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An old saying goes, “Dying is easy. But comedy is difficult. “
Well, science fiction comedy is significantly more difficult.
There have been plenty of efforts in film world, and Box Office Cemetery Cemetery is a keen cinematic corps like Pluto Nash AdventuresBuried alive with his pile of Hillary bucks.
The closest sci-fi regularly has to comedy in adventure movies with a healthy mound of comedy elements, as the excellent Men in black or the various Guardians of the galaxy flicks.
But while those movies have laughing to spare, that is not the main purpose of those stories.
That almost changed in 2005 when the most beloved comedy writer ever tried to turn his very funny sci-fi Novels into a big budget, a sweeping Hollywood comedy.
And he almost worked, until a tragedy struck and destroyed not only his film but perhaps the whole future of his franchise.
Why the Hitchhiker’s Guide failed to the Galaxy
The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy The film opens with a dolphin musical number and ends with Douglas Adams’ floating head.
You would think that a movie with those bonkers Bookends would have captured the spirit of the Hitchhiker guide franchise that changes Adams’ games, a dear series of projects that started as the 1978 radio series and eventually led to a number of award -winning novels and a TV show and all the other media you need to call yourself a very franchise.
The movie started the right way. Adams wrote the script and was directly involved in the project.
His body then made the extremely rude decision to stop working.
Douglas Adams died tragically on May 11, 2001 at the age of 49, introducing a new draft of the film script only days earlier.
Without Adams as part of the project, it looked like no one wanted to navigate the film. The film finished directed by Garth Jennings, known for shooting music videos for popular bands like Blur and Fatboy Slim.
Douglas Adams dies but the show goes on
After Adams passed and the addition of Jennings to the production, author Karey Kirkpatrick was brought in to rewrite on Adams’ script. Kirkpatrick’s background was mainly in children’s movies with credits on good movies like The rescuers down under. The way to El Doradoand Run chicken.
But Kirkpatrick, hot away writes Jonathan Lipnicki’s star vehicle, The Little Vampire, seems like the kind of writer who came in to give an all-oedan-specific intimacy to a script. This is the guy who wrote the movie “Zendaya is Meechee” Yeti, folks. Sorry, but it’s not Douglas Adams.
Despite the fact that Kirkpatrick’s participation is likely to soften any of the possible edges of the Adams script, the author’s healthy amount and voice still in the final product. That might be enough to make this film work had it not made a series of decisions that fans would get in Baffling at best and Sacrilegious at worst.
Yasiin Bey is cast as Ford prefect, the companion to lead the character of Arthur Dent. At the time, Bey went from the Moniker Mos Def as part of his musical persona.
And although he has been operating for well over a decade by the time he was cast in Hitchhiker’s guide to the GalaxyHis aspect of Ford Prefect is blocked by the decision to mix many of his lines, making his dialogue difficult to make out sometimes.
And that may have been a general acting direction for the rest of the cast. Add another level of sound confusion by getting actors to talk over each other and mix the sound to mix their voices. The ADR on this film was probably not a fun time.
The result is a franchise -based film known for a fantastic written funny dialogue, with all the dialogue presented in a way that prevents so much of its potential comedy.
The cast
Despite this, Hitchhiker’s guide is bright spots.
Martin Freeman is a pretty obvious choice to be Arthur Dent. He plays the character with properly resigned confusion, as Arthur goes through the galaxy in his dirty green bathroom.
Stephen Fry serves as the voice of the real guide. It was a Douglas Adams choice and it was no surprise that Douglas Adams was fine. The voice of the film is easily the strongest asset.
The guide is a background narrative in the film and is used as a device that the characters can consult to get them and the audience to the next plot beat.
Besides, if you have never read Hitchhiker book guides, we strongly recommend listening to the audio and narrative versions by Fry.
Sam Rockwell It should have been ideal Zaphod Beblebrox. By 2005, he had already established himself as a real character actor for Oddball Parts. Unfortunately, he suffers the same dialogue issues that plagues much of this film.
The film’s budget was also not large enough to give Zaphod two and three arms, something that was likely to bother the die-hard fans of the source material. Instead, the film settles at half a gauge where it has only two ends that it has two ends, and its third arm is kept hidden.
Zooey Deschanel is Trillian, the only other survivor of the destruction of the earth other than Arthur, nothing very substantial is given to working with him. Apart from her short shorts that should show that she is treated as something of a symbolic hot nerd girl and little more.
Not as big budget as you would think
A reported budget was $ 45 million, so just over $ 70 million today. A significant budget but still less than you would expect from a well -known property hoping to start a sweeping film franchise.
To his credit, production design and practical special effects have captured twenty years later.
But there are some clear patchwork posts when you start looking for them. Whether it injects a bunch of fog around sets or carried the characters conveniently to a desert, it is clear that this is a film that works against its budget instead of feeling that it is actually supported.
For example, they should probably have broken this scene with John Malkovich. The digital FX does not work, and its character does not fulfill any real purpose in the story.
Yet the film deserves praise for what it was right. Golden heart, the unlikely star In the midst of Douglas Adams’ story, he is given much love.
They even figured out a way to visualize the unlikely drive and is a successful gag every time the crew is forced to use it.
The first half of the Hitchhiker’s guide It seems to go pretty well, as you watch it. Our suspicion is that this part of the film clings closer to the original script of Douglas Adams.
As the film wears on, things start to fall into pieces and it is clear that the production does not have the money or the will to take the story where it needs to go.
By the time the movie arrived in Magrathea, the end point in this version of the Hitchhiker’s guide A story, you’re ready for her to end, after spending 20 minutes bored on death from a bunch of Vogons.
There are many vogons. Too many vogons. For some reason, we go to Vogon’s home planet, although we are told from the outset that they are the most boring species that exist. So, the film spends 20 minutes hanging out in the most boring place in the universe.
It makes sense in terms of a film to cast the vogons as complete villains, but they drag the film down to something much less unique and interesting than its source material.
Box Office and Reception
The film was able to push a solid marketing and opened at the #1 point at the Box Office, ending its run with just over $ 51 million in the US, and another $ 53 million of international markets.
While that sounds like a decent success, the context is key. Consider Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy’s Budget and the fact that she expects to start a whole film franchise, did not see these bean counters as something with investing more money in it.
They might if the film managed to drummet a lot of critics support, but the responses were mixed SilverAt the largest, Roger Ebert, giving the film two stars.
Also, there did not appear to be a basis of support for the film once it was out in the world. NEW -Rodders did not find it an exciting point of access for the franchise, and fans were mostly resigning to the interpretation of the film of Adams’ work or not actually recognizing it.
The worst thing about Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy is that this was probably our only blow of a large budget that was widely shared on Adams’ innovative fiction work.
The film’s failure killed most of Hollywood’s interest in it as property, and if that interest was rebounded, it would take someone of Adams’ talent to get it right. Unfortunately, that’s an extremely rare company.
While we are getting parody of Space balls or Galaxyquest Occasionally, complete sci-fi comedy movies feel scarcer and scarcer. The best that comes to mind is Edgar Wright’s excellent homage The end of the world. It seems like we only get something truly original and a comedy focus as Back to the future once a generation.
In terms of sci-fi comedies, we seem to be more likely to have Pluto Nash Adventures or Heart. I have forgotten so many happy memories with my loved ones but my brain refuses to let me forget Heart.
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