Film Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Walking out of the movie theater after seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I felt a little like I had walking out of seeing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time: astounded by parts, enthralled by others, but overall, a little disappointed at the choices the filmmakers had made.
Parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had me in stitches. Seeing the Vogons, Magrathea, the Heart of Gold, Zaphod's heads, Marvin -- it was all like a beautiful dream come true. Watching it, I could tell that the directors really felt a synergy with the source material and wanted to bring those visions to life. The decision to use puppets in many places instead of CGI was BRILLIANT (we'll leave my "Why Yoda Should NEVER Have Been Animated" rant for another day), the sets were stunning, and the casting was a stroke of genius.
Martin Freeman is Arthur Dent, in all his glory. I worried about Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian all being Americans, but they pulled it off brilliantly. I believed every single one of them in their roles.
Too bad they had rather a crap script to work with.
It occurred to me in thinking about this film to wonder why it had spent so many years in development hell before finally being made. Was it because film executives were afraid of the inherent strangeness of the story? Were they worried that it wouldn't appeal to a vast enough audience and end up as one large inside joke?
Probably. But the thing that really struck me after having seen the film, read the interviews, and judged the end product for myself , is that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is what I've heard referred to as a linear story. It doesn't follow a three act structure. Even when taken with the other four books, the plot wanders and meanders the way real life does. Since it was originally conceived as a radio programme, the episodic nature of the storytelling bleeds over into the novels.
It is not, in short, a story that is readily adaptable for the screen.
After Douglas Adams' death, the screenplay was handed over to Karey Kirkpatrick for a final rewrite. Not having any familiarity with the work himself, he could see why Douglas' screenplay didn't work; it didn't have an overarching plotline or theme to tie the whole thing back together. By his own admission, he created one out of thin air in the hopes that it would sell the film to a more traditional (and therefore wider) audience.
The "exploration" (and I use that term VERY loosely) of the romance between Arthur and Trillian and the theme of Arthur's reluctance to venture out of his comfort zone provide the three act structure that the studio executives at Disney so desperately craved. Unfortunately, it was a poor choice, forcing all of the rest of the story, the parts the fans love and crave, into secondary roles as subplots. Indeed, the destruction of the Earth, the search for Magrathea, and all the resulting hilarity becomes secondary to the entirely fabricated love story between Arthur and Trillian.
In addition, because the rest of the story is what most of the fans are going to go to the movie theater to see, many people will be highly disappointed when they are spoon fed a weak and horribly clichéd plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights for girl, boy wins girl back. The only good parts are the details that get thrown in between the commas.
By superimposing the Hollywood status quo onto a story which is, at its soul, anything but, the screenwriter effectively succeeded in alienating a large portion of the film's core constituency: Hitchhiker fans. The ones who can quote the novels chapter and verse, the ones who have all of the BBC TV show on tape, the ones who arrived to the theater with their towels slung enthusiastically around their necks (true story). When the quirky events they know and love get relegated to the back seat of the film, they are going to be understandably disappointed.
Unfortunately, the wider audience Disney was so worried about garnering will also come away disappointed. While the in jokes that abound throughout the movie redeem it in some small way to fans familiar with the material, I fear that much of it will fly at light speed over the heads of the uninitiated. Because the episodes have been crammed into a much shorter time, competing with new material and the dubious main plot, the actual funny bits zoom past at breakneck speed. In addition, many of the jokes are so literary -- literally excerpts from the Guide -- they cannot be quickly digested by someone who isn't reciting the words along with the film in her head. Someone who hasn't read the books would probably have to see the film more than once to appreciate many of the jokes -- and since the main plot is so terribly trite, they'll be lucky if they make it through the first sitting.
My biggest question, I suppose, was why they couldn't have come up with a better A plot. The source material is THICK with plots: Zaphod's search for Magrathea, Ford's research for the guide, Arthur's experiences being thrown out into the universe and searching for a home. Any and all of these would have made a better three act structure than the contrived romance which actually made the cut. I understand the filmmakers' need to define a rising plot line, I understand their hesitancy to make the film as a linear story, I even understand the pull of a classic love triangle. What I don't understand is how they could subvert the source material so blatantly and expect the fanatical fan base to understand.
To murder an old bit of verse, "When it was good, it was very very good, but when it was bad it was AWFUL." Trying too hard once again, Disney, and it has resulted in a bastardization of what could have been a great film. I think the thing that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy teaches us is that when you seek something as vast, as wonderful, and as mysterious as the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and -- well -- everything, it's quite probable that the answer will be more than a little disappointing.
