• 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    11 months ago

    The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

    It was good. It was written by Douglas Adams. He also wrote screenplays for the next 2 books to be made into movies.

    And despite it making a couple million more than it cost, the first one was considered a flop. :(

    • Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      11 months ago

      Thay movie was awful. As a huge fan of the series, I don’t know how anyone can watch it and understand the plot without being familiar with it beforehand.

      The BBC series is much better, and goes up to Book 3 iirc.

      • GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        11 months ago

        I disagree. I loved the film. I remember it fondly.

        Do you like the books? I find that people who like or have read the books tend not to like the movie and vice versa. I do not like the books.

          • Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            11 months ago

            Yeah the way I see it is that even Douglas himself didn’t quite have a single vision in his mind about the story, which is why there are so many iterations (radio, book, movie, tv series, musical? Am I forgetting anything?)

        • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          11 months ago

          The funny thing about THHGttG is that it exists several times simultaneously with wildly different canons. The original BBC radio show was the original, then they did the TV miniseries with much of the same talent (Mostly replacing Susan Sheridan with Sandra Dickenson as Trillian), THEN the book pentology, THEN the 2005 movie. They all start pretty similarly with Arthur’s house and the pub and the Vogons, but then they go into all kinds of different directions in different orders.

          • loobkoob@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            11 months ago

            For me personally, the plot doesn’t matter all that much anyway. What I love is Douglas Adams’ prose - the plot’s mostly just a vehicle for that - and I feel that doesn’t really translate to film. The perfect example:

            The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.

            It’s funny. It’s succinct. It’s very descriptive. It doesn’t just tell you that the ships were hovering, it draws comparison to bricks which conjures up images of blocky, inelegant ships, and it gives the impression that the way they’re just stationary in the sky is somewhat unsettling or surreal. I think it’s quite impressive how much such a short sentence manages to convey really!

            Translating it to film, and having shot of some blocky, inelegant ships hanging in the sky, doesn’t manage to capture the same humour or feeling that that short sentence in the book does, at least for me. And it’s the same throughout the whole series, but that line is probably the easiest example to bring up. Some books translate really well to film and the imagery in the film ends up being far better than what I could imagine myself on the fly, but that’s not the case with Hitchhiker’s Guide at all.

            The Hitchhiker’s Guide radio series has a fair amount of narration so the prose still shines through in that.

            I had similar issues with the various Dirk Gently adaptations, too. And I find I have the same issue with screen adaptations of Terry Pratchett’s work for similar reasons. Without Adams’ or Pratchett’s wonderful prose, it often tends to feel very B-movie-esque to me.

    • Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      It was ok. Didn’t understand the side story with John Malkovich at all, pointless. And Zoey Deschanel was terrible as Trillen, like criminally awful at the role to the point she ruined it for me. Sam Rockwell was perfect casting though, same with mos Def and Martin Freeman

    • Mostly_Gristle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      11 months ago

      I’m surprised it’s never been made into a decent TV show. The entire thing has already been made into half-hour radio shows, so the scripts are there and road tested. It’s basically halfway done already.