I’ll be really surprised if this entry posts, but…
Basically, Glenn spent hours fixing all the wrong files, and then sometime during the night, the entire site reset itself to the wrong settings again. Kind of like a sick body rejecting a healthy transplanted organ so it can stay sick.
He’s working on it.
PAD
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy purists may well despise the new film, but I don’t see how there can be such a thing as a HGG purist. Purist to what? The original BBC radio show? The books? The record? The TV series? Each different, each with story variations, each with its pluses and minus.
The pluses of the new film, which Kath and I saw this morning, is the look of it. Armed with sumptuous designs and the full might of Disney and the Henson Creature shop, HGG the movie has a budget and look to it that the makers of the TV series can only salivate over enviously.
The dialogue is kind of hit and miss, but it might seem that way to me because I’m familiar with the previous incarnations, and it’s difficult for me to step back and view it with an undiscerning eye. To me, the sequences that are most evocative of the source material are the Arthur/Slartibartfast scenes. Why? Two British actors. I understand that casting Brits wasn’t necessary save in the case of Arthur, but the moment you bring in Americans, the cadences are going to shift and the Adams dialogue isn’t going to work. So you have to rework the dialogue to match the Americans, and things can get a little schizo.
Which isn’t to say the film’s not well cast. It is. Martin Freeman is satisfyingly bewildered as Arthur, Zooey Deschanel–looking uncannily like a young Karen Allen–is lovable as Trillian, and Sam Rockwell’s Zaphod is a cross between prime Burt Reynolds and Elvis, guaranteeing a plethroa of Beeblebrox costumes at summer cons. The one problem is Mos Def as Ford Prefect. It’s not entirely his fault. Ford is the least formed, least interesting character in the story, serving mostly to be a guide and a foil. If you already know all the stuff Ford is going to explain, then that leaves him pretty dull. Which means you need a strong actor to instill the role with some of his own life and personality to beef things up. Mos Def, from my POV, brings nothing to the party. If they wanted to cast Ford with a black actor, fine. Craig Charles. Lenny Henry. Hëll, even Chris Tucker, Someone with strong comedic sensibilities which, if Mos Def has them, aren’t on display.
And in the absolutely perfect department are Alan Rickman providing the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android (admit it: The moment you found out about the casting, you could HEAR HIM saying, “Oh, God, I’m so depressed”; Stephen Fry as the ever calm voice of the book (accompanied by brilliant animated illustrations) and a cameo by Simon Jones, the original Arthur, as the recorded message from Magrathea. For the hardcore fans, in the additonal cameo department are appearances by everyone from Douglas Adams himself (good trick, that) to individuals from the TV series, including the original Marvin. The original theme music shows up, and even a rubber duck which–although I could be completely misremembering–I think was on an album cover. And stay through the credits for another famed book entry about halfway in.
There are different plot tracks that will no doubt incense those who have forgotten that every version of HGG has different plot tracks, and there’s a sort of ultimate weapon introduced that’s used to hilarious effect. And I don’t mind the Zaphod/Arthur/Trillian romance triangle, particularly when one remembers that Adams had Arthur hitting on Trillian at a party before Zaphod whisked her away, so it’s not as if the groundwork isn’t there.
A theme song “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” almost makes one wonder if Disney is trying to position this as their next Broadway musical endeavor. Since I’m reasonably sure musical theater is the one version that hasn’t been tried yet, I suppose it’s just a matter of time…which we all know to be an illusion, and lunchtime doubly so.
PAD
Well, we seem to be up and running again, although curiously enough the site remains inaccessible via Firefox. Explorer is getting the job done, though, and my thanks to Glenn for his infinite patience as he was being deluged with queries as to what the hëll was going on.
Of course, when one is making a big new announcement about coming onto a title, that’s exactly the moment you want your website to crash. My advent on Spidey was being actively discussed everywhere on the internet…except here. Well, except here and the John Byrne board, where an entirely positive thread about my taking on Spider-Man–a thread that violated absolutely none of the Byrne board rules–vanished into the ether, deleted by the PTB. Threads bashing me remain securely in the archives, naturally. In the interests of full disclosure, the Byrne board moderators might want to add that, in addition to troublemakers and threads filled with hostility and bile, that positive threads about me are also unwelcome and will be deleted or banned, just to save posters trouble.
In any event, we’re back, and no, I didn’t watch the Bush press conference last night. I watched “West Wing” repeats instead, because gosh darn it, if I’m going to spend time with a fake president, it’s gonna be Jeb Bartlet.
PAD
As many of you surmised, we had major site problems here. We were unable to post, our spam blocking was disabled and we were unable to delete comments, which led to us turning off comments altogether lest we get swamped.
We’re in the process of cleaning up now, which required some herculean efforts by the good folks over at Hosting Matters. Bear with us all while we straighten this out.
When “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” the new Spidey series coming from Marvel late this summer, hits the stands, it will be launching with a different creative team than previously announced: Mike Wieringo as artist, and yours truly as writer.
I’m really excited about this, since it’s been years since I’ve written on ongoing Spidey title and fans have been asking when, or if, I’ll ever have the opportunity again. I’m pleased to be working with Ringo, whose art I’ve very much enjoyed, and am grateful to editor Tom Brevoort for offering me the assignment (and Joe Q, naturally, for giving the final OK). Spidey was my very first comic work for Marvel, and it’s great to be back.
PAD
Had a rough night. Caroline has been vomiting or having diarrhea for a couple of days, and we were worried what would happen if we left her in her crib. So I kept her in the living room where she slept in my lab pretty much the whole night while I stayed more or less awake the entire time. I kept my hand lightly on her stomach, and every so often I’d feel her stomach muscles tightening and have that much warning that she was about to barf, so I’d quickly get a large pot in front of her so she could puke into it. By 6 AM I felt like Kari in that Jack-Jack short cartoon, at which point Kath came downstairs and relieved me of duty. I literally don’t recall going up the stairs to bed.
Then I had to drive out to JFK in the afternoon to pick up Ariel, returning from visiting her mother in Arizona. Her plane was scheduled to get in at 5:15, and I wasn’t looking forward to driving back during rush hour. Then I suddenly thought, hey, we’re all the way in Queens, the Mets are at Shea tonight, let’s see if I can score some tickets and we’ll take in the game. Which was what I did, and we wound up in field level seats watching the Mets beat the Braves 5-4.
And, of course, now I’m working. Caroline, whom we took to the doctor who basically said to us, “It’s a virus, twenty dollars please” as we knew they would, seems to be recovering. So I’ve got the nursery monitor on, listening to make sure she’s okay. If something sounds amiss, I’ll try to get upstairs before she wakes up Kath.
Onward.
PAD
Even more Twisted ToyFare Theatre: “Seder-Masochism”
The site that dares to ask: Why is Moon Knight different from all other knights?
UPDATE: Randy Lander points out that this was published elsewhere first, which I didn’t realize. The link has been removed. My apologies.
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