS READ THE ORIGINAL BOOKS FIRST IF YOU HAVE THAT OPTION . FOR I THINK THE MOVIE IS WHAT DESTROIES THE EARTH NOT THE ALIENS WHO ARE BUILDING A HYPERSPACE PANGOLACTIC SUPER HIGHWAY CAUSE REMBER BEFORE HE JOINED GEENE RODENBERRY HE WAS THE OVERSEERER. THANK YOU VERY MUCH! :confused: :surprised :laugh: :devious: :devious: :devious: :devious:

[The Qwardian]

If they talk about the babel fish the same way they did in the miniseries I will be one happy camper.

[St-Dumas]

Originally posted by x 35
RULE NUMBER ONE DON'T PANIC NUMBER TWO IS READ THE ORIGINAL BOOKS FIRST IF YOU HAVE THAT OPTION . FOR I THINK THE MOVIE IS WHAT DESTROIES THE EARTH NOT THE ALIENS WHO ARE BUILDING A HYPERSPACE PANGOLACTIC SUPER HIGHWAY CAUSE REMBER BEFORE HE JOINED GEENE RODENBERRY HE WAS THE OVERSEERER. THANK YOU VERY MUCH! :confused: :surprised :laugh: :devious: :devious: :devious: :devious:

Good knowledge, but answer this: What is the best item to take with you when hitchhiking (Besides the Guide)?

[Mr. Gone]

TOWEL OF COURSE!

[de4dp00l]

First off, anyone planning on seeing this movie - don't read the books first. You'll only be dissappointed. See the movie, enjoy it, and then read the books. See, the books are jam packed full of subtle details, as well as detailed descriptions of incredibly intricate nonsense, which the movie will never convey. Not to mention the fact that the movie version of Zaphod will clearly not be slapping both foreheads and his knee at the same time in an incredible move which it is pointless to attempt to describe.

[Spider-Bat]

Originally posted by Mr. Gone
TOWEL OF COURSE! The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on the sunject of towels.

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an intesteller hitchiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brillaint marble-sanded beaches of Sanraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoo; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a brush, but very very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towle has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: nonhitchiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towle with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possesion of a toothbrush, washcloth, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet-weather gear, space suit, etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these items that the hitchhiker might have accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odd, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

On a related note, my Hitchhiker's T-shirt and sweatshirt just got here from J!NX. Woot!

[Socko]

ah the towel.


Its uses are neverending.

[St-Dumas]

Socko, this is for you.

Another thing that got forgot was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.
And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with it’s identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.
This is a complete record of its thought from the moment it began it’s life till the moment it ended it.
Ah…! What’s happening? It thought.
Er, excuse me, who am I?
Hello?
Why am I here? What’s my purpose in life?
What do I mean by who am I?
Calm down, get a grip now…oh! This is an interesting sensation, what is it? It’s a sort of…yawning, tingling sensation in my…my…well, I suppose I’d better start finding names for things if I want to make any headway in what for the sake of what I shall call the world, so let’s call it my stomach.
Good. Ooooh, it’s getting quite strong. And hey, what about this whistling roaring sound going past what I’m suddenly going to call my head? Perhaps I can call that…wind! Is that a good name? It’ll do…perhaps I can find a better name for it later when I’ve found out what it’s for. It must be something very important because there certainly seems to be a hell of a lot of it. Hey! What’s this thing? This…let’s call it a tail-yeah, tail. Hey! I can really thrash this thing pretty good, can’t I? Wow! Wow! That feels great! Doesn’t seem to achieve much but I’ll probably find out what it’s for later on. Now, have I built up any coherent picture of things yet?
No.
Never mind, hey, this is really exciting, so much to find out about, so much to look forward to, I’m quite dizzy with anticipation…
Or is it the wind?
There really is a lot of that now, isn’t there?
And wow! Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming toward me very fast? Very, very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide-sounding name like…ow…ound…round…ground! That’s it! That’s a good name-ground!
I wonder if it will be friends with me?

And the rest, after a sudden wet thud, was silence.

[Wyldstaar]

I say that you should not only read the book before seeing the film, but you should also listen to the original radio production (or read the transcript if you can't find it on CD), buy the TV mini-series on DVD, find a theatre that is running a production of the theatrical play version, and play the Infocom computer game (readily available for download from several sites online). After doing all of this, you will realize that Douglas Adams wrote each version of the story for these various mediums to suit said medium. This will lessen the shock when the movie version is different from the radio, book, play, and computer game. It's SUPPOSED to be different.

