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[MarkG]

widows selling their husbands' legacies...

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Elok
The whole thing was disjointed, as though the script had been dictated by a stuttering guy with Tourette's. And Trillian was annoying.

The screenwriter was some guy named Douglas Adams.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by MarkG
widows selling their husbands' legacies...

Except for selling the George Lucas legacy.
Then we'll finally get Episodes VII, VIII & IX -- with none of them written by George Lucas.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


The screenwriter was some guy named Douglas Adams.

He died part-way through, though, so that means fans can discount all flaws as not his doing.

Oh, and Zooey is hawt.

-Arrian

[Elok]

Originally posted by Arrian
Oh, and Zooey is hawt.

-Arrian

I don't contest that, but her character in the film was annoying. Madagascar? WTF?

I think the film's problem was that it tried to copy the book's humor, which is entirely too rambling and word-based to translate properly to the more concise medium of film. The jokes had to be truncated in a way that robbed them of charm and humor.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
The screenwriter was some guy named Douglas Adams.

A few of the words may have been his, but not many. Look again, and you will see another name alongside.

Adams spent decades trying to make a film where he wrote the script, rather than Hollywood, and failed to get the film made. He died (probably due to the stresses of trying to get the film he wanted made) and within no time a film gets made.

Anyone with any real appreciation for the man's genius will recognise that the dialogue in the film bore no resemblance whatsoever to his style of writing. It was as if someone took all the funny bits out, and there was none of his natural rhythm and style.

I might try to find a link to an article I once read which demonstrated this in full detail. Basically the film was a case study in how to take all the funny bits out of something. They didn't have a clue. It may be that what was left appealed to the SOH of some people, but it it wasn't a script written by Douglas Adams. Definitely not.

[Zkribbler]

Although Douglas Adams got the sole screenwriters credit.

[Lord Avalon]

Douglas Adams (screenplay) and
Karey Kirkpatrick (screenplay)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371724/fullcredits#writers

[Cort Haus]

Found it. It's by the guy who wrote one of Adams' biogs.

http://www.planetmagrathea.com/shortreview.html

Full review

eg:

Douglas Adams was a dialogue writer. That was his skill - writing great dialogue. And when he had written it, he would rewrite it again and again and again, changing a word here or there because he knew that good comedy writing is like poetry. It has a meter to it and when you get the right words in the right order it just sounds right and nothing else will do. Douglas' dialogue was perfect. However, the makers of this film, despite all their talk of being faithful to Douglas' intentions and ideals, have seen fit to piss about with his carefully crafted, wonderfully quotable lines.

A fine example of how to remove the funny dialogue:

Book

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the Display Department."

"With a torch."

"The lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But you found the plans, didn't you?"

"Oh yes, they were 'on display' in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the leopard.'"

Movie:

"I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"But you found the plans, didn't you?"

[Cort Haus]

Another example of how the musical quality of the dialogue was destroyed:

"counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor"

is a neat four-beat bar, in musical terms, with the beat falling on the bolded syllables.

The film reduces this line to

"counterpoint the underlying metaphor."

Why? To keep the film under two hours? It's vandalism.

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by Elok
The whole thing was disjointed, as though the script had been dictated by a stuttering guy with Tourette's.

That was unnecessary.

[embalmer42]

Originally posted by Nikolai


That was unnecessary.

So was the movie.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Why? To keep the film under two hours? It's vandalism.

Yes, to keep the film at a watchable length... you know as every movie has to do to keep the studio happy.

[Elok]

Originally posted by embalmer42
So was the movie.

Perhaps that's what Nikolai meant...

More seriously, if you have Tourette's and claim offense, I don't see how as this is a legitimate invocation. Tourette's does cause you to occasionally blurt out random words, no? That was the quality I was attempting to convey WRT the HHGTTG movie script. I mean, if somebody said George Lucas's emotionally stunted dialogue in the SW prequels read like it had been written by an aspie, I wouldn't be offended. I'd more or less agree. Well, I might be offended by the suggestion that someone like me could be such a terrible writer, but intellectually I know that's just vanity.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yes, to keep the film at a watchable length... you know as every movie has to do to keep the studio happy.

Destroying dialogue is not the way to keep a film to length, especially when it is full of completely unfunny scenes which contributed nothing and could easily have been removed.