Journal Entries
At the Premiere
Posted Apr 28, 2005
Last Wednesday, along with a sizable contingent of former TDVers, I was lucky enough to attend the world premiere of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.
I arrived in Leicester Square quite early, and sat in the square for a while, reading and watching them set up the lighting system. It was a couple of hours before it all started, but there were already people waiting to watch.
Tim and Sean arrived at about 5:20. They looked so smart I almost didn't recognise them. I put on the last of my outfit - the sparkly waistcoat and the fantastic tie that Bernadette painted for me, featuring Marvin, the Heart of Gold and the movie's thumb logo, and we went to get something in Starbucks and wait for the doors to open.
Shortly afterwards, Bernadette arrived with the children and her sister Miriam. They'd come to watch, and maybe get some autographs, so we'd have at least one person in the crowd cheering for us 
We left Bernadette and the kids and wandered around to where we thought we had to go in, onto the blue carpet. Cue lots of confused meandering as nobody was quite sure which way we were supposed to go. But we did meet several former TDV people along the way. We eventually found or way back to practically where we'd started. I surrendered my digital camera to the copyright police and went through onto the blue carpet. Bernadette was just there, so I went over to talk to her and the children, and the chap standing next to her was quite impressed by this, obviously thinking I was some important person on the movie (hah!). He told me, quite earnestly, that they should have got Chris Foss and Jim Burns to do the concept art for the movie, or any movie, really. Which seemed a bit out of the blue, but I assured him that I would let all of my movie friends know what he said.
Saying a last goodbye to Bernadette and the kids, I went into the cinema, where we milled around for a while, meeting up with other TDV alumni, like Yoz and Sophie, and we were eventually ushered into the auditorium (presumably to make room in the foyer for all the Eastenders actors who inevitably turn up at events like this).
Still, no bad thing. Inside the cinema they were showing the interviews on the blue carpet, and each seat had a complimentary towel, bottle of water and small pack of pringles. So we got to see Robbie getting interviewed, as well as some of the stars. The interviewer was pretty awful, frankly. She couldn't pronounce Vogon and she insisted on asking all the interviewees 'What's the meaning of life'. Terrible. But it's a mark of their professionalism that not one of them punched her in the face.
Stephen Fry made a nice comment at one point. When asked if fans would be happy with the movie, he said that some fans would only be happy if you pointed a camera at a copy of the book and turned the page every 40 seconds. I think that sums up some of the reaction I've seen.
Eventually, everyone was persuaded into the auditorium, and the Chairman of Disney, Dick Cook, introduced a rather long list of the film's producers. I was pleased to note that Robbie got the biggest cheer (helped by our contingent). Robbie said a few words, Stephen Fry said a few words. Then Nick and Garth (producer and director) came up (to another enormous round of applause) and said a few more words.
After all that, we finally had the film. This is the fourth time I've seen it now, and I still enjoyed it just as much. See my previous review (F124?thread=623566) for more details.
After the movie (pausing only to watch my name go by in the credits again ) we all walked the short distance to the party, which was held at the Freemason's Hall at the top of Long Acre, which is where they filmed one scene of the movie. The weather was fantastic, which was lucky since if it had been raining I suspect a fleet of taxis would have been needed to get there.
They'd certainly made an effort for the party. Different rooms were decorated in different ways, and they had some props from the movie there. The waiters were dressed as various characters, and there was at least one Vogon guard lumbering about having pictures taken.
It was fun just wandering the party. We chatted with people we knew - Richard Creasey was there so I chatted with him for a while. I wasn't particularly good at spotting celebrities, as I haven't a clue who most of them were, but I did get to speak to Reece Shearsmith from The League of Gentlemen (while Yoz buttonholed Mark Gatiss to gush about his Doctor Who episode). We chatted a bit about the movie, then about the League's forthcoming movie, which he was very excited about. He said it was quite tough, being a short shooting period, but also having some scenes in which he played three different characters, so they'd have to shoot the same scene so many times with the different actors playing different characters. But it sounds like fun and he was clearly very excited about it coming out.
I chatted briefly to Zooey Deschanel, who was charming. Bernadette told me afterwards that the girls had thought Zooey was wonderful on the blue carpet, because she was wearing a yellow dress that made her look like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I also got to chat briefly with Martin Freeman, so naturally I gushed about how good I thought his performance was. He genuinely seemed to think that he wasn't an obvious choice as Arthur, but perhaps that's why his performance seems so fresh and unforced. He was very nice.