[hail_eris]

Incidentally, BBC is actually creating the Guide. They're doing it Wiki-style, so you can check and update entries from handheld devices around the globe (and, someday, around the galaxy). Before his death, Adams made a comment about how something that started out as a plot device has ended up being an awfully good idea.

[AZS]

Originally posted by Canada Maestro
I don't know if I "GOTTA SEE IT" but I am kinda looking forward to it. I decided recently to read the books first. After reading the first 2 I was really looking forward to the movie. After reading the next two books and half of the fifth my eagerness has wavered a bit.The fourth book "So long and thanks for all the fish" was probably my favorite. But it doesn't really fit into the whole Hitchhiker's Guide story the way the first 3 do.

The fifth book, well I proptly beat my head against a wall to forget every word in that book. Wow, what a tragedy that one was. But hey, everyone has their "Phantom Menace."
So stop reading at the forth book and call it a trillogy. :)


And Socko, I have it on good authority that the Whale scene is in the movie.

[thespiderfly]

Originally posted by St-Dumas
GOTTA SEE IT! GOTTA SEE IT! GOTTA SEE IT!

Who agrees? Looks so awesome!
I'm taking off work Friday to see it... so I agree. :)

[Miraclo]

I was initially more excited about the movie than I've become. At least one review I've read,
http://www.planetmagrathea.com/shortreview.html
based on an end of March screening, says that most of the humor's been drained from it, and partially replaced with lower wit. Is that a review from someone who is too much a fan of the text to abide any changes? It's too difficult to tell from this distance. The link above is to a fairly spoiler-free review, though at that spot he also provides a link to a huge, spoiler-filled review -- perhaps too much text, even, to take the reviewer for being more than a crank.

Certainly, the commercials shifted a couple weeks ago from those pushing it as a comedy to those pushing it as a "mind-blowing spectacular", though this week I'm seeing some more mentions of comedy.

For the moment I'm undecided. It's not riding high on my list.

[ChrisClix]

Gotta disagree azs. I though the fifth book was the payoff of the whole series - particularly the last 30 pages. It tied up all the loose ends from the first four. The first book is the best, but the fifth is probably my favorite.

Originally posted by azs
The fourth book "So long and thanks for all the fish" was probably my favorite. But it doesn't really fit into the whole Hitchhiker's Guide story the way the first 3 do.

The fifth book, well I proptly beat my head against a wall to forget every word in that book. Wow, what a tragedy that one was. But hey, everyone has their "Phantom Menace."
So stop reading at the forth book and call it a trillogy. :)


And Socko, I have it on good authority that the Whale scene is in the movie.

[Spidey's Sub]

For those interested, I caught the premiere last night here in Dallas. Thus, I also have it on good authority that the whale scene is in the movie.

I read the books in junior high (about 15 years ago) and do not remember everything, but I think that was for the best. While DA wrote a majority of the screenplay, there are differences from the book: 3-way relationship between Trill & Arthur & Zaphod and they made it a point to add more action.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie - the style, special effects, rendering of the characters, and the love story wasn't bad either.

[Canada Maestro]

And if for some reason the whale scene was cut, you can see it on yahoo movies. :)

[lensnart]

I was sorely dissapointed by the film. A movie should not follow the book scene for scene but it should at least follow the basic storyline. This film takes a crazy genius idea and turns it into a family friendly adventure love story, Disney strikes again. All of the intelligent humor has been sucked out. Right from the opening when Ford's wonderful exchange with the foreman has been replaced by him giving the workers beer, it is easy to see where this is going.

If you haven't read the books I can not suggest strongly enough read them after you see the movie. Newbies will likely enjoy the movie and then go on to love the books as other then a few large plot points the only similarity that the two share is the character names and the underlying importance of towels. Putting Douglas Adams' name on a script that he had very little to do with by the finished product was a mean joke. This is exactly the film that he was trying to block from the screen right up until his death.

[The Charlatan]

Went in not expecting a fully faithful adaptation of the book, didn't get one, liked it fine. Yes, of course there's a bit removed, but the first book wasn't that really long in the first place, however good it was. They added an adventure/stop on both the Vogon homeworld and before that on (had to look it up in the book) Viltvodle VI.

