Neoteric wrote:
] ] This review is based on a substantially complete version
] ] of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shown to a small
] ] group of journalists in London on 31st March 2005, to
] ] which I was invited by Buena Vista International and
] ] Digital Outlook. The generosity of these companies in
] ] paying for my travel to this screening is gratefully
] ] acknowledged. The opinions expressed here are the
] ] personal critical opinions of myself, author and
] ] journalist MJ Simpson. This review is based on a single
] ] viewing of the film; if any factual details have been
] ] misremembered, I am happy to amend those portions of the
] ] text. Because of its great length, this review has been
] ] split into four parts:

It sounds like it's on par with garfield and the cat in the hat. That's about what I expected.

Decius wrote:
] ] This review is based on a substantially complete version
] ] of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy shown to a small
] ] group of journalists in London on 31st March 2005, to
] ] which I was invited by Buena Vista International and
] ] Digital Outlook.
]
] The short version is this guy HATES this film. Lots of
] comments and some counter-reviews on Slashdot. It appears,
] however, that some of my favorite moments from the original,
] such as the commentaries on God and infinity, are missing or
] highly redacted. Comments that "some things just don't work on
] film" are really stupid here given that this book was already
] made into a movie. I'm sure its funny. I'm sure its been
] playtested, and if it wasn't funny they'd have re-edited. I'm
] not sure its going to be smart.

I'm not sure about that last statement. Most movies now are built for the foreign market (read not United States). Big budget movies yield their profits now a days on the foreign market (read Everywhere else). So you get a lot of visual bang-bang instead of good writing. Which misses most of the joy of HHGTTG.

I agree w/ the author in the fact that most of the major "story" to HHGTTG is crap. It's the dialog, the banter and quick english wit that made the characters compelling. The vogons blowing up the earth was funny because they were doing it to build a hiway. The fact that the babel fish could prove the non-existence of god is brilliant. The fact that a towel is important goes totally missing in the movie. So you're left w/ '42', a guy in a bathrobe, and a rather fetching astrophysicists.

This is a larger trend that I've noticed... call it the "dumbing down of cinema". This is why movies like _Sahara_ (beautiful people playing in the sand), _Terminator 3_ (robotz attax) and even _Attack of the Clones_ (mutherfucking yoda and shit) have become diluted shells of cinematic glory... okay those weren't good examples, but they each could have been so much better.

Sure they have a lot of neato gee-whiz sorts of visual effects (read require no translation and have good cross lingual translation), but the stories are vapid. Big budget hollywood doesn't have time for someone to "not get it" on first viewing. True all good stories are simple at heart, but come on. We (as humanity) can do better.

This only saddens me because fancy HDTV and fancy progressive DVD player all I'll be able to watch is absolute crap. (I just bought the new denon 2910, http://www.audioholics.com/productreviews/avhardware/DenonDVD-2910Review1.php , so I can enjoy upencoded dvds at 720p and probably the best dvd player for under $1k).

Can we please stop assuming everyone has an attention span of slug?

Does all of this mean I won't see this movie? Probably not, but that doesn't mean I can't be disappointed.

--timball