Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[noel]

Fokker- I just said he was hawt- don't ruin it for me.   

Whoops.  Sorry- this is actually Dazie, I'm at Noel's house.

But BOB- you're still a fokker. 

[dc]

Fokker- I just said he was hawt- don't ruin it for me.   

Whoops.  Sorry- this is actually Dazie, I'm at Noel's house.

But BOB- you're still a fokker. 

He's a WW1 German airplane?  I'm lost.....

[OBB]

I'm a Fokker flying a Messerschmidt.

[ignom]

I didn't like Mos Def. I don't think he can act, but then this is the first thing I've ever seen him in.

Other than that, I liked it.

Alan Rickman is perfect for Marvin. I think the fact that Marvin is shiny and slick and cute makes it even better that he was manically depressive.

Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent looks like a polar opposite of Martin Freeman as Tim Canterbury somehow.

Sam Rockwell was doing a full-on Bush at times.

[dazie]

Sam Rockwell was doing a full-on Bush at times.

    I hadn't thought that at all.  Now I'm REALLY going to have nightmares.

[Jessie]

I thought that there was a certain Bush/Zaphod thing going on.  I thought he was hilarious and nailed the obnoxiousness of Zaphod perfectly.

I'm pretty sure that this just wouldn't have been the same without knowing the story beforehand.  I think that there's just so much random stuff in the book, and the story is a little disjointed (I'm not sure that that's the best word for it, but I don't think that the book has the flow of most novels, but I like that about it...) that it might not naturally flow the way most movies would.

I don't know that this would make a great stand alone movie, but as an addition to the book it was excellent.

I didn't hate Marvin being short and round like I thought I would.  He was so blah and negative that it worked out perfectly, really.

I think Martin Freeman totally nailed Arthur Dent, and I think I liked Mos Def as Ford. 

Things that I felt weren't stressed enough:  I didn't notice any real focus on the fact that Ford was an investigative journalist for the guide.  They talked about the importance of the towel - sort of.  Those two things would be totally lost on someone who hadn't read the book, I think.

The Vogons were very ugly, but they were meticulous more than they were mean.  I think the Vogon guards in the book were much meaner.

The main thing I kept thinking was, "Yeah, that's exactly how I imagined it."  I think that's a good thing.

[BigDun]

I was amazed by how much the movie maintained the feel of the book. The book has a weird, disjointed feeling that I wasn't sure they could capture on the big screen. The director and (posthumously) producer and screenplay writer did a fantastic job of capturing the feel of the series.

Kudos.

I left the theater singing Thanks for the Fish.

I will buy this on DVD.

[Jessie]

I heard this morning that the movie opened at #1.

There was something else that I wanted to say about it, but I forgot what it was.

Crap.

[Jessie]

I remember now.  I'm a big nerd and got excited because the heavy equipment that tore down his house was all JCB crap, and I work for a JCB dealer.

JCB is a British company, but they have a factory in Savannah, too.

I felt like I knew one of the stars of the movie:  the backhoe!

[OBB]

The landscaping company I used to work for had a big JCB loader!!! It's like Jessie and I are cousins!

Also, once the starter went on it, so we had to start the loader with a screwdriver.

[Bishamonten]

I think Mos Def was the perfect Ford Prefect.  There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

[cnamon]

I just saw it.  I thought it was a really cute story.  I think I will watch it again.

You all are making me geekier and geekier by the day...

[dazie]

Cute?  CUTE?  It was totally hoopy.  *grin*

I think I might have to purchase that.

[Gamplayerx]

I so need to see this still.  It's only on PPV, hasn't even hit on demand yet. 

[Mr. Ubiquity]

I so need to see this still.  It's only on PPV, hasn't even hit on demand yet. 

is this another one of those movies that you need to read the book first to truely understand it and like it?

didnt read the book so i guess it goes back to my HP4 problem.  wasnt as enjoyable because i didnt.

[cnamon]

I so need to see this still.  It's only on PPV, hasn't even hit on demand yet. 

is this another one of those movies that you need to read the book first to truely understand it and like it?

didnt read the book so i guess it goes back to my HP4 problem.  wasnt as enjoyable because i didnt.

I never read the book and I enjoyed it.  There were probably a lot of things that I didn't get, but that is pretty normal for me.

[Mr. Ubiquity]

I so need to see this still.  It's only on PPV, hasn't even hit on demand yet. 

is this another one of those movies that you need to read the book first to truely understand it and like it?

didnt read the book so i guess it goes back to my HP4 problem.  wasnt as enjoyable because i didnt.

I never read the book and I enjoyed it.  There were probably a lot of things that I didn't get, but that is pretty normal for me.

thats ok though, being a queen, you dont have to understand it,  supposed to have your underlings go watch it, understand it, if they dont kill em and get new ones who do then explain it to you.. if you still dont like it you kill them until you find someone who understands it AND explains it to your satisfaction.  Queens have that power.

[Gamplayerx]

The books are some of my favorite things ever. 

Here's an excerpt from the very beginning that I snagged off the interwebs (I know - it's long - but at least read the first 7 - 8 paragraphs):

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape- descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.

This is not her story.

But it is the story of that terrible stupid catastrophe and some of its consequences.

It is also the story of a book, a book called The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - not an Earth book, never published on Earth, and until the terrible catastrophe occurred, never seen or heard of by any Earthman.

Nevertheless, a wholly remarkable book.

in fact it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor - of which no Earthman had ever heard either.

Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one - more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

But the story of this terrible, stupid Thursday, the story of its extraordinary consequences, and the story of how these consequences are inextricably intertwined with this remarkable book begins very simply.

It begins with a house.

[Mr. Ubiquity]

mmmm. k

[dazie]

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

Amen!

I love the books.   

[Jessie]

That's the best beginning of a book ever.