from emily

Here's my disclaimer before I get to trashing this movie: You all know that I really really wanted to love the movie and was fully prepared to give it the full benefit of all doubt. That being said, it was somewhat disappointing. Don't get me wrong, it was truly a thrill to sit in a movie theater and see this on the big screen. The place was packed to capacity with geeks and even some dates of geeks. Everyone seemed to enjoy the movie and laugh in the appropriate places. But I do have some major complaining to do. The complaining will commence now. First of all, what ever happened to character development. I mean, we need to know some basics about the characters and their motivations, and we really get nothing. The most greivously misaligned character is Ford Prefect. I have no problem with Mos Def as Ford, he could have done a great job if they hadn't cut out all of Ford's dialogue. Right off the bat, instead of the funny bit where Ford convinces the construction guy to lie in front of the bulldozer in Arthur's place, they inexplicably had Ford just bring a shopping cart full of beer to distract the construction workers with. Maybe that was easier, but it didn't do much to show us Ford's personality. And then they cut out all of the important stuff after Ford and Arthur get picked up by the Vogons, where Ford explains all kinds crucial info. The best example of the injustice done to Ford is near the end where Zaphod shoots him with the Point of View gun (or as I like to call it, The Pointless New gun) and all we get of Ford's POV is "I like hitchhiking. Towels are good." Come on now, that's pathetic.
I just find it hard to believe that they could start out with source material that has a joke in every sentence and actually change it around so that it's less funny. They cut out bits of the bits that made the bits what they were in the first place. Imagine telling a long joke and then leaving off the punchline. For example, they use the part where they say, 'Space is big, really big. I mean you just wouldn't believe how vastly, mind bogglingly big it is.' and then they leave off the end: 'You might think its a long way down the road to the chemist but that's just peanuts to space.' Now I realize that these missing parts aren't going to affect the viewer of the movie who hasn't read the book and seen the tv series multiple times. But who cares about them, the way they've chopped the plot up, no one's going to understand the story anyway. Its painful to (geeky) people like me when you hear Ford say, "We're safe." and Arthur doesn't say, "This must be some strange usage of the word safe that I hadn't previously been aware of." And also, the babel fish looks cool, and you get the idea of what it’s for, but they skip a lot of what the guide has to say about it, most notably that it is seen by some theologians as proof of the non existence of God. I’m going to blame Disney for that one. Again, I realize that this is probably nit picky stuff that’s not going to mean a lot to most people, but it left me shaking my head.
Of course I don’t like any of the major plot changes, the biggest being the enhanced emphasis on a love story. We don’t need a love story here. Especially this one that feels contrived and forced. Now we all know that Zaphod picks up Trillian at an earth party just as Arthur is making some progress with her. Arthur really likes her, but Zaphod is cooler. Them all meeting up on the Heart of Gold is nothing more than a fabulous coincidence created by the infinite improbability drive. The movie has to twist this around to Arthur and Trillian getting together in space. Arthur is not the type of guy who is going to get the girl. That’s what makes him Arthur. He’s uptight and a little bit pathetic.
The very most incongruent part though, the deal breaker for me, was when Arthur is back on the reconstructed Earth, presented with his house exactly as he left it only better, and everything is going to be restored to the moment before the Vogons hit, and he is asked if he wants to stay on Earth. And he says No!!! Now anyone who knows this character at all is going to realize that he is too peevish and English to enjoy galactic adventures, he just wants to go home. He’s not enjoying space travel at all, it was forced upon him. If he had the choice, he would go back to his home. Yes, in the book, he sees the new earth with Slartibartfast and is asked if he would like to go down and take a look, and he says no thanks, it wouldn’t be the same. But that’s very different, I think. In the movie it is the same, and he has the choice to return to his old life and he refuses. That didn’t work for me.
I have to say that I actually liked the BBC tv series better, even with the extremely cheesy “special effects” including Zaphod’s paper mache head. It basically followed the book sentence by sentence, so it was very true to the source and a better representation IMVHO!
OK so that’s all the bitching I’m going to do about it for now. And there were some really good things so I’ll get to those. For one thing, Sean liked it. He said it was “fun.” And he was going into it with absolutely no experience with the story at all. I’m going to make him watch the tv series now. The movie did use the original theme song, which was highly commendable as it is a great song! They also gave the original Arthur Dent a quick cameo, giving fangeeks everywhere a small thrill.
There were some really funny parts. I liked Sam Rockwell as Zaphod and he provided some of the funnier moments with his combo Clinton- GW Bush- Elvis character. The Vogons looked perfectly vogonic, although they played too much of a role in the movie. The truest and best character representation was Bill Nighy as Slartibartfast (“My name is….not important.”). That was perfect. The new John Malkovich character was interesting and could prove to be a welcome addition in the sequel. In this one, we really don’t get the point as to why he’s there, but hopefully that will be revealed.
I enjoyed it, I will definitely be buying the DVD, but I couldn’t let it go without picking it apart a little bit, because overall it seemed like kind of a jumbled mess. Some people might be inspired to read the book after seeing it. Some people will walk out of the theater and say, “Well that was stupid.” Watch it yourself! It gets 10 out of 10 for style, but minus several million for good thinking.