oddlight

Just got in from seeing the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy movie, and I have to say, I liked it.

This is not to say that any of the criticism you read may not have elements of truth in it, but if you're a h2g2 fan, at the very, very least, you will love this waaaaay more than the bbc tv production.

Sure some of the jokes have been truncated, and what were they thinking with the intro (big band crooner style) song 'so long and thanks for all the fish', but in essence it keeps the sense of fun that was so prevalent in the books and radio series.

I'll even forgive that horrible initial song because they did actually include the terrific theme song that anyone familiar with the series will know, only a bit later in the proceedings.
My favourite part of the movie I have to say is the design, they have really outdone themselves. This point alone brings to story more to life for me, the bbc version, well everything just looked so fake.

In this production you can see the pains they have gone to to show that simple things like a pen or a gun, have been designed by aliens.
The animation for the book itself are brilliant, along the same ideas as the tv series, but with a 21st-century-flash-animation-graphics-design edge.

I did feel that they tried to make some of the ideas a bit too obvious, Deep Thought for instance is represented by a giant stylized desktop computer crossed with Rodin's 'The Thinker'. Yeh Yeh, we get it. Still an improvement on no design at all.

The Vogons were done wonderfully, in a kind of pink floyd's The Wall meets Yellow Submarine / Monty Python way.

All in all, a big [electronic] thumbs up.
yeh yeh i know. bad joke.
Later.

Ford Arthur & Zaphod