The Hitchhiker's Film

[poliphilo]

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is in a very English vein of absurdist comedy and it was a mistake to cast Americans in leading roles. The nearest American comedy gets to Adams is the Marx Brothers- and that's how the Americans play it and it's wrong. You've got to underplay Adams, you've got to deadpan it.  If you jump around semaphoring that this is all like whacky and zany you kill the comedy stone dead. Freeman, Nighy and Rickman know how it's done; Mos Def and that desperately unfunny guy who played Beeblebrox haven't a clue. 

The original radio show was an interminable ramble. Long before the end I was all whimsied out.  So cutting it down to the length of a bubblegum movie was a good idea, right? Well, yes and no. On the one hand the movie doesn't outstay its welcome and on the other there's now too much plot and it's pretty hard to follow. Why was the gal with the severe haircut chasing Beeblebrox in alliance with the Vogons and who was she anyway? I don't know- and worse than that- I don't really care. 

Adams's genius (that's maybe too strong a word for a hit and miss humourist) was for wordplay. Vogon poetry, silly names, surreal flights of fancy. The original was never stronger than when Peter Jones read discursive extracts from the Guide.  Almost the funniest thing in the entire movie is the narrated story- tacked on at the end- about the alien battlefleet that gets eaten by a small dog. The animatronic Vogons are fun and the CGI landscapes are pretty to look at but they don't add anything essential. The joke about the whale falling through space is no funnier now you can see it.

Adams's master was Lewis Carroll and you can't film him either-  not with any success-  though I hear Tim Burton is going to have a stab at it. Personally I wish he'd save himself the bother.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Judging from what you say here, it sounds like you haven't seen the old BBC TV series, and I think you'd really like it. It has (almost) the same cast as the radio series, and hence they really know how to deliver their lines. But it is shorter - only 6 half-hour episodes instead of 12. The budget is lower than the film, but pretty good for its time, and the visuals generally do a lot to support the jokes - especially the sequences from the book.

I agree that the film is a pretty poor show. My Dad was watching it last night, as he hadn't seen it before, and even though he loves Hitch-Hikers as a general concept, I think I only heard him laugh once. I know all the jokes are old now, and it's hard to make them fresh - but they just seemed to be recited like shopping lists, by almost all members of the cast.

Hitchhikers Guide...

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

My then teenage son (he's 32 now) introduced me to Doug Adams's books, which we enjoyed together. Later he got his hands on a video of BBC's treatment of the series, and we enjoyed that one together, in spite of its poor effects, and as I remember, it too was subject to the "zany" treatment rather than deadpan. For all that we liked it.
When the movie came out my son was not in the immediate neighborhood, so I went alone to the theatre and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though they failed to explain the significance of the towel. And ANY Adams fan knows how important it is to always "know where one's towel is...."
One of the Christmas gifts my son gave me (around 1995 or so) was a leather bound copy of four of the Hitchhiker books, which I treasure - and enjoy.
I was sad and disappointed when Doug Adams died, because I was hoping to see more of his writing.

Re: Hitchhikers Guide...

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

By the way, it is my opinion that if someone views either the TV shows video OR the movie without having read the book(s) first, they will be lost with no idea of the point of it all. Just a thought...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have seen the TV version- and I enjoyed it- but it's a long time ago and my memories are fuzzy. I've listened to the radio original (on CD) much more recently.

The film is a lot better than it might have been- I love Bill Nighy's cameo- but it all seems a bit pointless.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

You've got to underplay Adams, you've got to deadpan it. If you jump around semaphoring that this is all like whacky and zany you kill the comedy stone dead.

I wonder if this explains why Americans either love Monty Python, or are completely befuddled by it. John Cleese is an absolute master of deadpan delivery.

Re: Hitchhikers Guide...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think the film would be hard going for anyone who didn't already have some familiarity with the franchise.

I'm not sure whether I've read the books or not. But I have heard the radio series- all 12 hours of it- and it was the radio show that came first.

What is the point of the towel? I must have known once but I've forgotten. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Could be.

Douglas Adams belongs to the same school of comedy as the Python guys. And they all derive from the Goons- Sellers, Milligan, Secombe and Bentine.

Re: Hitchhikers Guide...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

P.S. I've misled you. The history of THGTTG is incredibly complex. The very first appearance of the characters was on radio- but thereafter they jumped about between radio, TV and the printed page in a quite bewildering manner- and the later radio series were based on novels rather than the other way round.

Adams revised the story every time he moved into another medium- with the result that there really is no definitive, canonical version

[happydog.livejournal.com]

Just curious - what is your opinion of Terry Pratchett?

[red-girl-42.livejournal.com]

Agreed to the zillionth degree!

Personally, I loved the old radio show, and the BBC TV version. But yeah, the newer movie just left me thinking, "This doesn't quite capture it..." You've put into words what I could only feel intuitively.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I read a couple of books and decided he wasn't really my thing. I'm not a big fan, but I think he's very clever.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The film makes too many concessions to Hollywood.
They should have trusted the material- and the fan-base- more.

Re: Carroll on film

[senordildo.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Miller made a pretty good TV film of Alice in Wonderland, with Peter Cook as the Mad Hatter, and with Peter Sellers, John Gielgud and several other luminaries.
There is a deadpan, absurd strain of American comedy, but it tends to be in the fringes of the mainstream (sitcoms like Arrested Development, or animated programs like Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021, Aquateen Hunger Force, and the other Adult Swim shows. The greatest master of American deadpan would most likely be W.C. Fields.

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

That movie really annoyed and frustrated me. You say there was too much plot, but really what the movie did for me was just show up how there is NO plot in Hitch-hiker's really, not anything more than a lot of coincidence and, as you say, whimsy.

The same reason I can't stand Tim Burton anymore. Ooh ooh wacky and zany but no story and no quality. The Corpse Bride felt like my soul was being scooped out- I left feeling empty, like I'd had to give the movie my energy just to stay with it, and it never repaid. Like we're all salving Burton's ego by just turning up and oohing and aahing.

It's not enough to be able to do absurd stuff. You need a story that goes somewhere, or means something.

Re: Carroll on film

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I agree about the Jonathan Miller film. It's a favourite of mine. But it's so far out I see it as a commentary on Alice rather than an adaption.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of plot but it's pointless plot. It's been tacked on. Who really cares if Arthur and Trillian get it on together?

I agree about Burton. The only film of his I really like is Ed Wood.