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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, and box office failures cemetery is dotted with a cinematic body 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. Although those films have to spare, this is not the main purpose of those stories.
The Sci-Fi comedy drought nearly ended in 2005 when the most beloved funny writer ever tried to turn his funny sci-fi Novels into a big budget, a sweeping Hollywood comedy. 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, aged 49, introducing a new draft of the film script only a day 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 mostly in children’s movies, with credits on good movies like The rescuers down under. The way to El Doradoand Run chicken.
Kirkpatrick, hot writes Jonathan Lipnicki star vehicle, The little vampireDefinitely appears as the kind of writer who came in to give an all-year 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 Kirkpatrick’s participation likely to soften any possible edges of the Adams script, the author’s healthy amount and voice is still in the final product. That may have been 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.
Noise of failure
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. While he had 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.
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.
Winning cast
Hitchhiker’s guide is bright spots. Martin Freeman is an on -the -spot 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. Douglas chose Adams, and no surprise that Douglas Adams is 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 heads and three arms, which was likely to bother 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 sole survivor of the destruction of the earth Except for Arthur. Nothing very substantial is given to working with her, apart from her short shorts, which should show that she is treated as something of a symbolic hot nerd girl and a little more.
Not as big budget as you would think
The film’s budget reported was $ 45 million, which is just over $ 70 million today. This is 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.
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 the scenes with John Malkovich. The digital FX does not work, and its character does not fulfill any real purpose in the story.
The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy movie gets so much right
The film deserves praise for what he got 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. My doubt 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 blah 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.
Failure at the end of the box office
The film was able to push a solid marketing and opened up 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 worth investing more in it.
They might have created a lot of support from judges, but the responses were mixed. Spawn’s largest fan, Roger Ebert, gave 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. News did not find it an exciting point of access for the franchise, and fans mostly resigned 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 is an extremely rare company.
While we are Get a parody like Space balls or Galaxyquest occasionallyComplete 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. We only get something truly original and focus on comedy once it is a generation.
In terms of sci-fi comedies, it is 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.
