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

As a film it was pretty awful in so many ways, not least as it seemed to manage to cock up any amusing bits it could have had by chosing some of the really lousy dialogue whilst ignoring those bits that would have worked far better. Having said which it was mildly intersting to watch but only from the point of view of my own personal familiarity with the books/radio series/origional TV/audio books/tea towel edition/limited eiditionsmellovision tea-card edition etc

Ah someone else who collects things....

I have the original albums and (somewhere) the poster for the second album with the duck on it.

Must be worth shedloads by now.

Oooh!

sadly anythign I collect turns out to be worthless eventually

Same here; I end up playing it/reading it/using it to death

Good things in the h2g2 movie:

Martin Freeman - a great bit of casting and performance, despite what some of you seem to think :P

Sam Rockwell - best Zaphod eva. I agree that the second head was done a bit wrong but Rockwell's performance was spot-on. Mark Wing-Davey always sounded too middle-class and RADA for me: like a Cambridge boy trying to "do" zapped pseudo-American.

Zooey Deschanel as Trillian - she gave me the horn; this is what Trillian should do.

The Heart of Gold - having a trainer-shaped spaceship was always a rubbish joke, much preferred it as a big white ball.

Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast - nuff said.

The SFX - they were great, let's be honest.

The Guide Animations - they were excellent, and they were voiced-over by Stephen Fry. What more do we need?

Bad things:

Marvin - okay, Alan Rickman's voice was nearly as good as the radio serial but the design of Marvin was a bit cute. I like the idea that Marvin looks like some sleek, shiny, sci-fi android but is a bit miserable and depressed.

Mos Def - Fair enough, he put in a good performance and was better than we expected but, to me, Ford is a slightly-tweedy englishman.

The Vogons - as fords said they got the bureaucratic stuff right but ignored the nastiness; I much prefer the TV incarnation.

Overall I really liked it. I think much of the criticism came from long-term fans who had *very* strong ideas about how it should be done and were angry that the film basically took a whole new slant on "Hitchikers" right down to completely changing parts of the story. That was always the intention, though; Douglas himself had written a new script for the film. It was always going to be separate from the Radio series/TV series/books version.

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*I'm shocked, it's *that* rare for me to disagree with Zagreb.

If you thought that was lame you obviously never saw the stageshow!!
Rainbow theatre Finsbury Park circa 1981. Truly dreadful but ...the 'pan galactic gargleblasters' were interesting if not authentic (champagne, bluecointreau served in a 50ml test tube with angostura bitters round the rim and a sugar cube in the bottom). I think I had 2 and the show was still awful.

Ha! Just you wait for the Disney musical animated version!

RF

I'm still giggling at "Zooey Deschanel as Trillian - she gave me the horn"

Right, the Derek and Clive DVD is coming out at ze weekend

Nothing wrong with that.

I, for one, have never looked the same way at a pair of argyle socks since.

B

I quite like Sam Rockwell in general, but I still think he mangled some of the best lines from earlier iterations; most notably the "ego/airlock" one.