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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Far more exuberant is Rebecca Neipp, 27, a reporter in Ridgecrest, Calif. She and her husband have been reading the books aloud to each other in anticipation of the film, and they and 20 of their friends will descend on their local multiplex on opening weekend with towels. "People might think we're freaks, but nobody cares because that's how we pay homage to Adams," she said. She credits Adams with her love for words and writing, and with emphasizing that "you can be goofy and into technical things, oddball, left-field humor and be proud."
Some touched by Adams don't think "nerdy" is an inaccurate label for die-hard fans. "I don't know if it's a bad rap. It's probably fair," said James Norton, 29, the research director for "The Al Franken Show." He says "Hitchhiker's" is a book that shaped the way he looks at the world, and as a 14-year-old he had Adams sign a towel at a reading at a Madison, Wis., bookstore. As much as he admired the first book, he felt the subsequent installments "went downhill," and he isn't one to hang out in "Hitchhiker's" chat rooms, getting the latest news on the film.
Executive producer Robbie Stamp, a man intimately acquainted with Adams' work and its admirers, disagrees with Norton and his ilk, and relishes the diversity of "Hitchhiker's" devotees. "Yes, there are lots of technically minded people who love 'Hitchhiker's,'" said Stamp. "But I think it appeals to the intelligent and the curious, and that defies any particular categorization ... 'Hitchhiker's' fans are everywhere and they're all shapes and sizes."
Stamp, a longtime friend and business partner of Douglas Adams, said that filmmakers were very aware of the pressure of pleasing a sizable, long-standing and somewhat obsessive fan base. He gets regular e-mails from Adams junkies, and has used the Internet to keep fans updated on the progress of the movie. He's assured them that a lot of the material new to the movie was written by Adams, and he has worked hard to get details of the original story right. But he has not ceded control of the film to Adams' admirers. "You don't make internal decisions about what you're going to do with the movie based on that fan response. We've got a very brilliant, young, first-time director [Garth Jennings], and once we'd chosen him, the job really was to give him the space to deliver his vision. And I don't think that he's gone out there and looked at fan sites and thought, 'Oh, I'd better have this in the movie or I'd better not have this in the movie.'"
However, a young director is only one among the many concerns of longtime fans. Others include the appearance of a new character that wasn't in the books, and the casting of Americans in roles they've long considered British (a similar worry is that Mos Def shouldn't play a character many consider "white"). Hollywood's involvement in general troubles some. Wrote one Los Angeles fan, "My biggest reservation is that it has Disney's handprint on it and I am worried that they will strip it of its very British charm and replace it with shit they can package in Happy Meals and warm fuzzy plot schlock."
While it's unlikely that doubts will keep the die-hards away, there's a big gray area for some longtime admirers -- those who fall short of fanaticism. They've tired of waiting, and have turned downright apathetic about the film. Though they were touched by "Hitchhiker's" while young, a bit of the wonder rubs off with age. Indeed, 15 years after Adams signed a towel for James Norton, he will not be bringing it to the theater when he goes to see the movie -- if he makes it to the theater at all. "My hopes for the movie are parked in the middle somewhere. I'll probably see it before it gets to DVD."
