Monday, February 16, 2004
Don't Panic!
So, if you're not a fan of Douglas Adams in General, and the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy in particular, honestly, I don't know what to do with you. The movie has been ramping up, after literally twenty years of false starts, so here's a roundup:
It's being directed by a British director named
Garth Jennings, part of the music video producing/directing duo Hammer and
Tongs, from a screenplay by Adams. Arthur Dent is being played by Martin
Freeman, from the BBC series The Office (which I haven't seen, but I know
they show it on BBC America, and comes highly recommended), and the movie
Love, Actually. Ford is being played by a rapper named Mos Def, who is
American and, yes, black, which has caused no end of handwringing in
alt.fan.douglas.adams. Seriously, someone even dug up the ethnic makeup of
Guildford (though we know Ford is "not from Guildford after all") to see if
it was believable that a black man could come from there. I've never seen,
ahem, Mr. Def act, but he *looks* right for Ford Prefect (in a Lister kind
of way), so I'm giving him a chance. Zooey Deschanel, the stewardess sister
from Almost Famous, is Trillian, and Bill Nighy, also from Love, Actually
(quite a fun movie, if you see it), is playing Slartibartfast.
The two most exciting bits of casting, for me at least, are Sam Rockwell
(Charlie's Angels, Galaxy Quest) as Zaphod Beeblebrox, and, dig this,
Warwick Davis as (the body of) Marvin. I love this picture and video of the
prototype at http://home.btconnect.com/cambvocat/AFDA/index.htm-- it looks
like a superdeformed stormtrooper!
This is shaping up to be a good time to be a DNA fan--in addition to the
movie, BBC Radio is working on a new season of the radio series--though,
sadly, not the one Neil Gaiman was approached to write.
Copyright 2004 Rich Bowen
It's being directed by a British director named
Garth Jennings, part of the music video producing/directing duo Hammer and
Tongs, from a screenplay by Adams. Arthur Dent is being played by Martin
Freeman, from the BBC series The Office (which I haven't seen, but I know
they show it on BBC America, and comes highly recommended), and the movie
Love, Actually. Ford is being played by a rapper named Mos Def, who is
American and, yes, black, which has caused no end of handwringing in
alt.fan.douglas.adams. Seriously, someone even dug up the ethnic makeup of
Guildford (though we know Ford is "not from Guildford after all") to see if
it was believable that a black man could come from there. I've never seen,
ahem, Mr. Def act, but he *looks* right for Ford Prefect (in a Lister kind
of way), so I'm giving him a chance. Zooey Deschanel, the stewardess sister
from Almost Famous, is Trillian, and Bill Nighy, also from Love, Actually
(quite a fun movie, if you see it), is playing Slartibartfast.
The two most exciting bits of casting, for me at least, are Sam Rockwell
(Charlie's Angels, Galaxy Quest) as Zaphod Beeblebrox, and, dig this,
Warwick Davis as (the body of) Marvin. I love this picture and video of the
prototype at http://home.btconnect.com/cambvocat/AFDA/index.htm-- it looks
like a superdeformed stormtrooper!
This is shaping up to be a good time to be a DNA fan--in addition to the
movie, BBC Radio is working on a new season of the radio series--though,
sadly, not the one Neil Gaiman was approached to write.
Copyright 2004 Rich Bowen
