Hitchhikers Guide Movie Might Become a Trilogy 502
Noiser writes "The BBC reports that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie could be turned into a trilogy. I wonder if they mean that it might turn into a trilogy in five parts, just like the book? I wish it did - unlike some people, I liked all of them..."
ok.. (Score:5, Funny)
If they were to bring in Terry Gilliam as director (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If they were to bring in Terry Gilliam as direc (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If they were to bring in Terry Gilliam as direc (Score:2, Interesting)
If they removed the Vogons who made the movie... (Score:3, Interesting)
I know people have poo-poo'd the often repeated criticism of the change in an early line where Arthur Dent is telling the head of the (human) demoltion team about the trouble of finding the plans for the bypass. But that change says a lot about the movie.
Line from book/tv series:
"It was in the basement
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Overall, I thought the movie was quite good. It's not a classic for the ages, but it was an enjoyable movie, and I hope they at least make the first three books into movies. The fourth and fifth are dodgier, and I wouldn't lose any sleep if they didn't do them.
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Christ, even Douglas himself said that there was no such thing as the official Hitchhiker story. This movie is just another take on the whole Hitchiker idea.
It wasn't perfect. But it was a hell of a lot better than I expected it to be. And defeniatly a lot better than that godawful BBC miniseries.
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Eddie was great, though. Even if they were terrible, I'd watch the rest of the movies just for him. >8)
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I enjoyed the movie thoroughly. I didn't think for a moment that they'd do the sperm whale joke, but they did. I was happy.
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:3, Interesting)
The movie was okay. I mean, it wasn't terrible, and it wasn't great. It was just okay.
"Why?" I wondered. I didn't feel that the dialog was outrageously different from the books. There were a few deviations, but I actually welcomed them so I'd have something interesting to watch the movie for, instead of just mouthing the words along with the characters ("lunchtime, doubly so").
I then realized why I love the books, but I've never really been interes
Re:If they removed the Vogons who made the movie.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Low point: Don't even think about them, because that would take away the enjoyment I did get out of it.
High point: The Magrathea factory floor really benefited from a big special effects budget. Of course we won't say anything about whether or not that was central to the movie.
****SPOILER****
Really Good Point: When Trillian picks up the tiny light sabre with the 6 inch
Dirk Gently (Score:5, Insightful)
The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul (despite having a great title) wasn't so good but the first one (Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency) was excellent.
Re:Dirk Gently (Score:5, Informative)
I always picture Jack Black. Oh, and they'd better be sure to use the proper late-1980's-era Macintoshes...
Btw, while you're waiting for the movie, try the comic [dirk-gently.com]...
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dirk Gently (Score:4, Funny)
therefore Kenau Reeves would be the ideal choice.
Re:Dirk Gently (Score:3, Funny)
Have Christopher Walken as the Electric Monk.
For no reason at all, just for the hell of it.
Re:Dirk Gently (Score:2)
DNA wrote for Dr. Who & Tom Baker (Score:2)
I like tea time better (Score:2)
Much agreed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dirk Gently (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Dirk Gently (Score:4, Interesting)
FYI, speaking as a total DNA fan and (less) DW fanboy, you're bang on. It was originally conveived as a DW adventure in the Tom Baker era, but there was a strike on set which cut short the series on which DNA was script editor (another story, 'Shada', was only half completed) and DNA stopped writing for DW. He noodled around with the plot for aver ten years before finding a way to re-use it without it being *too* damn obvious.
The idea was that a Time Lord had retired to Cambridge to live a long and peaceful last regeneration, knowing that no-one would ever bother him. The Cambridge colleges are notoriously unenquiring of human oddity! Supposedly, he had been there a very *very* long time and had forgotten everything that came before.
Justin.
Sounds good (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sounds good (Score:2)
It needed to be a half hour longer, and most of that needed to be put into character and universe development in the beginning.
The girl who played Trillian fucking SUCKED.
