Marvin and the Message
Monday, May 02, 2005
"Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy" Opens in the U.S.
by William S. Kowinski
What can I tell you about "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" feature film that won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet? It opened the last weekend of April/first of May in the U.S. The look of it, beginning with the opening sequence, is glorious. Fans of the books and BBC TV series, etc. will find many of their favorite bits, and fantasize about how such lavish production will bring the other famous scenes to life in a possible sequel. And yes, you will be unable to get the dolphin's tune out of your head.
Fans of the TV series will be happy to know that there are generous excerpts from the Hitchhikers Guide, narrated by Stephen Fry who sounds very much like the TV (and radio) voice of Peter Jones. Simon Jones, who played Arthur Dent on TV and radio, has a funny cameo in the film. And the signature TV theme is also used at least once.
The film opened at #1 in its first weekend in the U.S., although the total audience was down from the same weekend last year. This is remarkable enough for a story that was at the height of its popularity some twenty years ago. Whether the film continues to draw big audience remains to be seen. At the Sunday matinee where I saw it, there were hardcore fans who stood outside the theatre afterwards and talked about it. There were lots of children with parents at this showing, as there would be on a Sunday afternoon. There were a few general laughs during the show, a scattering of individual laughs at different things, and one person who laughed a lot (me.)
I suspect the movie won't be a runaway hit here. (I'll be pleasantly surprised if it is.) U.S. moviegoers aren't used to this English verbal humor, which hasn't been heard in films here for awhile, probably not since Monty Python, and then sparingly. References to a series of books culminating in "Who is this God Person Anyway?" early in the movie is oddly shocking now, suggesting how much we've reverted to a kind of 1950s phony public reverence. The Guide excerpts, so important to the TV version, slow the film down in terms of what young audiences are used to.
But I suspect that some of those kids in the audience, too young to have read the books or seen the TV series, will be taken in by the wonder of the imagery and perhaps dazzled by the odd take on things. They will know that the movie they've experienced is not Star Wars or like any other space opera, and that will turn off some and stimulate others. It's the others I think about.
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by William S. Kowinski
What can I tell you about "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" feature film that won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet? It opened the last weekend of April/first of May in the U.S. The look of it, beginning with the opening sequence, is glorious. Fans of the books and BBC TV series, etc. will find many of their favorite bits, and fantasize about how such lavish production will bring the other famous scenes to life in a possible sequel. And yes, you will be unable to get the dolphin's tune out of your head.
Fans of the TV series will be happy to know that there are generous excerpts from the Hitchhikers Guide, narrated by Stephen Fry who sounds very much like the TV (and radio) voice of Peter Jones. Simon Jones, who played Arthur Dent on TV and radio, has a funny cameo in the film. And the signature TV theme is also used at least once.
The film opened at #1 in its first weekend in the U.S., although the total audience was down from the same weekend last year. This is remarkable enough for a story that was at the height of its popularity some twenty years ago. Whether the film continues to draw big audience remains to be seen. At the Sunday matinee where I saw it, there were hardcore fans who stood outside the theatre afterwards and talked about it. There were lots of children with parents at this showing, as there would be on a Sunday afternoon. There were a few general laughs during the show, a scattering of individual laughs at different things, and one person who laughed a lot (me.)
I suspect the movie won't be a runaway hit here. (I'll be pleasantly surprised if it is.) U.S. moviegoers aren't used to this English verbal humor, which hasn't been heard in films here for awhile, probably not since Monty Python, and then sparingly. References to a series of books culminating in "Who is this God Person Anyway?" early in the movie is oddly shocking now, suggesting how much we've reverted to a kind of 1950s phony public reverence. The Guide excerpts, so important to the TV version, slow the film down in terms of what young audiences are used to.
But I suspect that some of those kids in the audience, too young to have read the books or seen the TV series, will be taken in by the wonder of the imagery and perhaps dazzled by the odd take on things. They will know that the movie they've experienced is not Star Wars or like any other space opera, and that will turn off some and stimulate others. It's the others I think about.
Text continues after photos
Imagination feeds on imagination. It also feeds on frustration, absurdity and stupidity---that's pretty apparent in "Hitchhiker." But our imaginations need stimulus to get engaged, and there needs to be some friendly stimulus in the mix. Having creativity around you, and people receptive to it, open new possibilities of being creative, seeing the world more creatively, and giving you permission to see it differently. To see it perhaps as you really do see it, but can't admit to anyone, including yourself.
For example, I recall the bleakness of the early 1980s. I was back living in my small hometown, working on a book. I wanted the quiet but the isolation went far beyond that. The house where I was living had a large television set that didn't work, and a small one that did. One night around midnight I chanced to find on a public television station the opening episode of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." They ran one episode a week, only late at night.
