The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Eric Pascarello]

Just watching the trailers I can see tons of differences from the book!

I know I am going to see it, always thought that they should make this book into a movie since everyone seemed to borrow their company names, program names, etc. from it.

Eric

[Jeroen Wenting]

I've the 1980s flick made from the BBC series. At least that's pretty close to the book.
After the LOTR debacle (not commercially, but as seen through the eyes of a true Tolkien lover) I don't want another rape of a book for the sake of making a few million Hollywood dollars.

[Jim Yingst]

[JW]: I've the 1980s flick made from the BBC series. At least that's pretty close to the book.

I'm glad you approve, considering the BBC TV series predates the books. In the beginning there was the BBC radio series, which begat the BBC TV series, which begat the books, which begat more books, which begat the upcoming movie. Which will probably beget other books, TV series, comics, video games, and whatnot, eventually begetting a major holovid release in 2018 with really cool effects, which will achieve huge popular success across multiple planetary systems but be critically reviled by the few surviving humans who remember the 2005 movie and consider it sacrosanct. Sucks to be them, no?

I don't want another rape of a book for the sake of making a few million Hollywood dollars.

"a few million" == over 300 million per film, in the US alone. None of which has had any effect at all on the actual writings of Tolkien, except to sell many, many more copies of the books. How horrible!

[Angela Poynton]

Well I'm bloody excited.
I've read the book and it remains one of my favourites. I've heard the Radio Series too but not seen the BBC film.
I saw the trailer last night at the cinema and it looks fabulous. Marvin isn't quite how I imagined him but there's bound to be differences.
It does look amazing though and I'm so pleased it's Stephen Fry as The Book ... I always imagined The Book with Stephen Fry's voice.

[Axel Janssen]

I've heard which was a traduction of the BBC radio series in 80ties or very late 70ties, I think. Can remember that it had lots of parts and I liked it a lot.
Not sure if going to watch the movie.

[Jeroen Wenting]

"a few million" == over 300 million per film, in the US alone. None of which has had any effect at all on the actual writings of Tolkien, except to sell many, many more copies of the books. How horrible!

I hated how they raped the books for those movies... Key events were not just changed slightly for artistic license (I can live with that) but completely reversed.
For example Faramir's treatment of the Ringbearer was in complete contradiction to the writings of Tolkien. That's unforgivable. Even if the rest had been perfect that would have spoiled the entire movie sequence for me as that one scene is vital to the story as it defines the character of Faramir in contrast to his brother and Man in general.

[Eric Pascarello]

I did not picture the robot to look like that either. I pictured a skinny short humanoid type of look. Not a big fat head....

Eric

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Originally posted by Eric Pascarello:
I did not picture the robot to look like that either. I pictured a skinny short humanoid type of look. Not a big fat head....

Eric

In the book, Marvin clearly states that his brain is the size of an entire planet. I imagine that it's somewhat compressed, but still, that explains the head

[Jeroen Wenting]

true, but the cartoonish appearance is not what I'd expect from a civilisation capable of surviving the Syrius Cybernetics Corporation Marketing Department

[Eric Pascarello]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
true, but the cartoonish appearance is not what I'd expect from a civilisation capable of surviving the Syrius Cybernetics Corporation Marketing Department

I actually agree with something you said....lol
[ April 06, 2005: Message edited by: Eric Pascarello ]

[Ashok Mash]

H2G2's characters are so strange; I could never imagine even Zaphod (with his two heads etc), let alone other hundreds of minor characters! However, I always thought Marven is a rather dull version of c3p0, 'not entirely unlikely but not exactly' like the flashy Japanese-aibo-humaniod robot!

I am looking forward to the movie though!

[Marc Peabody]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

For example Faramir's treatment of the Ringbearer was in complete contradiction to the writings of Tolkien.

How was the book so different in this respect? I have never heard this complaint before. I read the book a month before seeing the movie and his character was pretty accurate to what I recalled from my interpretation of the book. What did I miss?


I wasn't too impressed by the HGG trailer. It looked cheap... but then again so do many great comedies.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
I don't want another rape of a book for the sake of making a few million Hollywood dollars.

I don't expect it to be that way. As far as I understand, the screen-play is written (at least partly) by Douglas himself. It wasn't his first try on making it into a movie, either - I think it was at least the third. The ones before did get canceled because he couldn't get to agreement with the movie companies on what a good movie should look like...

You shouldn't expect it to be exactly like the books, though. Douglas is very well known for adapting the "story" to a new medium: no adaption was exactly like the original (which would be the radio drama).

