redfiona99 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
redfiona99) wrote2019-05-04 09:28 am
redfiona99) wrote2019-05-04 09:28 am
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100 Great Scenes In Not So Great Films - 36 - The dolphin chorus in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The case for the prosecution:
I am not an old fuddy-duddy, it's just not good. I read the wikipedia page to remind myself of the plot, because I realised I couldn't remember it. Having read the wikipedia page, I still can't which suggests it was infinitely forgettable.
I actually like Mos Def as Ford Prefect, and I would happily watch Sam Rockwell in most things but he just does quite work for me as Zaphod, and I suppose Martin Freeman is the obvious choice for Arthur Dent ...
And that's the problem with the film. It's so very dull and dutiful and misses a lot of the sharpness that made the books so good. I mean, I try to be reasonable about changes but they seemed to take out a lot out of the things I enjoyed and replaced it with stuff I didn't.
The whole film suffers from that, but I think Zaphod suffers the most.
There's also a lack of visual imagination. I think part of the problem is that Douglas Adams is a writer whose style works for me, so when he describes something, I see something and I see it hard, and it cannot be dislodged. So the film's version of Arthur Dent looks ... pretty much right but not quite. And I know no one will ever look quite right, but he looks like someone's gone "oh it'll do".
The other point where that's the SFX are lacking. Not bad, just lacking, because a lot of the time they don't even try. When the BBC, with it's £2.50-and-sticky-tape budget in the 80s does a better job of giving Zaphod a second head, you have failed. Worse than that, you haven't even tried - WTF is that sliding head nonsense?!
The scene itself:
Why the scene is so good:
There is something glorious about a Esther Williams-style chorus line of dolphins singing about the destruction of planet Earth to the setting of a big Broadway show-tune. It very right and true to the book, even if it's mentioned nowhere in the books. If the rest of the film had had this sense of fun and invention, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.
I am not an old fuddy-duddy, it's just not good. I read the wikipedia page to remind myself of the plot, because I realised I couldn't remember it. Having read the wikipedia page, I still can't which suggests it was infinitely forgettable.
I actually like Mos Def as Ford Prefect, and I would happily watch Sam Rockwell in most things but he just does quite work for me as Zaphod, and I suppose Martin Freeman is the obvious choice for Arthur Dent ...
And that's the problem with the film. It's so very dull and dutiful and misses a lot of the sharpness that made the books so good. I mean, I try to be reasonable about changes but they seemed to take out a lot out of the things I enjoyed and replaced it with stuff I didn't.
The whole film suffers from that, but I think Zaphod suffers the most.
There's also a lack of visual imagination. I think part of the problem is that Douglas Adams is a writer whose style works for me, so when he describes something, I see something and I see it hard, and it cannot be dislodged. So the film's version of Arthur Dent looks ... pretty much right but not quite. And I know no one will ever look quite right, but he looks like someone's gone "oh it'll do".
The other point where that's the SFX are lacking. Not bad, just lacking, because a lot of the time they don't even try. When the BBC, with it's £2.50-and-sticky-tape budget in the 80s does a better job of giving Zaphod a second head, you have failed. Worse than that, you haven't even tried - WTF is that sliding head nonsense?!
The scene itself:
Why the scene is so good:
There is something glorious about a Esther Williams-style chorus line of dolphins singing about the destruction of planet Earth to the setting of a big Broadway show-tune. It very right and true to the book, even if it's mentioned nowhere in the books. If the rest of the film had had this sense of fun and invention, I would have enjoyed it a lot more.