the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
May. 19th, 2005 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theladyroseI can't wait to hear ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eldritchhobbit today on NPR :) I'll probably end up listening to the online version as I don't have access to a radio at the moment, but I'm sure it will be quite interesting.
My Scottish DJ friend will be sending me 5 CDs of his tremendously froody John Barry broadcast on Two Lochs Radio plus "something extra special." It's always nice to know that there are some film score reviewers who aren't totally sexist and condescending; quite the opposite, indeed.
I finally wrote my HGTTG review, albeit one that's not as comprehensive as I'd like it to be, this morning. It's not nearly as detailed as I'd like it to be, but I don't have a huge amount of space to work with. Alex was laying out her front article on summer entertainment and her review for Crash while I was working on the other computer, so that thankfully worked out well. I might need to edit this for typos and other little things, but I manage to get the length right without having to go back and cutting stuff out or adding anything.
Don't panic-the long awaited Hitchhiker's Guide movie has finally arrived in a form that is recognizably based off of the original first novel of the cult satirical sci-fi series by Douglas Adams. (Edit: That is one really clunky opening sentence. I've got to fix that) Adams, before his death in 2001, had extensive input into the screenplay, so many, although not all, of the zany humor of the original books remained intact. While not as faithful as an adaptation to the screen, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a reasonably entertaining adventure that's great to watch after your brain has been fried by having too much work to do within the past few weeks.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tells the story of the hapless Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) whose house is about to be bulldozed when his friend, Ford Prefect, (Mos Def) reveals that he's actually from the planet Betelgeuse and not Guildford, and that Earth is about to be demolished to build an interstellar bypass. The two hitch a ride onto one of the Vogon demolishing ships where they are subjected to torturously bad Vogon poetry and ejected into space. By chance, they are unexpectedly saved by the President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell) and the one other surviving human in the universe, Trillian McMillan (Zoe Deschanel) on the super fast space ship, the Heart of Gold, that Beeblebrox has just stolen. The hapless crew, along with the chronically depressed on ship robot, Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman), attempt to find the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything and discover the real reason behind Earth's existence.
What surprised me the most about Hitchhiker's Guide was how funny it was; the translation of into onscreen visuals worked surprisingly well. In particular, I enjoyed the opening number with dolphins singing “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish,” the whale and bowl of petunias falling from the sky onto the planet, Magrethea, and just about every scene involving the wonderfully deadpan Marvin. Helen Mirren's delightfully droll voicing of Deep Thought, the supercomputer that designed the Earth in order to discover the Ultimate Question, is not to be missed. Thankfully the new material still retains much of the flavor of the books; lines like “I'll handle this - I'm British; I know how to queue” and “We're going on a hunch of someone whose brain is being fueled by lemons?” amuse the most rabid froody fans as well as casual viewers.
My main objection to the film is the cheesy and unconvincing love story revolving around Trillian and Arthur that vaguely makes an appearance in the last book of the series. Adams openly admitted to not knowing how to write female characters and said that he put in Trillian just so that he could have a woman in the series. The literary Trillian, although rather vague in personality, comes across as the sole voice of reason. The only similarity between the book and screen versions of this character is the name. The studios probably feared catering only to the geeky sci-fi demographic and transformed Trillian into the sickeningly sweet, “Help me, Arthur!” girl-next-door as a last ditch attempt to garner profits from romantic comedy viewers. Arthur occasionally goes into tortured unrequited lover mode because he thinks that Trillian is still interested in Zaphod, further annoying viewers.
But even this self-indulgent tackiness takes second place to the hilarity that ensues when you have a group of maniacs onboard a spaceship searching for the most famous philosophical question of all time. I'm looking forward to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe already.
eldritchhobbit today on NPR :) I'll probably end up listening to the online version as I don't have access to a radio at the moment, but I'm sure it will be quite interesting.My Scottish DJ friend will be sending me 5 CDs of his tremendously froody John Barry broadcast on Two Lochs Radio plus "something extra special." It's always nice to know that there are some film score reviewers who aren't totally sexist and condescending; quite the opposite, indeed.
I finally wrote my HGTTG review, albeit one that's not as comprehensive as I'd like it to be, this morning. It's not nearly as detailed as I'd like it to be, but I don't have a huge amount of space to work with. Alex was laying out her front article on summer entertainment and her review for Crash while I was working on the other computer, so that thankfully worked out well. I might need to edit this for typos and other little things, but I manage to get the length right without having to go back and cutting stuff out or adding anything.
Don't panic-the long awaited Hitchhiker's Guide movie has finally arrived in a form that is recognizably based off of the original first novel of the cult satirical sci-fi series by Douglas Adams. (Edit: That is one really clunky opening sentence. I've got to fix that) Adams, before his death in 2001, had extensive input into the screenplay, so many, although not all, of the zany humor of the original books remained intact. While not as faithful as an adaptation to the screen, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a reasonably entertaining adventure that's great to watch after your brain has been fried by having too much work to do within the past few weeks.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tells the story of the hapless Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) whose house is about to be bulldozed when his friend, Ford Prefect, (Mos Def) reveals that he's actually from the planet Betelgeuse and not Guildford, and that Earth is about to be demolished to build an interstellar bypass. The two hitch a ride onto one of the Vogon demolishing ships where they are subjected to torturously bad Vogon poetry and ejected into space. By chance, they are unexpectedly saved by the President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell) and the one other surviving human in the universe, Trillian McMillan (Zoe Deschanel) on the super fast space ship, the Heart of Gold, that Beeblebrox has just stolen. The hapless crew, along with the chronically depressed on ship robot, Marvin (voiced by Alan Rickman), attempt to find the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything and discover the real reason behind Earth's existence.
What surprised me the most about Hitchhiker's Guide was how funny it was; the translation of into onscreen visuals worked surprisingly well. In particular, I enjoyed the opening number with dolphins singing “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish,” the whale and bowl of petunias falling from the sky onto the planet, Magrethea, and just about every scene involving the wonderfully deadpan Marvin. Helen Mirren's delightfully droll voicing of Deep Thought, the supercomputer that designed the Earth in order to discover the Ultimate Question, is not to be missed. Thankfully the new material still retains much of the flavor of the books; lines like “I'll handle this - I'm British; I know how to queue” and “We're going on a hunch of someone whose brain is being fueled by lemons?” amuse the most rabid froody fans as well as casual viewers.
My main objection to the film is the cheesy and unconvincing love story revolving around Trillian and Arthur that vaguely makes an appearance in the last book of the series. Adams openly admitted to not knowing how to write female characters and said that he put in Trillian just so that he could have a woman in the series. The literary Trillian, although rather vague in personality, comes across as the sole voice of reason. The only similarity between the book and screen versions of this character is the name. The studios probably feared catering only to the geeky sci-fi demographic and transformed Trillian into the sickeningly sweet, “Help me, Arthur!” girl-next-door as a last ditch attempt to garner profits from romantic comedy viewers. Arthur occasionally goes into tortured unrequited lover mode because he thinks that Trillian is still interested in Zaphod, further annoying viewers.
But even this self-indulgent tackiness takes second place to the hilarity that ensues when you have a group of maniacs onboard a spaceship searching for the most famous philosophical question of all time. I'm looking forward to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe already.
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Date: 2005-05-19 09:59 pm (UTC)And I really enjoyed (and agreed with) your review of HGTG, both how funny it was and how the romance angle didn't work. And I'd like to give a shout-out for Bill Nighy's Slartibartfast, which I loved. :) Great post! And thanks again.
You're welcome :-)
Date: 2005-05-20 03:20 am (UTC)