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I tried, and the graveyard of box office failures is littered with the corpses of movies like Pluto Nash. The closest sci-fi regularly gets to comedy are adventure movies with comedic elements. You probably laughed at moments in Men In Black or chortled at some of the lines in Back to the Future, but laughter is just part of the journey in those movies, not the primary purpose. That almost changed in 2005 when the most beloved comedy author of all time tried to turn his funny sci-fi franchise into a big budget blockbuster Hollywood laugher, and it almost worked until tragedy struck and destroyed not only his movie but maybe his franchise's entire future. This is Giant Freaking Robot, and this is why The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy failed. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie opens with a dolphin musical number and ends with the floating head of Douglas Adams. You'd think a movie with those bonkers bookends would have captured the spirit of Adam's game-changing Hitchhiker's Guide franchise. It's even worse than I thought it would be. This video is sponsored by Surf Shark. The ocean of the internet has never had more predators in it than now, and you have got to be using a VPN if you want to avoid getting gobbled up. Surf Shark lets you sail across the perilous cyber sea by offering you online security and privacy, masking your IP address from any nosy fishies trying to nibble at your information, especially if you are exposing yourself to the depths of public Wi-Fi networks. Can't watch your favorite movies or TV shows due to geo-blocking? Surf Shark navigates around those pesky blockades so you can enjoy all the entertainment this wonderful world has to offer. Never miss another episode thanks to the powers of Surf Shark. Use our special GFR Link in the video description to get an additional 4 extra months of Surf Shark. It's an absolutely no-risk trial, and if you aren't satisfied with Surf Shark after 30 days of service, they've got a money-back guarantee. Become the Master and Commander of your internet with Surf Shark. A beloved series of projects that started as a 1978 radio series and eventually led to numerous award-winning novels and a show on the telly and all the other media needed to call yourself a proper franchise. "Have you any idea how much damage this bulldozer would suffer if I were to let it roll straight over you?" "How much?" "None at all." The movie started out the right way. Adams wrote the script and was directly involved in the project. "Apparently there are a lot of lunches going on about it, um, but I haven't been invited to any of the recent ones." Then his body made the exceptionally rude decision to stop working. Douglas Adams tragically passed away on May 11th, 2001 at the age of 49. "Thing you ought to know, I'm feeling very depressed," handing in a new draft of the film script only days earlier. Without Adams as part of the project, it was looking like no one wanted to helm the film. The movie ended up being directed by Garth Jennings, known for shooting music videos for popular bands like Blur and Fat Boy Slim. "My first reaction when we were told there was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy script coming was 'Oh God, no, don't send us that!'" After Adams' passing and Jennings' addition to the production, writer Karey Kirkpatrick was brought in to do rewrites on the Adams script. Kirkpatrick's background was mostly in kid films with credits on good movies, but Kirkpatrick, hot off writing the Jonathan Lipnicki star vehicle "The Little Vampire," definitely seems like the kind of writer brought in to give a script a particular all-ages approachability. This is the guy that wrote the "Abominable" movie, folks. He is sorry, but he ain't Douglas Adams. Despite Kirkpatrick's involvement likely softening any of the potential edges from Adam's script, there's still a healthy amount of the author's tone and voice in the final product. "In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." That might have been enough to make this movie work if it didn't subsequently make a series of decisions that fans would find baffling at best and sacrilegious at worst. "This will all end in tears." Yasiin Bey is cast as Ford Prefect, the companion to lead character Arthur Dent. At the time, Bey went by the moniker Mos Def as part of his musical persona, and while he'd been acting for well over a decade by the time he was cast in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, his take on Ford Prefect is hampered by the decision to mumble a lot of his lines, making his dialogue difficult to make out sometimes. "Do you think it was a bit strange it was trying to shake hands with the car?" And that might have been an overall acting instruction to the rest of the cast. "Freeze him!" They add another level of audio confusion by having actors talking over each other and mixing the sound to muffle their voices. "Good man." Okay, the ADR on this movie was probably not a fun time. That's awkward. The result is a movie based on a franchise known for superbly written and hilarious dialogue. "It's already supplanted the Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom," with all the dialogue delivered in a way that obfuscates so much of its potential comedy. Who... you already... you already know how in spite of this, Hitchhiker's Guide does have its bright spots. Martin Freeman is a pretty spot-on choice to be Arthur Dent. "Must be Thursday. Could never get the hang of Thursdays." He plays the character with appropriately resigned bewilderment as Arthur trudges through the galaxy in his dirty green bathrobe. "To me I'm British, I know how to queue." Steven Fry serves as the voice of the actual guide. