#255133 - 30/04/2005 01:17
The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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I'm actually not going to put spoilers in this particular post, but I figure others may do so lower down, hence the thread title.
My verdict:
Film was good. I could find no fault with it. It was a faithful treatment of Douglas' work. Even where it differed from the written work, it differed in a faithful and logical way.
Its only real problem is that Douglas' humor works best in print, so it wasn't uproariously funny, just grin-and-chuckle worthy. But they were faithful to his jokes and all the best lines are still in there.
In the places where major plot elements were modified, they were done in order to tie things together more cohesively. I think they did a very good job of that.
The actual animated "book" segments were beyond perfect. They were precisely what I'd hoped they would be. It was the one thing that they absolutely had to get right in order to win me over. Not only did they get those right, they surpassed my expectations.
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#255134 - 30/04/2005 01:35
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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addict
Registered: 29/06/2002
Posts: 531
Loc: Triangle, VA
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I never read it but did enjoy the movie. Was wondering if it was like the book.
_________________________
-D
Modifying and Tweaking is a journey,
not a destination................................
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#255135 - 30/04/2005 01:45
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: SonicSnoop]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
Was wondering if it was like the book.
Very much so, yes. In reading the books, there's a certain tone, rhythm, and pacing that you hope the movie will capture. I think they succeeded. The movie's tone perfectly matches the book, I think, and it has the same sort of haphazard/scatterbrained kind of pacing and plotting. I find that interesting, because that's what some of the reviewers were faulting it for, and now that I see the film, I see it was done that way in order to be faithful to Douglas.
In some ways the movie even surpassed the book. For example, there are scenes in the movie where certain things happened and a good reason was given for the thing that happened. Sometimes, in the book, Douglas just says "this thing happens" and leaves it at that.
An example is at the beginning when Ford comes up to Arthur lying in front of the bulldozer. In the book, Ford merely talks to the construction foreman and convinces him to hold off on the demolition temporarily. In the movie, it's much more logical: Ford gives the entire construction crew beer to drink, thus making Arthur feel comfortable with walking away from the house. I think the movie version was a) much more logical and believable, b) much more visually impactful, and c) funnier.
The movie is full of examples like that. There are a lot of places where it was "show me, don't tell me", something I knew would be needed if they ever wanted this to be a true Hollywood film. They did a good job of that, making sure that we saw something happen as opposed to watching people talk cleverly about it.
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#255136 - 30/04/2005 01:59
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Oh, I just realized another place where they gave a good reason for something that was never in the books. And I had to think about the movie in retrospect in order to notice this... Oh this is clever....
In the book, the name "Ford Prefect" is a throwaway joke. He says something along the lines of how Ford, in his initial research about Earth, somehow thought it would be an inconspicuous name. Never really detailing why. I mean, it's funny because Ford Prefect is the name of a model of car in England (or at least it was around the time Douglas wrote the first radio play), but we're never told why Ford would want to name himself after a car.
In the movie, there's an actual scene where we see Arthur and Ford's first meeting, as a flashback. And Ford's explanation of that moment is (now that I think back on it) the reason he chose the name "Ford Prefect". It's all so clear now.
Wow, that was damn clever of the writers. I wonder if that one was Douglas' idea.
There's a bunch of other places like that in the script, where they've taken things and connected them up like that. In that example, the reason Ford and Arthur met is also the same reason Ford chose the name he did. There's a bunch of other examples just like that, where there are connections that never existed before. And when you see them in the movie, they seem like such logical connections, like they were meant to be there all along.
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#255137 - 30/04/2005 02:41
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14491
Loc: Canada
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Do keep in mind that HHG was originally a Radio Series, not a book. The book and then the CDs, followed. Each was slightly/more different from the others.
cheers (can't wait for the movie to appear on DVD!)
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#255138 - 30/04/2005 04:00
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Buy the original TV episodes on DVD. Far (far) better than the movie.
See my commeents in the other (non-spoiler thread). I thought the movie was terrible - in every way. Tony, you should go back and read the first book again as you're giving the movie far too much credit. Most of the movie made no sense at all - it was just convenient random stuff slapped together. It was a comedy without comedy. In fact, the non-humorous TV spots are a close approximation of the movie. The trailers, unfortunately, are not (the narrated one is brilliant - about the closest thing to the spirit of HHG to come out of this entire fiasco).
