The hitchhikers guide to kicking ass

[Teenr0cker]

So, while during my journeys in the cold and scary world ouside my house, I happened to come upon a movie theatre with my friends. I then said to myself "I don't feel like remembering any details worthy of the intro statement to a topic about THE GUIDE, especially when I might type it up at 2 in the morning". So I watched the movie. It was good. Very good.


Actually, my real point was not only to express my love of the Guide, but also I wanted to note the cameo of the old 70's show robot named Marvin thats in the story. The top is the TV series Marvin, and the ...well, I'll let you guess






So if you go and see this great movie, I suggest you look for him when they're trying to get Trillian back. He's standing in line.

[War]

I'm seeing it sunday.

[Impossible]

I saw it today, but didn't know about the cameo until Jeramyu told me afterwards. Don't read ahead because I'll probably spoil something, although I'll try not to go into detail about the ending and stuff (but you'll know what I mean once you've seen it).

Oddly enough, I think I preferred the parts of the movie that deviated from the book, just because at least then they couldn't keep skipping my favourite parts of certain scenes if there were totally new scenes. And they were pretty funny, although they could have been better if they'd added in more of the Guide's descriptions. Most importantly, I spent the WHOLE MOVIE angry that they skipped the Guide's explanation of towels! There were so many times they easily could have shoved it in, and it was hilarious in the book! They never shut up about how important towels were, and yet never explained why. They skipped the "Mostly Harmless" part, too, and in fact a fair bit of the events of the first few chapters (why the hell did they leave out Ford convincing them not to destroy Arthur's home?).

Marvin was AWESOME. I burst out laughing at nearly every line he said; his depression is just so much more effective like that than in the books. My only complaint was that he didn't have enough lines. Although right at the end he did enough, and that was brilliant. And speaking of that scene, why the hell did the Vogons keep showing up for the whole movie? >_<

After that, they'd better make at least the next two books into movies, if not all of them.... They still need to find out the question for the answer, and the movie ended with them going to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. The way they ended it would have fucked up So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, though, unless you just want to ignore the Arthur (and reader) being totally fucking confused part - in which case it'll make considerably more sense. The fact that they did that seems to make a sequel less likely, though, and there doesn't seem to be one planned...

And Goddammit, I NEED an MP3 of that So Long and Thanks for all the Fish song.

[Teenr0cker]

Impossible, I saw the TV series recently. Trust me here, Marvin had way too many lines in the TV series. He said the "life? Don't talk to me about life" and "Brain the size of a planet and ______________"(insert simple task here) quotes a little too often in the show, so I think they toned him down. I love how they kept the intro music from the TV series though. Going to buy the soundtrack ASAP.

[Impossible]

Well duh, the soundtrack will have So Long and Thanks for all the Fish on it! It'll be awesome!

[Teenr0cker]

The ost can be found hereI plan on getting it myself, but I would like to note, that for one shining moment, Imossible's location puts US at a disadvantage since it looks like the ship from Australia. Curse you!!!!!

[OverlordBill]

I just saw it. It sort of... well... wasn't the best. I can see why it only got two stars in the reviews...

[War]

I saw it today. It was pretty cool.

[Teenr0cker]

I guess it was more of a repeated service to The Guides fans than anything else. But hey, i'm going to see it again on Tuesday. I love it.

[Impossible]

The movie came out a day earlier here, too.

[OverlordBill]

They removed all of the good jokes, and replaced them with shitty jokes. Whatshisname with the mechanical legs was completely forgotten after they actually got the gun. Hell, you can tell that scene was chopped to shreds. It makes no sense.

The movie didn't feel like Douglas Adams. It felt like Hollywood and capitalism.

[Impossible]

Whatshisname with the mechanical legs was completely forgotten after they actually got the gun. Hell, you can tell that scene was chopped to shreds. It makes no sense.

Dude, it's the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's supposed to be riddled with plotholes and nonsensical plotlines. Actually, part of it also feels like they really needed to make the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, too. I mean, nobody got pissed at HP or LotR for not explaining everything at the end of each movie, because they're in a series. This SHOULD be the same.

Speaking of those movies, it's kind of odd that I wasn't all that upset about either. I hated FotR, but I just though "oh well, the books are better, it doesn't matter". HP and the Philosopher's (Sorceror's being the fake American name) Stone was a similar case, too. But I can't let go of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It only got one chance and I'm disappointed about the potential that was at least partly left behind. It's also not as famous as the other two and it deserves a chance to be known.

Doesn't it seem odd to anybody that they included the part about the whale and petunias, but not the lines which would have made the scene in front of Arthur's house good instead of sucky? Geez, what was more important? Not to mention how much more effort that would have taken, in comparison to how easy it would have been to leave in those lines.

I think if you try to view it as a normal movie, you'll like it less, but if you try to view it as a movie version of the book, you'll hate it, too, because it isn't really. So in that sense the movie makers fucked up by making everyone hate it. There were parts I very much liked, and things I was angry with, but we have to face the fact that not EVERY word from the Guide and random addition of some crazy funny thing could have been included.

[Telephalsion]

I think the makers of the film had their favourite parts from the book and chose to emphasize them

[Daedalus]

Absolutely loved the rebuilding of the Earth.
They couldn't have done it better, from an SFX standpoint.

[Nurazhi]

Even the BBC miniseries left out a lot of great lines from the book and the radio show, and that was four hours long. Having read/watched/listened to the source material so many times, I did feel like the movie was missing quite a few things. But I, for example, didn't mind the lines in front of Arthur's house being left out (although they're certainly great lines) as much as I missed the bit about the Babel Fish being used to disprove the existence of God.

What I'm basically saying is that I think if you got all of the rabid Hitchhiker's fans in a room, and you tried to get them to agree on what elements from the books should be in a two hour movie, there would be bloodshed and mayhem of biblical proportions. You'd probably have to resort to Thunderdome or something similar. So while I do think they left out a lot, I think that they also did a pretty good job with what they chose to leave in, considering their limitations. And a few of the new jokes, like the Vogons' silly bureaucracy, I thought were great.