Did you catch the

Oh, you bet. Funny story about that -- when they found the original Marvin suit, they could only find the top half. Nobody has any idea where the pants ended up. The suit is also smaller than they were expecting, so TV!Marvin in the film is being played by a woman with no pants on.

That line's gotten the biggest laughs in both the screenings I've been to.

The Vogon design was terrific. Props to the producers for deciding to go Creature Shop instead of CGI. (Even the whale is a model.)

Even though I've been harshing on Trill, she had my favourite original line:

That scene bugged me. While I really liked the execution, I felt it was a blatantly obtrusive method of letting the audience know everyone's feelings even though they were already nicely apparent in the subtext. Still, Trillian was great in it.

Another thing I loved was how often the towel was physically useful.

I don't know the composition of our audience and how many people unfamiliar with the source material were there, but everyone was laughing a whole lot, as a group. Never had that "I'm the only one who gets it" feeling.

I think the motivations were clear to us, but that that scene cleared Zaphod to get with the chick chasing him, as well as making almost light of a tool that was bound to get into Marvin's hands eventually. Plus, opportunities for characters to mimic other characters -- always appreciated by me.

Did I mention that I would marry Mos Def in thanks for his performance?

Hee. Okay, you've totally cleared that scene. Thanks. That was pretty much my major beef with the movie; everything else was fine.

Mos Def was incredibly charming and relaxed and did a terrific job with the role.

I would also take the casting director out for a beer. I think the casting was very good, but Freeman/Rockwell/Nighy were sort of ... well, born for those roles. They were obvious brilliant casting.

Whoever came up with the idea of Mos Def as Prefect (oh, can I mention I'd never thought of Prefect/Dent before the movie? What's wrong with me?) went a step beyond. As soon as I heard the casting, I was sure he'd be great, but I'd never have thought of it myself.

So if I only read the first book, and that only once a really long time ago, so I don't remember most of it, am I going to like H2G2?

The movie only covers events in the first book, pretty much, but loses a lot of detail, and adds stuff. I'd in no way say having read or remembered the book is required.

Roger Ebert tells how he was going over this movie in a film class once, and I think it was one of the students came up with the theory that Sinatra was another Manchurian Candidate, and that Leigh was his handler. This might explain some of the chemistry and language used in this scene.

I think we all walked out of there discussing this possibility. And we were all quite impressed with everybody's performances. Again, I thought it was very good. It was just not really my cup of tea.

You should take Alibelle. She'd like that.

I actually would. I did say I liked it, I just said it was kind of dumb. But fun. And pretty dancing and pretty boys. I had no complaints.

And then, we;ll go see Groundhog Day!

That's just cruel.

My complaint is that all the characters lost their edge. In the book, Arthur Dent is a whiner; Zaphod is mean and completely wrapped up in himself; Ford is ruthless; and Trillian is snarky. Everybody in this movie is *nice*.

I have no idea how you make a movie half of whose audience have been reciting all the lines to each other for twenty years. The people behind me laughed all through the movie, but then again, they laughed at the fart jokes in the "Bad News Bears" trailer.

My husband and I agreed: "Mostly harmless."