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Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy


CaptainRon

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I toyed with doing a dedicated thread myself. As I said in the ?Upcoming Movies? thread, I didn't really like the way the trailer was constructed. I mean, it was edited in the way I expected which wasn?t exactly a good thing (a studio doing everything in its power to promote something as generically as possible with a trailer that distances itself from the actual tone of the source material), but nonetheless it didn't actually leave me overly disgruntled in any way as the performances and production value still make things feel rather encouraging.

 

Britain will gear up for a full scale assault on Touchstone if it turns out to be terrible I can say that much, but there's a lot of reasons, particularly involvement from certain people like Stephen Fry who cherished Adams as a friend, to suggest it will turn out ok, and most of all the screenplay itself still takes a good percentage of material from Adams' own drafts done before his passing.

 

Daniel

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It even had the obligatory "Alien 2" soundtrack music, didn't it?

 

It did indeed. From what I could make out over the fuzzy audio of the stream, the music at the point of the Vogon public service announcement is a segment of a cue from Trevor Jones' (terrific) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen score, then the overused bit from Horner's Aliens score as you say, then it goes into some electronic music and at the very end segues into a bit of Elfman's Men in Black theme.

 

So couple all that with your gravely voiced narrator and string of physical gag shots it?s really all rather ho hum in its construction. It is fine that they need to appeal to the broadest audience possible, but sometimes studios really do underestimate the intelligence, and indeed attention spans of their audiences. Hitchhiker could really have something rather witty in its structure, perhaps even narrated by Stephen Fry (who?s voicing the guide). Interested to see if the international trailer is any different.

 

Daniel

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Daniel do you know when the international trailer comes out? As for the music in the trailer, dont' all trailers take their music from previous movies? So there will be different music in the movie, right?

 

Yeah, no question about that. I was just adding to Daniel's comments about how cliche the trailer was. Seems like a great many trailers use that bit of music nowadays.

 

Carlos.

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Daniel do you know when the international trailer comes out?

 

I've no idea about an international trailer, there may very well not be one. Sometimes studios do slightly different trailer cuts for international markets that often reflect more varied audience tastes so there may be one. With the film released here and in the US on the 29th of April, I'd say if there is an alternate international trailer, or even an alternate UK one then it will surface soon.

 

 

As for the music in the trailer, dont' all trailers take their music from previous movies? So there will be different music in the movie, right?

 

Absolutely. It is very rare (though there are some exceptions) that a trailer will feature the film's actual score simply because the trailers are done before they get to that stage of post-production [i don't think they record the Hitchhiker score until March], but like Carlos notes there are some cues from other movies that frequently show up in trailers from the last decade or so, Aliens being the common one in this case.

 

The score for Hitchhiker is being done by British composer Joby Talbot, who used to orchestrate for Michael Nyman and is part of the band The Divine Comedy. He scored the three series of the British comedy programme The League of Gentlemen (which is progressing to film in its own right here in the UK in April, and Talbot is scoring that too). I think his score for Hitchhiker's Guide will be great.

 

Daniel

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  • 2 weeks later...
Hitchhiker could really have something rather witty in its structure, perhaps even narrated by Stephen Fry (who?s voicing the guide).

 

New Internet Trailer up

 

Comforting to see my line of thought was not entirely out from the filmmakers plans, but honestly, this is the trailer that belongs in cinemas. I loved it too... Dolphins!

 

Daniel

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  • 1 month later...

Okay, here's an off-topic rant:

 

 

What's the deal with songs being "album only" on iTunes? Wasn't the original concept of iTunes "Hey, hate paying for an entire album to find out you only lilke one or two songs?"

 

A recent example that really peeved me was the release of "The Sugarhill Records Story" by the Sugarhill Gang. It contains the super-cool 14-minute mix of "Rapper's Delight". Unfortunately you can't get it from iTunes without dropping $40(!) for the whole collection. I'm not a Sugarhill Gang fan, I just have fond memories from my youth of that song. I'd like to having (I'd even pay more than the standard 99 cents, since it's a long song), but I'm not dropping $40 for it. I'll dig it up on the newsgroups or something... :flipoff

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In not owning an Ipod I've never had cause to buy anything off of Itunes (it bothers me what you pay for downloading is not a lossless file for one thing), but when looking up the Hitchhiker's score just to hear the few second previews of each track I did look at other score/soundtrack offerings and in almost every case there were a couple of tracks you could not purchase individually.

 

Daniel

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  • 3 weeks later...

Is anyone planning to catch it this week? It opens on Thursday here (and I think Friday in America?) and I'll be in London with the plan to grab a towel and fit in a viewing in some free time I?m expecting to have sometime in the afternoon.

 

So far reviews over here have been decent, not outstanding, but decent. I've yet to hear of any scathing attack on it, save for that infamous M.J Simpson review of course... Critics here in Blighty as I say are, on the whole, treating it rather favourably which is nice because one would expect British critics to actively tear apart the adaptation it if failed on any grand level. All the reviews I've seen thus far seem to agree the film's been remarkably well cast.

 

I am already very fond of the score. Joby Talbot?s done a terrific job, never blatantly writing music for laughs. A lot of it is really very bittersweet, with a recurring motif appearing in both the ?Earth Mark II? and ?The Whale? cues that?s really quite charming. The old theme tune makes a welcome appearance as well which is just a joy to hear coming from a big orchestra (and the banjo is there too!).

 

Daniel

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even if the reviews are wretched :).

 

Oh, and they will be. Movie critics have a tough time with anything that they consider to be on the fringe of mainstream it appears.

 

Although that does not explain the good reviews for Kung Fu Hustle, which were quite deserved, btw. :)

 

I'll be seeing this on opening weekend, assuming I can pull away from Guild Wars long enough. Now just to convince the girlfriend she wants to go, or find friends. :P

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