Parts of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy had me in stitches. Seeing the Vogons, Magrathea, the Heart of Gold, Zaphod's heads, Marvin -- it was all like a beautiful dream come true. Watching it, I could tell that the directors really felt a synergy with the source material and wanted to bring those visions to life. The decision to use puppets in many places instead of CGI was BRILLIANT (we'll leave my "Why Yoda Should NEVER Have Been Animated" rant for another day), the sets were stunning, and the casting was a stroke of genius.
Martin Freeman is Arthur Dent, in all his glory. I worried about Zaphod, Ford, and Trillian all being Americans, but they pulled it off brilliantly. I believed every single one of them in their roles.
Too bad they had rather a crap script to work with.
It occurred to me in thinking about this film to wonder why it had spent so many years in development hell before finally being made. Was it because film executives were afraid of the inherent strangeness of the story? Were they worried that it wouldn't appeal to a vast enough audience and end up as one large inside joke?
Probably. But the thing that really struck me after having seen the film, read the interviews, and judged the end product for myself , is that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is what I've heard referred to as a linear story. It doesn't follow a three act structure. Even when taken with the other four books, the plot wanders and meanders the way real life does. Since it was originally conceived as a radio programme, the episodic nature of the storytelling bleeds over into the novels.
It is not, in short, a story that is readily adaptable for the screen.
After Douglas Adams' death, the screenplay was handed over to Karey Kirkpatrick for a final rewrite. Not having any familiarity with the work himself, he could see why Douglas' screenplay didn't work; it didn't have an overarching plotline or theme to tie the whole thing back together. By his own admission, he created one out of thin air in the hopes that it would sell the film to a more traditional (and therefore wider) audience.
The "exploration" (and I use that term VERY loosely) of the romance between Arthur and Trillian and the theme of Arthur's reluctance to venture out of his comfort zone provide the three act structure that the studio executives at Disney so desperately craved. Unfortunately, it was a poor choice, forcing all of the rest of the story, the parts the fans love and crave, into secondary roles as subplots. Indeed, the destruction of the Earth, the search for Magrathea, and all the resulting hilarity becomes secondary to the entirely fabricated love story between Arthur and Trillian.
In addition, because the rest of the story is what most of the fans are going to go to the movie theater to see, many people will be highly disappointed when they are spoon fed a weak and horribly clichéd plot: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy fights for girl, boy wins girl back. The only good parts are the details that get thrown in between the commas.
By superimposing the Hollywood status quo onto a story which is, at its soul, anything but, the screenwriter effectively succeeded in alienating a large portion of the film's core constituency: Hitchhiker fans. The ones who can quote the novels chapter and verse, the ones who have all of the BBC TV show on tape, the ones who arrived to the theater with their towels slung enthusiastically around their necks (true story). When the quirky events they know and love get relegated to the back seat of the film, they are going to be understandably disappointed.
Unfortunately, the wider audience Disney was so worried about garnering will also come away disappointed. While the in jokes that abound throughout the movie redeem it in some small way to fans familiar with the material, I fear that much of it will fly at light speed over the heads of the uninitiated. Because the episodes have been crammed into a much shorter time, competing with new material and the dubious main plot, the actual funny bits zoom past at breakneck speed. In addition, many of the jokes are so literary -- literally excerpts from the Guide -- they cannot be quickly digested by someone who isn't reciting the words along with the film in her head. Someone who hasn't read the books would probably have to see the film more than once to appreciate many of the jokes -- and since the main plot is so terribly trite, they'll be lucky if they make it through the first sitting.
My biggest question, I suppose, was why they couldn't have come up with a better A plot. The source material is THICK with plots: Zaphod's search for Magrathea, Ford's research for the guide, Arthur's experiences being thrown out into the universe and searching for a home. Any and all of these would have made a better three act structure than the contrived romance which actually made the cut. I understand the filmmakers' need to define a rising plot line, I understand their hesitancy to make the film as a linear story, I even understand the pull of a classic love triangle. What I don't understand is how they could subvert the source material so blatantly and expect the fanatical fan base to understand.
To murder an old bit of verse, "When it was good, it was very very good, but when it was bad it was AWFUL." Trying too hard once again, Disney, and it has resulted in a bastardization of what could have been a great film. I think the thing that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy teaches us is that when you seek something as vast, as wonderful, and as mysterious as the ultimate answer to life, the universe, and -- well -- everything, it's quite probable that the answer will be more than a little disappointing.
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