Planet Magrathea, RIP

[IndigoPrime]

Judging by what I've heard, H2G2 is either an endearing mess or just a mess, depending on how much you like the material. The main problem has been the addition of at least one major plot thread that literally doesn't go anywhere. However, many have said that only if you're well-versed in either the book or radio play will you understand everything, but that if you are, you'll wonder why most of the punchlines have been left out or omitted in favour of slapstick humour. I'll still see it, but I'm not nearly as hopeful as I once was.

[GordonR]

Probably what would be best is a review just reviewing it as a thing in its own right, without any of the attendant baggage, preferably by someone who doesn' know (or care much) about comparing to the radio series/books/TV series.  That BBC review doesn't do that.

Questions:

1) is it funny?
2) did you like it?
3) does it work as a movie?

And never mind any of the rest of the overly-hysterical spod-nonsense.

[Art]

Well, y'know, I would *quite* like to know if it's in the spirit of the original as well, without being overly concernered with specific elements being the same.

[paulvonscott]

Yes, I think you're right there Gordon.

The premier is tonight, and it's out next week, so not long to wait.  I'm going to go and see it fairly soon after it comes out I think.

[GordonR]

From what I've seen, it *seems* to be in the spirit of the original.  Ye've got yer Arthur Dent, and yer Ford Prefect, and the earth being destroyed by the aliens, and the talking Guide, and, well, all other stuff.

And what original are you meaning?  The radio series was different from the books, which were different from the TV series.  Adams kept adapting his own work to each different medium.

The movie's probably just, y'know, different again...

[paulvonscott]

I think it's differently different.  I the different mediums, Adams was just shuffling the same jokes around.  I think in the movie, they are trying to do that, make a movie, not just translate the radio show into another medium, which is what they've always done before.

I think I prefer it this way, in that if you know all the jokes before hand, what has the movie got to offer?

[Art]

The Radio Series would be the "original" for me, but thats probably purely a personal thing.

In Project Manager terms I would see the "Spirit Of The Original" as a big dotted-line circle on a chart, with the various properties dotted around within it, and the movie would ideally be another dot within the circle rather than one outside it, or (worse) a second circle only slightly intersecting with the first circle.

In addition I'd maybe add some axes to the chart, like "Quality" and "Quaint Adamsian Britishness", or add some secondary circles for Doctor Who or Dirk Gently as a comparison, but I don't think it needs to be too elaborate to make the point.

[Quirkafleeg]

One of the problems I think is that radio and books and to a certain extent the TV series were talky mediums and had plenty of room to get lots and lots of jokes in etc... with a film you have to either chuck a lot of it out or only tell a small about of the story (see LOTR)

[GordonR]

This sounds fascinating, art.  Could you do us a flip-chart type sketch of what this Hitchhiker's Guide roject manager vision holistic thingy would look like?

I for one would dearly love to see it.  No, really...  ;->

[paulvonscott]

A bit like the "I, Legend" Comic Strip, where there literally was just pages of dialogue cut from the book and pasted onto a page with no drawings.

[Art]

Well, it's a bit rough so far...http://www.arthurwyatt.co.uk/hhgtg.gif">

[Quirkafleeg]

Surely the radio series would be in the dead centre? As that indeed was the original... And no Power Point-type diagram is complete without some shitty clip-art cartoon

[Art]

I'm hearing what you're saying, and I'm liking it. I'm busy making a flow-chart of my next comic at the moment, so it might be a while before we can action that.

[Oddboy]

Ah, but then only the first series of the radio version should be *dead* centre...the second series pretty close.
Then probably books 1-2
Then TV series
Then books 3-5
Then radio tertiary phase
then the movie..?

[Trout]

This entire thread fills me with horror.

And zeitgeist.