Stu points to a devastatingly bad review of the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.
However, given that it's at a site called planetmagrathea.com I think it's safe to assume that the reviewer in question is an HHGttG geek of the "I dress as Zaphod Beeblebrox every Halloween (and sometimes just on Saturday night)" variety. Comments like "Stephen Fry sounds like Stephen Fry" aren't helpful either - would he prefer if Stephen Fry sounded like David Hasslehoff perhaps?
Also remember that the television series provoked howls of derision from some radio series fans.
Meanwhile the BBC says "it's hard to see how this could be better" while Empire says it's "about as faithful as you can get," and even two Australians weigh in favourably.
Personally I can't wait to see the fucking thing. I've experience the HHGttG as a radio show, a double-album and a single-album, five books, a tv series, a computer game and a short story (Young Zaphod Plays It Safe) - not to mention a radio script book, a "companion" book by Neil Gaiman, etc. If it's good then great - if it's not then oh well, I've already heard all the jokes a hundred times before and was the movie REALLY necessary anyhow?
Besides, can it really be worse than Douglas Adams's own last HHGttG thingy, that dreadful book Mostly Harmless?
Added later in the day:
Browsing planetmagrathea.com further, the dude who wrote the review is a self-styled expert on Douglas Adams, who's written and/or contributed to lots of DNA & HHGttG-oriented books.
He's also thrown a massive snit over other people's reaction to his review and thrown all his toys out of the cot. So it goes.
Posted by pearce at April 21, 2005 12:56 PMI think Mr Planetmagrathea.com is yet another warning that while geekdom is fun, being so obsessive about something to the point where you forget it's just a movie, just a book, just a band, etc is simply pathetic.
(That credo is why I like Empire so much - they way they review movies on the question of 'is this a good movie?' They don't review a movie for being faithful, intelligent, with good special effects, etc etc etc.... just 'a good movie'.)
Posted by: Scott A at April 26, 2005 2:29 PMWord up Finn.
Examples: Judge Dredd wasn't a bad movie because it didn't stick to the source material. It was a bad movie because it SUCKED. Terrible acting, bad pacing, crap dialogue, etc.
Meanwhile, the first Harry Potter movie was very faithful to its source, but was still a bloated and boring movie.
The 1950 version of The Thing was a very poor adaptation of John W. Campbell's story Who Goes There? - but it was still an excellent movie. The 1982 version of The Thing was very faithful to the story and was also an excellent movie. Coincidence? Yes - the quality of the filmmaking was all that mattered.
Posted by: Pearce at April 26, 2005 4:09 PMActually I would disagree that HP 1 was faithful to the book. Sure it told every chapter, but at the end of almost every chpater is some kind of joke or something. Not once in the entire movie did they have any of these bits which were part of the charm of the book. The filmmaker (who sucks anyway) thought the charm of the book was a boy in a magical land - lets face it that isn't charming because it has been done so much before.
The second movie sucked too though it did have some of the funny, it still tried to tell the whole story.
Finally in the third movie they get someone that can actually make a movie, he leaves out half teh crap in the book, keeps in the jokes, the scary and the main plot and it was pretty good.
Just to add to your point, I've heard that Constatine is good but not even close to Hellblazer. Of course comic book movies rarely are and you can only judge them on their worthiness of movies.
Hmmm, I'm beginning to think this adaption list could go on and on and on.
Posted by: jarratt at April 28, 2005 12:22 PMOK, what I meant was that HP1 was faithful to the book's story.
In another example, Re-Animator is usually judged as being one of the most faithful adaptations of any H.P. Lovecraft story, yet the near-constant explicit sex & violence in that movie would have surely made Lovecraft cry. (I think it's better than the original story.)
Posted by: Pearce at April 28, 2005 1:04 PMYeah I know you meant it was faithful to the book's story. I wasn't so much disagreeing with you because are right but merely pointing out how they fucked up the movie.
Bad script + crap director + young actors = total shite.
Posted by: jarratt at April 28, 2005 2:45 PM