The movie is just typical hollywood treatment. And I wouldn't even say it was theater-quality. More like direct to video or Sunday Night movie. Blech. But, plenty of reason to read the books again.
Bruno
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#255139 - 30/04/2005 04:23
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: mlord]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
Do keep in mind that HHG was originally a Radio Series, not a book. The book and then the CDs, followed. Each was slightly/more different from the others.
Completely aware of that. But the filmmakers were specific in saying that they were basing the film version off of the book, rather than off the radio plays or TV series.
I still think Douglas' humor works best in print. The radio show, to me, always sounded like someone reading lines from a novel.
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#255142 - 30/04/2005 14:04
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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addict
Registered: 13/06/2000
Posts: 429
Loc: Berlin, DE
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I'm going to post-up and support tony on this one.. the movie was good. The book was perfect, far better than the original TV version. Marvin was better.. fits way better with the "brain the size of a planet" Deep Thought was WAY better. The style of design, look, and attitude. I think the whole don't vote for stupid thing was a great political comment... but that's a whole separate thread we've beaten to death. 
_________________________
80gig red mk2 -- 080000125
(No, I don't actually hate Alan Cox)
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#255143 - 30/04/2005 22:05
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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enthusiast
Registered: 05/09/2000
Posts: 210
Loc: Ipswich, MA
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I agree with Tony on this as well! The movie was a faithful "movie" version of HGG.
I laughed my ass off!
Though I don't think that many people would get it enough if they didn't know the books.
_________________________
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John Turner
"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission"
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#255144 - 01/05/2005 01:05
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
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I loved it. I made my girlfriend and my friend, Scott, read the first book before they saw the movie. They both thought the movie was very good. My only gripe about it is that it finished too quickly. They went on that side-track and never returned to the main track. They did end up getting to a different track that happened to be going in the same direction as the main, but not quite the main itself.
I absolutely loved the intro and the song that accompanied it. The Vogon ship fanfare had me rolling.
There were several lines to jokes that I thought could/should have easily been squeezed in.
I loved seeing one of the creatures that the Vogons sit on being used as a throne (sorry, she still has the book so I can't look up the name) and the way Ford kept using the word 'Belgium' made me giggle.
I could go on, but I will spare you. Suffice it to say that I liked it.
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#255145 - 01/05/2005 02:25
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: RobotCaleb]
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veteran
Registered: 21/01/2002
Posts: 1380
Loc: Erie, CO
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I just read the books recently, and I have to say the movie seemed to be faithful to the books. Alan Rickman was great as the voice of Marvin. I think that the narrative was crucial to understanding what was happening, and a lot of the humor in the books was transferred in the narrative and the animated HHGTTG parts - I loved those. I liked it a lot, realizing that a book != screenplay and some changes have to be made to make it work on the big screen.
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#255146 - 01/05/2005 09:42
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 27/02/2004
Posts: 1913
Loc: London
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Quote:
Its only real problem is that Douglas' humor works best in print, so it wasn't uproariously funny, just grin-and-chuckle worthy.
I find the best medium for Hitchikers to be the original radio series, the books are good as was the TV series but the radio's still the best for me.
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#255147 - 01/05/2005 11:42
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
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This was yet another Sifi movie that backed up the fact I don't like Sifi. I read the book when I was a little younger and loved it, I found the film frankly quite boring, the casting was weak and the humor seems to be missing, I remember laughing out loud at parts of the book? It's a shame, I really wanted to like this film, but it just turned out to be yet another yawn-tastic Sifi flick that I will never see again  Cheers Cris.
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#255148 - 01/05/2005 14:11
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: tfabris]
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member
Registered: 09/03/2003
Posts: 121
Loc: Iowa
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Quote:
In the movie, there's an actual scene where we see Arthur and Ford's first meeting, as a flashback. And Ford's explanation of that moment is (now that I think back on it) the reason he chose the name "Ford Prefect". It's all so clear now.
