Yes, we saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And a lot of people whose opinions we respect have offered opinions ranging from "Well, it's not that bad" to "It was really awesome to see it on the big screen!"

But we just can't agree. In fact, one Two-Percenter isn't even participating in writing this, because he has chosen to erase the memory of the Hitchhiker's film from his mind, much the same as he did to the entire fifth novel in the trilogy.

Our opinion? It sucked. Royally sucked.

But don't get us wrong — it's not just about "translating" things from the books (or radio show or BBC mini-series or records or stage show) to film. It's not about missing those nice dangly bits we loved from the story's previous incarnations. It's about the film itself. Bluntly: it was a bad movie.

And let's have no "but Douglas wrote this or that part!" retorts to our criticism. We firmly agree with MJ Simpson on Planet Magrathea, who said:

One thing which is totally irrelevant is 'How much of it did Douglas Adams write?' Douglas was not the best arbiter of what did or did not work in various versions of Hitchhiker's Guide: much of what we love in the story was created by other people or at least by Douglas in collaboration with other people, and some of his own ideas were wisely dropped from earlier versions. So 'but Douglas came up with that bit himself' is not a valid rejoinder to any criticism of changes made from previous versions.

Folks, as Simpson so eloquently puts it, they cut out all the jokes. There's nothing funny, and certainly nothing Hitchhiker's funny, about the movie at all. Making a version of Hitchhiker's that doesn't rely on smart and cleverly rendered dialogue is completely and utterly pointless. Making one that relies wholly on a couple of people's complete miscomprehension of the whole point of the original is also completely and utterly pointless.

In short, the whole movie seemed as if it was put together to match a description of the book given by a bored third-grader who was forced to read it and got nothing out of it. This reflects one of our major problems with the movie — it almost seems as if they were attempting to make a kids' movie, judging by the way they aimed every possible attempt at humor directly at the lowest common denominator. That's just it, you know? They were aiming this film at a demographic which (generally speaking) couldn't possibly grasp the nuance and intelligence of the original radio show. They had slapstick, for fuck's sake! Slapstick! Lots of it! That's not Douglas Adams. That's just sad.

But it's not just a question of it being a bad Hitchhiker's movie. It's just a fucking horrible film aside from the disloyalty to the original material. It's disjointed, plotless — subplots seem to be thought up on the spot, and forgotten just as easily (Humma Kavula, anyone?) — and terribly pedestrian in its execution. There is, quite simply, nothing redeeming about the film whatsoever.

[On a personal note, one of us would like to say how absolutely disgusted he was with Sam Rockwell's portrayal of Zaphod Beeblebrox. Here's a hint to those who don't get it: Zaphod Beeblebrox is not meant to be George W. Bush. Fucking hell, what were the directors thinking? Douglas points out, right in the first book, that Zaphod...

...was renowned for being amazingly clever and quite clearly was so — but not all the time, which obviously worried him, hence the act.

This pathetic attempt at "comedy" by making Zaphod out to be a lobotomized Dubya (right down to the fucking accent!) betrayed a deep misunderstanding of what the character is supposed to be about. Read Life, the Universe, and Everything — Zaphod's a much more human and interesting character than these filmmakers give him credit for.]

So we really need to apologize for two elements of our previous rant on Hitchhiker's.

The first was our assertion that deleting the "argument for God's non-existence" from the film had anything to do with the influence (or fear) of the religious right. Clearly, it was just another bad decision on the part of the filmmakers because they don't have the first fucking clue what makes Hitchhiker's funny.

The second was our prediction that "we'll undoubtedly pick [the movie] apart in some respects, but will just as undoubtedly love the damn thing because we've waited 20 years for it to come out!" That was our bad — as it turns out, we despise the fucking thing and are going to try our hardest to forget about it. Sorry, we were blatantly wrong on that score.

We had assumed that we would like Hitchhiker's, upon first viewing, in the same way that we enjoyed the first two new episodes of Star Wars — that we'd be highly critical of specific elements, but our criticism would be overcome by the thrill of just seeing a favorite franchise come to life in a dark, crowded theatre. But the thrill couldn't compete with the horror. That's how bad it was.

Speaking of Star Wars, of course...Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is coming to theatres near us this week.

Now we're not fanboys, but we did grow up in the 70s and 80s, so how could we not be huge fans of the original trilogy? We must confess to some nervousness, however. As with both Episode I and Episode II, we're guessing that we'll see it Wednesday night, be overwhelmed by the giddy thrill of watching Jedi with lightsabers running around on the big screen, and come away excited and dead sure that this one finally lived up to the name Star Wars. Then, when we see it a second time in the next few days, we'll notice a few things that irk us or make no sense. Each subsequent viewing will deflate that Jedi thrill a little bit more, as we notice how bad a filmmaker George Lucas truly is. His unintelligible plotting, stilted dialogue, wooden directorial style, masturbatory use of special effects, failed attempts at "subtle" foreshadowing, total lack of continuity, and astounding ignorance of his own creations will eventually overcome the sheer coolosity of Jedi, Wookiees, lightsabers, hyperspace and a keen sense of cosmic grandeur. And in the end, we'll all read ChefElf's problems with Star Wars movies and be simultaneously nodding in agreement and sighing in disappointment.

And maybe, just maybe, we'll reach a point in our lives where the way a cherished franchise is shredded to bits (by the mindless, uncreative drones of Hollywood) will no longer affect us, and we can just happily ignore the carnage and keep our money in our pockets, away from Hollywood's grubby little hands.

But don't count on it.

While I"m not fan of Dubya, I was a fan of Zaphod's and I have to say his Dubya-ization was probably the most offensive thing about the movie.

I don't know, maybe my standards were lower than yours but I thought it was all right. They gave a college effort to adapt the material but set themselves back by Americanizing it.

Ditto, Nate — no fan of Dubya's, huge fan of Zaphod's. (Tom's more of a Ford man; the guy's drinking prowess is legendary.) The gross misinterpretation of his character was one of my least favorite parts of the movie.

Hitchhiker's was a big influence on our sense of humor and writing style as we were growing up, so we have a lot of love invested in it. So, yeah, our standards are pretty high, I suppose. We were cringing through most of the movie. The best part was the original Marvin's cameo, and we didn't even like the BBC design concept in the first place! (And speaking of Marvin — why the hell change "paranoid android" to "paranoid robot"? "Paranoid" was never a good description of Marvin, it just went well with "android," and Douglas Adams' strength was clever wordplay. Changing it to "paranoid robot" renders it both totally inaccurate and completely unfunny. Sheesh.)

I don't know. I just thought I'd feel about Hitchhiker's the same way I feel about the new Star Wars flicks — although Lucas' newest additions aren't by any stretch of the imagination "good" movies, on a certain level I still really like them because of the emotional attachment I have to the story. There's no reason that I can see why that wouldn't be the case with Hitchhiker's, but it wasn't like that.

Instead, I wanted to gnaw off certain parts of my body in order to get through the movie. It hurts to say that, but it also hurt to watch the movie.

Maybe I expected more from Hitchhiker's, or perhaps I'd already come to expect less from Lucas. Whatever the reason, I ended up enjoying Episode III a lot more than Hitchhiker's.