So…. Yeah. I have been gone for two weeks. I apologize, but I had obligations that I had to attend to, also I haven’t had time to watch Bones recently. So, what will I do to make up for that? I shall talk about my favorite subject ever, books and their film or television adaptations. I will tell you today, why it can work, but also sometimes not work.
Dirk Gently. Dirk, Gently. A while ago I made a review about the Douglas Adams novel, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The book was, if you don’t want to sit through the review, just okay. It was slow and not Douglas Adam’s best. The sequel is better though. There was a television adaptation of the book series a few years ago, but the good thing was, that it actually improved on the book. For example, they didn’t actually follow the book; they took the characters and made original stories for them. And the series was awesome! It only had a four episode run, and if you want to find it online, it’s labeled as Svlad Cjelli’s Holistic Detective Agency. But, anyway it was an awesome show, and I enjoyed it. However, Douglas Adams stories don’t always make the best jump from print to screen.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide BBC Miniseries from the 80’s was amazing, and was like Dirk Gently in the respect of it being probably better than the books in some places. But the 2005 film adaptation was terrible. The movie took what was good about the 1980’s series and destroyed it. First and foremost, the change from Marvin’s design and Zaphod’s head was not a good move, at all. In the 80’s it was a large robot, which despite not being a good design for the actor inside, looked like a robot and not a little storm-trooper with a bubble head. And yes, I know he was voiced by Alan Rickman and played by Warwick Davis, but that did not help. And Zaphod’s head, is supposed to be on the side of his head, not under it. That was just stupid! And Martin Freeman, he was good, but was better as Bilbo Baggins and probably would have been good as Sam Tyler in Life on Mars, but not Arthur Dent. Mos Def as Ford and Zooey Deschanel as Trillian were fine, and they played the parts great, and Mos Def played Ford, prefectly. And the only real good part about the movie was Stephen Fry. Enough said.
So, there were my thoughts on adaptations of Douglas Adams books. I will admit that I am biased a bit because the movie was what I saw first and only looking back did I think it was bad. So, that was my return article, expect something a bit more normal for me.
RT Gomer Productions 