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

I have to say that this film, from the point of view of my 3 year old Thomas loving son was not very well aimed at the market!
My son has always loved Thomas and friends but this film has positively scary moments and I really think that it was badly thought out and written for a market that dosen't exist.
Also I believe the film was completely rubbishe dby the Americansation of it, how many parents want their children growing up with an American accent ?
This will happen sooner or later with the way TV and film are headed!

Well, although the British version's the original, more people will have seen the American dubbed version of the TV show worldwide, so I suppose it made sense (though I get your point). And to get one of the voices from the show to play the Controller (note - not FAT Controller in the USA) was a big draw too.

Jims

The thing I don't like about this film is that the people treat the Island of Sodor as if it is in another dimension from the real world. When Awdry first wrote about the Island of Sodor, the Island was situated in the Irish sea. This film has totally ignored that and the Island is now in a magical world of its own which denies Awdry's original stories.

Yes, I agree completely. The moral of the film seems to be the importance of believing in magic. I am completely at a loss as to why this was thought an appropriate moral. It is just odd. Is it common in American children's TV?

But my mystification doesn't stop there. Even if you accept all the odd premises of the film - the magic land of Sodor, the threat of physical violence against the steam engines from the new diesel character. The ability of engines to go anywhere they want without seeming to rely on drivers or anyone to switch points. The solution to all the problems being a belief in magic and finding its source. The use of a substance called gold dust being used to transport characters to another (magical) place (perhaps a drugs reference). And there's more...

Even if you accept all that, the film still doesn't make any sense at all. The plot seems to be the result of a 10 minute brainstorm without any attempt to marry the disparate ideas together.


My children love watching this film, except perhaps when the diesel is on. What worries me more than the accent, is that they might be put off trying to understand the world in a logical rational way. It is such nonsense, and further removed from the original stories than I would have thought possible.

Don't despair... just when you thought your kids were old enough to start believing in the real world they'll discover Harry Potter, then Tolkien, and you'll have completely lost them

To be honest, the 'magic' side of it doesn't bother me that much... what bothers me about the film is the absolutely awful acting by the adult characters and a plotline you could drive a full-sized train through

I don't think that's quite the same. Explicit moralising is a feature of much American childrens' output. At the end of shows like Franklin, He-man or Clifford there will be an scene where one character says something like - "this shows us that we shouldn't say mean things to our friends" or "peer to peer file sharing is wrong" or whatever the moral is.

TatMR has the moral "it is important to believe in the magic inside of you". Can anybody please explain to me what this is supposed to mean or why anybody might think it is a good moral?

Given the quality of the rest of the script I tend to think it means that the script writer had overdosed on sugar and was suffering from a complete lack of talent - I'd have trouble believing that a script quite that bad really did have a moral at the end - I get the feeling they were just desperately trying to scrape together a tagline so they could run the credits