Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Not as bad as Vogon poetry

[barondave]

Reasons to like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Movie:

1.

2. Good uses for your towel

3. Incessant insults of George W. Bush.


If you go to the movie:

1. Have very low expectations.

2. Stay for the fun bit during the closing credits (you don't have to wait until it finishes).


On the Shockwave ratings scale of 9-23 where 9 is low, 23 is high and all Steve Brust novels get a 17, I rate HHGttG at about a 14.

Comments

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

They never mention W. by name

Well, excuuuuuuuse me, when you said "Incessant insults of George W. Bush," I just stupidly thought you meant incessant insults of George W. Bush. You could as easily have said "incessant insults of political leaders," because those, like teenaged virus authors, will never date.

Monty Python is still funny if you don't know who Reginald Maudling was.

Welllll.... Dead Parrot, Ministry of Silly Walks, Argument Sketch, Penguin on top of your television set will explode, and so many others, are certainly still funny and will probably be funny for a very long time. Contextless references to Reginald Maudling, Semprini, and other too-specific things are not, IMAO.

Mr. Neutron, of course, never has been funny, isn't funny, and never ever will be funny.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Sam Rockwell's Zaphod is unmistakeably W, including cracks about stupidity and stolen elections. He's never mentioned by name and all the jokes work internally as digs on Zaphod, but no one will be fooled. And they make a lot of fun of Zaphod...

Sorry if that wasn't clear. But it is one of the few bright spots of the movie.

I looked up Reginald Maudling, and it doesn't make any of the jokes funnier, but they work without knowing who he is. "Reginald Maudling's naughty bits..." MP was really good at making pop references that work without knowledge of the referant. (I admit I had to think twice about the attack of the Keep Left signs. It's a Brit thing.)