I agree this made much more sense, but it made me realise that when Zaphod and Ford meet on the spaceship, Zaphod should not know him as Ford. Since Zaphod didn't know he was there and the name Ford Prefect was one he chose specificly to blend in on Earth.
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#255149 - 01/05/2005 14:17
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: SuperQ]
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member
Registered: 09/03/2003
Posts: 121
Loc: Iowa
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Quote:
Marvin was better.. fits way better with the "brain the size of a planet"
Disagree big time, because later in the books Marvin sticks his head in a bucket of water, The New Head won't fit in a bucket of water. The only thing I liked better about the new Marvin were the eyes.
Did anyone besides me spot the original Marvin robot from the TV series?
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#255150 - 01/05/2005 14:40
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Gleep]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
I agree this made much more sense, but it made me realise that when Zaphod and Ford meet on the spaceship, Zaphod should not know him as Ford. Since Zaphod didn't know he was there and the name Ford Prefect was one he chose specificly to blend in on Earth.
Adams writes somewhere (the radio scripts book?) that he wrote an explanation of how Ford paid lots of money to a name-unpicking service for them to go back in time and patch all the places he'd used his earlier, pre-Hrung name, so that they now said "Ford Prefect" instead. But apparently he couldn't make it sound interesting enough to put in the book, even as a footnote.
Peter
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#255151 - 01/05/2005 16:30
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: RobotCaleb]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31596
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
I absolutely loved the intro and the song that accompanied it.
I'm currently on a mission to find some sort of version of the song online, and learn the words and music to sing at a gathering two weeks from now. Anyone got any ideas?
I suppose I could bring a tape recorder into the theater if I was really desperate.
Quote:
and the way Ford kept using the word 'Belgium' made me giggle.
Drat. Saw the film a second time yesterday (enjoyed it even more the second time) and still I didn't notice that. I should have.
Some things I noticed the second time around that I hadn't caught the first time:
- Arthur not realizing that "Humma Kuvala" was a person's name, thinking it was just Zaphod swearing in space-language.
- The gesture Humma Kuvala uses at the end of his sermon, sort of a waving of the hand away from the nose. Something about the delivery of that gesture is just hilarious.
- Ford seeing a towel in the wreckage of Arthur's house and deliberately grabbing it for him before activating the thumb.
Some things I appreciated more the second time around:
- Zooey Deschaniel's fantastic performance. The sincere wide-eyed playful sense of wonder in the scene in the Heart of Gold's galley. "We're on a spaceship, Arthur. In space." But even better, the scene where her love for him is revealed in her eyes alone as she repeatedly shoots Zaphod wtih the POV gun. She doesn't say a single word, yet we see it dawn on her just by watching her eyes, as it's simultaneously dawning on Zaphod.
- The utterly perfect delivery of every one of Slartibartfast's lines. Each of those lines were clever when Douglas wrote them. And previous actors who played Slartibartfast did "OK". But those lines never really came alive until Bill Nighy said them.
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#255152 - 01/05/2005 16:57
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Cris]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
This was yet another Sifi movie that backed up the fact I don't like Sifi
Well, I think it is difficult to like or not something as wide as SciFi movies. Is it SciFi comedy you don't like (like this one, but how about, say, Dark Star?), or more or less cartoonesque shoot'em-ups (like Star Wars or Firefly/Serenity being discussed elsewhere), or SF of Spilbergian kind (which is diverse enough itself), hommages to previos work (e.g. Outland - High Noon set on Titan or Forbidden Planet based on Shakespeare's The Tempest), or more "cerebral" works by Kubrick, Tarkovsky, Godard... ? I can't believe you wouldn't like anything of these. 
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Q#5196
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#255153 - 01/05/2005 17:24
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Gleep]
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addict
Registered: 13/06/2000
Posts: 429
Loc: Berlin, DE
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hrm.. possibly.. but marvin literaly sticking his head in a bucket of water is less funny than just saying it. and more funny because his head wouldn't fit in a "normal" bucket.
Oh yes.. I wanted to jump up and down screaming when I saw the old marvin.. it's not like they were subtle about it.. there were atleast 5 shots with him in it.