So, anyone else want a pet Vogonian jeweled crab?

[turdburglar47]

Never read the book, thought the movie was enjoyable but not fantastic, Zooey Deschanel is adorable. The End.

[Grinner]

I loved it and plan on seeing it again. I was hoping that it would be different. That's one of Adams' running jokes with the Guide - none of them are the same. And let's face it - the original source materials were far to long to be directly translated to a 2 hour movie.

[The Red Baron]

i cried openly in the audience & my eyes bleed. the movie was that bad.

[Wyldstaar]

It was awsome. I will see it again and again until it's available on DVD. I can't get "So Long and Thanks for all the Fish" out of my head!

[AZS]

Saw it saturday night and enjoyed it tremendously.

I was still laughing an hour later at "Oh, the gate is closed, we'll have to go around."

It was different from the book, but that didn't detract from the experience for me. And I read the books at least 12 years ago, so I don't remember them all that well anyway.

[Socko]

suddenly-brought-into-being-sperm-whales-that-fall-seven-miles-to-the-surface-of-a-planet are awesome.


That was entertaining.

I liked it.

The scene where they were in the planet construction hangar was beautiful. So many pretty colors...

[Magnito]

It was good. But that's it. The books on the other hand were GREAT!!!!! My major quastion before seeing it was if it would be just the first book or the whole quote-unquote "trilogy". I was happy that it was just the first, and leaves me wondering if there will be a "Resteraunt at the End of the Univerce" movie.

[Silver Ghost]

I went to see it with my dad, my brother, and my wife....all four of us have read the books and we had mixed reviews:

My wife and I both enjoyed it, but we went into it thinking it would have to be changed A LOT to fit into a 90 minute film format...the books are A TON better, but the movie was enjoyable 3 out of 5. :)

My Dad liked a lot of the one liners, enjoyed the parts of the movie that were faithful to the book but was overall not impressed. 2 out of 5. :ermm:

My brother thought they butchered it, he wasn't happy at all (but he was laughing a lot thoughout the film - I think he was disappointed by the ending. 1 out of 5. :(

Plusses: I thought ARTHUR was well cast, as were FORD and ZAPHOD. Lots of great lines from the books. :grin:
Neutral: TRILLIUM was cute but not enthralling, didn't like her "enhanced" role. :cross-eye
MINUSES: MARVIN should have been GREAT! Alan Rickman was perfect but it just didn't pull off. The end was pretty rushed. :angry:

Overall, I'd recommend it - but go into it knowing it is NOT a totally faithful adaptation of the books...still funny, and grabs the essence, but really it's a product in its own right.

[Silver Ghost]

I went to see it with my dad, my brother, and my wife....all four of us have read the books and we had mixed reviews:

My wife and I both enjoyed it, but we went into it thinking it would have to be changed A LOT to fit into a 90 minute film format...the books are A TON better, but the movie was enjoyable 3 out of 5. :)

My Dad liked a lot of the one liners, enjoyed the parts of the movie that were faithful to the book but was overall not impressed. 2 out of 5. :ermm:

My brother thought they butchered it, he wasn't happy at all (but he was laughing a lot thoughout the film - I think he was disappointed by the ending. 1 out of 5. :(

Plusses: I thought ARTHUR was well cast, as were FORD and ZAPHOD. Lots of great lines from the books. :grin:
Neutral: TRILLIUM was cute but not enthralling, didn't like her "enhanced" role. :cross-eye
MINUSES: MARVIN should have been GREAT! Alan Rickman was perfect but it just didn't pull off. The end was pretty rushed. :angry:

Overall, I'd recommend it - but go into it knowing it is NOT a totally faithful adaptation of the books...still funny, and grabs the essence, but really it's a product in its own right.