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
Which will probably beget other books, TV series, comics, video games, and whatnot

The comics aren't bad, in my experience - as close to the books as comics can get.

The text adventure is even playable online now. But beware - it's known to be quite hard.
[ April 06, 2005: Message edited by: Ilja Preuss ]

[Joel McNary]

The thing about Hitchhikers is that no two formats are identical. It caused quite a stir a few years ago when a big-format book (price: $42) was released with a shiny cover and artwork on every page...and the story was exactly the same as other versions of the book. The books should be by no means sacred (if anything, the radio scripts should be...), and by no means should the movie be any different. Only the general plot (Arthur meets Ford, Earth gets blown up by Vogons, Arther and Ford meet Trillian, Zaphod, and Marvin, and they all go to Magrathea and meet Slartibartfast) seem to be consistant.

As far as LOTR, quite honestly I can't stand Tolkein's writing style. To paraphrase:

They crested a hill. Off to the side there was an old tree which everyone saw but took no notice of. But it was this tree, in fact, where Sam's great-uncle's wife's sister's dog groomer at one time had strung lines from so as to grow beans. These beans proved too much trouble to grow, and so five years after that attempt, the family changed to turnips.

They followed the left rut in the road down the hill ....

I thought that the movies did a really good job of cutting out the stuff that I just don't need to know.

(For this reason I don't really care for Steinbeck either.)

[Nick George]

I'm mainly interested because it stars Tim from the Office.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Marc Peabody:


How was the book so different in this respect? I have never heard this complaint before. I read the book a month before seeing the movie and his character was pretty accurate to what I recalled from my interpretation of the book. What did I miss?

In the book Faramir denies the ring even when freely offered and sends Frodo and companions on their way with a supply of food from their hideout in the cave.
In the movie Faramir is taken by the ring and forces Frodo against his wishes to accompany him and his forces to Minas Tirith in order to present the ring to his father for use in the war. Frodo escapes from Faramir during the battle for Osgiliath.
In the book Frodo never visits Osgiliath until after the war is over as he turns north towards Minas Morgul and the Morgul Vale when he parts with Faramir. He and the party visit Osgiliath on their way back to Minas Tirith after the defeat of Sauron as they move through Ithilien and proclaim the King there.

And no, I didn't use any source except my head to recreate those events. Having read the book about 20 times I know it well enough

[Marc Peabody]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

In the book Faramir denies the ring even when freely offered and sends Frodo and companions on their way with a supply of food from their hideout in the cave.
In the movie Faramir is taken by the ring and forces Frodo against his wishes to accompany him and his forces to Minas Tirith in order to present the ring to his father for use in the war. Frodo escapes from Faramir during the battle for Osgiliath.

In the movie I thought that Frodo offered the ring to Faramir AT Osgiliath and that's where he finally refused it and let Frodo free.

20 readings - dang!

Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?

[Jeroen Wenting]

In the book Frodo offers the Ring to Faramir and Faramir refuses.
In the movie Frodo talks about the Ring with Faramir and Faramir decides to take it.

[Mike Lilienthal]

Everyone says it's the rape of the book...in case you didn't already know - the movie was Directed and mostly written BY Douglas Adams. So call it a rape all you want..but it's really not. I think of it more as a revision on a classic story.

[Gerald Davis]

They should have put Bender in this movie, he is one cool robot.

[David O'Meara]

I saw it on Friday night and enjoyed it. Not loved, but enjoyed. It was nice to see something that took 5 years or more to finally arrive.

I was expecting change in the story for the movie version, but didn't know how it would work out. I won't say any more since I'm not sure how to describe the genre without providing a spoiler. Douglas Adams aparently spent years trying to adapt it himself and failed. There was also a computer game and (supposedly) stage play and they were different too.

Ford's character (my favourite) wasn't as 'large' as I hoped, but I liked the adaptation of Zaphod - "Zaphod, button's aren't toys". The one quote I was looking forward to was missing too

Arthur: It's times like these I wish I'd listened to my mother when I was younger
Ford: Why, what did she say?
Arthur: I don't know, I wasn't listening.

I've used this quote myself, it works

It also took me a while to get past expecting it to be a copy of the TV series and judging everything against that. I'm looking forward to it on DVD so I can have a closer look. The cameos were nice, too.

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I saw it last night and enjoyed it too. Marvin was adorable, if not quite how I imagined him. Zaphod was very different than I expected in terms of head positioning.