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book." He was Douglas Adams's choice and, unsurprisingly, Douglas Adams was right. Fry's voice is easily the film's strongest asset. The guide serves as background narration in the movie and is used as a device the characters can consult to get them and the audience along to the next plot beat. "On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry to you." As an aside, if you've never read The Hitchhiker's Guide books, we strongly recommend listening to the audiobook versions narrated by Fry. Sam Rockwell should have been the ideal Zaphod Beeblebrox. "There's anything more important than my ego on this ship, I want to see it shot right now." "Hey, come on." By 2005, he'd already established himself as a go-to character actor for oddball parts. Unfortunately, he falls victim to the same dialogue issues that plague a lot of this movie. "Computer..." The movie's budget also wasn't big enough to give Zaphod two heads and three arms, something that likely bothered die-hard fans of the source material. Instead, the movie settles on a half-measure in which he sort of has two heads. "Oh no!" And his third arm is kept hidden. Zooey Deschanel is Trillian, the only other survivor of Earth's destruction other than Arthur, and she isn't given anything really substantial to work with apart from her short shorts, which should indicate she's being treated as something of a token hot nerd girl and little more. "You're too gorgeous, baby! Stop it, you're driving me crazy." The film's reported budget was $45 million, so about a little over $70 million today, a sizable budget but still less than you'd expect from a well-known property hoping to kickstart a blockbuster film franchise. To its credit, the production design and practical special effects work has mostly held up 20 years later, but there are some clear patchwork jobs when you start to look for them. Whether it's spraying a bunch of fog around sets or conveniently transporting the characters to a desert, it's clear that this is a movie working against its budget instead of really feeling supported by it. For example, they probably should have cut this scene with John Malkovich. The digital effects don't work, and his character serves no real purpose in the story. Still, the movie deserves praise for what it got right. The Heart of Gold, the improbable starship at the center of Douglas Adams' story, is given a lot of love. They even figured out a way to visualize the improbability drive, and it's a successful gag every time the crew is forced to use it. The first half of The Hitchhiker's Guide seems to be going pretty well as you're watching it. Our suspicion is that this part of the movie sticks closer to Douglas Adams' original script. As the movie wears on, things start to fall apart, and it becomes clear the production doesn't have the money or the will to take the story where it needs to go. By the time the movie reaches Magrathea ("Did you know we built planets?"), the endpoint in this version of The Hitchhiker's Guide story, you're ready for it to end, having spent 20 minutes being bored to death by a bunch of Vogons. There are a lot of Vogons. Too many Vogons. For some reason, we go to the Vogon home planet, though we're told from the outset that they're the most boring species in existence. "Vogons. Vogons are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy." So the movie spends 20 minutes hanging out in the most boring place in the universe. It makes sense in movie terms to cast the Vogons as outright villains, but they end up dragging the movie down into something much less unique and interesting than its source material. "Oh! For... grunt... bu... No, really!" The movie did get a solid marketing push and managed to open at the number one spot at the box office, ending its run with a little over $51 million in the US and another $53 million from international markets. Even though that sounds like a decent success, context is key. Considering The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's budget and the fact it was expected to kick off a whole film franchise, the bean counters did not see this as something worth investing more money into. Maybe they would have if the film managed to drum up a lot of support from critics, but reactions were mixed. "Oh no, not again!" With film's biggest fan Roger Ebert giving the movie two stars. Newcomers didn't find it to be an exciting enough entry point for the franchise, and fans were mostly either resigned to the movie's interpretation of Adam's work or just didn't really acknowledge it. The first thing about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is that it was probably our only shot at getting a widely praised, big-budget take on Adam's seminal work of fiction. "Ground, I wonder if it'll be friends with me. Hello ground!" The movie's failure killed most of Hollywood's interest in it as a property. "It hates me." And if that interest were rekindled, it would take someone of Adam's talent to do it right. While we do get parodies like Spaceballs or Galaxy Quest from time to time, outright sci-fi comedy movies feel rarer and rarer. When it comes to sci-fi comedies, it seems we're more likely to get the Adventures of Pluto Nash or Heartbeeps. "I've forgotten so many happy memories with my loved ones, but my brain refuses to let me forget Heartbeeps." Got your own take on The Hitchhiker's Guide movie? Stick that babel fish deep in your ear and translate your thoughts into words via the comment section. Like and subscribe to the channel, and we'll get the chance to make more videos and stop our families and adorable kitties from starving to death. "You think you've got problems." Thanks for watching, and catch you next time here on Giant Freaking Robot. "So long, and thanks for all the fish." "You got your towel?" "Yeah, why am I going to need it?" "Only always."