[Silver Ghost]

I went to see it with my dad, my brother, and my wife....all four of us have read the books and we had mixed reviews:

My wife and I both enjoyed it, but we went into it thinking it would have to be changed A LOT to fit into a 90 minute film format...the books are A TON better, but the movie was enjoyable 3 out of 5. :)

My Dad liked a lot of the one liners, enjoyed the parts of the movie that were faithful to the book but was overall not impressed. 2 out of 5. :ermm:

My brother thought they butchered it, he wasn't happy at all (but he was laughing a lot thoughout the film - I think he was disappointed by the ending. 1 out of 5. :(

Plusses: I thought ARTHUR was well cast, as were FORD and ZAPHOD. Lots of great lines from the books. :grin:
Neutral: TRILLIUM was cute but not enthralling, didn't like her "enhanced" role. :cross-eye
MINUSES: MARVIN should have been GREAT! Alan Rickman was perfect but it just didn't pull off. The end was pretty rushed. :angry:

Overall, I'd recommend it - but go into it knowing it is NOT a totally faithful adaptation of the books...still funny, and grabs the essence, but really it's a product in its own right.

[Silver Ghost]

Wow.
Triple post.
sorry.
:ermm:

[R0GUE]

This is exactly the film that he was trying to block from the screen right up until his death.

Where did you get this info exactly? I am just curious. It seemed to me the producers went out of their way to dedicate the movie to his memory. I don't think they did it as a "mean joke" as you put it. Plus, I had heard that Adams was really involved with writing the script up until he died.

Anyway, I enjoyed the movie even with the changes. The worst thing they could have done was try to go word for word from the book (ala the BBC Series).

[Wyldstaar]

Douglas Adams was more than just involved with the screenplay. He wrote the thing himself. After his untimely death, Karey Kirkpatrick was assigned the task of re-writing it. Upon reading a few of the drafts already done by Adams, Kirkpatrick made only a few extremely minor alterations to the final script. He even put back in a few of the items from ealier drafts that Adams dropped for time constraints. The only major change that Kirkpatrick commited to the script was Marvin vs the Frogstar Scout Robot Class D. This was Adams' favorite scene from the novels, and he shoehorned it into the script. Hopefully there will be sequels, and we'll get to see it in the future. While I was looking forward to the scene, I can't really blame Kirkpatrick for cutting it. It would have made a great bit, but it required a major detour in the plot just to accomodate it.

BTW, the BBC TV mini-series didn't try to go word for word from the novel. At the time of the TV mini-series screenplay being written, the novel didn't yet exist. The TV mini-series was based on the BBC Radio mini-series, which was the very first incarnation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The screenplay for the TV mini-series was also written by Adams himself. If you've never heard the radio series before, I'd highly recommend it's acquisition ASAP. Last time I checked it was out of print, but anything can be found on Amazon regardless of whether it's still in production.

[St-Dumas]

I finally saw it yesterday and I love it.

*MILD SPOILERS*







Did anyone else notice the references to the old BBC show?

1) When they first showed a picture of the Guide, they played the old theme song.
2) When Arthur, Ford and Zaphod were cutting in line to release Trillian, one of the people in line was the old version of Marvin.

[Wyldstaar]

Did anyone else notice the references to the old BBC show?

1) When they first showed a picture of the Guide, they played the old theme song.
2) When Arthur, Ford and Zaphod were cutting in line to release Trillian, one of the people in line was the old version of Marvin.

3) Simon Jones (the actor who portrayed Arthur Dent for radio & TV) as the Magarathean hologram.

4) Starbix cereal, from the Guide's Glossary on the TV version. The name of the cereal was only shown on the TV version, and even then only in the animated guide entry. This is the cereal that Zaphod is eating throughout the film.

5) Douglas Adams himself as the final goofy 'POP' of the Heart of Gold as it raced off to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Aside from being a final tribute to one of the greatest authors of all time, it was also a practice done throughout the TV series. In episode two, Adams was the man at the bank to acquire the small green pieces of paper which he later tossed onto the beach as he walked into the ocean. The guide's picture of Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings is merely a drawing of Adams with pigtails. For the guide entry of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporations executives, one of the many executives shown is Adams. Acording to the final credits of the film, one of the planets on the factory floor of Magarathea was shaped like Adams' head. I've only seen it once so far, and I missed it. I hope to catch it when I see the movie again this week.

Anyone else picked up on any 'Easter Eggs'?

[St-Dumas]

You guys think they'll mak the next two books? I hope it makes enough money.

[Magnito]

Why stop after only 3. They should make the entire trilogy. ;)

[WakandaMan]

It was great! Although, I felt like I'd heard all the good jokes before from the books and the TV series. However, my girlfriend and other friends who haven't read the book or seen the original thought it was truly amazing.

