Hitchhikers started out as a radio show (on the BBC in the UK) and for me that was its funniest format. The Beeb did a pretty good job of bringing it to TV and the "trilogy in five parts" (the books) weren't bad either.
But following HHG in the various formats gets confusing because although the story starts out the same way, the details and timelines vary in each medium and soon even the basic storylines diverge. That's because Adams himself rewrote his own contributions and because he was not the only writer involved in (some of) the scripts.
The movie, which has quite a different plot from the radio and the TV series (although it broadly covers the span of the first few radio programs), lost a lot of the original humor and "feel". Picking up the pace to condense the stories into a single movie didn't really work either.
Hitchhikers started out as a radio show (on the BBC in the UK) and for me that was its funniest format. The Beeb did a pretty good job of bringing it to TV and the "trilogy in five parts" (the books) weren't bad either.
But following HHG in the various formats gets confusing because although the story starts out the same way, the details and timelines vary in each medium and soon even the basic storylines diverge. That's because Adams himself rewrote his own contributions and because he was not the only writer involved in (some of) the scripts.
The movie, which has quite a different plot from the radio and the TV series (although it broadly covers the span of the first few radio programs), lost a lot of the original humor and "feel". Picking up the pace to condense the stories into a single movie didn't really work either.
I've watched it plenty of times, and love the underlying (yet heavy laden throughout) social commentary.
Earth has exploded. Arthur is on a SPACESHIP, "in space". etc etc etc.
He see's Trinity slice bread with this fancy-furturistic knife.
"WOW". haha
Great movie to show people with a close-minded, self-indulgent perspective (or maybe not? Will just annoy them).
"I, Me, Mine".
Then suddenly this person watches a scene where the entire Universe (among many other universes) are being represented as building blocks being pushed by a shuffleboard stick. Albeit most do not get the merit to scenes like this and think it is "creative" fiction....and to a point, it is. But the "aliens" represented are, not the size/space way things work. That's just how it is (or how our reptilian brains perceive it).
But then if you squeezed everything from the first book into the movie it would be 8 hours long, just like the radio show, so obviously you have to cut a lot of stuff out to make for a quick 2 hour mainstream flick.
Radio plays were the best, books were great...the film was fun for the fans. It had to rush through a bit but I thought it did a good job. For me it was like the kids that see Harry Potter after reading the books because I was ticking off my faveorite bits. I did wonder how many people saw it and thought they stole thinks like Trillian and Babelfish from the internet rather than them coming from Hitchhikers.
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