I just got back from seeing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. It was a fun movie, and having enjoyed the book, it was fun to see the characters on the big screen, but it didn’t provide the entertainment I got from the book.
If you haven’t read the book, you’ll probably think it’s a bizarre movie without a point. In fact, about 15 minutes into the movie I saw several middle-aged people walk out, presumably because it wasn’t their cup of tea.
If you’ve read the book, it is definitely worth seeing, but if you’re not into the that sort of thing to begin with, I don’t think you’ll enjoy seeing it. It doesn’t fit into the mainstream movie-goer’s cup of tea.
I’ll have to chime in with a “me too” here. I just got back from seeing it and I’m pretty much with you on it. It was a good movie and I think they adapted the books about as well as could be expected. I mean, most of the funny stuff (in my opinion) was in the narration and wouldn’t make sense being read aloud anyway.
My wife, who hasn’t read the books, liked the movie well enough, though. So maybe you wouldn’t be totally lost if you haven’t read them, but I’m sure it just wasn’t quite as funny to her.
As a sort of aside, I thought they did a good job with the guide itself. And I thought the scene at Magrathea (sp?) was great eye candy.
Yeah, Magrathea was cool. I also liked the space ship, which was reminiscent of Dr. Who, which Douglas Adams had a part in. The hitchhiker’s guide itself was a quite different in the movie than I had pictured in my mind while reading. The screen was far more simplistic than I had envisioned. Lastly, there’s no way a babel fish that size could fit in someone’s ear.
I loved this book when I was a kid so I’m looking forward to seeing it. A good friend of mine in NJ has the recordings of the original radio series where it all began and I believe I’ll be getting my copy on Monday or Tuesday.
I went and saw it with a bunch of friends, several of whom hadn’t had any previous exposure to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy material. All of them seemed to like it. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The way they did the guide was reminiscent of the guide from the BBC miniseries, but updated a bit. The way it was described in the books was even more primitive; a 3×4 inch screen, displaying mostly text, placed above a bunch of keys. I really liked how they did the guide for the movie.
I enjoyed the movie. The guy they cast as Zaphod Beeblebrox was great for the part.
I would have to agree with your comments Dan regarding this movie. I enjoyed some of the characters and things about the movie but it wasn’t my cup of tea. It was fun to see the peoples reactions towards the movie of whom we went to see it with, they enjoyed it immensely. That is what counted.