I may have read the title in the TV listings, but I knew nothing else about it; nothing about Douglas Adams or even Doctor Who (another BBC production, where Adams was story editor for a season.) But I was utterly transfixed. There were two things I found delightfully unbelievable: first, that someone had such imagination, and second, that he was allowed to use it, publicly. Watching the Guide every week, even on that tiny screen, utterly in suspense as to what Deep Thought would discover as the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, was quite important to me.
I felt that again seeing the movie: the adrenalin of imagination, the giddy liberation, and the smirky delight that he'd gotten away with it.
For example, I recall the bleakness of the early 1980s. I was back living in my small hometown, working on a book. I wanted the quiet but the isolation went far beyond that. The house where I was living had a large television set that didn't work, and a small one that did. One night around midnight I chanced to find on a public television station the opening episode of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." They ran one episode a week, only late at night.
I may have read the title in the TV listings, but I knew nothing else about it; nothing about Douglas Adams or even Doctor Who (another BBC production, where Adams was story editor for a season.) But I was utterly transfixed. There were two things I found delightfully unbelievable: first, that someone had such imagination, and second, that he was allowed to use it, publicly. Watching the Guide every week, even on that tiny screen, utterly in suspense as to what Deep Thought would discover as the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything, was quite important to me.
I felt that again seeing the movie: the adrenalin of imagination, the giddy liberation, and the smirky delight that he'd gotten away with it.
The movie is different, of course. There isn't that extended suspense, that sense of new discoveries each episode. In giving this a movie shape, the role of Ford Prefect (Mos Def in the movie) is diminished considerably. Alan Rickman is a terrific actor, so his voice for Marvin the paranoid android (more of depressed robot here) gets the requisite laughs, but I missed the machine-like gloomy moan of the TV voice. The creatures look much better, naturally (some done by Jim Henson, with whom Douglas Adams worked on a Muppets project that was never made) and the Vogons get off a Borg joke. I didn't care for the way they did the two heads of Zaphod, but it was certainly better than the goofy TV version. And the mice, I thought, came up short.
As for the other casting, I'm sure there will debate on the new Arthur (Martin Freeman) and the new Trillian (Zooey Deshanel), but they are very good in the roles as created for this movie. I loved Bill Nighy as Shartibarfast. Sam Rockwell plays galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox as a cross between G.W. Bush and Elvis, an interesting choice. The 60s origins of this character dated it even in the 1980s, and the hippie drug lord qualities surface here and there, but it must work, or I'd be able to get rid of the image of his insidious smile.
As for the other casting, I'm sure there will debate on the new Arthur (Martin Freeman) and the new Trillian (Zooey Deshanel), but they are very good in the roles as created for this movie. I loved Bill Nighy as Shartibarfast. Sam Rockwell plays galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox as a cross between G.W. Bush and Elvis, an interesting choice. The 60s origins of this character dated it even in the 1980s, and the hippie drug lord qualities surface here and there, but it must work, or I'd be able to get rid of the image of his insidious smile.
There are some fine additions: a new character, a new device (both technological and plot), possibly a new Question to the ultimate answer, and a rescue in the nick of time effected by turning in the proper request form. There is even a solution to the problem that bedeviled Douglas Adams from his first attempts to construct a film from this material: after you've destroyed the earth in the first act, what do you do for a climax? All this, plus the wonders that only a feature film can produce---the tour of earth under construction was amazing---are reasonable compensations. They stimulate the imagination in other ways.
Though Douglas Adams wrote several versions of the screenplay, this was twice removed from the original Hitchhiker---Adams always liked the radio version best. We get his voice in the books certainly. But I felt the Douglas Adams connection come alive in the film, too, so for me that's one thing that makes it a success. Even despite the Hollywood/Disney ending, which is quite different from the morose sort of acceptance and affirmation of life that ends the other versions.
The first "Hitchhiker" series was broadcast on the BBC in 1978. Douglas Adams was working on the screenplay in Los Angeles in 2001 when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 49. The filmmakers (including director Garth Jennings and scriptwriter Karey Kirkpatrick) had to keep in mind the considerable existing fan base (as do all story "franchises" since Star Trek fans). But they also seemed to have a sincere affection and fascination for the Adams universe. The film dedication, to "Douglas" seemed true.
Though Douglas Adams wrote several versions of the screenplay, this was twice removed from the original Hitchhiker---Adams always liked the radio version best. We get his voice in the books certainly. But I felt the Douglas Adams connection come alive in the film, too, so for me that's one thing that makes it a success. Even despite the Hollywood/Disney ending, which is quite different from the morose sort of acceptance and affirmation of life that ends the other versions.
The first "Hitchhiker" series was broadcast on the BBC in 1978. Douglas Adams was working on the screenplay in Los Angeles in 2001 when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 49. The filmmakers (including director Garth Jennings and scriptwriter Karey Kirkpatrick) had to keep in mind the considerable existing fan base (as do all story "franchises" since Star Trek fans). But they also seemed to have a sincere affection and fascination for the Adams universe. The film dedication, to "Douglas" seemed true.
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