I also spoke at some length with Joe Cornish (off of Adam and Joe). I resisted the strong temptation to open my conversation with 'Hello Adam or Joe' which I thought was very grown up of me. We had a fairly long conversation about the film, fan reaction, and when I (or possibly Sean) mentioned that we used to work with Douglas, he asked if we knew his girlfriend, who was working on publicity for the movie. When he introduced me to her her eyes widened and she said 'Wow! You're Jim Lynn. You're really important.' which was completely not the reaction I was expecting. I think Robbie has been overselling us to the publicity people, but I can't deny I was flattered.
We eventually left when the party wound up at around 1:30. We resisted the temptation to make off with some of the big board posters, or the jewelled scuttling crabs that decorated one of the rooms (although others weren't so strong willed) and caught a taxi home. When I got home I discovered, in our living room, a large board poster for the film. Bernadette had taken one home from the blue carpet, so I'm glad I didn't try.
There's a few (frankly not very good) photos here: http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/1357626
So that was the premiere. The movie has opened today, and it's also h2g2's sixth birthday. I think Douglas would be proud.
Discuss this Journal entry [17]
Latest reply: Apr 28, 2005
My Review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Posted Apr 11, 2005
I've seen the movie twice, now. The first time was a rough cut. Lots of scenes were clearly taken straight off the Avid, some effects weren't finished, it had temporary music, but there weren't any scenes missing and it played as a movie. I loved it. I laughed an awful lot, and was grinning from start to finish.
Yesterday I saw the finished film. And, if it's possible I enjoyed it even more.
I was very nervous when first seeing it - I'd had a small amount of 'inside' knowledge. I'd visited the set, spoken to some of the crew and had a rundown of the movie story along with storyboards. I'd even spent a day running around in panic outside Moorgate station (I'm actually in the trailer). So I knew a certain amount about it. I knew it would look great, I knew the actors were top notch and I knew every single person working on the movie was trying to do justice to Douglas. But it could still go wrong.
It didn't. Almost from the first frame, I was hooked. The opening sequence, with the Dolphins, was delightful, and the song is a hoot. And then we're into the story. It's at once familiar and new. Merely having Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent has an interesting effect on longtime fans. He's not Simon Jones but he is unmistakeably Arthur Dent.
In fact, the performances are uniformly excellent. Mos Def is a quirky, manic Ford. You believe that he and Arthur are good friends. Sam Rockwell is a Rock God as Zaphod and is a delight every second he is on screen. Zooey Deschanel, as Trillian, is intelligent, warm and funny. Her first scene with Arthur (which actually plays in flashback early in the movie) is beautifully played by both of them.
John Malkovich is suitably creepy as Humma Kavula, a new character created by Douglas for the mostly new middle section. His 'prayer' to the Great Green Arkleseizure is a wonderful combination of words and performance. Bill Nighy is totally wonderful as Slartibartfast. He's only in it for a short time but he's magnetic. The scene on the Magrathean factory floor is a triumph and it's made even better by the reactions of Freeman and Nighy. Arthur is obviously overwhelmed by everything he sees, and Slartibartfast is almost giggling with pride showing off his work. The whole sequence is genuinely moving, but to say too much more about it would spoil it.
The visual look of the film is outstanding. I'd seen designs, and had seen some of the vogon heads up close but until you see them in motion you can't grasp how good they are. This is some of the best animatronic work I've ever seen. The work that the Jim Henson company have done is astonishing. These are living, breathing beings and they thumb their flattened noses at the idea that animatronics and puppetry are on the way out.
The Heart of Gold is a contender for the most beautiful spaceship ever, contrasting the ugly concrete Vogon aesthetic with gorgeous porcelain curves. Even its escape pod is sleek and sexy. I suspect Zaphod might have stolen it even without the Infinite Improbability Drive.
Deep Thought is another wonderful design, quirky and asymmetrical. When I first saw the production paintings I couldn't quite see what I was looking at but all of a sudden it popped into focus like a magic-eye picture. It's nothing like I would have expected and it's totally right.
But all this would be mere window dressing if the story didn't work. If they had lost the sense of what Douglas wrote about. And this is, I think, where the filmmakers have made their boldest choice. What some people might be expecting is a version of the radio or TV series with better effects, and those people will be disappointed if that's all they want. What we do get is a film which still contains a large amount of Douglas' words but which, more importantly, recognises that film is a visual medium and not radio with pictures. It somehow manages to do the kinds of things with pictures that Douglas did with words in the Radio series and books. The plot isn't perfect, but frankly, hitchhiker's has never been about plot. It's always been about ideas and humour, and that's what this movie has. For example, rather than spending two minutes of screen time on a guide entry about towels (which wasn't even in the first radio series) they actually have Ford using his towel to solve problems. This shows that the filmmakers do 'get it' and on a much deeper level than we have any right to expect.
