Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Bill Moore]

Peter - I had read at least one review that mentioned the Zaphod character was played as a Bill Clinton/George Bush combination, so I was watching for that when I watched the movie. But as "Americanized" as Zaphod was, I did not see the resemblance to either president. Perhaps the reviewer(s) were reading into the performance some of their own expectations or perspectives?

I noticed the "loss of British-ness" most in Trillian's character.

B

[Jeff]

Peter - I had read at least one review that mentioned the Zaphod character was played as a Bill Clinton/George Bush combination, so I was watching for that when I watched the movie. But as "Americanized" as Zaphod was, I did not see the resemblance to either president.

Me neither. Sam Rockwell told the press that he studied a lot of presidential footage before he filmed his scenes, but I didn't get anything out of his performance to lead me to believe that he was mimicking either Bush or Clinton. I read in several reviews that each of his heads would be devoted to emulating a different president, but his second head

doesn't ultimately figure into the story very much since he loses it fairly early on and doesn't get it back

. I'd be interested in hearing more on the subject from those critics who made the comparison.

[JoelBuursma]

Just read Jeffery's review & loved the fact that he also sees contradictions in Adams' athiesm. Seems like rejecting God & religion leaves a void that needs to be filled with something (like wonder of the natural world & aspects of the human experience). But these things do seem ring hollow without God. You can write poems about them, but you can't thank anyone about them. It's like going to a ball game by yourself--lonely, no?

[Overstreet]

Thanks, Joel. The aforementioned review.

[Ann D.]

Good review, Jeffrey. What struck me the most about the movie is how Slartibartfast says he no longer cares about the ultimate question, or the ultimate meaning, and everything is basically meaningless anyway.

Yet, how does he spend his time? He creates worlds. I find that pretty ironic.

That entire scene is probably my favorite in the movie, mostly because of Arthur's reaction to the factory. Martin Freeman nailed that scene, and actually caused me to get misty-eyed. The special effects were pretty good as well, I think.

On a slightly negative note, am I the only one who didn't care for Trillian? I thought she was boring.

Marvin was brilliant.

Mos Def was decent as Ford, but he didn't seem to do much in the movie. I remember the character being a lot more prevalent in the books, though it's been years since I read them.

I liked Zaphod. I didn't even realize that was the same actor in Galaxy Quest.

[Andrew]

Wow, much as I disliked the strident tone of Ms Robertson's review, I share her dislike of this film. After the first 15 minutes, I found it to be unfunny and dull. Zooey seemed to be sleepwalking thru this role, and Rockwell was annoying after his first 60 seconds of screentime.

I walked out of the cinema after about 60 minutes. What a waste of time - and I really went in to this movie prepared to like it (after all, it starred Tim from 'The Office'!). Sigh...

[Peter T Chattaway]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

To start at the top, if you like Arthur Dent, you'll love his incarnation by Martin Freeman, hitherto best known as the sweetly innocent porno star in Richard Curtis's Love Actually. . . . Unfortunately, once you get up there among the planets and you show what hitherto existed only in Douglas Adams's imagination it looks just like any old space opera. Very occasionally, film can take something special and turn it into something different but just as special -- the film of L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz is a good example. But more often it takes something special and makes it ordinary -- and this movie manages to pile on a gazillion computer effects without ever finding any visual style. It's not just that every planet looks like some dull pit stop on the Star Wars tour but that even the series' signature jokes -- Dent and Prefect finding themselves turned into sofas, etc. -- lack in their cinematic realisation any visual zing.

Mark Steyn, The Spectator, May 7

- - -

Personally, I liked the bit with the animated yarn, but I can see what he means.

[SDG]

I was going to say this was easily the worst movie I've seen all year, but then I reviewed my notes and saw that I had seen The Amityville Horror.

Lucky you! You didn't see Fantastic Four or The Legend of Zorro.

[derringdo]

to Ken and Steven: wimps. I saw the old Bill Shatner western White Comanche this year

[Jeff]

Hey! I kind of liked Hitchhiker. I'm not going to battle on behalf of its honor, but that Marvin puppet was awesome. And Zooey Deschanel is always good too. I did think that it was too long, though.

Dude, watch The Brothers Grimm if you want some true cinematic badness. I thought that it was just purely terrible and head-bashingly horrific all throughout. One of the worst movies of the year. I was hoping all throughout that someone would drop a 1000-lb. weight on that French guy

[AnchorMan86]

I read the books over the summer waiting for this movie to come out on DVD and I loved them. When I finally saw the movie, I got the sense that they just got tired of making/editing it towards the end. The very beginning is brilliant - I almost died laughing when I saw the singing dolphins for the first time. After the first half-hour/hour, it gets exponentially worse.

I thought Arthur, Trillian and Marvin were well-cast and well-acted for the most part. Ford and Slartibartfast were OK. Zaphod was tragically bad - not at ALL like I'd imagined him. And the whole thing with losing his second head was an obvious cop-out on the part of the filmmakers.

~MJE~

[JoelBuursma]

Just saw it for the first time on DVD. Hmm... it hasn't been out that long & Blockbuster has already shifted it to week-long rentals.

I thought:

- The dolphin song was one of the best parts. My two-year old daughter loved the sing-along DVD special feature.

- They didn't explain well enough the planet where you got swatted for having an idea -- it's a very funny concept, but I didn't fully get it until I watched the "making of" DVD special feature. Or was it just me?

- Somehow the movie seemed preachier (from an atheist propaganda standpoint) than the books. (Poor Trillian--she thought there was more to life than there really was. But there isn't. Sorry Trill. Meaningless, meaningless.) The books always seem to maintain the slapstick tone & it's hard to take any of the arguments too seriously. Also, they are silly arguments. But it seems like the movie emphasized them more.

- I didn't like how they handled the two-heads thing with Zaphod. That's not how I pictured it.

- Bill Moore said he liked Marvin. I liked the voice work, but I didn't like his appearance. I pictured his head as more of a dented pail than a large lovely globe. Although, I realize the size is supposed to suggest his powerful intellect. Maybe I'd better re-check the book!

[John Drew]

Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemus Fowl series of children's books, has been asked to write a sixth book in the Hitchhiker's series, to be called "And Another Thing..."

Colfer, 43, best known for "Artemis Fowl", a series about a teenage criminal mastermind, said he was "terrified" when publisher Penguin suggested the project, calling the original books a "slice of satirical genius."

"My first reaction was semi-outrage that anyone should be allowed to tamper with this incredible series," he said.

"But on reflection I realised that this is a wonderful opportunity to work with characters I have loved since childhood and give them something of my own voice while holding on to the spirit of Douglas Adams."

Story here.

[Tyler]

BBC has posted a 30th-anniversary edition of the original Hitchhiker text adventure.

[Peter T Chattaway]

Gives a whole new meaning to "So long, and thanks for all the fish."

 

 

By the way, it's kind of amusing to read things like this comment from opus dated February 20, 2005: "Apparently, Amazon is no longer showing the trailer. At least, I can't find it anywhere. But you can find a hi-res QuickTime version here." This was just six days after the founding of YouTube. It really *was* hard to find trailers for upcoming films online back in the old days, wasn't it? (In fact, I remember what a revelation it was when my wife-to-be bought me a laptop for Christmas 2004, just two months before our wedding, and I discovered I could finally stream the videos that you all were linking to here; on my previous computer, whatever it was, I simply couldn't do that in any remotely efficient way.)