December 13, 2004

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy soon available in convenient movie form! With Mos Def and John Malkovich. Self-interview by the screenwriter (not Douglas Adams).

[Not to mention the new radio series on BBC. Featuring a port of the game. And of course the guide itself.]

posted by little nemo 20 years ago
  • I've heard parts of the newer radio series, but the book was so much better. I'm wondering how it'll work, so much of the book depended on narration. But here's hoping for the best! I'm definitely excited.
  • Trailer sucks ass.
  • I don't know why they had to go all Armageddony with the trailer. However, having seen a number of Hammer & Tongs videos, I'm glad to hear they're directing it.
  • Really? I liked the trailer. Maybe it was just because I was so damn excited.
  • I have equal parts fear and excitement. I hope that they get this right.
  • Hmmm. Im sure they will fuck it up. I say this because every remake and/or book => movie conversion ever has been a complete bag of wank, if one has seen the original/read the book. If you're lucky enough to see the remake/movie first, then go see the original/read the book - it can be a positive experience. But never the other way round, IMHO. Of course, this could be the one to buck the trend right?
  • Totally geeking out.
  • See, if this had come out twelve years ago I woulda been all over it. Now? I'll wait for video.
  • It looks like it's in good hands. Lots of people who knew Adams have been involved in one way or another, and all report that they're really, really impressed. (For example, Yoz Grahame and Sean SollĂ©, who worked with Adams on h2g2 and Starship Titanic, gave an update at NotCon earlier this year, and they seemed genuinely excited and delighted with how it was going.) Hammer & Tongs have done some amazing music videos, commercials and the like (have a look on their site, the 'films' link), and they seem to be approaching the project with the right attitude. After the two decades of development hell HHGTTG went through, everybody seems very keen to make sure it doesn't get Hollywoodized. It opens two weeks before Star Wars III. Hehe. (Actually, one possible sign that it's looking very good is that the people behind Joss Whedon's Serenity, which was due to open a week before HHGTTG, seem to have ceded the "non-Star Wars sci-fi" ground to it, and have pushed back Serenity to the autumn.)
  • The premiere's on my 40th birthday. It had better be good ...!
  • I once held a letter-conversation with Douglas Adams when I was 14. He had the *worst* handwriting I have ever seen, & that is no joke. But he had personalised postcards. They were yellow. I'll see the movie. I like the new Marvin design.
  • I'll go see the movie too, although it will be with some trepidation. DA's books defined my mid-late adolesence, and I'm not too keen on seeing that tarnished. Then again, LOTR wasn't a half bad conversion. And we already know StarWars is going to megasuck , leaving precious little suckiness for anything else to suck with. The trailer kind of sucks, but then again, I bet it's hard to capture the essence of H2G2 in a 30 second video spot.
  • Signs to look of a really, really bad HHGTTG trailer: Will Smith, speeding on a motorcycle, shoots up Sirius Cybernetics with machine gun, in slow motion, as hard-rock jam plays. (Kill music, cut to Mervin) "That's dreadful." (Instrument hit) Text: COMING MAY 6. (fade)
  • Signs to look for
  • I don't know why they had to go all Armageddony with the trailer. < spoiler > Maybe because the Earth does blow up in the first 20 pages or so? < /spoiler >
  • I tracked down DAdams with a pal while taking a student summer course, merely by asking around at the Islington grocery stores...not bad for a rope-belt-wearin' yahoo from Missourah. And this movie will indeed suck. So much of the book is carried by the turns of phrase that even the best special effects won't lessen the suck. (Sigh.)
  • If Marvin raps, I'm not seeing it.
  • "The trailer kind of sucks.." This is *not* a trailer. This is a 'teaser'. There's no footage from the movie in this clip. And it's been out for a couple o' months already.
  • Snoop Dogg as Slartibartfast Adam Sandler as Ford Prefect Ben Affleck as Zaphod
  • Paris Hilton as Trillian.
  • Oh, it's the teaser reposted? Glad I didn't bother downloading it yet. I think the guy who's playing Arthur will be good, although a bit young for what I was expecting. Is John Malkovich playing Zaphod? Ah, never mind, IMDb will tell me.
  • John Malkovich as Zaphod? Surely you must be joking.
  • No, Sam Rockwell's Zaphod. John Malkovitch is playing a new character, created by Adams specifically for the movie. I'm really excited to see how Mos Def is a Ford. Now that's an unorthodox casting decision...
  • The teaser looks like it should be for a schlocky over-hyped blockbuster action movie - like, say, Starship Troopers 3. In other words, horrible. Unfortunately, the bizarre contradictions of Hollywood make this difficult to interpret. It could be a bald attempt by marketing types to drum up interest amongst those unfamiliar with the book by resorting to more familiar themes. It could mean, if they're willing to put out a teaser this misrepresentative, that the flacks have also taken over control of the movie and are attempting to salvage their dollar by reworking it into a stereotypical Hollywood blockbuster. Or the teaser could be a clever marketing attempt to play to the book's themes by doing the unexpected. Or...it could be a probing, misrepresentative effort put out by flacks concerned that they're not going to make their dollar back, and when they see reaction to the teaser is as bad as it is then they'll take over the movie and re-work it into a bastardized horror, on the logic that the book's fans are already arrayed against seeing the movie anyways, so they might as well salvage what they can. ...or I might be thinking about this more than it's worth.
  • The main plot issue of the book is that .. Earth explodes.. I think that this predates any other major Hollywood versions of the same idea by at least a decade, & the producers are therefore quite justified in using it as centerpiece of the teaser, or the subsequent trailers. I would find it incongruous if they ignored this element of the plot in the trailers. Perhaps we, as geeks & nerds, are so familiar with HHG2tG that Earth's destruction no longer has the impact it is meant to have. Adams wanted it to be a big deal, methinks.
  • I thought the overwrought tone of the teaser was meant to be funny. I *hope* it was meant to be funny. I laughed my ass off.
  • They gave away the first five minutes of the movie. Now what's the point of going to watch it on time?
  • Marvin is so cute! I want one! Although considering how irritating I found him in the books, I'll probably drop-kick him out the window an hour after getting him.
  • There have been SO many versions of the Hitchhiker's Guide and the other four books in the trilogy that I wouldn't swear to anything being true to the original or not. Which reminds me. Doug Adams wrote a script for a Marvin-like search engine but I can't find it now...anyone?
  • The only online web server I know of that's Marvin-like is this one. But I don't know if Douglas Adams had anything to do with it.
  • Alnedra, I'll split the cost of a case with you...I have so much irritation left over from the books that it will take more than one Marvin gone a'sailing to use it up.
  • One reads that it's OK.
  • I saw the trailer last night. The movie gets points for showing a Vonnegut novel under the alarm clock as Arthur turns it off (especially as Vonnegut was a huge influence on Adams), but loses points for the fact that the novel is Slapstick, Vonnegut's crappiest work.
  • NO NO NO NO NO NO NO Children's author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series. I have nothing against Mr Colfer, he's a perfectly adequate writer with the occasional entertaining conceit, but WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO KEEP RE-MAKING OTHER PEOPLE'S STUFF? MAKE NEW STUFF! LEAVE OLD GOOD STUFF ALONE! THIS MAKES ME VERY SHOUTY! argh.
  • .
  • I wonder if this will be as good as the film
  • Mostly Harmless was the very very last of the "trilogy". Anything else is heresy.
  • Painful.
  • Never read any of it.
  • Allow me to expand on what mothninja said. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. No. It's not on. Stop desecrating beautiful corpses.
  • It would be like having other Authors write James Bond books. What? Oh. Nevermind.