The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Easter Lily]

It's quite interesting how fans seem to either love the film or hate it...
But that's dscribed as a good thing by some - betterto hate it and have a strong reaction than to just not care.

What are the reasons some people here didn't like it?
Was it that it didn't have enough of the humour from the books?
Was it the additions to the film version?
I'm just curious.

Doug Adams wrote his first Dr Who story (The Pirate Planet) about the same time that he wrote his first radio serial for HHG... and having seen this particular story recently I can see all the trademark Doug Adams wackiness fingerprinted all over it. It's not hard to see how it would have been thought refreshing and quite original at the time but equally audiences today may well see it as simple and more of what they may have already seen.

I think scifi has changed a lot over the years. The stories have become much more intense, special effects much more effects and in many ways much more character-based. The expectations of the viewing public are far different. Unfortunately, I don't think the rowdiness of HHG transfers well onto film without the appearance of campiness... It simply belongs to another era of science fiction. It's clever, funny but the characters are caricatures. There aren't a lot of monsters that we haven't already seen before and self-referential texts are a bit more passe now than they were in the pass. Conceptually of course, HHG is very clever but extremely hard to achieve.
HHG, IMO, suffers the same kind of problems that the Star Wars prequels do.. it is a text which belongs to a particular era having to compete with more contemporary developments. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy them but it means I've grown up and so have my toys.

[Willow'sCat]

Doug Adams wrote his first Dr Who story (The Pirate Planet) about the same time that he wrote his first radio serial for HHG... and having seen this particular story recently I can see all the trademark Doug Adams wackiness fingerprinted all over it. It's not hard to see how it would have been thought refreshing and quite original at the time but equally audiences today may well see it as simple and more of what they may have already seen.

Well I agree with the fist part of your observation, I too have recently seen those Who eps, but strongly disagree with the rest of your comments.

IMO HHGTTG was always about the joke over the SciFi, I don't even think of HHGTTG as SciFi, in the sense that it is about, people not wiz bang science talk with hyper drives all round, sure there is some of that but mostley it is a good yarn and a few not too subtle laughs. The Movie I loved but nothing comes close to the Radio play or even the BBC T.V series. I am however currently in love with Sam Rockwell .

[BruTak]

The problem - as I see it - is that Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is very British, if you see what I mean.

Americans, as a general rule of thumb, don't really "get" irony and satire.
For example, when the Starship Troopers movie first came out, critics panned it because they couldn't see past the "Teenagers in Nazi-style uniforms" to the underlying joke of the movie.

[Major Clanger]

So, nearly 5 years after the last posting to this thread...
I finally saw the film. People who know me in RL are used to me saying this but here goes: i thought it was a pile of foetid dingo's kidneys. No, worse.

As someone mentioned up there in the thread, there is so little description in the books (or the radio series - I started with that) that it's totally totally unbelievable to me that one of the things that was most emphatically described was totally ignored.

And that, my friends, totally ruined it. Zaphod's heads are next to each other. Nobody could get clearer than that. All the rest is just frippery - parts of the film were actually excellent. But the head thing, and the awful awful girl playing Trillian just ruined it for me.

Ho hum.

[Blencathra]

Radio 4 Extra presents The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Game 30th anniversary edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/lat...g2-4extra.html

Don’t Panic! In a special celebration of all things Hitchhiker’s, BBC Radio 4 Extra is bringing listeners the brand-new 30th anniversary edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Game online and broadcasting series one and two, 'The Primary and Secondary Phase', on the radio.

Both will launch on Saturday 8 March 2014, 36 years to the day since Hitchhiker’s first-ever radio broadcast and 30 years since the invention of the award-winning game.

The global multi-media success story that is Hitchhiker's started life as a BBC Radio 4 series in March 1978. The original scripts by the late Douglas Adams went on to spawn a series of novels, a feature film, at least three stage shows, a TV series, a collection of comic books – and various towels.

The game was originally devised in 1984 by the book’s author Douglas Adams and Steve Meretzky from Infocom. Notoriously difficult and full of oddities, it was one of the best-selling games of its era.

