Apr 20 2005
Forty-Two
There really are two kinds of people walking the planet, those that are fans of Douglas Adams and those that have never heard of him.
Best known for his Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (although I’m more a fan of the Dirk Gently books) Douglas was able to spin a phrase like a real wordsmith, as can be readily confirmed by trying to count the number of his quotes floating around.
Of course it was with a little concern that I learned that the The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was being turned into a movie. Despite the success enjoyed by the Lord of the Rings movie, most efforts to turn successful books into movies meet with less than stellar success (more specifically they either become a commercial success at the expense of the original story, or their effort to stay true to the story falls short of the fans visualizations).
Graham has been keeping me up to date with developments relating to this project, and after reading a less than favorable review my hopes seemed to be confirmed. After reading this article I couldn’t help but feel that it seemed they were already doing damage control for the film.
We’ll have to wait and see, but like the guide tells us….”Don’t Panic!”
2 Responses to “Forty-Two”
Pity, the trailers had potential. Their choices for Arthur and Zaphod seemed really god to me.
The Guardian online had a pretty good review today. The gist of it was that it is an essentially good movie but that it can never live up to Adams’ vision as it unfolded across the radio series and novels (which, to be fair, is a tall order for any movie) or the half-assed shoe string budget informality that made the TV series so much fun (much like Dr. Who, of which Adams was a scriptwriting veteran). Some of the criticism coming from the UK seems to be of the “oooh, they got an American to play Ford Prefect…an American studio will never be able to capture the quintessentially British spirit of the series” type. This is rather unfair considering that Mos Def actually seems to work as Ford, and that Douglas Adams did actually contribute to early versions of the script before his untimely death. I will reserve judgement until I see the movie, but I will still see it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sofa I need to get up some stairs.