The last and most important problem was the comic timing. The writing was good, and I thought there was enough talent to pull off the jokes (with the excsption of the girl who played Trillian), but the director settled for less than perfect takes at times.
that's just my opinion though.
Scripts (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, one of the redeeming properties of the movie is that Douglas Adams wrote the script himself, before he passed away.
Unless he personally wrote out the additional scripts, or at least laid out an extensive outline (plot/characters, etc), I don't think any more movies would be as successfull as the first, which couldn't really be considered a blockbuster per se.
Re:Scripts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Scripts (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Scripts (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Scripts (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it damn well wasn't a sexology!
I didn't like (Score:2)
Slightly anti-climatic and all that.
Re:I didn't like (Score:2, Informative)
As regards sources I can't remember - I may have come across it in an interview or perhaps the Salmon of Doubt
Re:I didn't like (Score:2)
I think the fourth book, with Authur falling in love and living happily ever after, is a more likely version of Adams' long-term desire for his characters.
And this, of course, makes a romance between Author and Trillian seem perfectly normal and even correct. So perhaps the critics of the movie should think twice about this aspect of it.
D
Re:I didn't like (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I didn't like (Score:3, Interesting)
As a piece of existentialist horror it is unmatched; even the great French philosophers like Satre on his best day couldn't invoke the true horrors of the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash, a direct consequence of the Many Worlds hypothesis (though Many Worlds doesn't imply that you can travel on the "probability axes",
Movie annoying (Score:2, Insightful)
Why make a sequal? Unless you replace the cast with people who can act...
Re:Movie annoying (Score:4, Insightful)
Because a lot of people liked it and we're alloweed to have differing opinions?
True, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Trilogys happen after big returns from film one. (Score:2)
They can give it a try but I don't think it will happen.
Re:Trilogys happen after big returns from film one (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't need to be. It only needs to make a profit. It had a budget of $45 million and in 3 days it made half that. That's ONLY in the US.
Re:Trilogys happen after big returns from film one (Score:3, Insightful)
You're forgetting opportunity cost -- it needs to not just make a profit, but make more profit than (whatever other movie the people involved could be working on instead). I don't think any studio wants to spend several hundred man-years of their time just to break even...
I think (Score:2, Insightful)
Hell, I'll be seeing the movie again...
Five parts? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Five parts? (Score:2)
Re:Five parts? (Score:2)
Been wondering that myself. I figure it's because that's the form there's the most of: The TV and radio series didn't go as long as the books.
Of course! (Score:2)
But only if it is more sucessful than the mean movie at this time does it become ripe for the "sequel" phenomenon. And only if the hollywood types want to milk it for more money at the expense of their souls (duh, of course they do)!
Note that cast being available, dead, willing; the end of the previous movie being sequel-friendly etc has no bearing on whether a sequel will be made. Its entirely based on
Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, oh! You know how whenever Hollywood is making a romantic comedy, someone thinks, "hey! This movie needs explosions to draw in the boys!", and adds some shit blowing which makes no goddamn sense? No?
Well, then why the fuck did they insert a turgid romance into the middle of a darkly ironic SF comedy of non sequiturs? To wit:
Arthur Dent, as the romantic lead, is playing opposite Trillian. And when the small white mice are about to carve up his head (they left out the "DICED!" line, but that's a minor quibble), he cries out that no question has ever brought him happiness, and that for him there's only been one question ever, and it's "Is she the one?" and the answer is "Yes!---It's always been yes!".
And then he uses his superheroic strength to break through his bonds and smush the small white mice. Slartibartfast smiles. Earth Mark II having been recreated and all the people on it restored, Arthur and Trillian go off in the Heart of Gold, happily ever after.
And that is why I wish to piss in the Cheerios of whoever made the choice to smear that shit on the movie. That's all.
Oh, and when the characters are all waiting in line, keep an eye out for the Marvin from the original BBC television series. He makes a cameo. I thought that was cute.
And the Earth is made whole again and no one's really dead and... ugh. It wasn't true to the spirit of the books, and it didn't even manage to be true to the letter in a lot of places.
