Welcome Guest 

Register

Forum Home » Off Topic » The Palantí­r » The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
123
Author Topic:
RachieAchie
Council Member
Posts: 503
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: May 17, 2005 12:17
I saw the film a little while ago, and I thought it was very enjoyable. I didn't think it was as good as the book, but I didn't expect it to be, and there's only so much you can fit into a film. So I just watched it for fun, and it was very good, I thought. I thought Martin Freeman was fab - he managed to look perplexed the whole way through, lol. And I want a point of view gun!! So useful for boyfriends....

And I thought Stephen Fry was perfect for the Guide.

Anyway, I've now read all four books, and they were all great, except I didn't think much of "So Long and thanks For All The Fish". I didn't find it as funny and I can barely remember the plot. It didn't stand out in my brain. **shrug** What did anyone else think?
longbe4thesun
Council Member
Posts: 545
Send Message
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: May 18, 2005 10:44
quite honestly, I was a bit disappointed about the cast choice for Trillian. If anyone remembers the fifth book, Douglas Adams discribes Tricia as having a British accent. I was slightly disappointed about the movie Tricia not having one.

As for the books themselves, So Long and Thanks For All the Fish seemed to be better than Mostly Harmless. Maybe because it seemed that Mostly Harmless had absolutely nothing in common with the past four, but then again, Douglas Adams realised that, and also admited that four was kind of a contradiction of itself and everything up to that point. (Refers to five posts earlier.) So I guess that it really doesn't matter in the end as long as you enjoy the books and don't panic.
lanfear
Craziness' Guidance Counsellor
Posts: 446
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: May 25, 2005 10:30
I did enjoy the film except for leaving the cinema humming So Long And Thanks For All The Fish and not really stopping since which is currently a few weeks later

*hums* Gah! :banghead:
longbe4thesun
Council Member
Posts: 545
Send Message
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: May 25, 2005 02:45
I know! And it's so easy to get stuck in your head even after you've gotten it out.
longbe4thesun
Council Member
Posts: 545
Send Message
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: June 15, 2005 09:49
Hey people! Just thought I'd point out that there's now a Hitchhiker's club. Just click on "Don't Panic" and join in!
Mrs_Boyd
Council Member
Posts: 60
Send Message
Avatar
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: June 24, 2005 07:50
My dad loves the books, and he gave me a "delux" book for my Birth Day with all 5 books in it. I all ready love it, and I'm barely into it. He also took me to see the movie, I liked it, but it wasn't as funny as I'd hoped...
longbe4thesun
Council Member
Posts: 545
Send Message
Post RE: The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy
on: June 27, 2005 02:30
Does anyone have the soundtrack that has two bonus tracks that aren't in the movie?
Lindarielwen
Council Member
Posts: 24157
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: September 15, 2015 09:35
wow, this is a really old thread

My little town has a book exchange....you take in a book and then get a book. I took a very beat up copy of RotK and was scouring the pile of books for something to take. Most were self help books. Then I saw a paperback with shiny silver letters so I picked it up.

Hmmm..what is this Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I seem to think I heard it mentioned here on some forum somewhere. So that was the book I chose to take.

I loved it from the first page and read it without stopping to the last page. What brilliance! What creativity! What an imagination Douglas Adams has! (had)

Did anyone else read this book? I have not read any of the others but I did see the movie.

I make sure to always have a towel with me

My destiny is riding again, rolling in the rain, unwinding in the wind. My destiny is fighting again, secretly unwinding..what it was I was supposed to say...to say to you today.
Lindarielwen
Council Member
Posts: 24157
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: September 15, 2015 09:35
wow, this is a really old thread

My little town has a book exchange....you take in a book and then get a book. I took a very beat up copy of RotK and was scouring the pile of books for something to take. Most were self help books. Then I saw a paperback with shiny silver letters so I picked it up.

Hmmm..what is this Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? I seem to think I heard it mentioned here on some forum somewhere. So that was the book I chose to take.

I loved it from the first page and read it without stopping to the last page. What brilliance! What creativity! What an imagination Douglas Adams has! (had)

Did anyone else read this book? I have not read any of the others but I did see the movie.