The cartoon a few minutes into the credits with the towel was cute too. If it weren't for Slashdot, I wouldn't have even stayed for that.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by David O'Meara:
Douglas Adams aparently spent years trying to adapt it himself and failed.

What are you referring to here?

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Mike Lilienthal:
Everyone says it's the rape of the book...in case you didn't already know - the movie was Directed and mostly written BY Douglas Adams.

That would be a neat trick since he died four years ago. Or are you suggesting he is only dead for tax purposes?

[David O'Meara]

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
What are you referring to here?

From what I read up to the release, the two factors delaying the production were financing and writing the screen adaptation.

Finance became easier after MiB was displayed as a successful sci-fi/comedy.

DA supposedly made several attempts at writing the movie version, but couldn't come up with anything he liked. Eventually another writer (Karey Kirkpatrick IMDB) joined him to complete the script. I'm not aware if the screenplay was completed before his death, but I hope it was. I'm trying to get some other details, but my machine is playing up.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
That would be a neat trick since he died four years ago. Or are you suggesting he is only dead for tax purposes?

This attempt of making the movie started when he still was alive, and as far as I know, he at least had a big influence on the script.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by David O'Meara:
DA supposedly made several attempts at writing the movie version, but couldn't come up with anything he liked. Eventually another writer (Karey Kirkpatrick IMDB) joined him to complete the script.

I see - thanks for the clarification!

I'm not aware if the screenplay was completed before his death, but I hope it was.

I always assumed that a screenplay for such a movie isn't completed before the whole movie is completed (quite similar to a software requirements document ).

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:


This attempt of making the movie started when he still was alive, and as far as I know, he at least had a big influence on the script.

He did, while alive. After he died the Hollywood machine did everything to it he had been able to prevent by being alive.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
This attempt of making the movie started when he still was alive, and as far as I know, he at least had a big influence on the script.

The post I was commenting about said that Adams DIRECTED the film. As I suggested, directing a film from the grave is a neat trick. According to IMDB, Garth Jennings directed the film. His film credits include... not much. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1134029/

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by David O'Meara:
DA supposedly made several attempts at writing the movie version, but couldn't come up with anything he liked. Eventually another writer (Karey Kirkpatrick IMDB) joined him to complete the script. I'm not aware if the screenplay was completed before his death, but I hope it was. I'm trying to get some other details, but my machine is playing up.

Not quite correct. Kirkpatrick was brought in after Adams died. He had never met Adams or read the books prior to being given the last screenplay version that Adams had been working on.

Here is an interview with Kirkpatrick. I will let you judge for yourself how much of "Adams" is in the screenplay:

http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/hitchblog/interview.htm

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:
I always assumed that a screenplay for such a movie isn't completed before the whole movie is completed (quite similar to a software requirements document ).

This seems to be dependent upon the director to a large extent. Some directors will map out every single shot and will schedule every day's work before they start shooting. Producers love these directors because they can figure out the film budget well ahead of time.

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

http://hitchhikers.movies.go.com/hitchblog/interview.htm

Great link, thanks!

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

This seems to be dependent upon the director to a large extent. Some directors will map out every single shot and will schedule every day's work before they start shooting. Producers love these directors because they can figure out the film budget well ahead of time.

Well, yes, I know that such directors exist, and apparently it can work quite well.

Somehow I can't imagine it working on a HHG2G movie, but perhaps that's just my limited imagination...

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

The post I was commenting about said that Adams DIRECTED the film. As I suggested, directing a film from the grave is a neat trick.

I agree, of course! I interpreted your comment to refer to "directed and mostly written" and just wanted to add a bit of information, in the case you should have missed it. But seems as if you are actually better informed than me...

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
He did, while alive. After he died the Hollywood machine did everything to it he had been able to prevent by being alive.

Where do you get this from?

[Angela Poynton]

Anyone going on about how it's a "rape" of the book should bear in mind that in many people's mind, the book itself was a rape of the fabulous Radio Series.
Adams said on many occasions that the story had to be adapted to suit the medium it was being told in.

He co-wrote the script. I personally think he would have been happy with the end result. It was deliciously silly and that's what it's all about. Of course it was different from the book, if it had EVERYTHING from the book it'd be 5 hours long an dull as dishwater. Some things only work in the book because your imagination makes them work ... putting them on screen would fail miserably. I was stunned the whale bit worked so well.

Marvin was perfect in my mind.
Better actors were needed for Ford and Zaphod I thought but they weren't so bad. I've seen it twice now and love it.

[David O'Meara]

Personally I think Bill Nighy nailed his part.