Hitchhiker's Guide
#1
Posted 04 January 2005 - 02:23 PM
#2
Posted 04 January 2005 - 03:42 PM
But yes, Douglas Adams is a genius. I really ought to go about seeking out his other books at some point...
Less Is More v4
Now resigned to a readership of me, my cat and some fish
#3
Posted 05 January 2005 - 04:12 AM
Radio play: Douglas Adams boasted frequently that he had no idea, when Arthur and Ford were ejected into space at the end of episode one, how they would survive. He insisted that the improbability of rescue is what gave him the idea for the improbability drive. Whether this is true or not, the play ran for a while, and then stopped. As far as I know, you can't buy it anywhere, but there is a book of transcripts out there, with marginalia from Douglas Adams, and it's worth owning if you're a fan.
Record album: A separate recording of the story, with some changes and a lot of the same effects and music, was made. It was more or less a summary, and it was ok, but not special. I don't know if it was ever transferred to CD. I owned this once, and I have no idea where it is now.
Stage Play: really.
TV Show: the TV show covered only half of the narrative of the radio play. The show is pretty faithful to the half that it does cover. Virtually everything from the radio play is there, and the cliffhanger at the end of one of the episodes around the middle of the season one is made into a very satisfying conclusion. The embarrassing cliffhanger that ended the radio series would have been a much worse conclusion, add to which there is some stuff in the later episodes that would have been pretty unfilmable when the show aired. With CGI, sure, but just as well not. This is on DVD, and you should all buy it.
The Books: The HitchHiker novels are really just an afterthought: In Douglas Adams's own words, he was commissioned by a publisher to write novellizations of the radio play, and one day that publisher came up to him enforcing a deadline. Adams had little interest in the first two HitchHiker books, since they were after all just a rehash of work he already finished. The novels do change the timeline of a lot of the events, and some stuff is missing, other stuff new. Simon Jones as the voice of the book, IMO one of the more charming elements of the radio as well as television series, is naturally missing. The cliffhanger from the end of season one of the radio series becomes a nice ending for the second book.
The third book is quite good, all new, and worth reading. The resolution to the season one cliffhanger is different in this book than it was in season two of the radio series. The fourth and fifth books as well as the short story about Zaphod are worthless and should be forgotten. This is of course just personal opinion. I like all of the first three books, but if I were to read the story of the first two, I would prefer to read the radio play. I have reread the radio play several times, and the novels I haven't even touched (except to take them off my shelf and to put them in boxes, when moving) since the eighties.
The Film: Douglas Adams worked on the screenplay, and looking at the cast and the roles they're playing it appears to be covering the events of the first half of the radio play and the whole of the TV series. Since I already feel that this story has been filmed, and that its humour is specific to England in the Seventies, I fear this will be a waste of time. It smacks of the sort of project that is all too common today, the farming of nostalgia material for an easy opening weekend. ON THE OTHER HAND, this fear is mitigated by the knowledge that for Adams, the screenplay had always been a sort of pet project he'd kept in the back of his mind for many years. He frequently acknowledged that every time he revisited thematerial he changed it, so a film that was 100% faithful to some aspect of the play, the album, the novel, or the radio or tv series, would be in some way unfaithful to the other material. So a "faithful" production is impossible. Given all that, I plan to see the thing on opening day, embrace or reject the changes as my gut determines.
DON'T PANIC!
#4
Posted 05 January 2005 - 08:28 AM
JM's official press secretary, scientific advisor, diplomat and apparent antagonist?
#5
Posted 05 January 2005 - 08:53 AM
As civ2 said, it was very faithful to the book.
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#6
Posted 05 January 2005 - 01:11 PM
Yes, however: behind he veil of ignorance, not knowing what the movoe is like, were I offered a DVD copy of the movie or the TV show, I'd take the TV show. Well, not really, since I already have it, but for the sake of argument, etc. It has nearly all of the same actors that were in the radi play, which one of these days someone ought to make available for download so that I can have it again.
Note to past self: do not loan things to your friends' boyfriends. When they break up, you have no connection to the guy and you never see the thing again.
Note back: yes, yes, lesson learned. No need to rub it in.
#7
Posted 09 January 2005 - 02:27 PM
As far as the actual books go, I enjoyed "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish", and "Mostly Harmless" wasn't nearly all THAT bad, but it definitely lacked in comparison to the other four.
#8
Posted 21 February 2005 - 01:04 AM
especially the computer (book) bits...
when you look at how they actually did it...
buy the DVD people... it's the best purchase i ever made.
i don't know where my copies of the books are, i'd very much like to read them again.
and i have the radio series/audio album on mp3 at home.
(but when i'm on the computer it's hard to listen to audio as i'm usually writting something)...
so i haven't listened to all of it.
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#10
Posted 09 March 2005 - 06:10 AM
Less Is More v4
Now resigned to a readership of me, my cat and some fish
#11
Posted 09 March 2005 - 08:43 AM
While the radio show was being produced..
Adams would be in the other room writing the next scene as the previous one was being performed. Turns out he is bit of a slacker.. Which you find out in Salmon of a Doubt.
I haven't read any of the Dirk books, but my dad has, and he loved them.
#13
Posted 10 March 2005 - 06:53 AM
Libraries, Chyld, libraries. They're free man.
JM's official press secretary, scientific advisor, diplomat and apparent antagonist?
#15
Posted 11 March 2005 - 07:55 PM
Remember Emu's face, people; one day it's going to be on the news alongside a headline about blowing some landmark to smithereens, and then we can all sigh and say, "She was such a normal person".....
....We'd be lying though.
-Laughlyn
If my doctor tells me to exercise, I am going to force him to do my homework.
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