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

Okay, so I couldn't think of a subject, but for some reason I feel obliged to comment on your columns.

The big question is: is it as good as the first one, and if so how good is that exactly?

Erm, answering those questions in reverse order... I thought the first one was okay. I mean, a pleasant, amusing little movie with some quite funny bits, but it didn't blow me out of my seat the way a really good blockbuster always does.

And the second one is... more of the same, really. I mean, if I didn't know better I'd swear the two films had been written consecutively and shot back to back, they're that consistent in every way. Like I say, no2 doesn't have the novelty value of no1 but makes up for it with better jokes and a better plot. So qualitywise it's too close to call.

I think I'd rate jokes/plot above novelty value.

Any comments on the villain? (since we were discussing villains)

Hrrr... is this a leading question?

I would have liked to see what Famke Janssen (the actress originally cast in the role) would have made of the part. She doesn't have a speech impediment and she isn't fat (well, not most of the time) and her special powers are a bit cartoony. But she doesn't really come across as terribly evil, either.

But she's enormously easy on the eye. (As is the love interest, whom I don't think I mentioned in the review.)

Yes, definitely a leading question. What other sort is there?

Oh, is Famke Janssen the one I think she is? She's really pretty. Why is she evil? Is there a reason or is it just cos she's an alien?

Well, it was going to be Famke Janssen but she had to drop out due to a family crisis or something. So they hired someone else who looked a bit like her. I think she is evil because she is the villain because she is evil. The reasons for her evil villainousness are not really explored, but then neither are the reasons for J and K's heroic goodness. It ain't that kinda movie.

(I don't think it's purely alien-bashing, though, there are some goodly heroic aliens in it too.)

She just is evil, like the cockroach man was evil.

Pretty much. I blame the parents.

I know it's not quite right, but do you think she would have benefited from looking at http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html ?

I think anyone would. I myself have taken reams of notes.

Good, isn't it?
I'm thinking up more, but apparently it's not being updated at the mo.

It doesn't seem to have been updated in about five years. Now there's laid-back and then there's laid-back...

You forgot



and



if we're going down that particular route...

Ha! You do what I do!

It's Marvolo.
Malvolio is a Shakespearean vharacter, prob from Twelfth Night.


=


You've got too many I's.

Curses! My classical education betrays me yet again. In my defence I will say it's over two years since I read Chamber of Secrets (or Harry Potter in the Loo as I believe it's being retitled for American audiences).

*writes big D on sorting hat and sticks it on Awix's head*

I thought it was Malvolio too, then I read it properly.

I suffer from reading too fast in order to get to the plot and find out what happens, then I have to read it all again to get all the bits.

*is shocked that the sorting hat could be written on, it'd bite your hand off*

Bang go my attempts to colour co-ordinate...

Puce, brown, etc.
It's a magic hat, if you've got one of those no-one is going to worry whether you're co-ordinated, they're gonna be more scared of if your're going to point something at them and say 'I turn you into a pig'.

If I had a magic hat turning people into pork scratchings would not ride high in my agenda. I would be more interested in regrowing some hair, losing weight and then finding some to with.

But evil people (we are back to James Biond villains here, not really the cool ones that you like better than the hero) are always bald. And no-one could tell, you'd have your magic hat on.


*wonders if she should make up some character-assassinating junk to fill in those gaps*