Mark Bult Design: San Francisco, CA, Established 1988

An Adams fan finally speaks the truth about the Hitchhikers movie

I was uncharacteristically silent here about my opinion of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" movie after I saw it earlier this year. Since then, when asked by friends what I thought of the movie, I have said something like "I liked it but I was somewhat disappointed."

But I've always felt a twinge when I said this, like it was a cop-out. I've finally come realize that I was probably not willing to admit to myself that I was more disappointed in the movie that I had originally thought, that I just couldn't bare to face the reality that the filmmakers had released such a phenomenal cock-up on the millions of fans of Douglas Adams' work.

MJ Simpson is a longtime Adams scholar who was privy to much inside information during the making of the film, including a pre-release screening last March. Simpson then published a scathing review on his website and subsequently suffered an onslaught of negative feedback because of it.

But I have to admit that he's essentially spot-on about each and every criticism. I applaud Simpson for putting his honest opinion out there, and for taking the shots that came from it. And I say he's right.

The filmmakers took out almost all the jokes. They removed the funny from Adams' trademark funny dialog. The movie suffers from a twisted and nonsensical plot that was made even worse from an utterly outrageous editing job. Simpson says it and I'll say it too: It's okay to mess about with the plot. Adams did it in every version of Hitchhikers. But the dialog still has to be funny.

It's a long review, it took nearly an hour to read, but it's worth it.

After all this, I still can't get past the fact that I really, really want the DVD [Update: I broke down and bought it]. I just can't help it. I'm a rabid collector of Hitchhikers stuff and I admit I simply must add the movie to my collection.

And maybe a part of me is hoping that I'll grow to like parts of the film more by watching it a few more times. I mean, it wasn't totally abysmal; there were some good bits. Just a shame it wasn't as good as it could have been.

Labels: books, Douglas Adams, film, Hitchhikers Guide

Posted by espd at 1:37 AM | 
Share and enjoy:  | Email this: