Hitchhiker's Guide (no spoilers)

Question

Anybody see this yet?Lois

Usenet · Accepted Answer

THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW...
Saw it last night. Packed house - but all were fans (they laughed at stuff that I didn't get). That may be a problems, because the film isn't really non-fan friendly.
It has some amusing moments, but and (surprisingly) a couple of emotional moments, but mostly it's just a cold fish of a shaggy dog road trip. Not really a story, more a bunch of funny bits poorly scotch taped together. Nothing drives the "story", and there's no real story arc - just episodic bits. One thing that bugged the **** out of me was the VO narration - it pulled me out of the story.
Movie opens with VO telling us all kinds of back story, including the world's dolphin population disappearing over night. Would have been a million times better to have that as a non-VO part of the story. A cool mystery and reveal. In THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES there are all of these strange things that happen - like a group of circus midgets kidnaped - that create a mystery, and a great reveal when we discover why. Here we're just told stuff with VO narration. Booring!
We eventually get to our hero - but the damned VO keeps popping up again and again pulling us right out of the story - usually just when it becomes a fantastic moment that would be better experienced than told about. Who would have thought that the end of the world would be boring?
So much fun stuff - but not really connected in any way. It just kind of stumbles from one thing to the next - we never know where it's going. Becomes very frustrating after a while. You wonder when the story is going to start... and what they story will be. Even the "mission" they eventually go on seems arbitrary and poitless. The hero is just a hitchhiker on the story - it doesn't really involve him. That's a big problem!
I kept thinking about the way STAR WARS (the first movie) also took a regular guy and thrust him into the middle of intergalactic intrique and adventure and did it so much better. And that's what they should have done, here - used the skeleton of the first STAR WARS movie to hold together these amusing bits. Someone needed to figure out what the story was - that thing that connected all of these scenes. Maybe that would have *** off the fans, but it would have made everyone else much happier.
That said - the film has a pretty good "no place like home" ending, and Sam Rockwell steals the show.
- Bill
Free Script Tips:
http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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@reader1.panix.com:
[nq:1]THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW...[/nq]
Does the remake correct the answer to life, the universe and everything?
jaybee

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]It has some amusing moments, but and (surprisingly) a couple of emotional moments, but mostly it's just a cold fish ... thing that bugged the **** out of me was the VO narration - it pulled me out of the story.[/nq]
Reminds me of the book although the book's funny parts were funny enough to make it worth wading on. And many of the bits in the book were just jokes that needed to be set up with back-story which is probably why they used the narration in the movie.
I haven't seen the movie (probably wait till it's on DVD) so I'm just guessing what might be.
(Got to keep those typing fingers limber in case I start writing again.)

RonB
"There's a story there...somewhere"

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Saw it last night. Packed house - but all were fans (they laughed at stuff that I didn't get). That may be a problems, because the film isn't really non-fan friendly.[/nq]
I thought the original radio series from around 30 years back was hard to beat because
it left a lot to the imagination. That started the cult. They did a TV show in 6 half hour episodes about 20 years ago. This was a reasonable adaptation but didn't improve on
the radio show.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/index.shtml
[nq:1]It has some amusing moments, but and (surprisingly) a couple of emotional moments, but mostly it's just a cold fish ... thing that bugged the **** out of me was the VO narration - it pulled me out of the story.[/nq]
Story hasn't changed much I guess. It was an excuse for in jokes (like the use
of the name Hotblack Desiato for the Plutonium rock band singer. The writer lived in
Islingon, London and Hotblack & Desiato is an Estate agent (Realty person?) in that area.
It also contained a lot of whacky ideas that you can believe came from late-night party conversation. IIRC
Arthur Dent met Trillion at a party in Islington?
I guess the special effects are much better on the big screen than on the radio.
John

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[nq:1]I guess the special effects are much better on the big screen than on the radio.[/nq]
Actually, it's the other way around.
Bert
http://www.bertcoules.co.uk

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[nq:2]I guess the special effects are much better on the big screen than on the radio.[/nq]
[nq:1]Actually, it's the other way around.[/nq]
I think it was Bob Newhart who had some kind of radio piece in which he describes an incredible scene of fighter planes atacking a giant marshmallow in the middle of one of the Great Lakes or some such thing.
The punch line: "Try doing that on television!"

"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say."
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I think it was Bob Newhart who had some kind of radio piece in which he describes an incredible scene ... middle of one of the Great Lakes or some such thing. The punch line: "Try doing that on television!"[/nq]
Stan Freberg.
Joe Myers
"I saw it on the radio."

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I think it was Bob Newhart who had some kind ... such thing. The punch line: "Try doing that on television!"[/nq]
[nq:1]Stan Freberg.[/nq]
Thanks quite right.

"You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say."
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hitchhiker's Guide (no spoilers)

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