I’ve honestly never met a fan of the books that didn’t also like the movie. I think it did a great job of appealing to fans of the book and a not so good job appealing to non fans.

[–] roguetrick@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

I never saw the movie because I never understood what value that medium would have to offer. There's just too many jokes packed into the text for it to translate into something you can watch in one sitting. It's like when they made a movie about catch-22. It's great to get the material to more audiences, but there's just no way to correctly translate it no matter how good you do it.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm a big fan of the books who didn't really like the movie. But that's partly because I'm also a huge fan of the BBC TV show so, to me, that's what HHGG should look and sound like. Particularly Peter Jones as the voice of the Book (nothing against Stephen Fry in general).

The movie had some good moments, but having Zaphod's second head beneath his first instead of beside it was a horrible idea. And the joke at the end about going in the wrong direction to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe seemed to suggest the makers thought that 'End' refers to a physical location in the universe as opposed to its chronological end point. Which annoyed me quite a bit.

It's fine though, I'm not one of these "They completely ruined it" people - there are so many different versions of HHGG what with the radio show, the books, the audio books, the TV show, and the text adventure game, that there really isn't a single definitive version. I happen to not like the film, but the rest still exist, so it's all hoopy.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I can understand these complaints. In general, though, I felt like the movie was just being a different thing while trying to stay faithful to the spirit of the book, and I loved the movie for that. It didn’t feel like the creators just wanted to cash in on a name, but genuinely liked the material and were trying to bring that to life.

It wasn’t a great movie, but as a fan of the books, I appreciate that it exists. I knew it wouldn’t happen, but I wanted the sequel.

Also, I didn’t get the feeling they misunderstand the “end” joke, I thought it was just a cute way to end the movie while name checking the potential sequel.

[–] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I should probably watch it again to be fair, I've not seen it in quite a while. Maybe I'd like it more this time.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

I think the book has to be read before watching the movie.