Release, Record: 11/9 (Page 15 of 41)

I'd agree with that, Douglas Adams seems to have a bit of a history of re-writing his own material whenever possible, when he took it from radio to book form and then when it went to TV and then when it was made in to a movie. And I'll freely admit I'm biased towards the books, because thats what I grew up on, quite literally. But the 2005 version, assaulted the source material on so many other levels, tone being a major one in my opinion, I have yet to see anyone really capture Douglas Adams tone on film, which is a shame because I think that if we could find someone that could translate it well it would be an incredible thing to behold.

Another part of it is the story, and I know that Douglas Adams supposedly wrote the whole new ending and yadda yadda, but it's bad, it's just horrible. The movie is essentially a patchwork of all the really iconic scenes from the first 2 books sorta slammed together with a very weak throughline, all the charm removed and a new ending slapped on that makes absolutely no godsdamned sense.

I've actually been thinking about this a lot the last couple days, and i think that if there was ever to be an even remotely faithful translation of Hitchhikers it would need to incorporate the narrator in a major way, because when you're reading the books he essentially is an entire character to his own. And considering the level to which DA leans on the narrator/guide to fill in the backstory of various events it would be incredibly hard to do without him, and if a director were to truly embrace that concept it could only make the film stronger in my opinion.

Also...said film would need an insane VFX budget in order to do any of it justice, like the scene where Arthur and Ford first get picked up by the Heart Of Gold, the books description is these massive vistas of light and sound that can barely be comprehended by the human mind...and in the 2005 we get...a...uh, a talking couch. Um, yeah.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2011-04-02 23:00:07)

Really? Reading for the first time? Wow... thats...wow. Such a foreign concept to me, Hitchhikers Guide has just always existed to me. Weird

But yeah, I've been listening to the Douglas Adams Audio books for the past week or so (Just finished Life, the Universe and Everything today!) so it's just constantly been on my brain.

And thats kinda what I mean when I mentioned tone a while back, the book is all about the vast expanses of space and mind bending visages, all , of course, filtered through a wonderfully droll wit but still. The closest we get in the 2005 is the factory floor and even that barely even scratches the surface of what it's supposed to be.

EDIT: Perhaps it's best I'm not one of the commentators for this one, this would very very quickly plummet to Star Trek levels of hatred coming from me.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2011-04-03 00:45:25)

True...but I mean really, it takes a certain kind of concerted effort to ignore and fuck up the source material as much as this movie did.

O_O

Crazy.

I've only seen the movie. And as you can imagine, I didn't see what the fuss was about.

To be honest, the story may not have aged well. What was new and innovative in 1980 has been stolen from by everybody over the decades to the point where the original might not be that funny if you're coming to it late. Still, forget the books and check out the first two radio shows and the 6 part TV series. The books to me only work once you have the actors voices in your head, as the dialog was written to be HEARD.

Scott Pilgrim is going to be a fun discussion.  Do it well guys.

Wright does a commentary with Tarantino for Hot Fuzz as well as the one he does with Simon Pegg (which he also does on Shaun of the Dead). I have them both on Blu Ray.

I did have Scott Pilgrim but I've just sold it on Ebay.

That commentary is AWESOME.

How is it Mexican?

I am sooooo down for Waterworld. It's my favorite movie that people love to hate. I think I like it because I was really into sailing when this movie came out and the mariners trimaran absolutely kicked butt.

Obviously I work on Sundays so I am excited to see that you guys are doing this commentary on Saturday. I work a little on Saturdays too but hopefully I can be around to watch.