DON'T PANiC
Apr. 7th, 2005 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
enthusiastickI keep seeing the trailers for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie on television and let me tell you, man does that have me psyched.
I had by and large avoided doing too much research into the movie because, like many fans, I was really nervous about it. But some of the things I saw in the trailer piqued my curiosity, and what I found by doing a little reading over at the old IMDB and a handful of other websites has me intrigued and, dare I say, hopeful. Like, for example, the casting, which includes:
Martin Freeman in the role of Arthur Dent. I know Freeman best from his work in Love Actually and I have every confidence therefore he's quite a good choice to play the everyman (or at least every Englishman) Dent.
Zooey Deschanel in the role of Trillian. I only recently discovered Ms. Deschanel because, on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jrdameonhv's recommendation I watched Eulogy. I remain convinced that even though she is apparently not related to Selma Blair she ought to be. Moreover I was extremely worried they'd get Trillian wrong in the movie, and cast someone beautiful. Zooey Deschanel is pretty without being beautiful, and that suits me perfectly.
Bill Nighy is playing Slartibartfast. Another face I recognize from Love Actually. Looks about right to my eyes.
And of course I've already made a big deal about Alan Rickman playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android. I'm, dare I say, a touch obsessed with Alan Rickman and off the top of my head they couldn't have picked anyone better. His role in Dogma proves to me that he can pull off quite adeptly the sort of British exasperated annoyance needed for the role.
One other thing bears mentioning... the cast page lists John Malkovich in the role of religious leader and apparent villain Humma Kavula, someone I've never heard of despite my relatively thorough knowledge of Douglas Adams' oeuvre. Apparently he is one of several characters and new plots created and approved by Adams prior to his untimely death.
I'm a firm believe that the Guide has never been a static story. Its been through a number of evolutions already, and has been adapted from a radio play to a book, a stage play, and a BBC TV miniseries. And each time some things have changed, been reordered, disappeared inexplicably, etc. So I can't make up my mind whether to embrace that spirit of change and be hopeful about the new material, or whether to live in nail-biting agonizing worry that it will be terrible. But at the very least I thought I'd like to get it out into the public record that apparently New Stuff is coming and all us fans should be ready for it.
I had by and large avoided doing too much research into the movie because, like many fans, I was really nervous about it. But some of the things I saw in the trailer piqued my curiosity, and what I found by doing a little reading over at the old IMDB and a handful of other websites has me intrigued and, dare I say, hopeful. Like, for example, the casting, which includes:
Martin Freeman in the role of Arthur Dent. I know Freeman best from his work in Love Actually and I have every confidence therefore he's quite a good choice to play the everyman (or at least every Englishman) Dent.
Zooey Deschanel in the role of Trillian. I only recently discovered Ms. Deschanel because, on
jrdameonhv's recommendation I watched Eulogy. I remain convinced that even though she is apparently not related to Selma Blair she ought to be. Moreover I was extremely worried they'd get Trillian wrong in the movie, and cast someone beautiful. Zooey Deschanel is pretty without being beautiful, and that suits me perfectly.Bill Nighy is playing Slartibartfast. Another face I recognize from Love Actually. Looks about right to my eyes.
And of course I've already made a big deal about Alan Rickman playing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android. I'm, dare I say, a touch obsessed with Alan Rickman and off the top of my head they couldn't have picked anyone better. His role in Dogma proves to me that he can pull off quite adeptly the sort of British exasperated annoyance needed for the role.
One other thing bears mentioning... the cast page lists John Malkovich in the role of religious leader and apparent villain Humma Kavula, someone I've never heard of despite my relatively thorough knowledge of Douglas Adams' oeuvre. Apparently he is one of several characters and new plots created and approved by Adams prior to his untimely death.
I'm a firm believe that the Guide has never been a static story. Its been through a number of evolutions already, and has been adapted from a radio play to a book, a stage play, and a BBC TV miniseries. And each time some things have changed, been reordered, disappeared inexplicably, etc. So I can't make up my mind whether to embrace that spirit of change and be hopeful about the new material, or whether to live in nail-biting agonizing worry that it will be terrible. But at the very least I thought I'd like to get it out into the public record that apparently New Stuff is coming and all us fans should be ready for it.
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Don't panic
Date: 2005-04-07 06:03 pm (UTC)Now, ordinarily, I am all about faithfulness (you should hear me bitch and whine about the LOTR movies sometime — I enjoy them, but my God will I rant).
Hitchhiker's, no. Because it is quite clear that Douglas Adams doesn't care about preserving some one canon either. Read his gleeful introduction about how the two versions of the radio drama conflicted with themselves and each other, and how the books contradict the radio dramas, and etc. etc. etc. ... heck, as you pointed out, he himself wrote material for the upcoming movie that ain't in the books.
What I consider the 'definitive' Hitchhiker's (the books) isn't even the original!
So I don't care if the movie messes with the books in this case, though if they do get my favorite little bits in I'll be ecstatic. But I do care that it turns out to be a damn funny movie. I don't want to leave the Hitchhiker's movie not feeling like I had been entertained.
I enjoyed the TV series, despite its flaws... I do hope the movie turns out better than the TV series though. Surely that's not too much to ask.
I confess I still can't wrap my mind around a black person (THERE, I SAID IT) as Ford, or, to a lesser degree, Zaphod's second head not being by his side all the time.
And I'm forever upset that we lost the opportunity to see Hugh Laurie play Arthur back in the day.
But c'est la vie...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-07 06:52 pm (UTC)This has nothing to do with anything, really, its just that a British drama teacher once convinced me that the whole point of Ford Prefect was his American-ness; that even though in the radio plays and books and such he does not have an American voice he is still meant to represent the quintessential American. In his view (and consequently now in mine) the conversations between Arthur and Ford are the conversations between Britons and America. And it bothers me that I think somehow in the movie version that might not come across (although I think it does in the minseries.)
The Zaphod's head thing bothers me... as does the fact that the actor playing him is the guy who played Guy Fleegman in Galaxy Quest. But I hold out hope.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-07 06:42 pm (UTC)::rolls eyes::
(no subject)
Date: 2005-04-07 07:06 pm (UTC)And if he does know, is he a hardcore radio-drama-only canonist? 'Cause I've never met one of them.
Don't get me wrong, I have my reservations about this flick. But I also have set expectations for it that I think it can meet, and if it does, I'll have considered my money well-spent.