And those of us who liked the original work are left sort of gesturing and lamely telling disappointed fellow filmgoers that, really, it wasn't like that at all.
Pfah. Take your sequels and shove 'em.
--grendel drago
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:2, Interesting)
That would be Douglas Adams. Just pray he has some old, rotten bowl of Cheerios in his grave so that you won't have to piss on his corpse if there aren't any.
Have a nice day.
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:4, Interesting)
"After Adams' death, screenwriter Karey Kirkpatrick was called in to tighten up the script's structure, bolstering the romance and streamlining the plot." (italics mine)
Sounds an awful lot like the romance was troweled on after DA was no longer around to object. What with it being totally non-witty and not really fitting with anything else, I'd have to say that chances are good that Douglas Adams did not and would not have tarted up the romance like that.
It also sounds to me like all the subtle stuff that Americans wouldn't get anyway (yes, I'm being sarcastic and kind of pissy about it) was smoothed over, by Karey Kirkpatrick, to make it more shallow and easily digested for the Hollywood audience. I won't go into my rant about how streamlining and simplifying LOTR for the big screen reduced it to an FX extravaganza whose plot and characterization were no more exciting than any one of hundreds of thousands of games of AD&D played out in basements and bedrooms all around the world... oops, I guess I did. Sorry.
But that's how I feel about HHGTTG on the big screen, too. The genius is in the details, and Hollywood doesn't want genius - Hollywood has no desire to leave cash in the pockets of morons, and would rather dumb it down than take a chance on not getting money from everyone.
As an example: I think that when you skip the entire dialog about the plans being in the basement, where the lights had gone out, in a locked cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Tiger" or however the phrasing went, you also lose a great deal of the whimsy that made HHGTTG so brilliant. And the parallel between the bureaucrats in charge of destroying Arthur's house and those destroying Arthur's planet is damn near lost altogether.
Fortunately, I was already prepared for this movie to miss the point, so it didn't hit me too hard. YMMV.
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the other person who Adams worked with on the script will tell us if this is true?
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:2, Offtopic)
Speaking of which, one of several reasons I only go to 1 or 2 movies a year anymore is because the pre-show advertising keeps getting longer and longer. I foresee a day when the pre-show advertising is longer than the movie itself, but I digress. Anyway, it would appear th
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, I seem to remember the trailer for that one mentioning that the same guy who came up with Jumanji made this one, too. What the hell?
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:3, Interesting)
Will they make Arthur into a romantic lead again, instead of the hapless bumbler he was meant to be?
Oddly enough, he's quite competent and assertive in the original radio series. Several of his best lines are given to Ford (or innocent bystanders) in the books and TV series, creating the effect that he is overall less competant.
Re:Ugh. What a disappointment. (Score:5, Informative)
I am not against romantic stories per se and I always wanted Arthur to get it on with Trillian ASAP, so generally I would have welcomed it. But it was SOOO badly executed. It was very out of place with the whole rest of the movie and was not at all believable.
Basicaly, you have a couple of pieces of incredibly cheesy dialogue inserted in a sarcastic story. So for the time of this dialogue it feels like you are watching a completely different movie.
Also, there was the whole stupid Hollywood obssession that characters must have "arcs", and male leads have to "change" or be "redeemed" in order to "earn" the woman.
Depends.... (Score:2)
Also, anyone have any idea how much the movie cost to make?
That sucks! (Score:5, Funny)
wait, what are we talking about? I'm not sure what we're being outraged about today.
Arthur.... (Score:3, Funny)
I am your father...
Just watch the box office (Score:2)
BUT, be happyt hat hollywood is paying attention lately to KEEPING its blockbuster moneymakers safe by doing a GOOD JOB!
Look at the new Batman, it has been painstakenly revamped to avoid the neon junk it turned in too... Hollywood realized they need to be careful with things dear to the audience.
