final word on Hitchhiker's, the movie

[acroyear]

if you don't like the differences between the movie and the "original" (whether your original is the radio show, the records, the tv series, or the book), blame douglas.  aside from one or two scenes, every major change is in douglas's final script prior to his death, and most of the ideas were in the earliest drafts and discussions with Jay Roach prior to his leaving the project.  This includes the (significant) trimming of "act 1", the entire "act 2" with john malcovitch and the rescue trillian subplot (douglas felt that the original never had an act 2 as such, and magrathea was always act 3), the p.o.v. gun, and the romance triangle and resolution between arthur and trillian.  douglas wrote it all, knowing he was writing a "movie based on..." and not just rehashing the original scripts.

but i don't want to hear anymore about "the changes they made to what i always knew/loved" -- douglas made the changes first.

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Yep, I agree. If you have problems with the movie, blame the source. Personally, I really liked the books, the movie, and the TV series, partly because of their differences. Never heard the radio show. The BBC radiodramas of Star Wars and The Hobbit differed from their respective originals in places, so did the novelization. Same with 2001. I probably enjoyed them more for doing so. Each has to play to its medium, and Dougie understood that. I don't understand why people are so focused on the changes with Hitchhikers when such changes have lots of precedence. How about looking at the changes from "canon" with super hero movies and tv shows. Or translations of the Bible, for goshsakes. Even Harry Potter for Britain vs. USA has some minor changes.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

"so did the novelization" -- of Star Wars, that is.

also, is it okay that I called Mr. Adams "Dougie"?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, the question had alwasy been "what was the source?".

up until the dvd commentary came out, there was a lot of question as to how much of what was on screen was douglas's and how much was the result of work done by the director and the replacement scriptwriter after douglas's death. in other words, is there a "hollywood" to blame for the differences as they just ran with it and shoved in and/or discarded whatever they felt like (plenty of adaptations go through that when the original author is not involved).

the answer was "no", except as much as "hollywood" influenced douglas into trying to write a "movie" knowing it wasn't radio/tv/novel. but until listening to the commentary on the dvds, that question was unanswered and people's love for "douglas" had pushed the blame to a "them" that didn't exist.

hence, my rant.