_________________________
80gig red mk2 -- 080000125
(No, I don't actually hate Alan Cox)
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#255154 - 01/05/2005 19:18
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
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Well put it this way, I haven't seen a Sci-Fi film I have liked or enjoyed yet, there have been plenty that I have sat there and watched but none which I would want to watch again. For example I have never watched a full episode of Star Wars, I always get bored and go do something else before I get to the end. Don't get me started on Star Trek and I love some of Kubrick's work, but 2001 is almost enough to put me in a Coma  Don't get me wrong I can see why people like Hitchhicker's, I just prefer other movies, and this one isn't good enough to make a convert of me. I have to agree partly with Bruno on this one, this is a fancy TV movie. Cheers Cris.
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#255156 - 02/05/2005 06:15
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: bonzi]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
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Quote:
Hm, interesting.... Out of curiosity, would you care to provide some examples of films you do like (Kubrick's (I like almost all of them) or otherwise)?
I think the most recent film that really impressed was Sideways, as for Kubrick it would have to be The Shining, of all time it has to be Leon and comedy wise just about anything
Oh Oh I did quite like Space Balls, does that count as Sci-Fi ??? 
I think the major reason I dislike Sci-Fi in general is the lack of imagination, most of them dress aliens up but they still have 2 eyes a nose and a mouth, yawn. And I think it also come from years spent with geeky friends at school discussing how teleportation will be soon possible, kinda put me off the whole scene, I wanted something a little more human for my entertainment.
I'm not knocking Sci-Fi one little bit, it's just Hitchhickers was a little too, dare I say it, "Quirky" and "British" as well as being Sci-Fi for me to enjoy
Cheers
Cris.
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#255157 - 02/05/2005 08:10
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Cris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Have you seen the Fifth Element ?
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Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#255158 - 02/05/2005 10:56
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andy]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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Actually, have you seen Bladerunner? I'd put that down as my favorite SciFi film of all time. It still looks fresh today, some 20 years after it was released. The acting's good, the plotline is good (especially the director's cut), and the cinematography is fantastic.
-Zeke
_________________________
WWFSMD?
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#255159 - 02/05/2005 11:11
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andy]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/02/2002
Posts: 1904
Loc: Leeds, UK
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Not all the way though, I must pick that up on DVD or catch it on TV when it's next on, it's a little different from Leon! Never seen Bladerunner either, I'll add that to the list too Cheers Cris.
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#255160 - 02/05/2005 11:30
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: Cris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/01/2002
Posts: 3996
Loc: Manchester UK
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I'm not too fond of the Fifth Element, possibly because Bruce Willis is in it. I've never forgiven him for Look Who's Talking. Bladerunner however is one of my favorite films considering when it was made I think it still looks fresh, unlike Stars Wars Eps. 4,5 and 6 which seems to reek of late 70's early 80's.
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Andy M
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#255161 - 02/05/2005 12:27
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: andym]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 25/08/2000
Posts: 2413
Loc: NH USA
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I thought Fifth Element started strong, but then fell apart towards the end. Everything that happens after they leave the Earth I thought was pretty poor. My impression was that it was too comic-book-ish after that. However, the female lead (Milla Jovovich) is excessively easy on the eyes, which makes watching bearable.
-Zeke
_________________________
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#255162 - 02/05/2005 12:28
Re: The official Hitchhiker's Movie thread (possible spoilers).
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I largely agree with Bruno, but I still found it vaguely entertaining.
My main problem with the movie is that it's a random collection of scenes with little joining them together. Of course, that's largely what you get when you hire music video directors to direct your movie.
And I recognize that the books were somewhat like that, but it becomes more cohesive when you have dozens of scenes instead of six.
Honestly, the only things I really laughed at in the movie were the fairly slapstick things, like the ... ummm ... slap sticks.
And what makes it a little worse is that it felt like there could have been so much more. I thought the acting was largely really good. The Arthur/Trillian love story was actually nice, but they spent about two minutes on it. And the timing was off in a lot of places. The "I'm already a woman" line should have been great, but the timing of the editing was so poor that it didn't have any impact at all, for example.
Anyway, I thought the movie was okay, and I'm not sorry I saw it, but I'm still disappointed.
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Bitt Faulk
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