We've all been anticipating a movie of Hitchhiker's for years. Some of us for about as long as it's been around. And this movie is something that nobody could honestly have expected. It's a wonderful vision of Douglas' worlds and ideas, filtered through the brilliance of Garth Jennings and the whole crew. It's almost infinitely improbable that Hitchhiker's could have ended up with someone we'd never heard of, but who is clearly enormously talented. And that, I think, is what I most appreciate about the film - it's more than Douglas, it's Garth and his crew as well.
This is a beautiful, astonishing, hugely funny, sometimes moving and infinitely cherishable movie. I love it.
And not just because my name's in the credits
Discuss this Journal entry [93]
Latest reply: Apr 11, 2005
Happy Christmas
Posted Dec 25, 2004
Just a short entry to wish anyone reading a very happy Christmas. I hope you like this year's Christmas card, with the three children as the Three Kings.
Discuss this Journal entry [4]
Latest reply: Dec 25, 2004
This is my idea of a spaceship!
Posted May 31, 2004
On Wednesday, Sean (U7), Tim (U1), Yoz (U47) and myself were invited (by Robbie Stamp, Executive Producer and our old boss at The Digital Village) to visit Elstree Studios, where they are currently filming Big Brother and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Oh, and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.
Before we went to the set, Robbie showed us a wall with a set of storyboards and production drawings showing the story from start to finish, so we could get a good idea about which parts are familiar, and which are new. Obviously, I can't talk about the specifics of the story, but it was reassuring that it was still very close to the parts of the story that Douglas told us while he was still working on it.
From there, it was on to one of the stages, where they were looking after some of the creatures for the movie. Among these were several Vogon heads. These were amazing - huge and extremely detailed, right down to the facial hair. The Vogons have a particular facial appearance which is a result of one aspect of the environment of their home planet which Douglas told us about several years ago (and which we all thought was very funny) so it's great to see that not only is this idea still in the script, but the physical design of the Vogons has been shaped by it. (I know all this sounds terribly vague, but I'm not allowed to mention specifics.)
After this close encounter, Robbie took us to the George Lucas stage, where we entered the Heart of Gold. I was slightly disappointed that by the time we arrived, shooting had just finished for the day, so we didn't get to see any scenes being shot, and we didn't get to see the set fully lit. Robbie started to show us around the set when we met Garth (Jennings, the director) who told us we were doing it all wrong, and insisted on showing us round the set 'the right way.' We started in the embarkation bay, where Ford and Arthur first arrive (some interesting furniture there), took us through a couple of 'those self-satisfied doors' into the main part of the set. It has been built complete as a single set, rather than as lots of disconnected sets, so you can actually walk from the entrance all through the ship, to the bridge, the bar (there was a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in a glass there, but I didn't inhale), the huge viewing deck, and even the kitchen (complete with a Nutrimatic machine, and a superb teapot which I covet deeply). While on the bridge, I succumbed to my inner geek, and asked if I could press the Infinite Improbability Drive button. Unfortunately, it wasn't powered up at the time.
It really is stupendous. Even without the proper lighting (the lighting rig is so large that they can only light it for six minutes at a time, otherwise the set starts expanding and you can hear it cracking) it's truly beautiful. The main control panel is a mass of buttons and lights (most of which are labelled, although you're unlikely to read the labels on film) with the large IID button in the centre. They even have a set of instruction manuals.
Once Garth had finished giving us the guided tour, they had to dash off and view the day's rushes. We did ask if we could watch, but no such luck. We did get to see a very interesting *second* Heart of Gold set, but the details of that are top secret.
Seeing that one set, and the production paintings, I think there's a very good chance that this could turn out to be one of the most beautiful SF films ever made. The Heart of Gold itself has immediately entered my top three greatest spaceship designs based on the initial designs I've seen. If they can translate those onto film, it's a shoo-in.
This movie has had a more chequered history than most, and several times it looked like it would never get made (especially after Douglas died). But now it's really happening and it's looking really good. So far, everything about the movie that I've seen or heard about has made me more enthusiastic about it. The designs are rarely what you would expect, but they always make perfect sense. The Vogon ships, the Heart of Gold, Deep Thought, all of them are nothing like I would have imagined, but once you see them they seem utterly correct. I keep waiting to see or hear something that makes me think 'Oh no, that's not right at all' but it hasn't happened yet.
I can't wait for Summer 2005.
Discuss this Journal entry [24]
Latest reply: May 31, 2004
How to save the BBC
Posted Feb 6, 2004
As a member of staff, I probably shouldn't talk about such things, but I felt this was too good not to share:
http://www.brian4thebeeb.com/
Discuss this Journal entry [8]
Latest reply: Feb 6, 2004
Jim Lynn
Researcher U6
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."