They saw/see if with Star wars, and got slapped again with Star Trek, who will be taking some time off, hopefully to be reinvented with the same care as Batman is bei
Re:Just watch the box office (Score:2)
I want them to fix Star Trek, and if they have in fact fixed Batman I shall be very pleased.
While it's my hope that they'll do sequels that don't suck, if the market says it doesn't want a sequel, then clearly the original didn't prove itself enough to deserve one, and in such a case it's unlikely a sequel would be any better. Yay fre
More movies seem pointless (SPOILERS) (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole thing that drove the books on was the fact that Arthur was alone and lost in hostile universe, with more and more of his home Earth ceasing to be. At the end of this movie, Earth is restored and Arthur gets the girl. What's the point in continuing? To see Arthur fly around the galaxy sight-seeing, with a great girl by his side, knowing all along he can return to his home whenever he gets sick of it? That's not Hitchhikers.
They'd have to re-blow-up the Earth and set up another love triangle with Trillian or something.
On one condition... (Score:5, Insightful)
5 parts? No. (Score:2)
More is better (Score:2, Funny)
I loved it (Score:3, Insightful)
New radio show starts Tuesday (Score:3, Informative)
You might want to check out BBC Radio 4's webpages [bbc.co.uk] - the new series of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Quandary Phase) starts Tuesday 3rd May. You can listen online using Real Audio, or wait for the Beeb to sell you a CD later in the year. More info on BBC Radio 4's Hitchhikers pages [bbc.co.uk].
Insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
All DA's versions were different, so why not this one?
What DA did with plots in the different media versions must make SF-ST/SW-canon-geeks heads asplode
My girlfriend hadn't read the books before because she thought they were nerdy, but she pissed herself in the movie and will be reading the books as soon as she finishes LOTR.
Her quote:
"Oh, I thought the H2G2 were just for nerds."
I think the movie will make a lot of people read the books for the first time.
Why not? (Score:2)
Besides, if they do another one, they'll almost certainly do a third--and in the span of two movies we can just about count on seeing the bi
Top Grossing Film for Weekend=Sequel to Hollywood (Score:5, Insightful)
If they do more, I'd want to see more sarcasm and wit brought into the dialog. I'd like to see Ford be less of a tree hugger and more of a pithy saw with his comments. Zaphod and Ford were far too kind to Arthur in this version, IMO...
Better not follow all the books (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Better not follow all the books (Score:3, Interesting)
My such divided opinions (Score:2)
Re:My such divided opinions (Score:3, Interesting)
I liked it more than I expected, but given the reviews here I wasn't expecting much. I think it has a different *type* of humor than the previous installments, more visual. Some of the effects were *very* funny. The inexcusable bobbling of the Prosser incident (if they were going to do it that badly they should have left it out) and the lame underplaying of Ford were disappointing but the casting and
What I'm really hoping here is that (Score:4, Interesting)
_
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They left the earth intact at the end of the movie. This, to mean, implies that they've given themselves a perfect opportunity to take after the original radio show and destroy the earth in every single installation of the movie trilogy, in a different way. I hope they take it
Re:A Trilogy, why not? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A Trilogy, why not? (Score:5, Funny)
Spoken like... well, like a man who didn't get the joke.
Re:A Trilogy, why not? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A Trilogy, why not? (Score:2, Informative)
Pentateuch is not the correct name for a series of five books, unless they are the Holy Scripture of God.
KFG
LXG, indeed. (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, and "I, Robot". Couldn't they have made their silly action thriller with SF spray painted on the top without robbing Asimov's grave to do it?
And they're going to fuck up "Watchmen" next. Ugh. Stab stab stabbity...
--grendel drago
Re:LXG, indeed. (Score:2)
Maybe, but then it wouldn't have been as good as it was.
Re:hooray! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
The only joke that they tried to include but destroyed was the leopard joke at the beginning. I can't think of any others that got
Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely you all know very well by now that Adams changed the story to suit the medium (and his own fancy). The radio play, books, TV Show and now movie are ALL DIFFERENT.
