Hitchhiker's Guide Trailer

Posted by Andy Baio

The new trailer for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is available on Amazon, but it’s low quality and streaming Flash. For me, it’s buffering constantly and basically unwatchable.

I found this much higher-quality Quicktime trailer, that seems to be a copy of the internal workprint with time signatures and “Do Not Duplicate” warning. Oh, well!

hhgttg_high.mov (7.8MB, Quicktime)

My bandwidth was already hammered this month, so you can thank Greg Knauss for hosting the video.

February 18, 2004: Here’s a much better copy of the official trailer, available for download.

Comments

    If you decompile the amazon flash player and open the referenced xml file, there’s a reference to an rtsp or rtmp file hosted at speedera or similar that might have a HQ version grabbable with Streambox or whatever works with that protocol.

    I was too firewalled earlier to try it out, and forgot to send myself the link.

    Oh YAY!!!! I have read the trilogy (five books in total for those with no clue) several times. And currently re-reading book 4. Will be cool to see how this compares with the british series that was out eons ago (of which I have watched several times as well).

    Yes, I’m a sad individual. LOL

    I don’t know what to make of this… I hope it’s good, but it could be not so good. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Oh well!

    Was reading a review of a screener over at Ain’t it Cool just yesterday. I think the casting is spot on but I wonder if I’ll be able to get the TV series out of my head.

    Mice?!

    i like the zaphod head. very clever. besides, sam rockwell is one of the most underrated character actors out there, and this little peek of president beeblebrox reminds me somewhat of his part in galaxy quest.

    plus, that last scene with the slappy things was just hilarious. this is one that’ll definitely be getting my money.

    What browser are you using? The amazon trailer plays fine for me, and as a flash animator I like to know what problems people run into with flash content so I can avoid them.

    Did any of you who got the amazon trailer to work notice that these trailers aren’t at all the same. The amazon one is the standard theatrical teaser trailer and basically shows nothing. It’s just the planet exploding and the logo. No actual scenes or characters.

    The other one you posted, is all about the movie, but the dates don’t match. Your trailer says April 05, the amazon teaser, and website, say May 05.

    Just something I noticed nobody else had said yet.

    I think you’re right Scott. It’s weird, cause I was at a theatre here in Burbank just last Saturday and saw the teaser trailer. It still said May. I assume it probably isn’t cost effective to go back and correct that in the trailer, but I sure hope a lot of people don’t get the dates confused.

    I really, really hope this is going to be a good movie. Hollywood didn’t screw up Lord of the Rings, so maybe, just maybe, HHGTG has a chance.

    “I really, really hope this is going to be a good movie. Hollywood didn’t screw up Lord of the Rings, so maybe, just maybe, HHGTG has a chance.”

    Hollywood didn’t make LOTR, which is why it wasn’t ruined in the first place. Peter Jackson and a dedicated group of folks from New Zealand saw LOTR come to light.

    Anybody who has that streamin WMV link available that Ailin mentioned? (Ailin maybe?)

    I wanted to show the trailer to a friend, but the flash is now empty unfortunately 🙁

    never mind – I thought the Quicktime trailer didn’t have sound, but it was just really, really soft.

    yes, he liked the trailer too 😀

    Lorbus, you hit the nail on the head. I have no confidence in this director, based on the trailer. The book was as intelligent was it was funny, but this just looks too flaccid for words.

    Any reader of the books understands that they will never travel well to a movie…too jumpy…I heard that all the side-stories in the book that the Guide explains won’t be in the movie, which definitely takes away a lot of the funny, but they’ll be on the DVD. I also heard that a big chunk of the staff for the movie worked with Digital Village, and that the whole thing has been approved by Adams’ camp… I think, while its not going to be dead-on for the books (I don’t remember reading about the slappy thingies) it’ll catch the general attitude and plot-line…..the books, very simply, would not translate well into viable theatrical releases. I, for one, am taking the day off work to go see it =)

    The audio’s a little low, but it definitely has sound. At this point, I recommend using the higher-quality one I mentioned in the update.

    I have reread all 5 books and look forward to this movie good or bad. Some things have been added I understand from reading the blog from the hitchhikersmovie site and some things have been taken away for content. All in all, I will be the first Earthman to see it!

    Near the top:

    “February 18, 2004: Here’s a much better copy of the official trailer, available for download.”

    I downloaded the 51.1 meg file “HG2G_Trailer2_0197_3000.mov”.

    It has NO AUDIO! I upgraded quicktime to 6.5.2 from 6.4 and still no audio. I think something is wrong with this video.

    I downloaded “hhgttg_high.mov” which is 7.8 meg and it does have audio, but it is smaller and

    lesser quality. Can you put a high quality one with audio?

    On my machine the 51.1 meg vesion has no audio, but the 7.8 meg version does have audio.

    I have downloaded the 51.1 meg version twice from two different sources.

    I have QT 6.5.2 on xp pro. DXDiag says all is good. CPU is 2.4 ghz dell 8500 w/1.2 gig ram, 7200 rpm hard disk.

    All drivers up to date from Dell. All windows updates installed. no viruses

    Why won’t the audio play in the 51.1 meg version?

    > If you’re desperate I can transocde it to something else and you can give that a go.

    What could you transcode it to?

    The 7.8 meg file has sound. I can hear it in the quicktime player.

    How about comparing the 7.8 meg file to the 51.1 meg file an seeing what

    the difference is between them?

    “What could you transcode it to?”

    WMV, MPEG, DivX/XviD — pretty much anything you fancy.

    “How about comparing the 7.8 meg file to the 51.1 meg file an seeing what the difference is between them?”

    I’ll give it a go when I get home, although there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the larger file…

    remember, that the Books were loosely based on the radio series, and the tv series was loosley based on the books. each one is slightly different

    so if you’re expecting this film to be faithful to the books then you’ll be disappointed.

    but the good news is that the script for the film was written by Douglas Adams!!!

    There’s a new trailer at ugo.com. Someone get me a high-res, non-streaming version of THAT one. please.

    You should all check out the website for the movie. Anyone who is worried about how it will play out shouldn’t be since Doug Adams was very involved in all the concept and screenwriting for the adaptation. The choices to leave anything out, or put anything new in were his. Unfortunately, due to his passing, he wasn’t able to see the film, but it’s still his movie.

Comments are closed.