[warden]

In the words of Marvin, "Hated it". The actors' comic timing seemed poor compared to the original radio show cast and the entire movie never got a decent laugh from the cinema audience that I saw it with. And, for a movie, it seemed to be remarkably low budget. Its production values seemed weaker than the BBC TV series and the graphics for the book seemed especially feeble by comparison. The computer credit went to an outfit called "Shynola" which seemed appropriate.

I must listen to the original this week again to remind myself how good it was and overwrite the memory of the movie ASAP.

Andrew

[Wyldstaar]

Why stop after only 3. They should make the entire trilogy. ;)

As much as I love the works of Douglas Adams, I don't think that all five novels would work as a movie. Restaurant at the End of the Universe will fit quite easily, and has already been hinted toward. Life, the Universe, and Everything was originally written to be a movie in the first place. It was supposed to be a Doctor Who movie starring Tom Baker. The studio thought it was too goofy and dropped the project. How they could think that DNA's story idea wasn't worthy of a film, but the AWFUL Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies were worthy is beyond me. So Long and Thanks for all the Fish is so completely different from the rest of the 'trilogy' that it would be awkward. You must also keep in mind that Trillian was never really much of a love interest for Arthur in the novels. The fact that she's been set up as one in the film version makes the introduction of Fenchurch rather difficult. Mostly Harmless was such a difficult book to follow that it's not very viable either. Adams just abandoned Fenchurch completely in order to put Trillian back in (twice no less!). Even most diehard DNA fans such as myself didn't care for it, and felt that he should have stopped at four.

What I hope for now is that Hitchhiker's will be so successful that a studio decides to adapt Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency.

[Wyldstaar]

For all of you Hitchhiker's fans out there, The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Tertiary Phase is now available on CD. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Tertiary Phase is essentially a BBC Radio production of the novel Life, The Universe and Everything. The entire cast of the original radio series reprised their roles for this production except for the man who voiced the Guide. Unfortunately, he died some years ago and was thus unavailable. The series was one of the multitude of side projects Adams had going upon his own untimely death. I checked it out from my local Public Library recently, and it was excellent.

[Wyldstaar]

Two things-

First, Hitchhiker's was released on DVD yesterday. It's a decent dvd, but the extras are very lacking. There's a couple of commentary tracks and a making of bit that's only about 15 minutes long.

Second, I saw a commercial the other day for a new tv show called Bones. It's staring a woman named Emily Deshanel. Is this just Zooey with a name change (Zooey just isn't a name in the USA) or is she one of these sets of twins that have popped up over the past few years who don't link their carreers together (the London brothers, the D'abo sisters, etc.) the way the Olsen's have?

[Ignatz_Mouse]

(I just saw "Replies: 42" a chuckled to myself)

[Ignatz_Mouse]

Two things-

First, Hitchhiker's was released on DVD yesterday. It's a decent dvd, but the extras are very lacking. There's a couple of commentary tracks and a making of bit that's only about 15 minutes long.

Second, I saw a commercial the other day for a new tv show called Bones. It's staring a woman named Emily Deshanel. Is this just Zooey with a name change (Zooey just isn't a name in the USA) or is she one of these sets of twins that have popped up over the past few years who don't link their carreers together (the London brothers, the D'abo sisters, etc.) the way the Olsen's have?


IMDB says-- It's Zooey's sister. She was in Spider-Man 2, stiffing Peter for the pizzas he delivered late.

[Wyldstaar]

So she is. It also says that she's not even Zooey's twin. They just look like it I guess. Now that I think about it, I suppose it's possible that the London brothers and the D'abo sisters aren't twins either. Maybe they just look the same. I've never personally known any siblings that looked so much alike without being twins, so it didn't occur to me.

[hail_eris]

Having finally seen the movie for the first time yesterday, I've gotta say that Zooey is criminally cute in glasses and knee-high striped athletic socks. Why on earth did she have to change?

[Wyldstaar]

I agree. If Arthur can go through the entire movie in his robe and pajamas, then Trillian can spend the film in boxers and sox. It may not have made much sense in regards to the story, but it would be nice to look at.

[FoxInStocks]

Having finally seen the movie for the first time yesterday, I've gotta say that Zooey is criminally cute in glasses and knee-high striped athletic socks. Why on earth did she have to change?

I feel better knowing that I'm not the only one who thought this.