I'd not seen it until very recently, but I thought parts of it were quite entertaining.

Yeah, there were a number of things significantly altered from what was in the books (or the TV series, which I only vaguely remember, or the radio dramas, which I've only read bits of the first and none of the second) or omitted entirely, and then there was a bunch of other stuff which was never in any of them, that I can recall (Humma Kavula?! http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ilies/ermm.gif ) Aaand then, there was Marvin's appearance (which I thought was a case of poor judgement) and Zaphod's second head (which was several different kinds of disturbing and wrong) and there were probably some other things I'm not remembering right now.

Even considering all of that, I thought most of it could have believably fit in with what's in the books, somehow or other, and I thought it far from a complete waste of my time.

Go ahead, Valium; I brought my own cross and the nails are right over there. Yes, that's it -- the large mallet. Good! http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...s/thumbsup.gif

I loved Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast, and Alan Rickman as the voice of Marvin. There were some bits, though, that could have used more exposition. The background story for the paddles on Vogsphere would have explained a lot, plus they're the source of the joke about why the Vogons' noses are on their foreheads.

They definitely could have done with a few minutes more. Still, I give them an A+ for effort. Lots of little touches, like the red corded phone at the far end of the Magrathea showroom. And a lot of the changes, I think, were consistent with an honest desire to translate the book well to film. (In particular, the plot point about *ahem* Zaphod's signature was entirely in Adams's style. :D)

I hadn't considered Valium's assertion that it 'looks just like any other wacky British comedy' (I'm paraphrasing). He might have a point, I don't know.

Let me put it this way; on a scale of one to ten:

Radio h2g2: 7. I've read the scripts, and although there are some good bits, the radio-only stuff really had no business being on radio, and the plot DID have a tendency to spiral out of control.
Book h2g2: 9: Has the most gags, and it does hold itself together well.
TV h2g2: 10. For me, the perfect iteration, but only if you pay attention to the minutae that people can miss, particularly during Guide entries.
Movie h2g2: 6: Finally Trillian gets a decent plotline, but Zaphod is too wacky, and...and...they filmed the Mostly Harmless entry, but didn't stick it in! Come on, one minute more! One minute for a CRUCIAL bit of Hitchhiker lore! Oh, and the Nonexistence of God was too good to not put in! They should've chucked Humma Kavula, though. For being the "villain," he didn't get the proper introduction or explanation of his motivations.

My suspicion is that they didn't include the "Mostly harmless" bit because it would have gone against the theme of the movie. (By which I mean Arthur's little speech while in the "hot seat" near the end.)

It's just a suspicion, of course.

Huh? How are those connected?

To be honest, it feels more like Notting Hill to me. Which is why I think it was awful.

Well, while I thought that the new Marvin wasn't as good as TV Marvin, I thought that it was okay. At least they kept the triangle eyes. I suppose the real problem is that the head isn't supposed to droop like that (he's not supposed to be depressed), but I can't see how that robot body could do anything BUT droop the head.

You'll have to explain this Notting Hill thing to me, CV.

It's the stereotypical 'wacky British comedy!!!!!!!'.

They're unoriginal, and a rather tripey attempt to inject bland, middle-class British manners into their equally sappy 'boy-meets-girl' US counterparts.

About the only good part is right at the beginning in the bookshop with Dylan Moran.

Notting Hill is wacky? If you're arguing that it's bad that it follows every single B-romantic comedy cliche, well....

I certainly COULD argue that everything about ANY romantic comedy is cliche to some point or other. Consider a basic romantic comedy plot:

A. Introduce the guy and girl. They have some fundamental element that will automatically insert friction into a relationship, even though they're both adorable.
B. They meet cute.
C. Insert typical Three's Company misunderstanding here.
D. Insert well-meaning bungling from secondary characters here.
E. One overhears the other revealing how wonderful they are.
F. They confront the other with the inevitability of their relationship.
G. Glomping ensues.

Tweak it a little bit, and there you go. British, American, whatever.

Exactly. That is the primary problem with the Guide film.

The first time I saw the movie, I was transfixed by the girl playing Trillian.

Then I watched it again and realised she can't act.

Well, I'm not sure I meant that the cliched romantic comedy plot is a bad thing. After all, that's precisely why I prefer romantic comedies to Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. With megaepics you have to use too many brain cells keeping track of the characters, their motivations, how they got from point A to point B so fast, how does character C know about plot point D already, that sort of thing. Lord of the Rings is NOT escapism. The Princess Bride and other "true" classics ARE escapism.

Err, wonderful opinions, but that doesn't explain why the Guide should have a sappy romance in it. It doesn't need one. It doesn't need half the crap they shoe-horned into it, in fact.

*cough* Fenchurch *cough*

Does Fenchurch really count as sappy? Besides, DNA gave you every option to divert that particular plotline, didn't he?

