Comments | katie_m: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

katie_m

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

May 28, 2009 22:22

Okay, having just now finally seen it, how do you make that not-good of a movie out of that story? How? I mean, Mos Def and his towel were working as hard as they could, but otherwise, damn. I wanted to like you, movie! It should not have been hard to make me happy ( Read more... )

movies

Comments 12

telepresence May 29 2009, 02:30:20 UTC

I dunno. So much of what was good about the books was 3rd person editorial asides and narration stuff from Adams, and it's really hard to pull that off in films. Plus, movies suffer structurally more from being kind of plotless and episodic than books do, IMO.

lbmango May 29 2009, 13:36:36 UTC

This

katie_m June 2 2009, 01:04:56 UTC

Yeah, I suppose. But isn't that why you get paid the big bucks? It's not like they felt obligated to stick exactly to the book; they couldn't've made a movie that had, you know, momentum?

I dunno. Maybe they would have better off if they had just stuck exactly to the book, rather than shoehorning things in. Though then you've got a length issue.

I return to my main point: That was not a good movie.

telepresence June 2 2009, 01:24:32 UTC

No, sadly, it wasn't. My main memory of it was the cute dance Zaphod and Ford did when they met.

serrana May 29 2009, 03:33:12 UTC

how do you make that not-good of a movie out of that story?

Can't be that hard, they've done it twice now....

lbmango May 29 2009, 13:36:50 UTC

Also, this.

katie_m June 2 2009, 01:05:27 UTC

Hey, I like the BBC version. Or I did, anyway. It's been a while. Maybe I shouldn't watch it again.

telepresence June 2 2009, 01:23:43 UTC

Oh man, no, you shouldn't. Well, maybe with beer or something.

tingler May 29 2009, 04:07:04 UTC

I know. It was almost as if they went "Okay. What would work here? Right. Let's do something else instead. Ooh,I know! Something crude and obvious!"

katie_m June 3 2009, 00:16:10 UTC

It's always unfortunate when I find myself thinking "you know, I could do a better job of this than they did." I am not a professional! But seriously.

(The comment has been removed)

radiotelescope May 31 2009, 04:08:38 UTC

(Nitpick) Not a "radio adaptation". The radio broadcast version is what all the others were adapted *from*.

Yeah, not a great movie. *But* it had some good ideas. Like the fact that, if you squint, every single costume (including the Vogons) is essentially a bathrobe.

Also, the soundtrack. The closing-credits music is a starkly brilliant pastiche of all of SF movie sound-track-dom.

katie_m June 3 2009, 00:17:59 UTC

There you go, I saved you!

Seriously, I found Ford charming if not particularly Ford-like (and he did do a lot of fun stage business with his towel), the Vogons were well-done, and uh, there was something else I liked. Oh! Deep Thought and the two petitioning priests were all girls. I enjoyed that. But otherwise, meh.