Friday, April 22, 2005

Hitchhiker's Fear

I've never been so nervous about a movie's release. The official movie, after "almost" being made for the past twenty or so years, is finally going to be released in the U.S. on April 29, 2005. This movie had better be good. In my estimation, this book and the other four books in the Hitchhiker's "trilogy" are works of art; the movie makers better not fuck this one up.

I first read Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy at the age of ten. Twenty-two years later (holy shit), this is one of the few books I've reread every year or two since first cracking its paperback spine as a prepubescent. I have good reason to be nervous about this movie's release, as Hollywood, in its never ending quest of giving people the detriment of the doubt by dumbing everything down to some mythical money making "lowest common denominator," generally fucks things up.

This book is truly a part of me. Like millions of other readers, I love the story's characters, the laugh-out-loud wit, its absurdity and its brilliance. Fans of this series and its deceased creator Douglas Adams have the highest expectations and the highest hopes that not one ounce of the book's brillance be compromised. Exactly how high are my expectations? To illustrate both my worries and hopes, let's pretend that I have a daughter.

Parents, so I've been told, have unconditional love and the highest of hopes and exectations for their children. With this in mind, let's compare this familial bond with my hopes and expectations for the movie:

  • If the movie is great, it will be like watching my daughter, the light of my life, walk up to the podium to deliver her valedictorian speech. She gives me and the wife a wink as she passes us in the aisle. As she delivers her speech, I swell up with so much pride and love that I feel like I'm going to burst. Soon, the audience loves her as well. The audience laughs, weeps and when the ceremony concludes everyone leaves with hope in their hearts and the overall feeling that there is "good" and "right" in the world and that perhaps everything will be all right after all.

  • If the movie is mediocre, it will be like watching my daughter go to college to become a teacher. She graduates, teaches for a couple of years, decides she's not cut out for the pedagogical world, goes back to school for a communications degree, moves to a trendy neighborhood in the city, meets a guy who makes a lot of money, gets married, quits working, moves to a nondescript middle to upper class suburb to squirt out a couple of babies, becomes a room mother at the school, puts her kids on ritalin, sees a therapist because her husband might be cheating on her. . .
    You get the picture?

  • If the movie is horrible, it will be like talking to my daughter on the phone about her acting career. Since she moved to LA, she's been to a lot of great auditions, and the "prospects look pretty good." I wish her luck and mutter a silent prayer as I chug a bottle of Pepto to combat the grapefruit-sized ulcer this kid has given me. Later that night, the wife (let's assume I have one of these too) and I decide to relieve some stress with a "romance night." I pop the rented porno into the DVD player, and during the movie's opening montage, I see my daughter, aka 'Desssire' sucking off a transvestite. This scene quickly fades into one showing her getting anally pounded by a large (in all respects) black actor named Thundercock. I dive for the remote through my wife's vocal chord ripping shrieks. I fumble for the remote, which goes flying far away from my hands, but not before I inadvertantly pause the movie right at the moment where Thundercock's jizz is frozen in mid-air above my daughter's waiting face.


Yes. I definately have strong feelings concerning this movie.

I've seen a few previews, and I'm both encouraged and discouraged. It looks like there are too many explosions, but the lead character looks promising. On April 29 I'll know for sure whether it's a valedictorian speech, a mediocre predictable life or an anal pounding.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have the exact fears as you. The Hitchhiker's movie previews do look too "action packed," but it looks like a lot of the quirkiness survived intact. I'm going to be at the premiere with bells on either way!

10:52 AM  

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