They share a LOT in common, but why people get all ansy(or is that antsy) about what's different in the films compared to the books is beyond me.
Re:Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't mind LoTR; sure the movie changed some things but I accepted that those changes probably helped it in the new medium. However, the H2G2 movie, irregaurdless of whether there had been a book before, was just bad.
Re:Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought Trillian's character was more true to how I remembered the books (smart, not idiotic) and it felt a lot less like a school play with the principals still reading from a script.
My only real complaint from the movie is that they killed the mice instead of sending them back with how many roads must a man walk down (which is my memmory from the book, but it's been a while).
The movie could of
Re:Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:2)
Really, it's just a question of where it diverged first, the rest is just a parallel universe plot line. Maybe it's because Ford showed up with beer, but didn't get the supervisor to lie down in front of the bulldozer.
really.
I saw the movie this weekend with a friend of mine, and my girlfriend. My girlfriend wasn't impressed; she seemed bored through out. She preferred the books.
My friend spent most of the movie laughing his ass off. I'm glad, because
Re:Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:2, Informative)
I would tend to agree were it not for the obvious; the biggest thing that is different is that, in the movie, they took out the funny bits.
Honestly.
Think about it; if the whole Hamma Luvula thing was actually funny, nobody would complain. If the lines that had been removed were the boring ones (rather than the punchlines) we'd all be happy. If - and consider this carefully - if the point of the whole thing hadn't been missed it would be a jolly good film. Sadly it wasn't, they weren't and by golly was
Re:Why does everyone keep doing this? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really! The radio plays, the book, the BBC TV series, and the towel all had slightly different and often contradictory story lines. Having the movie differ is just another evolution in the story.
Re:Maybe 4 Parts (Score:2)
well, to my mind i don't see it making it past the first sequel, resolved by taking Malkovitch's character to the Man in the Shack, rather than the Guide editor that Zaphod ran into.
the main reason for planning for multiple sequels is that its easier to budget people, sets, and effects services, particularly when you do them "at once" aka back to the future and the matrix (and the upcoming Pirates of the Caribean). on the other hand, they have a knack for rushing them in the editing proces
Re:Slight tangent (Score:2)
Loved Eye. My favorite bit was ILRT: In Lieu of Red Tape. You'll know what I mean. Anyways...
There's another source of info about how bad Dune was. I looked around my house and couldn't find the book to cite, but...
My wife is finishing up an English major. One of the classes she took was on classic sci-fi. A book from her class was stories about the mangling of classic sci-fi into movies. There was a chapter about Dune.
A lot of strange things almost wound up in the script. It does let you kno
Re:So long, and thanks (Score:2)
He died years before they started filming. We don't know what parts they changed that he'd been fighting them over after that happened.
Oh shit! (Score:2)
I've seen the movie (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've seen the movie (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I've seen the movie (Score:4, Interesting)
When I saw that the vogon ships were not yellow. I almost ran out of the theater. I was SO pissed off. IT RUINED THE MOVIE FOR ME!!!
Flamebait + 1.
I know what you are saying. I agree with you on some accounts. From dicussions with the director which I've read on slashdot, and other places, they kept on saying that things were edited for pacing issues. This was one of the things that I noticed in the beginning of the movie. The pace was fast, really fast. When the vogons were reading the poetry, it went by so fast, that the joke was lost. That is where the pace should have slowed down to halt to show just how bad the vogon poetry is. It's supposed to make the audience cringe, and then pick up the pace again. It seemed like everything was just flying by. So yes, I see what you are saying. Then again, on the other hand. The opening credits with the Dolphins singing a broadway musical about thanks for all the fish was brilliant. I absolutely loved it.
Even though some of the classical jokes from before were glossed over, I still thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Also the field of slapping shovel creatures was great. That is something that wouldn't work at all in the book, or radio series, but worked really well in the movie.
Also remember that lots of the changes where douglas' idea.
Re:I thought they covered it all... (Score:3, Interesting)