VR Hitch-Hiker's Meet.

[quote=Little_Blue_Fox_ link=1113407661/0#0 date=1113407661]Hello.

[quote=Little_Blue_Fox_ link=1113407661/0#0 date=1113407661]Hello.

Quote: Freshly_Squeezed_Cynic_

I am so wearing a dressing gown and bringing a towel when I see it.

A geek is me!

and i doubt you'll be the only one. if it was a little more low-budget and not the massive blockbuster that it is, i reckon dressing up to see hitch-hiker's would be the new cult. like rocky horror without the suspenders

Quote: Freshly_Squeezed_Cynic_

They mention it at the end.

That's the problem, and that's why from what I've read so far I'll hate this movie.

The main Hitch-Hikers story is the first 3 books. The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe is the f*cking TITLE of the second book! They go there, they have a meal, there are funny scenes like the talking cow recommending parts of itself to them at the table before going off into the kitchen to kill itself. They meet up with Marvin who has been working in the car park for a few million years while waiting for them to turn up. It has one of my favorite scenes of Marvin where he offers to stick his head in a bucket of water of the phone and Zaphod hears the splashing. Milliways is where they steal Disaster Area's stunt ship and nearly crash into a sun. AND NONE OF IT IS THERE!!! Instead, they bung it in at the very end of the film as the place they're heading off to. The whole story happens, then they nip to Milliways for a bite to eat without even showing it!

They've written out the B-Ark, most of the guide entries (apparently the guide is only actually used and shown once...), Ford turning into a penguin and just most of the jokes in general. You can find a list here.

Things are left unexplained - you're not told how or why the improbability drive works, or even what it actually does. It's not properly explained what Magrathea actually is. Deep Thought is messed up quite a bit. Instead of returning to prehistoric Earth through time-travel they land on Earth Mark II, which in the movie is portrayed as a last minute backup file. The mice are still after Arthur's brain for a trace of The Question as the sole survivor of the human race even though they've recreated Earth from the backup along with all the people and buildings.

Sorry for ranting, but I've been looking forward to this for a while and have just read through a load of pretty long reviews and am really p*ssed off

I'm going with a towel. To Tunbridge Wells. I'm going to Kasabian the day before, so will be too tired to go all the way to London.

Excuse me ?

I shall be going down to my local cinema in a dressing gown.

And yes theyve screwed it up.

/me is not allowed to comment about any of the above subjects until she has seen the film. New Years Resolution and all. No moaning until she has seen the film.

Quote: Freshly_Squeezed_Cynic_

Half a book which, incidentally, was not in the book "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", which it seems they're basing the plot off of. All the stuff about Milliways was in, appropriately, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe." Don't get me wrong, I think some of the jokes seem to have been mutilated, and I don't have particularly high hopes for the movie as a whole, but I think a lot of people are getting annoyed that "this bit isn't here" or "that bit isn't there" when H2G2 was never about that, it was always a very fluid idea. If you're going by "this bit isn't here", or "that's not right", then the differences between the Radio series and the books should, reasonably, make your head A SPLODE.

For me the main difference is the humour style as well as the storyline. I have the printed edition of the original radio scrips (complete with the margin commentary which just makes it funnier...), but from what I've read about the movie the whole style has changed, not just the story. I can understand if they've just based things of the original book, but as I said above (I think, too drunk to check) the original radio scripts were for a 2 hours. I don't see how they'd have trouble with timing to make a good round two hour movie based on the book. Sure, things changed from the scripts to the book - but the jokes and the style were there. I'll be the first to say that the plot to H2G2 is nothing special; it's the writing style and the gags that make it. No-one can say that the gags work in radio and on paper, but not on the silverscreen. I can excuse the thought or description jokes, but cutting of dialog (and adding crap substitutes)? Just Not On.

To be fair, if the radio program/book/BBC series had not been released then this would probably been a good movie. For anyone who's new (IE: not read) H2G2 then this should be a good movie. Hell, for anyone who read it once maybe a few years ago then it should be good - but for anyone who has red the books more then once it's almost sacrilegious.

I've been a fan foe a while. Not just of H2G2, but of Douglas Adams in general. I know the work he put in to making a movie from the interview I've read and the newspaper columns he's written. From what I've read in reviews I don't think he'd be happy, and this is what p*sses me off. Maybe I should take a leaf out of Fi's book and just not comment until I've seen the movie, but hey.

What I wanted was a version of the BBC TV series (which was accurate), but with better effects and better actors. I'd love to see this done with better scriptwriters and the actors in the link that Colin posted, but now they've actually made it it's pretty unlikely they'll do another version. This is it, folks - 10 incarnations. Even the t-shirt has been made. This isn't the way I wanted to see H2G2 die.

Still, I'm only going off reviews. I will still be watching the movie so it may turn out better than I thought. It better fecking had do though...

The head bugs me too. Even if you don't get it from the Zaphod descriptions - at the Islington party his second head was disguised as a parrot in a cage. Anyone care to explain how you can disguise your throat as a caged parrot while still looking normal?

I was looking forward to the two heads thing. Even the BBC TV series made an attempt, and so much better could be done in 2005...

Quote: Johnny_Tight_Lips_

People have a right to get p*ssed off that the book has been butchered and wh*red, if hollywood can manage to get Lord of the Rings right, they can do HHGTTG well an all.

I'm not saying they can't. I never said they couldn't. If you look at what I've said, then I agree with people's right to get angry about completely destroying the style and tone of the books. From what I've heard, that seems to be what has happened, and I also completely agree with Gary about the change in style and tone. What I'm saying, though, is that H2G2 has always had a very fluid plot, and Adams was constantly changing it in the various mediums it was made in, and what works on paper and audio may not necessarily work on screen. It infuriates me when people start nitpicking over what's in and what's out rather than looking at a) whether the anarchic, boundlessly inventive tone of H2G2 has been preserved, and b) whether it's funny.

I agree with people who say that the style and tone seems to have been changed, and criticise the movie for that. I have no time for people who want the movie to be exactly like the book in every way, shape or form.

I've seen it now. It's actually not that bad. The intro with singing dolphins was the best bit. And they kept Slartibartfast's "Late as in the late Dentarthurdent" joke which I was worried would be cut.

Bad things happened from the beginning - Arthur coming down the stairs with a hangover and banging his head on the ceiling in true American slapstick style. And the lack of Prosser dialogue. And don't get me started on what happens with Arthur and Trillian at the end...

A good movie, but I'm glad I read the reviews first.