I make sure to always have a towel with me

My destiny is riding again, rolling in the rain, unwinding in the wind. My destiny is fighting again, secretly unwinding..what it was I was supposed to say...to say to you today.
Gandolorin
Council Member
Posts: 24040
Send Message
Post
on: September 16, 2015 02:38
Douglas Adams freak here!!! Image

I have 14 books by and about Douglas Adams, plus the first three Hitchhiker books in German. All six books of the five-part Hitchhiker trilogy, including Eoin Colfer's "And Another Thing ...".
Then the two Dirk Gently books, three biographies, a small book titled "Pocket Essential", the somewhat maligned "The Salmon of Doubt" (published shortly after Adams's death); and one book probably not to be found in English, "The Science behind Douglas Adams" by the German Author Alexander Pawlak. Similar to stuff done for Star Trek - though I don't know if a book about Star Trek science has been published.

I bought the first three books in German (I'm almost sure no copy of "So Long ..." was to be had, unsure about "Mostly Harmless"; it may have existed, with an entirely different title, but if I remember correctly, I was irritated by the gap...).

I just roared through them, and then began pestering my favorite bookstore for anything to be had by Adams in English, every book of which I also read voraciously as soon as I got my hands on one. The German "Science" book was a bit of a fluke, it may even have been in the science section of my favorite bookstore.

I also noted the odd problem that faced the translators to German, mostly double meanings that basically don't translate; something he has in common with JRRT.

But then of course, DA is science fiction, and more to the point, humorous science fiction. But at least some of the humor is based on a deep understanding - for a non-scientist - of many aspects of science, so some of the humor probably makes no sense to people with an aversion to science.

And last, in one sense DA is the absolute anti-JRRT: inner consistency across all the media in which DA's works have appeared? Hitchhiker started out as a radio program on BBC in 1978. There was a TV series on BBC in 1981. There have been theatrical treatments. "So Long ..." takes place in a parallel universe to the first three books. And the movie (I think it totally fitting that Martin Freeman played Arthur Dent, a totally bilboish character, and then Bilbo himself in TH!) DA's imagination was just too fertile (others would call it wild and woolly, and I would not contradict them - all the while wearing a huge grin on my face) to be hemmed in by such nuances.

JRRT and DA are in a way opposite poles. I would hate to miss either of them.
Image
CaptainAragorn
Council Member
Posts: 7
Send Message
Avatar
Post
on: September 19, 2016 10:01
The first 20 minutes of the movie were great, but it quickly got a lot worse from there on out. I thought some of the special effects were cool, like after they used the Infinite Improbability Drive and they all got turned into yarn. Other than that, (and Martin Freeman's acting) I thought the whole thing was a load of crap. It might have been good to someone who hasn't read the books, but as an avid reader of Douglas Adams, I am sorry to say that I really hated that movie. Unnecessarily whitewashing a character (*cough cough Trillian cough cough*) and the unnecessary addition of a love triangle were the last straw for me. The book is phenomenal, and one of the best things I have ever read, but the movie could stand to be remade by someone who knows what they're doing.
I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!
Gandolorin
Council Member
Posts: 24040
Send Message
Post
on: September 20, 2016 04:22
I doubt that there will be a remake, at least anytime soon. But with the movie industry being in a bit of a rut, having scraped the bottoms of almost all conceivable barrels, who knows?

But the point probably is, as M.J. Simpson wrote in his biography "Hitchhiker - A Biography of Douglas Adams", original © 2003, but in a later addendum called "Postscript: The Movie & Etc." without a specific date given, "The nub of the problem was this: Disney was not prepared to make the film that Douglas wanted them to make; and he was not prepared to let them make the film that they wanted to make. ... In matters concerning the film, Douglas was his own worst enemy. ... and many times over the next few years the impression was given that Douglas Adams had ironically died just before the film got made. But there was no irony to the situation because the very reverse was true: the film got made just after Douglas Adams died - in fact, precisely because he died."

The first two books were based on the first two radio series (for three to five, the order was reversed: the radio series were produced after the books). Writing sketches, in a Monty Python sort of way (very much so in the beginning) was what Douglas Adams was good at. He wasn't as good in scriptwriting for the TV series (which he was dissatisfied with), and his writing for the Doctor Who TV series also pretty much always needed reworking. The first two books show their origins as radio sketches. Transferring this into a movie format was (is) probably close to impossible. And sequels based on the other books aren't likely at all (it has been eleven years since the film premiered).

On last thought: the last Monty Python movie, "The Meaning of Life", was released 1983. I can't remember any movies by anyone else since which resembles the Python movies. Perhaps the time had passed for that kind of treatment of "Hitchhiker", it was made too late, and was thus pressed into the Hollywood format. (But then, as I mentioned above, they are in a rut, and have been to some degree for decades and decades. It has gotten boring.)

[Edited on 10/06/2016 by Gandolorin]
Image
123
Members Online
Print Friendly, PDF & Email