Of course, given that Fenchurch disappeared because she was from a Plural Zone and Arthur didn't, even though he's undoubtedly made ten times the hyperspace jumps she did.

Not as sappy as watching thingy Deschanel fail to act.

Plus Fenchurch got naked.

Hey, Zooey did a fine job. She's supposed to be kooky, that's the whole point of the character. Trillian's got all sorts of issues related to her white knight complex, her being stuck in cubicle heck, being underappreciated for her intelligence, etc. etc.

Fenchurch...although I love the fact that the woman who finally figured out how the world could be made a good and happy place without nailing anyone to anything finally got a bigger share of the pie, she's almost a little TOO kooky. But that's what makes her perfect for Arthur. Besides, any reference to The Importance of Being Earnest, no matter how oblique, is okay in my book. :)

Eh?

Nobody is supposed to be depressed (except after seeing Grave of the Fireflies, duh), but I think Marvin was. I'm not sure what Nate was on about either, and how often we get to sing that tune!

I mean what I said. Marvin wasn't supposed to be depressed. He was supposed to be a proper ship's assistant. His personality alters his body language.

That's nice and all, but in the original (you know, the book, by Douglas Adams) he's pretty depressed.

I think that Nate means that the people who designed him didn't mean for him to be depressed, that something went wrong with his personality. Or else they didn't mean for him to be that depressed.

They ought to have taken a look at the size of their complaints department before they attempted anything as tricky as GPP's, though.

Actually, the original was the radio show from the BBC.

But the point remains the same: one of his first lines is, indeed, "Oh, God, I'm depressed."

Also: Cave of the Fireflies: hideously depressing.

Why was that brother so fracking stupid? I always want to smack him upside the head for frustrating me and then making me get about as close to crying as I get at movies nowadays.

Yeah, I was wondering whether I was right on that as I typed it. Anyway, it's still made by DA, so it must be right. ;)

Yes, originally we see him depressed. But in-universe, he was built to be all happy, just like all the other computers on the Heart of Gold like the doors and Eddie the Shipboard Computer. Thus a few weeks before the first book started when he was built it was anticipated that he'd be happy, thus his body was designed to be used by a happy person. You don't design a robot body to look depressed. It takes body language to do that.

That's really only an assumption--although one the BBC-produced drama tended to follow, and so I generally agree with it. But, technically, Marvin was programmed with GPP. ("Can you tell?" he asks early on.) Adams seemed to imply as the main thrust of the humor of the scene that this was exactly what the wizards at Sirius Cybernetics Corporation hoped to acheive: a neurotic, manically depressed robot... just like real people!

So I don't criticize the movie for its choice of design. Did anyone else see the original Marvin in the queue scene on Vogsphere? Did someone already mention that?

Of course I saw TV Marvin in the line, incorrect eye colors and all.

Why in the world would you deliberately build a world-weary, depressed android? What could that possibly achieve?

That's one thing I love about this forum. Only in the warped world of fivers can you get away with a lengthy discussion about h2g2 in a thread that's purportedly about recent events on a webpage with very little in common with h2g2.

Okay, moving on...

To (mis)quote The Matrix, "There is no topic." It gets much easier when you realise that (which of course I'm sure you all do).

Cue the Jedi Mind Trick, BnG-style. "Darnit, there are no plot holes!"

I think it's shocking that there is *anyone* on the Internet who could have strong opinions about the H2G2 canon... as if there *were* a consistent H2G2 canon!

I wuv you guys. And girls.

Sure there is. The stuff that really matters hasn't changed in any of the formats.

The Secondary Phase ended with Arthur finding out that Zaphod Beeblebrox was responsible for the destruction of Earth due to his involvement with a cult of psychologists. Arthur then store the Heart of Gold, leaving Ford, Zaphod, and Zarniwoop stranded with the man who rules the universe and taking Marvin, Trillian, and Lintilla (a major character never seen in any other format) with him.

This, it would seem to be, is a significant difference.

Indeed, most of the Secondary Phase diverges wildly from the events of Restaurant, although many of its elements were reworked and reused. It's a shame, too, because the fifteen-mile-high statue of Arthur Dent is one of my favorite moments from the series.

Now, you've got the same basic opening in all formats: Earth destroyed by Vogons, Arthur escapes with Ford, "Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so," and so forth, but it quickly breaks up. The computer game didn't even remain consistent on this point.

So, no, there is no consistent H2G2 canon. As D.N.A. himself said, "The only two consistent works of Hitchhiker were the original radio programmes and the published version of the scripts from the original radio programmes."

*does the Picard thing with the waist of his shirt and sits back down*

You should realize, though, that all these things aren't being consistent on purpose. DA likes to change the story every so often, I've heard.

That's one way to keep your options open.

Liked to do so, anyway.