h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I noticed a great tribute to 'marvin the paranoid android' in the movie. As trillian is being fed to the bugblatta beast and arthur takes off zaphods glasses to show he is the president he points to a painting of the president of the universe (zaphod)...and there is MARVIN!! from the original BBC series!! take a look its cool
Also after that shot I am sure you can see in the background other characters in the room...like 'god' who created earth from the original BBC series...a great tribute from the director!

Indeed. It was the highlight of the film for me. Coming ahead of the singing dolphins even. Shame the film as a whole pretty average. But it did have it's moments.

The film started OK...and then the usual 'hollywood' elements appeared...baddy...girl...hero...girl gets rescued by hero...blah blah yawn...
That was kind of confusing...
then it settled back to the original humour of the books after that disturbingly shallow sequence...
I am sure the director desperately wanted Peter Cook as marvin...but he is dead, which is always a terrible hurdle to overcome for any character actor...so he got someone who sounded like Cook...which is better than nothing I suppose...

I thought Rickman was good choice for Marvin... Cook [if weren't for the not quite being alive thing] could have done even better.

did anyone else find that allot of the key funny one liners were cut even though the rest of the paragraph was in .. for example "i had to go down to the sellar" was in the movie but not "thats the display department" , " in the dark" , "the lights had probably gone" , so had the stairs" . I eventually found the on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabnet in a dissused lavotory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leapord " ever thought of going into advertising? ......that was a funny line . if it had to be cut then why bother with just "i had to go down to the cellar"

I'm sorry to say the the t.v series was far better than the movie .and what was with the whole arthur trillian romance ??? and John Malcovich where did that come from ???

I bet the full line was filmed and some daft editor cut it.

"... the t.v series was far better than the movie ..."

It's really that bad? Wow

All the plot ideas were DNA originals. For example, the whole John Malkovich thing. And the Arthur-Trillian romance.

If something was cut that might be the editors, or the script editor they brought on board to make DNA's screenplay a little more coherent. But the plot was all DNA's.

i thought the film was good. enjoyable and well done.

But..

if you want a more faithfull hitchikers experiance then the original TV show works much better. alot more of the jokes are in there (one of my favurite bits is the 'bewhere of the leopard' joke.)

oh and marvin in the queue was awsome. and simon jones, the original arther as the answering machine on magrathea was pretty cool as well.

Apart from the low budget what's wrong with the TV series? It's great fun. GreyDesk?

Repeat of same post on Ask - , at the start it clearly states "Based on the Book by Douglas Adams"

Not (in chronological creation order (I think)), the radio series, the records, the stage play, the towel, the computer game, the web site but the book.

So compare it with the book, and with a sort of hindsight, the series of books - Arthur - Trillian romance was in the books, or at least hinted at "What... about all that stuff off in the wings with Arthur and trillian, did that ever get anywhere? To which the answer is, of course, mind your own business." - So long and thanks for all the fish.

Apart from the graphics of the TV show, I think ir scores very highly agains the only other visual medium (excluding stage play here)

Anyway that my pennies worth.

CHawke

I think the new Marvin looks like a dreadful Japanese toy. I want the old Marvin or nothing.

The movie is being widely panned in the USA and I am not even sure that I will go to see it. I am thinking rather of buying all Douglas' books and seeing if the old BBC version is available on media.

Just as a film, I liked it. It's not quite the same as everything that's come before, but who would expect it to be? As a film to come out of Hollywood it's excellent, in my opinion. But my view is, unfortunately, unpopular.

I think people's expectations were built up that this great thing was happening after so many years... it's just a movie. It's still an excellent movie, but it's just a movie all the same and I wouldn't expect it to be anything more.

The pictures were much better on the original radio version.

Based on the towel indeed. If I ever make a Hitch Hiker's movie then I'm using that .

Yeah? Well, that's... just like *your* opinion. Man.

Thank you james-hamid, you've just put into 10 words exactly what I've been trying to say for weeks

I'm happy that they've made a film. I'm happy that people are happy that there is a film for them to see. I'm happy that these people seem, on the whole, to have enjoyed the film. All of this is delightful


I'm happy with the pictures that are inside my head, and have been there for over 20 years since listening to this first on Radio 4 Longwave. I just don't need your film

The same thing happened with my favorite Chapter 17. A GOOD CUP OF TEA. Very disappointing. All in all, an enjoyable film.

<>

1) Don't watch the movie then.
2) The old (i.e. TV) Marvin was a misrepresentation of the 'proper' (i.e. radio and book) Marvin, which was supposed to look like a sleek, hi-tech toy. The TV version was made to look depressed, clunky and old which never really fitted in with the whole "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!" image.

I quite liked the Marvin in the illustrated version of the book that came out about 10 years ago. It seemed to be exactly what Douglas was getting at. A robot who would look very sleek, stream-lined and cool, if not for the fact that he hunches over all the time, which completely destroys the intended impression.


Geggs