The 20th anniversary edition of the game launched on Radio 4’s website in 2004. Over three million moves were made in the game in its first three days of launch and over 50 million moves had been played within six months. It went on to win a BAFTA for ‘Best Online Entertainment’ and to this day some fans of the game can still be found playing this ageing version online.

The 30th anniversary specially updated version of the game will allow users to share their achievements with friends over social media via the official twitter feed @h2g2game.

The world’s most devious game will now be in high definition, thanks to refreshed illustrations and graphics. It is a web-based game and will be accessible via Radio 4 Extra’s website. Players can take the game on the move as it will be compatible with tablets and other internet enabled devices.

Radio 4 Extra also proudly presents series one and two of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy on air. It has been over 10 years since these programmes were last heard on BBC Radio and they perfectly accompany the game. Actions within the game follow the plot of the radio series and some puzzles are only solvable by players with knowledge of the programmes and story.

Caroline Raphael, Commissioning Editor for Radio 4 Extra, says: “Douglas was a true visionary and in his own glorious way foresaw all the technology we now take for granted. Radio 4 Extra is delighted to host this game alongside the first two series. Hitchhiker’s fans will be rewarded for their loyalty over the years and newer fans have a real, but fiendish, treat in store. March 8 is a special day for the galaxy, so help us celebrate it in the unique way that only BBC Radio 4 Extra can.”


Transmission details:

BBC Radio 4 Extra is the sister network to BBC Radio 4. Providing the best speech programmes from as far back as possible as well as occasional new offerings for 24 hours a day. Radio 4 Extra carefully selects and curates broadcast drama, entertainment, readings and features for those who love speech radio.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, BBC Radio 4 Extra, series one and two, begins Saturday 8 March, 6-6.30pm.

Further episodes will follow weekly (eg episode two, Saturday 15 March, 6-6.30pm).

Series one is titled ‘The Primary Phase’ - there are six episodes (referred to as ‘Fits’)

Series two is titled ‘The Secondary Phase’ - there are six episodes (referred to as ‘Fits’)

Programme page (supporting content will also be available here): bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03v379k

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Game will be accessible via the BBC Radio 4 Extra website and launches on Saturday 8 March.

The BBC Radio 4 Extra homepage is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4extra

This single player game starts with lead character, Arthur Dent, working his way through a series of different challenges and zones. Players use a specially designed keyboard to enter their commands and there are achievements to be won throughout the game by completing a series of tasks. This interactive work of fiction sees players visiting other planets, meeting aliens and robots, and creating (or losing) the plot, based on their decisions and choices as they progress through the game. The game is renowned for its difficulty and it never misses a chance to kill players off in hilarious and infuriating ways.

The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42.

[Blencathra]

Don’t Panic: Lost Douglas Adams ‘Hitchhikers’ Manuscript Found!

http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglopheni...uscript-found/

Having just celebrated Towel Day, the international celebration of the writings, thoughts and imagination of Douglas Adams, it has just been announced that a first draft of his third Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy novels has been discovered, and extracts will be published in a new biography.

As part of his research for his book The Frood, Jem Roberts was granted access to Douglas’s archive of paperwork, currently on loan to St. John’s College, at the University of Cambridge. And he discovered a version of Life, The Universe and Everything that was well over half-way finished, before being abandoned entirely. The version that was eventually released was only written after Douglas started the whole thing again.

Jem told BBC News: “The original version was going brilliantly – he had loads of really funny chapters and scenes – and then he just decided to abandon the whole lot and start from scratch

“The book that we know has exactly the same plot. He’d written a version that was about two thirds of the way through before he abandoned it.

“A lot of people thought it had gone in the bin. But no. The manuscript with about 16 chapters is right there in St. John’s College.”

The story is broadly the same, but everything else is entirely different, and as fans of Douglas’s writing will know, it’s in the chuntering exposition that most of the gold is hidden in any case.

Jem will include some of the manuscript in his book, which is due out in September, as well as some deleted scenes from the finished version too: “There are two short extracts, which are very entertaining actually, which were cut from the first book,” Roberts said. “They’re little asides, maybe a couple of pages each.

“One of them is all about the history of the Dentrassi, who work on the Vogon ships, and there’s a bit where Arthur goes on this long reverie about science, which is very out of character for him, which I think is maybe why it got cut.”