Fame or Famine

Much like the trend for giving people what they already know that gave birth to the horrible-70’s-sitcom as movie (I’m looking at you, Brady Bunch), there has been a recent spate of books, some modern, some classic, recreated in movie form. Books have long been a screenplay source, and there seems to be a cyclical nature movie source material; original works give way to films of books give way to original works. From the Ya-Ya Sisterhood to Under the Tuscan Sun and from Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings, the current popular book-as-movie cycle shows no sign of abating.

Each time a book is condensed and filmed the online war rages: Did the film do justice to the central truth of the book? Of course, opinions vary widely. Many people were personally offended by the changes Peter Jackson made to Lord of the Rings. Critics of the films reeled at the sheer audacity of altering such writing brilliance, and pointed their fingers accusingly and called it shameless arrogance.

Realistically, changes to those books simply had to be made. To include every passage, every beloved scene, would have made the movies three or four days long. Even the most devout fan exhausted themselves at the opening all-day showing of all three movies with deleted scenes when Return of the King was released; three-day movie-fests are not realistic. I also conquer with Jackson’s assertion that certain elements needed to be added. Items that read well on paper do not always translate well to the screen.

Personally, when evaluating the success of a movie to adapt a book I ask myself two questions:

1) Was the director’s vision a true vision? Was he unwaveringly faithful to the image he had of the book and the movie he wanted to make? A successful film seems to make an almost audible “thwack” sound when it hits its mark with moviegoers, much like the perfect “thonk” of a ball hitting the center of the tennis racket. The follow-through is as important as the original directorial vision. Was it a smash over the net, or a halfhearted swing due to indecision, resulting in a fault?

2) Was the director true to the basic nature of the author’s vision? Essentially, if the book chronicles a black man’s heart wrenching struggle to fight in the Civil War and the screenplay is rewritten so that the main character is a single white woman in the north singing ditties about her raging and deadly case of bunions; in that instance it’s safe to say the movie failed to capture the story the author intended to tell.

Exaggeration makes a point, but the line is finer than most people recognize and can often be subjective.A recent case was the release of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. There were quite a few people, long-time fans and newbies alike, who enjoyed it thoroughly. There were also many people, including long-time fans and newbies, who came to the conclusion that it was the biggest waste of film since Cool World. To decide whether the film was a translation success, turn to the two questions:

1) Was the director’s vision a true vision? I believe the answer to this is yes, for the most part. The world he created was an eclectic and insane world that remained eclectic and insane throughout the film. Consistent wackiness is as consistent as consistent solemnity. However I did get the impression that there were too many cooks in the kitchen when this film was made. Not because it lacked the reliability of being predictably unpredictable, but because it would occasionally seem to achieve a cohesive vision, and then would explode away from that same cohesion, only to return to it again later. Garth Jennings had a vision, but the movie gave off the distinct impression that occasionally the vision was subsumed or pulled off course by some outside influence.

2) Was the director true to the basic nature of the author’s vision? This question is the linchpin of the widely differing reactions to this film. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is simply a hysterically funny piece of writing. The timing is deadly accurate and the sardonic tone, for those with the ability to hear it, gives the piece a flavor like a nice piece of bitter chocolate cake. The movie did not present itself in the same deadpan manner. The movie version of Ford Prefect [Mos Def] was singularly pleasant and did not embody someone who, no matter how bad things get, can show up and make them instantly much, much worse. The plot veers wildly from the book on several key points, one of the largest being that Trillian, in the book version, is not actually overly fond of Arthur Dent, and Arthur is singularly ill equipped to deal with his crush on her. Many long time fans of the series in its various forms were shocked by the romance plotline running through the movie, though Martin Freeman and Zooey Deschanel are just as cute as bug’s ears.

At the end of the day the movie suffered from the same fate that plagues the book series: Fatal overanalyzation.

The author, Douglas Adams, would often express frustration at the constant barrage of earnest teenagers imploring him to explain how he came up with the number 42 as the answer to life, the universe and everything. There are theories that abound regarding the number, including proof that in base 13, six times nine is 42. He is quoted as saying:

“You don’t make jokes in base 13!”

And:

“The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ‘42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story”

Similarly, those who were primed and ready for a film that would move them, shake them, and otherwise rearrange their thoughts on the very existence of our being have missed the entire point.

Was it funny?

Did Marvin’s depressed waddle make you laugh? Were the Vogons amusing in their dull, plodding, hideousness? Were the thought-smackers hysterical? When something went wrong with the ship, and Trillian raced in shouting “Zaphod? What did you touch!? Button’s aren’t toys!” and Zaphod responds automatically, “Buttons aren’t toys!” like a trained three-year-old, did you wet your pants in mirth?

I did. Therefore, based on the definitions listed above, the storyline and the author were both served pretty well. It may not have been a smash over the net, but it was certainly well in. There are rumors of a trilogy on the way that will bear out whether this was a one-off lucky shot or merely the warm-up round.

HHGG vs Critics:

15-Love.

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