The Film (there are no real spoilers here but you might want to reserve judgement until you’ve seen the film for yourself)
lauperr and I went to see H2G2 (the film) last night.
If you’re one of those people who get’s annoyed when you go to see a film which is based on a book and it turns out to be very different to the book, then you’re probably not going to like it. However, I don’t think you can really apply that logic to Hitchhikers because it isn’t just a book, it’s a radio show, a book, a TV show, a video game and now a film.
Each version tells the story differently and the film is no different in that respect. It doesn’t ruin the experience for me at all, it’s almost like you’re just watching a parallel dimension which callously disregards all other dimensions and does its own thing. It’s great 😀
I wasn’t particularly impressed by the liberal sprinkling of American accents, but the British humour was left well and truly intact. I can’t help but think that the film would have been better had Douglas Adams still been around, but it was still good enough to be a fitting tribute to him and his work.
If you’ve read the books you’ll probably think that the involvement between Arthur and Trillian is too much and the Vogons pop up in places they shouldn’t, but the storyline generally worked well.
Some of the settings were exactly how I imagined them, Arthur lying in front of the bulldozer and the air lock on the Vogon ship were spot on. The big planet-making factory floor was quite good, Marvin didn’t look how I expected but the voice and personality were perfect! Zaphod and Ford were nothing like I imagined, Trillian was OK, Slartibartfast was played well (though he didn’t look how I imagined) and Arthur was very good.
I’ll be buying it on DVD. Just don’t go into the film wanting it to follow the books religiously and wanting to hear all of your favorite quotes because you’ll be disappointed. The only thing that caused me great disappointment is that I want to see more! I do hope they do the rest of the books, but I suppose that will be determined by ticket sales this time around. So go buy some tickets.
The Audience
When the credits started rolling and the lights came up I noticed all the smiling people who had just watched the film and I thought that would make DA happy. I also noticed that the audience seemed to comprise of two main groups – mothers and children, and geeks. In fact, we managed to follow a huddle of 7 geeks (what’s the correct collective noun for geeks?) to Franky and Benny’s where we’d planned to have a meal.