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After several years of innactivity we have a new active librarian (Me: Alex McLintock, your webmaster) and also a new editor John Floren. Welcome John. I'll be giving you a new Editor number soon. by Date

Film Review by your Editor Number 6

Well I saw the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy film last night with a number of people in the fanclub ZZ9. I had to go to Cambridge for free tickets as Leicester Square and Islington had predictably sold out - but Cambridge was cool - if a little wet. (It rained for pretty much the whole journey up the M11 and the whole journey back again).

I was a bit worried by them being so picky as to ask for all mobile phones to be checked in at the door as well as camera. I mean my phone doesn't even have a camera so what was the point. I took my SIM card out before giving them my mobile. They avoided Jonjo's question of whether they were insured for this.

The song "So Long, and Thanks For All The Fish" starts the movie and is quite catchy. This almost sets the theme - it is Hitchhikers, but new. It isn't the same. They've taken bits of the radio series and book and made it very visual. In fact there was so much effort put on the visuals that it was amazing that they fucked around with Douglas Adams' words so badly. Oh well.

You really have to be prepared for that if you are one of the millions of Hitchhikers fans who are going to see the film. There will be bits that you love that they have ripped to shreds by messing it up. I don't mind all the many passages that they have dropped. They have a shorter period of time to show the story - much shorter than the tv series. I can understand them dropping stuff, but it is where they have changed things that it worries you. They've turned the hunt for tea into a couple of three second jokes. They changed the dialogue for the "lying in front of the bulldozer" scene. You are forced to wonder why? Did someone think it was funnier that way? If they were that desperate for time then why not cut the whole scene? Why bother playing around with Douglas' comedy dialogue to totally fail to tell the joke. It was as if I was telling a long joke and didn't tell the punchline because I was pushed for time - it just doesn't work.

But there was enough new stuff to save the movie - all in all it is good. The visuals are good. The acting was a bit dull and uninspiring (yes - even Bill Nighy put on a pointless "Mr Prosser" style accent for Slartibartfast. Only John Malkovich was interesting - and his part wasn't long enough by half.

The Guide itself wasn't as well done as Kevin Davis's original for the tv series.

All in all a film to go and see whether you are a fan or not. Just dont get too hung up about what they have done to Douglas's text. Douglas died a long time before this film was finished and it isn't really his film.

The Official Hitchhikers Fan Club (though nothing to do with the film) is found at http://www.zz9.org/

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